rhino engines, what are they good for?

[KerikBalm]

For me:

Main engine for ISRU fuel tankers on airless worlds

Ejection booster engine for large interplanetary motherships

Once upon a time, before the vectors, a SSME on a STS style semi-reusable shuttle

[TheTripleAce3]

I use one as my second and third stage in my CommSwarm launcher that sends 14 ion relays to most of the sensible targets in game.

It packs a lot of power with a very nice isp, looks cool, etc.

[StrandedonEarth]

On 3/8/2019 at 9:03 PM, Grogs said:

You don't have that flexibility to choose the thrust you want with the single Rhino.

In the VAB or in flight? If you need to fine-tune thrust on a nearly-empty tanker, there's always the PAW (right-click menu, or click on the engine icon in the staging stack)

On 3/9/2019 at 8:02 AM, Aegolius13 said:

However, the Wolfhound probably eats into this use-case now. 

Yeah, the WH clusters generally seem a bit better than the Rhino, but mix in part-count simplicity and BIGGER, and it becomes a toss-up

Edited March 16, 2019 by StrandedonEarth

[Grogs]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

In the VAB or in flight? If you need to fine-tune thrust on a nearly-empty tanker, there's always the PAW (right-click menu, or click on the engine icon in the staging stack)

In the VAB. If you want 3000 kN of thrust, you can put on 3 vectors at 12 tons mass. If you want to do that with rhinos (assuming you can fit them on a single engine plate) you'd have to put on two rhinos at 18 tons and run them at 3/4 throttle. Admittedly, if you need to throttle down the max thrust with the right-click menu frequently, a single rhino might be a bit more convenient than two vectors. I've had times when I wanted to throttle down a cluster of 9 engines, and it's a tedious process to get them all dialed down to exactly the same maximum thrust.

[StrandedonEarth]

52 minutes ago, Grogs said:

I've had times when I wanted to throttle down a cluster of 9 engines, and it's a tedious process to get them all dialed down to exactly the same maximum thrust

At which point I shut them down in pairs, or the center engine. That 9-Vector cluster makes for a fabulous (and fabulously expensive) booster. But yeah, if I need more than one Rhino on a single core then it's a vector cluster.

Edited March 16, 2019 by StrandedonEarth

[Kerbal Madness]

so, i have this one size fits all launcher...  (I use it for landers, satellites. you name it) 

The rhino engine is what i use to complete my circ. burns once i reach the end of my primary lifter stage.

If you need a demo, i made a orbit tutorial video using it in this scenario;

consider subscribing?     I'm currently trying to grow my channel

[Single stage to ocean]

Love them, my space program thinks they are pathetically sized however. Wish there was a  engine 2x as powerful as mammoth, even if it has an isp debuff to just 290. A bigger upper stage engine will be better too. Maybe something that resembles clustered poodles and has thrust of mammoth and isp of 345, but slightly heavier than rhino.

Close thy thread, mods, lest thy dead awaken.

[Singhnaut]

hello there I have an awesome answer I used one of these to get to the mun yea thats right THE MUN. Efficient and powerful but requires some mad/crazy designing skills.

[Daedalus3000]

On 3/8/2019 at 6:50 AM, Atkara said:

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:

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

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

Ok I’m quoting an ancient post, but this is how I use them, boosters up to 10-20 km and Rhino engine the rest of the way... I find that to be a really efficient way to build a launcher. I usually light the engine it get it off the pad but I throttle it down depending on how many boosters I’m using.