Is KSP in need of a "balance patch" again?

[KerikBalm]

While there have been threads on the new MH parts, I was thinking that we need an overall balance pass again.

Recently we got the mk1-2 pod replaced with the mk1-3 pod, and that helped (because the mk1-2 pod was proportionately too heavy IMO), but I think a few other things need to be looked at

* The 2 person lander can- too heavy

* mk2 and mk3 spaceplane parts- too draggy. I avoid mk3 spaceplane parts liek the plague now, because they are much much draggier than the cylindrical parts if they have the slightest AoA

* Aerospikes could use a mass and thrust increase, their Thrust:Cross section ratio is quite bad (making them poor lifter/core stage engines, even though their Isp profile seems ideal for a core stage)

* Likewise, skippers could use a mass and thrust increaase - and IMO, an Isp boost, from 320 to maybe 325-335)

* Rapier closed cycle mod could use an Isp increase - its closed cycle mode should be vacuum optimized IMO, and its airbreathing Isp really only corresponds to an lH2 fuel

* Perhaps Mk3 cargobays are too heavy? I'm not sure, thoughts?

* Perhaps larger fairings are too heavy as well? (the mass per m^2 goes up as size increases, but then again that comes potentially with a greater volume enclosed per m^2, so maybe its fine?)

Any other thoughts on Vanilla balance?

And to reiterate on MH parts:

* Wolfhound Isp, mass, and thrust are too high

* Skiff mass and thrust is too low, TWR seems a bit too high

*  Mastadon Isp (both vacuum and SL) seem a bit low, it could do with a mass and thrust increase to make it more powerful than the mainsail

*  The Bobcat engine needs buffs across the board, it makes the LV-T30 look like a good engine in comparison

Thoughts?

[klgraham1013]

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[KerikBalm]

Are you referring to the ladder drives?

[klgraham1013]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Are you referring to the ladder drives?

I'm currently doing my own cost balance pass since Squad won't.  The ladders stood out to me as absurdly expensive.

[MR L A]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

mk2 and mk3 spaceplane parts- too draggy. I avoid mk3 spaceplane parts liek the plague now, because they are much much draggier than the cylindrical parts if they have the slightest AoA

I'm pretty sure this is to be expected... how would it make sense if they had the same or less drag? The spaceplane parts are wider and flatter/squarer so ofc they have more drag with a higher angle of attack. But they also generate lift that basically negates this being an issue.

Aerospikes are fine. They shouldn't be a perfect engine which is what you seem to be requesting. Same goes for Skippers and Rapiers. You aren't really describing balance issues, you're just making them better than they currently are, which ofc will make other designs and engines redundant. As it stands, we have a reason to use something else to boost aerospike vehicles to orbit, a reason to strap SRBs to a skipper mainstage and a reason to still use conventional engines once rapiers are unlocked.

Some of the other stuff though seems agreeable, especially if you factor in cost if you play career mode. The MH parts made optimising designs really bizarre and in general not overly cost effective compared to 1.25m or 2.5m pre-mh rockets.

[KerikBalm]

6 minutes ago, MR L A said:

I'm pretty sure this is to be expected... how would it make sense if they had the same or less drag? The spaceplane parts are wider and flatter/squarer so ofc they have more drag with a higher angle of attack. But they also generate lift that basically negates this being an issue.

Compare a mk3 to an even wider 3.75m cylindrical tank, the mk3 one will produce a lot more drag. They do not produce anywhere near enough lift to "negate" this. They are terrible parts to build spaceplanes with. Spaceplanes built with mk3 parts will have a much worse L/D than one build of cylindrical tanks and a normal wings

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Aerospikes are fine. They shouldn't be a perfect engine which is what you seem to be requesting.

I'm not requesting that. They  have worse vacuum Isp than terriers/poodles. They have worse atmospheric Isp than tha mammoth/Vector. Their atmospheric TWR is worse than the LV-T30 reliant, skippers, mainsails, mammoths, etc... they have no gimbal. I'm not disputing any of this. I just have an issue with the low mass (1 ton) and relatively low thrust. I would just increase both by 25%. No Isp or TWR change, just a thrust to cross section change.

