Why not make Engines upgradeable ?

[Sirad]

Why not making any engine Upgradeable ?

So you can invest some additional Science Points (lets say 100) to have 1% more ISP out of one Engine to choose ?

This could be a good sink of any unspent Science Points later on...

 

[Guest]

A lot of us share the craft we've built on KerbalX and/or Steam. If a craft performs differently depending on when in the career it's been built, that's pretty much going to pull the rug out from under that -- you could only use them in sandbox mode with the "standard" spec.

So hard "no" on this for that reason.

[Sirad]

A lot of us do not share their builds on any platform.

So it would be a nice addition and would represent whats going on in real rocket science. Any 'Pre Build whatever that needs to get shared' can have the modified stats be saved to the shared model.

whatever, at least i am thankful that i was allowed to state my opinion...

[pandaman]

6 hours ago, Sirad said:

Why not making any engine Upgradeable ?

So you can invest some additional Science Points (lets say 100) to have 1% more ISP out of one Engine to choose ?

This could be a good sink of any unspent Science Points later on...

 

Not silly idea in itself, but I think this would only be practical if upgraded engines were already in the inventory, but just hidden and unavailable until the upgrade is 'unlocked'.  But they would need to be treated as a completely new parts, so as to avoid issues with existing craft etc.

Probably quite a lot of resources/memory tied up for very little gain overall.

[DoctorDavinci]

6 hours ago, Sirad said:

Why not making any engine Upgradeable ?

So you can invest some additional Science Points (lets say 100) to have 1% more ISP out of one Engine to choose ?

This could be a good sink of any unspent Science Points later on...

 

Perhaps not as a permanent upgrade but more as an in game option you can use to get a temporary boost to performance of the part?

Spend some science and the ISP of the given crafts' engines are boosted for a short while ... only if you have an engineer and scientist onboard of course and also the engineer and scientist would need to be fully upgraded to manage this feat

Thoughts? ... could be modded in with a bit of work

[coyotesfrontier]

One of the philosophies of KSP is that no part is better then another. 

Even the flea, known for being extremely early game, is good as a side booster for small launchers, a vacuum final stage for cheap rockets, a seperation motor for massive boosters...

Point is, every part in KSP has it's use, even in sandbox mode. Having upgradable engines would either make them useless when not upgraded, overpowered when fully upgraded, or both.

[DoctorDavinci]

12 minutes ago, coyotesfrontier said:

One of the philosophies of KSP is that no part is better then another. 

Hmmmm, tell that to the Whiplash and the Juno jet engines .... I'm sure the Juno will feel better knowing that it is just as good as a Whiplash

[Drakenred65]

That's 2 airbreather engines  out of the entire tech tree.

Let's get real. There are not going to make poodles  keep up with some of the less extreme fusion drives that are theoretically possible.

 

And beyond that there is a benefit to keeping parts in a set performance parameter as that is what you know to design around.

 

That and it's embarasing to forget that performance boost means your older big booster to kerbin orbit needs to throttle down because performance gains means you explode from overheat and atmospheric preasure within 6 seconds of Launch.

 

 

Again.

 

 

 

[Sirad]

12 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Thoughts? ... could be modded in with a bit of work

Maybe that. I would like that Feature and if others do as i, maybe someone write a mod for it.

Whatever, those were just my 5 cent. Good to know that anything can be suggested :-)

[DoctorDavinci]

5 hours ago, [email protected] said:

That's 2 airbreather engines  out of the entire tech tree.

Regardless of that is only 2 air breathing engines from the whole tech tree .... my point is proven, no?

5 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Let's get real. There are not going to make poodles  keep up with some of the less extreme fusion drives that are theoretically possible.

I never claimed such a thing 

5 hours ago, [email protected] said:

And beyond that there is a benefit to keeping parts in a set performance parameter as that is what you know to design around.

You play your way and the rest of us will play ours ... I play KSP by modding it, how do you play?

 

5 hours ago, [email protected] said:

That and it's embarasing to forget that performance boost means your older big booster to kerbin orbit needs to throttle down because performance gains means you explode from overheat and atmospheric preasure within 6 seconds of Launch.

