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annoyed with rotors due to not finding effective purpose


k00b

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15 minutes ago, k00b said:

because rotary wings don't belong where there is no atmosphere and zero gravity.......

Non sequitur.  Somebody else said you couldn't make props, I showed you damn well can.  That obviously has no bearing on vacuum, so I don't understand your problem.

If you want a practical vacuum use for the robotics, how about folding up the arms of a station's docking tree to fit in a fairing, instead of having to fly the giant X-shaped thing on the nose of your rocket?

15 minutes ago, k00b said:

(what with having to to pay "real life" money for the DLC, that doesn't give you, what is insinuated by the completely useless part in question)

Hmm, so you're miffed that you have to give up eating 1 large pizza to get the parts?  Sorry, I have no sympathy.  Get a job.

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2 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

It doesn't matter. The point is, KSP is a sandbox game, and you can create whatever weird thing it is that you like. The only rules are the laws of physics.

And while you can't find an effective purpose for the rotors, many others have. The DLC wasn't created for your benefit only.

this thread (SEE TITLE) is specifically asking for effective purpose, of which nobody has provided one..................................

there is no point in artificial gravity, as kerbals are non controllable inside, they sit down and makes faces.... all the other suggestions revolve around being ferris wheels (we have various functional wheels already).

ferris wheels are too delta-v consuming to be "effective"...... and pertain to visuals only so you should stop making things up.

i will tip my hat to someone who makes a functional helicopter as i am too lazy to even attempt to asign to the tail rotor ( baring in mind you can go 20x faster with a plane... i will not be finding out)

1 minute ago, Geschosskopf said:

Non sequitur.  Somebody else said you couldn't make props, I showed you damn well can.  That obviously has no bearing on vacuum, so I don't understand your problem.

If you want a practical vacuum use for the robotics, how about folding up the arms of a station's docking tree to fit in a fairing, instead of having to fly the giant X-shaped thing on the nose of your rocket?

Hmm, so you're miffed that you have to give up eating 1 large pizza to get the parts?  Sorry, I have no sympathy.  Get a job.

it is a matter of principle.

the community wanted to play with viable "helicopters" > they gave us "rotors".

that's bad, and AGAIN it is a very slippery slope......................................

 

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1 minute ago, k00b said:

 

i will tip my hat to someone who makes a functional helicopter as i am too lazy to even attempt to asign to the tail rotor ( baring in mind you can go 20x faster with a plane... i will not be finding out)

Take a look at @Brikoleur's craft on KerbalX. He's created several helicopters which are effective and do have a purpose.

Otherwise, I'm out. This is one of those arguments which you just can't win.

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1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Take a look at @Brikoleur's craft on KerbalX. He's created several helicopters which are effective and do have a purpose.

Otherwise, I'm out. This is one of those arguments which you just can't win.

he puts three massive engines on them..... and spams his pictures in peoples threads.

if you think the aerodynamic quality of a "tri engined, plus rotary winged monstrosty" is "effective" (even though you have stated they are for mess about sandbox purposes already), then yes; being "out" would be appreciated....

...please don't spam the thread with pictures Brikoleur

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7 minutes ago, k00b said:

he puts three massive engines on them..... and spams his pictures in peoples threads.

Not all of them.

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-151-Kima

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-52NS

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-121-Rabbit

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-900X-Kerwood

That last one cracks 100 m/s in straight and level flight, which is about 15 m/s more than the fastest real non-compound (rotor only) helicopter.

And here's one with a single main rotor and a tail rotor, it's not as much fun to fly as the ones with contra-rotating twin rotors though:

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-666-Deathtrap

Here's a solar-powered tilt-rotor craft that has indefinite daytime endurance on Eve, and can survive atmospheric entry into it. That definitely has a purpose in career missions -- it's better than any rover on Eve for one thing:

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-7000-Ikarus

No pictures, as requested.

 

Edited by Guest
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1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

Here's a solar-powered tilt-rotor craft that has indefinite daytime endurance on Eve, and can survive atmospheric entry into it. That definitely has a purpose in career missions -- it's better than any rover on Eve for one thing:

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/BAK-7000-Ikarus

No pictures, as requested.

 

thankyou.

...but it's nowhere near as effective as a aerodynamic plane is it (especially considering we now have had the opportunity to pay for folding wings (an effective part).

considering wasted construction time vs said exponentially faster, more aerodynamic air craft with much less wasted time top speed.....