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Same goes for Skippers and Rapiers. You aren't really describing balance issues, you're just making them better than they currently are, which ofc will make other designs and engines redundant.

For the skipper, I'd direct you to this post:

The skipper has a terrible thrust:cross section ratio. It seems to me that its intended purpose would be a 2nd or 3rd stage engine (given its higher vacuum Isp and lower atmospheric Isp compared to the mainsail), but its low thrust (its TWR is fine, just its total thrust) is... not great  I would envision it as something more like a 2.5m version of the Rhino. So that the skipper would be to the mainsail, as the Rhino is to the Mammoth.... but perhaps even beefier because we've still got the poodle as a 2.5m option, whereas we don't have a 3.75m equivalent (the Rhino also serves as a decent vacuum engine). I rarely fine myself using the skipper because:

* Its vacuum Isp sucks, so its not good to use once in orbit/ for circularizing

* it can only lift short stacks, so its not good to use in the atmospheric boost phase...

so... I rarely use it and just use mainsails and poodles for my 2.5m engine needs

As for the rapier, my gripe there is about the limited gameplay purpose of rapier closed cycle. You'd only use it at nearly vacuum conditions, so when its Isp is that bad, why use it at all (particularly with the wolfhound there)?

Closed cycle is used in nearly vacuum conditions, so why does it have an Isp curve like that of an atmospheric booster engine? -its atmospheric Isp is better than the LV-T30 reliant, but its vacuum Isp is worse?! Gameplay purpose or realism, this Isp curve makes no sense for the rapier. I'd give it the Isp curve of the Rhino, or at least the Swivel.

 

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As it stands, we have a reason to use something else to boost aerospike vehicles to orbit, a reason to strap SRBs to a skipper mainstage and a reason to still use conventional engines once rapiers are unlocked.

A reason to use conventional engines once rapiers are unlocked?!? are you kidding? Rapiers would still be terrible engines for anything beyond LKO/Laythe. If using them in closed cycle mode, they have an absolutely terrible TWR. Terriers have a better TWR by a large margin, while keeping a very good vacuum Isp. If I had my way, rapiers would have a vacuum Isp between 320-340: their closed cycle mode would still be objectively worse than any other vacuum optimized engine in the game. They'd be terrible booster engines (because they already have a horrendous TWR, and I'd nerf their atmospheric closed cycle Isp). There'd be no reason to use them over conventional engines anywhere except kerbin and laythe... which seems to be where they are intended to be used. It would also help lower partcount, as often people will add on other LFO engines because of the terrible rapier Isp. They'd be *the* solution for getting to LKO, but there is so much more to the game than just getting to LKO, and they suck at all the rest of that (with the exception of a laythe shuttle, since for many purposes laythe =kerbin)

As for the aerospikes: if used "properly" should be burning from liftoff to orbital insertion. If you boost it with a stage below it, then you might as well use a dedicated vacuum engine (I'm finding the small diameter cheetah variant to be a good substitute in many cases, its TWR is worse, true, but its got better vacuum Isp and vectoring)... so parallel /asparagus staging should be the way to go, with the center stage being an aerospike (and the side boosters being atmospheric optimized engines). It just seems that the aerospike is too weak to lift much of a core stage.

FWIW, the Vector, as a SSME analogue, should also have a pretty good Isp profile, doing well in the atmosphere and a vacuum... but for *gameplay* I'm fine with it how it is. Its vacuum Isp isn't terrible, but it really shines with its high TWR and its high thrust/cross section area (perhaps too good!), making it a very good atmospheric booster. It works OK on STS style shuttles, but those are a minor part of KSP. At the moment its great TWR and high thrust/cross section ratio seem to be more of a fix for the lack of larger diameter SRBs

-Even using 8 kickbacks, a trio of Vectors will produce 37% of the thrust for an STS style shuttle at launch.. whereas the real shuttle had the SSMEs producing only 17% of the thrust at launch.

[AVaughan]

I think some of the making history parts where "balanced" based on what stats they need to make things like good looking Apollo rockets, rather than balanced vs the pre expansion stock parts.