That would totally depend on how it is coded ... perhaps it wouldn't work in an atmosphere or it has a kind of stability field that holds the ship together under the greater strain or even perhaps a huge amount of heat is generated, isn't that what radiators are for?

13 minutes ago, Sirad said:

Maybe that. I would like that Feature and if others do as i, maybe someone write a mod for it.

Whatever, those were just my 5 cent. Good to know that anything can be suggested :-)

I already have an idea brewing ... I'll add it to OrX - Is There Anybody Out There if it comes to fruition

[Snark]

12 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Hmmmm, tell that to the Whiplash and the Juno jet engines .... I'm sure the Juno will feel better knowing that it is just as good as a Whiplash

Actually, arguably it is.  There are use cases where a Juno makes more sense than a Whiplash-- I use Junos even after I've maxed out the tech tree.

There are certainly some parts that become obsolete after something better comes along (for example, once HECS is available, there's basically no reason for me to use an OKTO, ever again).  But in general, I'm actually pretty impressed at what a large fraction of the parts stay relevant even after more "advanced" stuff is available.  I think they did a pretty good job, that way.

[DoctorDavinci]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Actually, arguably it is.  There are use cases where a Juno makes more sense than a Whiplash-- I use Junos even after I've maxed out the tech tree.

Oh, don't get me wrong ... I wasn't saying that Juno's are not as useful as a Whiplash, just look at some of the contraptions I made for the Kerbal Dakar rally

 

1 hour ago, Snark said:

There are certainly some parts that become obsolete after something better comes along (for example, once HECS is available, there's basically no reason for me to use an OKTO, ever again).  But in general, I'm actually pretty impressed at what a large fraction of the parts stay relevant even after more "advanced" stuff is available.  I think they did a pretty good job, that way.

Totally agree

The point I was trying to make is that a parts usefulness totally depends on how a player wants to use it ... Look at some of the early kraken tech from @Azimech such as the turbine engines from a few years ago

A parts usefulness is totally in the players hands

 

[Chilkoot]

This sounds a lot like the Kerbal Research and Development mod.

[magnemoe]

45 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

This sounds a lot like the Kerbal Research and Development mod.

It does, fun mod but a bit OP, making an engine have 20% more ISP, trust and less weight has an impact. 
 

[Guest]

16 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Hmmmm, tell that to the Whiplash and the Juno jet engines .... I'm sure the Juno will feel better knowing that it is just as good as a Whiplash

Hey now, the Juno is a terrific engine.

(Rather amusingly you picked as your comparison one of the two engines I find least useful in the entire game, the other one being the Panther... but obviously each of them has its niche too, it's just that I don't like to build the kinds of planes that need them much.)

 

[DoctorDavinci]

1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:

Hey now, the Juno is a terrific engine.

I never said it wasn't a terrific engine

I guess my point is too obscure for most people ... you're the second person to take what I said as a slight against the Juno as opposed to being a statement meant to make a person think about the post I was replying to

As the Count says, context does matter 

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by DoctorDavinci

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

I guess my point is too obscure for most people ... you're the second person to take what I said as a slight against the Juno as opposed to being a statement meant to make a person think about the post I was replying to

Maybe consider rephrasing your point then? I'm still not quite sure what it is TBH. Because from your followups it looks like we're in agreement about the actual issue.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Guest

[DoctorDavinci]

1 minute ago, Brikoleur said:

Maybe consider rephrasing your point then? I'm still not quite sure what it is TBH.

So, the statement I was replying to is this: 

Spoiler

One of the philosophies of KSP is that no part is better then another. 

to which I said this:

Spoiler

Hmmmm, tell that to the Whiplash and the Juno jet engines .... I'm sure the Juno will feel better knowing that it is just as good as a Whiplash

Point being that a Juno is useless above 20km but a Whiplash is very useful at that height, also the Whiplash has way more thrust than the Juno ... does that make the Whiplash better?

On the other hand the Juno uses much less fuel than the Whiplash and weighs much less ... does that make the Juno better than the Whiplash?