...considering said rotors are now in the game forever, opening the doorway for a more redundant dlc > NOVELTY wears off > buy dlc > novelty wearing off ad infinitum ruining of game, by way of putting in rubbish parts with no longevity that only serve the "sandpit" contigent of the community....

 

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1 hour ago, k00b said:

...but it's nowhere near as effective as a aerodynamic plane is it (especially considering we now have had the opportunity to pay for folding wings (an effective part).

Folding wings don't have any effect on drag in the KSP aerodynamics model; wing drag is determined by wing area only. I.e. a plane with a long thin wing will fly just as fast as a plane with a swept or delta wing and the same wing area. (The same is not true for real-world aerodynamics, nor FAR, but we are discussing the stock game here.)

As to the Eve tilt-rotor, it is certainly more efficient/effective than any rocket-powered plane on Eve, and jet-powered planes don't work there at all since the Evian atmosphere has no oxygen. It's also better than rovers because it's faster and less likely to crash when attempting to move quickly.

I built a rocket plane that carried an ISRU and flew it on Eve, and it was only able to make hops of a few tens of km before having to land to refuel -- and landing it was not easy because of the high gravity and high drag.

Rotorcraft are the best way to explore Eve, no contest. Solar-powered small ones are so light that they will even survive atmospheric entry without heat shields. I believe somebody even demonstrated that rotors can be used to create an Eve SSTO, which is otherwise extremely hard, one of the hardest things that are possible in KSP.

Anyway, I think we've demonstrated some career uses for rotors for you by now. I'm sure people will come up with more, as well as providing you with a variety of helicopters you've asked for. There are always going to be parts you don't find much use for, but somebody else will, and perhaps you will too as you get deeper into the game and start taking on different types of challenges. (I've never had much use for the Panther and Whiplash engines for example.)

Edited by Guest
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The lack of uses for rotary parts in 'specifically career mode' is not a fault of the rotors; it is a fault of career mode!

Career mode features plenty is dumb pointless stuff, that exists only to facilitate weird and unusual craft, or to fix problems in career mode. Eg, Kerbin-based survey missions are dull, tedious and "have no place in this 'space-game'", but are necessary to net you some easy contracts at the start of a game. Likewise, "test this part, while going at speed X and altitude Y" are also odd, especially when concerning things like 'decoupler on launchpad', 'landing gear in orbit of the Mun' etc. These are simply an extension of existing sane missions, applied to funny part-criteria combinations.

Career-mode could just as easily feature a contract 'expose a Kerbal to at least X many G-force'. which can be completed using some wonky Super-Jet plane. OR you could use the rotary parts to make a G-force training rig! (and yes, the physics of the game allow G-force to affect individual parts, and their crew). 'Build station'-missions could feature a DLC-only 'needs a gravity ring' requirement.

So rotary parts could have great uses in 'specifically career mode' sometime soon.


As for more immediate applications, I would like to point to reality; sure, the stock game provides easy access to jet engines and rocket engines, right of the bat and these can do "anything a propeller can" and "go fasta", but in reality rotary engine craft see a fair share of use, for many reasons.

Jet engines can go faster, but propellers produce the same amount of thrust at slower speeds and of a greater range of low speeds. This is great for VTOL craft, even in KSP. Propellers are also more fuel efficient. A Jet will guzzle up a lot of fuel when going fast, and when you don't need to go fast, but DO need to pull hard (for say a sky-crane) jets are just useless. And you can re-charge your batteries in-flight with solar panels, RTGs, fuel-cells and yes, jet engine alternators.

Also, cranes and other ground utility vehicles (and in case of using BD-armory, Tanks) get good use out of turret-mounted systems, is is specifically the domain of rotors. Try building a refueling truck.

 

Then again, if you don't really enjoy being an engineer, and just "Wanna Go Fast & Far", none of that really matters to you either. KSP might not even be the game you really want to playing right now. Try a racing game instead. Or 'Asteroids', the original space simulation!

Edited by The-Grim-Sleeper
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1 hour ago, The-Grim-Sleeper said:

Career mode features plenty is dumb pointless stuff, that exists only to facilitate weird and unusual craft, or to fix problems in career mode. Eg, Kerbin-based survey missions are dull, tedious and "have no place in this 'space-game'", but are necessary to net you some easy contracts at the start of a game. Likewise, "test this part, while going at speed X and altitude Y" are also odd, especially when concerning things like 'decoupler on launchpad', 'landing gear in orbit of the Mun' etc. These are simply an extension of existing sane missions, applied to funny part-criteria combinations.