Regarding the Mk3 parts having terrible drag, do remember that they are shuttle parts, and the shuttle had the aerodynamics of a flying brick.  (Shuttle pilots trained in a modified commercial jet with the landing gear down, and the jet engines running in reverse.  That was how un-aerodynamic it was.  I suspect the shuttle designers deliberately made it un-aerodynamic, to help with slowing down during re-entry, descent and landing).

 

[0something0]

Well, I believe the part in need of balancing the most aren't the engines, but the *research lab* (DUN DUN DUN!!!!!)

 

Currently, research labs are absurdly OP because you can feed it with science with impunity. We could nerf them by say, make them usable only be lvl 4 or above scientists

 

Or, change how they work entirely. For example, they could be required to turn the 1-time experiments into a long-term experiment over days, weeks, or months. 

[KerikBalm]

I liked their original function, and wish that it hadn't been removed. Well they originally had 2 functions, one was to reset single use experiments (now any scientist can do that), the other was to boost science transmission.

In a way having a strong signal strength is similar to the old mechanic. The old mechanic could be simply modded by text: ie have thermometers transmit 50% of the maximum science by default, and 100% after processing in the lab (so that returning it to the lab was as good as returning the data to Kerbin, for at least thermometers).

That said, I don't like to timewarp long periods in my game doing nothing (without at least an interplanetary transfer occurring, even if no new launches). I also play with life support mods, so that helps balance labs. I quite like the current lab mechanic, as it allows me to self-fund missions. 95-100% conversion of science to funds, deploy a surface base, collect science from all over and around the destination, watch the base churn out science err funds err produce data that attracts more funding for my space agency, yea, thats what it does.

[KerikBalm]

13 hours ago, AVaughan said:

do remember that they are shuttle parts, and the shuttle had the aerodynamics of a flying brick.  (Shuttle pilots trained in a modified commercial jet with the landing gear down, and the jet engines running in reverse.  That was how un-aerodynamic it was.  I suspect the shuttle designers deliberately made it un-aerodynamic, to help with slowing down during re-entry, descent and landing).

Ummm.... no. The problem here is that you're comparing something with a compromise for many aerodynamic regimes, with very efficient commercial jets with glide ratios of around 12:1 and relatively low wing loading, to something that needs to deal with shock heating and get a good L/D in the hypersonic regime.

The space shuttle got a glide ratio of about 4.5:1, which isn't that bad.. much better than a flying brick. Way better than what people in wingsuits get just FYI. It got that glide ratio at a fairly high speed though.

In order to turn a commercial get getting a 12:1 L/D into something with a 3.5:1 L/D, one needs to add a lot of drag for the same amount of lift... since cutting off segments of wings (ie lowering lift) wasn't such a viable option... hence the airbrakes and thrust reversers.

The real shuttle actually flew much better than it needed to because of early airforce involvement. The shuttle was capable of launching to a polar orbit and returning to its launch site in a single orbit... as the earth rotates during that orbit, this required a significant cross-range capability. The airforce wanted that capability, NASA didn't (they weren't so interested in polar orbits, and even for those civilian missions which required it, they were fine with just waiting for the earth to rotate appropriately before recovering, no fear of interception like the airforce had). Early shuttle proposals had much smaller wings, not optimized for cross range trajectory (ie a high hypersonic L/D where the biggest redirection of the flight path could be accomplished).

 

TL:DR version: 

The shuttle didn't fly like a brick, it didn't fly as well at low speed/during landing approach as commercial airplanes because of all the added weight of spaceflight related things (like the thermal tiles) and wings more optimized for hypersonic flight.

[Goody1981]

21 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Welcome to ... The Ladder of Luxury!

The Kelus-LV Bay Mobility Enhancer is the premier ladder connected to a garage door opener!

Yours for the low, low price of 440 funds!

Snip

This might be one of the most enjoyable posts I’ve read in 3 years on these forums... thanks for the laugh

[blakemw]

I'm not that bothered by the 2 man can, probably because I use it for a control module for 2.5m stations and bases.

