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rhino engines, what are they good for?


Sweetnsaltyish

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I've been looking thru all of the engines that I use, and came across the rhino engine.

I know it could be used as a first stage engine, but I has its highest efficiency in a vacuum, and not at sea lvl.

what kind of upper stage craft would need that kind of power?

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11 hours ago, Sweetnsaltyish said:

I know it could be used as a first stage engine, but I has its highest efficiency in a vacuum, and not at sea lvl.

Like you said, it has the highest efficiency in a vacuum, not at sea level. However, by the time the launch vehicle reaches 10km altitude, the Rhino is already operating at ~85-90% efficiency. So you add side-boosters, better suited for atmospheric operation and when it gets to 10-15km, you stage and let it go. Like this for example:

Gy4TPCu.jpg

And if you are taking it to space anyway, why not install proper guidance & RCS and use it as a transfer vehicle?

Spoiler

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That's obviously one way of using it. The rest, I think they fall into the category Gargamel described :) 

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I got into Rhino fever back in 1.0.5.

Played stock, before DLC.

The Rhino made a lot of sense for large transfer and insertion stages, like Eve landers and Jool missions. Even used it in tandem with nukes for some asteroid missions for those maneuvers where a fast kick was needed, vs. a slow nuke burn.

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I can't honestly say I've ever used one either, since at 3.75 m they take up rather a lot of cross-sectional area for that amount of thrust, and for general orbital maneuvering I'm more inclined to live with the low-TWR Nervs. But looking over the engine stats it appears that nothing else with that amount of thrust and TWR comes close to its vacuum ISP value, so I guess stuff like a really big Tylo lander would be a niche where it would really shine. It might also be really good for the final stage of a large Eve lifter, where you need to circularize relatively quickly to maintain altitude. In fact, I might just give it a whirl for what I'm doing on the big Eve thread....

Edited by herbal space program
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14 minutes ago, ExtremeSquared said:

Two ways to send a gigantic mine/base off to Jool. Ten minute burn with nuke cluster from a 200km orbit, or 90 second burn with a rhino from a 75km orbit. Both valid. Similar cost.

90 seconds is an acceptable length for an efficient single ejection burn, but if you take 10 whole minutes from a 200km parking orbit, you are wasting quite a bit of dV.  It's much better to go to a 70 km circular orbit and do multiple shorter kicks at its PE, until you are nearly on an escape trajectory, before doing the final burn. I guess if you're going straight to Jool that might still take a while, but I never actually do that because it takes too much dV that way.

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Inspired by Herbal.  

 

GmF16sh.jpg

Packing 1 Rhino, 4 poodles, large ISRU with 4 drills and extendable radiators, 2 large fuel cell arrays so the processor can run non stop....  220 tons 1.72 TWR, 4524 m/s dV.

It can land on Tylo, mine and return to orbit.  Probably unsuitable for multiple landings on Tylo,  but it could refill easily on the smaller moons.  I had about 1/4 fuel left.

 

zVfGFB6.png

The nice thing about stuctural pylons is that they can be fired one at a time by right click menu.

 

KxoHZNx.pngI

 

I had about 1.5 of these full.  They could push significant payloads to the other moons.  Remember, It doesn't count as debris if its an active comsat

Edited by farmerben
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I've never used one. I always use engine plate + multiple vectors instead. Two vectors provide the same vacuum thrust / much better sea level thrust at 8.075 tons vs. 9 for the Rhino. The better ISP of the Rhino probably wins out for super-heavy ships, but for one of those I'll likely have 3-9 vectors. You don't have that flexibility to choose the thrust you want with the single Rhino.

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It's passable as a sustainer or even core stage for really, really big rockets, but I feel like you kind of have to build around the Rhino concept to make this worthwhile.

I've used it on some stupidly large mining rigs. You can save a lot of part count vs. using a ton of nukes, and the delta-v loss doesn't matter much on low-gravity bodies.  However, the Wolfhound probably eats into this use-case now. 

It's also decent for redirecting large asteroids.

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I LOVE the Rhino as a transfer stage. 

Part of my gameplay is to build the most efficient rockets possible, but looks are an important consideration. :) I like using the thing as a transfer stage to the Mun with a 3-Kerb orbiter/lander stack, it just looks so cool when it separates and burns. 

I can't show a pic; I'm doing a new career and haven't reached that stage yet, but I do use it a lot, and quite enjoy it. :)

 

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I used it as a lifting engine for an intermediate class booster, in tandem with 6-8 Kickbacks. A lot cheaper than Mammoth, bigger payload than Twin Boar + Kickbacks. Also used it a few times for sustainer on really big builds, but I can usually downscale to a lighter or cheaper engine. This was before MH, so there might be better alternatives now.

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