Playing devil's advocate, some of these contracts have at least a tenuous relationship to actual space program stuff.  E.g., before going to the Moon and whatnot, NASA did a lot of testing with high-altitude aviation and the like (e..g, the X-15).  And the earlier Apollo missions were largely dedicated to testing and proving the components for moon landing.  Apollo 10 in particular was fairly close to "test landing legs in lunar orbit." But yeah, some of the random combinations do seem pretty ridiculous.

1 hour ago, The-Grim-Sleeper said:

Also, cranes and other ground utility vehicles (and in case of using BD-armory, Tanks) get good use out of turret-mounted systems, is is specifically the domain of rotors. Try building a refueling truck.

I feel like the rotary actuators are more useful for this than the continuous rotors, which are what I believe OP was talking about.  The former seem better when you want a precise adjustment; the latter when power is more important. 

Returning to the original topic, I do agree that I haven't been able to find a purely practical use for the continuous rotors yet.  The other robotic parts seem useful for unfolding things to save space; docking booms; cranes, etc.  The rotors, not so much.  But I'm fine with this.  There are a lot of parts that you don't really NEED to accomplish anything in the core "explore space" gameplay experience, including almost all the airplane parts and miscellaneous structural doodads.  But they can be fun for a side project, and I certainly don't begrudge parts that indulge other playstyles.  I would love to have a legit electric propeller, but just because the rotors aren't that, doesn't make them a net negative. And I've already gotten more than enough entertainment time out of Breaking Ground to justify a $15 investment.  

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Well, at least he's saying 50 m/s in his complaining, instead of 0.5 mph. Still over 100 m/s is possible, so... Please stop saying knowingly false statements.

Rotors are great for duna, never had such easy landings.

With jets, they make great compound helos, that handle much better in a hover than tilt engine VTOLs.

Not to mention that they are the only option for subs on eve or mod worlds like tekto.

Many people have fun with them. If you absolutely do not want them, you can remove them, or text edit them to be better... If you would want them if they were just better

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6 hours ago, The-Grim-Sleeper said:

Career-mode could just as easily feature a contract 'expose a Kerbal to at least X many G-force'.

It does! "Take <<kerbal>> on a high-G adventure!"

Has anyone tried if it's possible to do that with a centrifuge?

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3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

It does! "Take <<kerbal>> on a high-G adventure!"

Has anyone tried if it's possible to do that with a centrifuge?

I took a quick run at it, but could not seem to get accurate numbers for either speed or g's.  This thing maxed out at 5.9g, but I think that's when it was violently ripping itself apart after a few seconds.  While it was intact the meter bounced between 0 and 1, so it might just be looking at the up-and-down motion rather than rotational?

(I vehemently deny any accusations that Jeb is going to get strapped to the front of this thing in the near future.)

ekUDBTX.png

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On 6/12/2019 at 7:17 AM, k00b said:

beyond vehicles that go <50/ms (hence not having effective purpose imho)

Oh look, an understatement of >3x:

2mTzxNN.png

Oh look, they can carry heavy payloads too:

84tuyph.png

7yl5dAC.png

It just takes a little design, thought, and effort. I wouldn't be surprised if I can crack 200 m/s, while carrying a useful payload, with easy VTOL operation.

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  • 1 month later...

So now you want them solar powered? Moving goalposts?

Well, here, this one reaches the island airfield without using the fuel cells... and the battery is only half depleted:

SCz1QlI.png

But they've changed the rotors since then:

2j7xplr.png

The consumption is so low that it can circumnavigate kerbin on internal fuel.

But wait, I said low consumption right? It can be easily solar powered now:

xZ5a1QX.png

A2yRgEZ.png

Even with moving goalposts, you have no argument

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wanted to be able to solar-power an aircraft on Eve for a long time and finally am able to do it with the electric rotors. They're a very useful part for freeing yourself from the limitation of fuel for small probes.

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Ok let me get this straight.

 

a game where by design it’s  deliberately difficult to design a rocket that can land on the moon with the starting parts, and you can’t figure out how to make anything useful with the rotor.....

We are talking about this game? 

 

because perhaps.... this is not the game for you.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/17/2019 at 10:31 AM, KerikBalm said:

So now you want them solar powered? Moving goalposts?