RAPIER is perfectly balanced. It's pretty great as a jet engine, and not terrible as a rocket engine. The ISP is low for in vacuum because you don't need to carry additional weight in rocket engines (or jet engines), all things being equal if you shave off 2t of mass, you can bring 2t more fuel or payload so for missions to LKO it's hard to beat RAPIER spaceplanes. For longer range missions you might invest in higher ISP vac engines, but that's what balance is - an engine being good in some circumstances but not others. (also realistically, it doesn't have high expansion nozzles, so should have poor vac ISP)

Mk2 parts could definitely use some drag reduction. Their low mass-performance compared with dedicated fuel tanks and dedicated wings (carrying less fuel, producing less lift and more drag) is only partially offset by their thermal and impact tolerance. In KSP thermal tolerance is often not a big deal, it is by no means impossible to re-enter an aircraft using the aircraft wings with 1200/1200 tolerance. However I find that Mk3 parts are fine, while they are a little inferior to rocketry parts they aren't bad enough that you really feel it, and the greatly increased structural strength of Mk3 planes is worth something - often my rocket-part planes (using parts larger than 1.25m) break apart if a mouse farts whereas I never have that problem with Mk3 planes.

Aerospike is fine, Skipper is fine, Fairings are fine. Not sure about Mk3 cargo bay, I only make passenger and fuel tanker spaceplanes and the only reason I'd ever use a cargo bay is to house ISRU equipment and in that case the mass is kind of negligible.

Mainsail could do with a small buff to help it compete with the Twin-Boar as a launch engine. Presently the Twin-Boar (deducting the integrated tankage) is cheaper than the Mainsail, has 33% more thrust, weighs only 0.5t more and produces more drag though that's pretty negligible for a 2.5m rocket. I'd give the Mainsail an additional 5 ISP, giving it a slightly more convincing fuel-efficiency advantage.

MH Balance:

Wolfhound ISP, mas and thrust are too high - I don't think it's ISP should be higher than 365. And Poodle should be depreciated (like the Mk1-2 command pod, not deleted, just not shown anymore).

Skiff is fine. It has roles to play without being overpowered.

Kodiak need something to differentiate it from the Reliant other than being costlier and draggier with a weaker alternator. How about 20 more thrust or something? It's just sad if an engine is (slightly) inferior in every way to another engine.

Bobcat feels a little weak but I'm not convinced it needs a buff either.

Mastadon badly needs a cost reduction so its usable in career. Matching node sizes just isn't justification enough in career to use an engine and I'd like it better if it's "thrust-cost-ratio" was on par with the Twin-Boar (which would be fair, for a garbage ISP engine). It could also use a thrust increase, it's okay if the ISP is bad as long as it's good at lifting heavy rockets off the ground without the help of SRBs.

Edited May 7, 2018 by blakemw

[GoSlash27]

KerikBalm,
 I agree with the lander can.
I have no opinion on the Mk2 and Mk3 parts. I've never had drag problems using them. The only time you should be flying a space plane at high AoA is during reentry and landing. Drag is a good thing in that situation.
I disagree with buffing the skipper. From a career play standpoint, it's already one of the most cost effective and versatile engines. Buffing it just puts it in direct competition with the Mainsail and leaves a bigger gap between 1.25m and 2.5m engines.
The aerospike... Probably wouldn't hurt to monkey with it since it's so outrageously expensive.
The RAPIER is fine as- is. If anything, I'd halve it's closed cycle thrust.

The Vector does need a rebalance. The price is ridiculous for what it delivers.

The most glaring cost imbalance I see is control surfaces. Way too expensive.

Best,
-Slashy

[Curveball Anders]

While I agree that there some wierd values I don´t think there much need of an official balance patch.

1. It´s a single player game.
2. If you want to rebalance your own game and share your findings it's easily done with a single MM-patch.

 

[klgraham1013]

4 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

While I agree that there some wierd values I don´t think there much need of an official balance patch.

1. It´s a single player game.
2. If you want to rebalance your own game and share your findings it's easily done with a single MM-patch.

 

So, it shouldn't be the developers job to make a game fun and balanced?