Who's to say other than the player ... The forum user in question was placing limits on what is acceptable for other players to do in their game so I commented with the intention to make said user really think about it

If you care to read the follow up posts I'm sure this would be completely clear to you

[Guest]

I did read the followup posts. 

However, your original message does read exactly like a sarcastic comment that implies that the Juno is so obviously worse than the Whiplash that telling it otherwise is absurd. I.e. the exact opposite of what you apparently intended to say.

If several people misunderstand you in the same way, then it might be worth considering the possibility that the problem was on your side, not theirs.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Guest

[Sirad]

As far as i follow here, my initial topic was something else nor ?

[DoctorDavinci]

14 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I did read the followup posts. 

However, your original message does read exactly like a sarcastic comment

And that is an astute observation since it was a sarcastic comment

1 minute ago, Sirad said:

As far as i follow here, my initial topic was something else nor ?

Exactly .... back to your regular programming 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Lu K. said:

Engine upgrades make a lot of sense from the realism angle - e.g. spaceX engines are always improving.

By KSP standards the improvements are minimal however. It's mostly about better reliability and lower cost, possibly marginally better TWR (which is already way better than in KSP due to game balance concerns). You're not going to see big changes in Isp for a given engine design because that's all physics and very well understood. Unlimited improvement of Isp by dumping Sci points on it is completely absurd from a realism PoV, and game-breaking from a gameplay PoV.

As I said earlier, IMO the idea has more negatives for gameplay than positives, the biggest one of which is that it makes craft designs ambiguous and therefore craft sharing much messier. If you absolutely had to have it, the only parameter I think that could be improved by upgrades is TWR; that would reflect improvements in design and materials. Not Isp however.

[Sirad]

21 minutes ago, Lu K. said:

I want more focus and choice from my engines, not just these big things that you bolt onto a rocket and never think twice about. It offers a lot more to enthusiasts and also encourages new players to learn how rockets work. I haven't played simple rockets 2 yet but from what I've seen they at least offer a choice of combustion cycle.

Ah, well this is the right way, and just another way to think about upgrading engines! a real fine thought. Much more evolved than my initial idea. Engine could maybe be updated/assembled with Pumps, Sealevel or Vacuum Bells, nozzles etc. GREAT idea! This *is* a GREAT idea! The more you evolve in techlevel the better Parts you get for your Engines to change out, all with pro's and Cons.

You start with a excrementsty 1.25m Case with bad parts and can upgrade the Engine to your needs (for vacuum, for greater thrust, for better isp etc)

So the drawback of not being able to 'brag'bout'my'rocket' on steam is some minor detail that could be fairly ignored, from my point of view, because There will be enough possibilities to share unmodified or modified rockets. And crafts can not be shared if you dont have the required tech for all parts anyway.  Or the required Additional Packs. And all Parts for the Engines could be part of the Tech-Tree (if any exist) or be expanded by modding.

 

[Jimmidii]

If they were going to go down this route, my gut feeling is that you'd store the level of upgrade for each part in the craft file.

Downloaded/shared craft would only be usable if you have the levels of upgrade needed, similar to how it currently is with locked/unlocked parts.

In the editor, you'd be able to upgrade (maybe even downgrade!) individual parts, as well as have an option to upgrade all parts on the craft. (More or less treating upgrades as variants)

This would also avoid craft that have already been launched suddenly being magically better.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lu K. said:

I'd rather get a lot more specific than that, similar to how the gran turismo series does car part upgrades. Separate engines into specific parts which can be changed or upgraded - turbopump, bell shape, combustion cycle, injector type, fuel type, etc etc. Then use a realistic model of how these choices affect engine stats. I want more focus and choice from my engines, not just these big things that you bolt onto a rocket and never think twice about. It offers a lot more to enthusiasts and also encourages new players to learn how rockets work. I haven't played simple rockets 2 yet but from what I've seen they at least offer a choice of combustion cycle.

This idea has more potential. However I don't like it much either. It would take the KSP "Lego" approach one level down: we wouldn't be rocket designers anymore, we'd be rocket engine designers. This would introduce a lot of complexity to an already highly complex game as well as changing its character quite a lot.

So this one I'd file under terrific ideas for mods, but not so much for base KSP.