But wait, I said low consumption right? It can be easily solar powered now:

Even with moving goalposts, you have no argument

1) you are talking to yourself whilst spamming screen shots taken by yourself, and for yourself to look at ???.

that's not me "moving the goalposts" - that is called "egomania".

2) you are obtaining a speed of 160m/s... *baring in mind jetplanes can go over 1000m/s; (see thread title / page 1 in thread (i.e. "try reading";) 160m/s is completely not *"effective"... (it is VERY basic relativity - or instead of wasting your time, you would be posting pictures of a command module hovering 2ft off the ground going "SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE").

IT HAS BEEN 3 MONTHS NOW AND NOBODY HAS COME UP WITH ANYTHING YET.

On 8/29/2019 at 4:44 PM, CocoDaPuf said:

So you can do this: NASA Dragonfly Mission.

Quote

The rotorcraft will fly to dozens of promising locations on Titan looking for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and Earth

good luck with that one.

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IRL we have the already posted NASA Dragonfly and the Drone for the 2020 Mars rover

In KSP I'm using them to do my EVE Dragonfly program with flying probes and my Firefly program which is my first EVE sample return from surface to orbit, I'm planning to use a similar design to do my first ever manned EVE return.

They have a use, without them EVE return is more a "can your CPU manage a EVE reentry with a excrementston of boosters and chutes", with propellers it becomes a surprisingly funny design challenge.

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8 hours ago, k00b said:

1) you are talking to yourself whilst spamming screen shots taken by yourself, and for yourself to look at ???.
that's not me "moving the goalposts" - that is called "egomania".

You complained about rotors with flight speeds <50 m/s. I provided proof of flight speeds over 3x what you said. Then you essentially complained that they were fuel cell powered... that's moving the goal posts, since your initial complain had nothing to do with the source of the electric power.

Screenshots provide evidence to refute your claims, and instead of disputing the point, you make ad hominem arguments.

Quote

2) you are obtaining a speed of 160m/s... *baring in mind jetplanes can go over 1000m/s; (see thread title / page 1 in thread (i.e. "try reading";) 160m/s is completely not *"effective"

Jetplanes don't work on Eve or Duna. So then, particularly for Eve, compare the rotor propelled craft with the other type of way of moving long ranges across the surface: rover wheels. Rotor powered craft are much faster, and can traverse stretches of water (a big advantage on Eve). They also allow you to explore *under water* on Eve. At the moment there is nothing to see there, but that is easily modded, and with a minute or two in notepad, there can be scannable features under the oceans of Eve that you would need rotors to get to (I think the omission of any underwater surface features for BG was a mistake).

I've also seen rotors used for light eve ascent vehicles that launch from eve sea level.

Also keep in mind that I was making something that was #1) VTOL and #2) carried a heavy payload. If all it needs to do is carry a kerbal and some science instruments, I can make something much faster, that gets well over 200 m/s.

Here's a link to one (not mine) that is #1) electric, and #2) does over 290 m/s

 

Doing something similar on Eve or Duna would be great for traversing biomes and collecting science. Duna is smaller and thinner air, so you can cross it faster, whereas Eve is just plain harder to move around, but the benefit of rotors vs rockets is greater there. You can land your rocket at high elevation, and use a rotor craft to visit multiple biomes, and return to the rocket for ascent. Preferably traversing long distances at higher altitude where the air is thinner (higher speeds + less atmosphere reducing solar panel output)

 

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10 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Duna is smaller and thinner air, so you can cross it faster, whereas Eve is just plain harder to move around, but the benefit of rotors vs rockets is greater there.

Sorry, but in this regard Eve is much easier than Duna: in Eve's thick atmosphere the propellers have good "bite" and generate a lot of thrust, also the stall speed is really low making landings easy. On Duna I struggle to generate decent amounts of thrust with propellers, and the stall speed is so high that nearly all my attempts to land an aircraft have resulted in crashes. O.K. you don't break speed records on Eve, but I don't recall if I was much faster on Duna.
In short: flying a solar-powered propeller plane on Eve is fun! On Duna not so.

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Well, I find they work well at least in the lowlands of Duna. You just need more wing and prop area. I tried to make a decent lifting tiltrotor on Duna, and I really had to spam large helo blades... however, a VTOL tilt rotor doesn't have the stall speed issues. Solar power isn't that hard, because power required is related to force required, and the forces are quite low on Duna due to the low gravity. Eve is closer to the sun, but has more gravity and atmospheric attenuation.

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