[Curveball Anders]

2 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

So, it shouldn't be the developers job to make a game fun and balanced?

The problem is that there's a lots of opinions on what's fun and balanced.

[JadeOfMaar]

14 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

The problem is that there's a lots of opinions on what's fun and balanced.

Nope. The problem is Squad is really bad at balancing things. There are issues and complaints over everything, like the tech tree locations of some parts (certain ones you unlock before or after others should be reversed in some way), the stock aerospike cannot gimbal, that DLC Wolfhound engine having insane 420s Isp, and that (for example) wheels are not the first thing you unlock. How can you bring the construction material to where the KSC is, to build the KSC in the first place and you haven't invented the wheel or battery yet?

It is up to Squad to provide consistency and balance in the game, even if only for themselves and not so much for mods to use as a guide..... But Squad as thrown all consistency out the window now with at least three prevalent and very different art styles now on all the parts since KSP 1.4.0,  and very high irregularities with part stats.

[CattyNebulart]

21 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

The skipper has a terrible thrust:cross section ratio. It seems to me that its intended purpose would be a 2nd or 3rd stage engine (given its higher vacuum Isp and lower atmospheric Isp compared to the mainsail), but its low thrust (its TWR is fine, just its total thrust) is... not great  I would envision it as something more like a 2.5m version of the Rhino. So that the skipper would be to the mainsail, as the Rhino is to the Mammoth.... but perhaps even beefier because we've still got the poodle as a 2.5m option, whereas we don't have a 3.75m equivalent (the Rhino also serves as a decent vacuum engine). I rarely fine myself using the skipper because:

* Its vacuum Isp sucks, so its not good to use once in orbit/ for circularizing

* it can only lift short stacks, so its not good to use in the atmospheric boost phase...

so... I rarely use it and just use mainsails and poodles for my 2.5m engine needs

 

Huh I am the opposite. I often use skippers because they have better ISP than mamoths, and they are cheaper, and they are strong enoguh to get an upper stage with a poodle out of the atmosphere or even into orbit outright. If I need more thrust I asperegus some extra stages on there or go to beefier engines than the mamoth. So for me the mamoth is the rarely used engine for me.

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, Curveball Anders said:

While I agree that there some wierd values I don´t think there much need of an official balance patch.

1. It´s a single player game.
2. If you want to rebalance your own game and share your findings it's easily done with a single MM-patch.

It generally helps if most parts are reasonably priced and players have a wide selection of good parts.  The catch is that such cost analysis is pretty silly with the game set on regular, but some people like to set the game on "grindy" (if you want "hard", try RO:RSS, or possibly just adjust kerbin's size/orbital velocity).

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

The most glaring cost imbalance I see is control surfaces. Way too expensive.

There's no way that gimballing is cheaper than control fins.  One possible exception is using multiple combustion chambers/nozzles and venting the fuel/air mixture for offset thrust (this wastes a little fuel, but you shouldn't need that many adjustments.  I've learned to mount just a pair of AV-R8s (do tail fins work better?  The wiki parts lists implies it) North-South to control my pitchover, and that seems to give enough control.

[Mr. Peabody]

Nope.

[Corona688]

11 hours ago, 0something0 said:

Currently, research labs are absurdly OP because you can feed it with science with impunity. We could nerf them by say, make them usable only be lvl 4 or above scientists

What are you talking about?  No you can't.

[KerikBalm]

6 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

The only time you should be flying a space plane at high AoA is during reentry and landing. Drag is a good thing in that situation.

I'm talking even at ~10 degree AoA the mk3 long fusalage shapes can be producing somewhere on the order of 100 kN of drag. Of course I also have to stipulate that I haven't played stock size kerbin in a long time, so a lot of what I'm saying is based on observations of these parts performing in more demanding conditions. Regarding drag and AoA: for a larger kerbin, a higher AoA/more wing area is needed for planes travelling in air of the same density, because they will be travelling at a much lower fraction of orbital velocity (when travelling at orbital velocity, no lift is needed, so if orbital velocity is raised without raising the top airbreathing speed, more lift is needed. On top of this, if its a spaceplane, you also need to haul a whole lot more rocket fuel).

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I disagree with buffing the skipper. From a career play standpoint, it's already one of the most cost effective and versatile engines. Buffing it just puts it in direct competition with the Mainsail and leaves a bigger gap between 1.25m and 2.5m engines.

Meh, I wouldn't even call it a buff. If the TWR is the same and the Isp is the same, its just 10-25% heavier and produces 10-25% more thrust, is it buffed? If it did get a 25% increase to thrust and mass, thats still less than 55% of the mainsail's thrust. We'd still be looking at a 19.3 vs 23.4 sea level TWR. If its vacuum Isp was raised, while its vacuum TWR and sea level Isp remain the same, then its sea level TWR would decrease, and it would be further differentiated from a mainsail, and not just be a lighter version of the mainsail.

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The RAPIER is fine as- is. If anything, I'd halve it's closed cycle thrust.

Were they to do that, then they might as well just remove closed cycle completely and call it a schimitar analogue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Scimitar

Its TWR is terrible in closed cycle, its Isp is terrible in closed cycle. Rapier closed cycle is marginal already, begging to be paired with a higher Isp engine and mainly being used to initially  supplement the thrust of the higher Isp engine (such as LV-Ns, Rhinos, aerospikes, and now Cheetahs and... ughhh... the wolfhound). Halving the thrust would render it useless IMO, and I'd just keep running them on residual atmospheric thrust and add more rhinos/wolfhounds or even vectors(while its Isp is not much better, it does have a GREAT thrust/Cross section area ratio)

 

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The Vector does need a rebalance. The price is ridiculous for what it delivers.

The most glaring cost imbalance I see is control surfaces. Way too expensive.

I'll be honest, I didn't really look at part cost, just the physical properties of parts... but the Vector seems ok to me...

In terms of cost per kN of thrust, its twice as expensive as the Mainsail with almost exactly the same TWR... but...

* It does have better Isp (295 vs 285 at SL, 315 vs 310 in vacuum), although this isn't such a huge difference in most cases, the SL values make a big difference on Eve, and an even bigger difference if you want to descenda fair amount into Jool's atmosphere (which reaches 15 Atmospheres) and come back out

* It has a much wider vectoring range (10.5 vs 2), which is needed for some designs (its very helpful in STS style shuttles)

* its got a vastly superior thrust/cross section area ratio (its so out of whack with other engines), its 2.66666... times better than the mainsail.

It seems that they intended it to be an engine that goes on reusable craft, so that its cost isn't such an issue provided of course that you can actually re-use your craft. Its also well suited to some specialty purposes (eve ascent vehicles for instance), so in those cases its worth the cost.

In the past many people complained about the Vector being OP. Balancing anything with cost seems a bit.. meh... due to sandbox and late career fund surpluses, but I see the cost as a way to encourage recovery of the vector.

As for control surfaces... yea, they seem a bit expensive, but... meh, many things have weird price ratios... even fuel is much more expensive relative to the cost of engines than real life... so I haven't really thought about it. The cost values they have now seem okay-ish to me, since many of the way the overpriced parts still manage to be minor expenses (like the 440 fund ladders... sure its a lot for a ladder, but on a lander on top of a rocket costing several/tens/hundreds of thousands... who cares)

 

[Pthigrivi]

I do agree we could use a big balance pass. I mean I get why it hasn't happened, its maddening complicated with so many parts now and everyone has their own ideas about what's reasonable. If squad was really committed to it the best method would probably be to open an official thread where folks submit their customized cfg's then average out all of the changes. 

[GoSlash27]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

I'll be honest, I didn't really look at part cost, just the physical properties of parts...

KerikBalm,

I'd definitely look at that before recommending part balance adjustments. Cost and mass are critical considerations in career play.

Best,
-Slashy

[KerikBalm]

Well, if I'm worried about cost, then I look at cost per ton to orbit. Ladders and control surfaces are not a part of this, or are a minor part (particularly later in career with more powerful gimballing engines, and the possibility to do fully recoverable launch vehicles)