Show and Tell - New LANTR engine

[Fullmetal Analyst]

thats it? an unfinished engine and nothing more? visuals arent making a game interesting, when do we get to see anything about the promised new game mechanics?

[Redneck]

BFE I already have the BFR rocket

Edited June 25, 2021 by Redneck

[Bill Phil]

Dang, for real? Sweet.

Also, are there any other advanced fission engines like NSWR, Mini Mag Orion, liquid core NTRs, and PuFF?

[Kerbart]

6 hours ago, KSPStar said:

A few details for our forum friends: This is a 2.5m part that, like the new NERV, runs on liquid hydrogen fuel. This engine also has a hidden talent: liquid oxygen can be injected into the nozzle to create a high-thrust mode, and its vacuum nozzle can be retracted for use in atmosphere.

From time to time fans express fears that KSP2 doesn't truly capture the Kerbal Spirit. A nuclear engine intended to be used in the atmosphere? Is there any doubt regarding the Kerbal Spirit left?

[Sesshaku]

6 hours ago, KSPStar said:

We're still adding engines to our part roster, and here's a peek at one that's still in the early whitebox phase -- we still haven't come up with a Kerbal-fied name for this LOX-Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket (or LANTR). Super NERV? SNERV? Suggestions welcome!

A few details for our forum friends: This is a 2.5m part that, like the new NERV, runs on liquid hydrogen fuel. This engine also has a hidden talent: liquid oxygen can be injected into the nozzle to create a high-thrust mode, and its vacuum nozzle can be retracted for use in atmosphere.

Wait, maybe this was already confirmed but I need to ask. Does this mean KSP2 will have "Real fuels"?? No more "liquid fuel/oxidizer" but actual Hidrazine, LH2, Kerosene, etc? That's great. I guess it makes sense to have more realistic fuels for a game that will include mining resources.

[jimmymcgoochie]

@SciMannot that this is the right thread for this, but:

Consider the real NERVA, which was calculated to produce ~150kN in vacuum with a mass of 10 tons and an ISP of 825 when using liquid hydrogen; the NERV has a better TWR than that even accounting for things being heavier in KSP than in real life. You can send a single mission to every planet and moon in the Kerbol system without refuelling using just NERV engines, though it does take a bit of orbital assembly beforehand and burn times are long- but then again the NERVA was designed to burn for up to 10 hours.

The Atlas wasn't "SSTO", it was stage-and-a-half because it dropped the two LR-89 engines half way through the ascent; they may have used a common fuel tank and some shared turbomachinery, but it's almost exactly the same thing as using side-mounted boosters. Either way, not all of the first stage gets to orbit and it has to stage part way through its ascent, so by definition it's not an SSTO.

When you're in a solar system where Jool is smaller than Earth and Eeloo's apoapsis is only slightly above Venus' apoapsis, using "realistic" performance numbers makes for stupidly overpowered rockets. KSP was balanced so that if you build something that looked like a real rocket (e.g. an Ariane 5 or a Space Shuttle), it would behave pretty similarly to the real thing in terms of getting into space. It's designed to make rocket design make sense in the smaller Kerbal world, not to exactly match reality.

[intelliCom]

6 hours ago, KSPStar said:

we still haven't come up with a Kerbal-fied name for this LOX-Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket (or LANTR). Super NERV? SNERV? Suggestions welcome!

I can only list two ideas of a similar path, which involve light-related objects and adding a K in them:

• KNDL (Candle)
• BKON (Beacon)

Besides this, we don't have much in the way of ideas. No clue what words would be under these acronyms either. I would suggest appending any words you can think of that relate to this engine, such as "LOX" and "Nuclear" to act as letter choices. I think that would certainly open up more ideas as to what we could call this. I'll include a few ideas for the letters that I had:

• A: Atomic, Active
• B: Bi-propellant
• C: [no ideas]
• D: Dynamic, Di-propellant
• E: Efficient, Economical, Engine, Extending
• F: Fuel
• G: Green
• H: Hydrogen
• I: [no ideas]
• J: [no ideas]
• K: [no ideas]
• L: LOX, Liquid
• M: Motor
• N: Nuclear, Nozzle
• O: Oxygen
• P: Propellant
• Q: [no ideas]
• R: Rocket, Radioactive
• S: Super
• T: Thermal
• U: [no ideas]
• V: [no ideas]
• W: [no ideas]
• X: [no ideas]
• Y: [no ideas]
• Z: [no ideas]

I can update this post with any replies that I get for it. We're thinking of NTR-related words here. That's all the information we really have besides the extending nozzle.

[Dr. Kerbal]

2 hours ago, Fullmetal Analyst said:

thats it? an unfinished engine and nothing more? visuals arent making a game interesting, when do we get to see anything about the promised new game mechanics?

You have a point. But nuclear engine have been a crucial part of KSP for as long they have existed.  So an essential part like this for SSTOs or efficient ships is a bonus to some if not most (including me). 

[intelliCom]

2 hours ago, Fullmetal Analyst said:

thats it? an unfinished engine and nothing more? visuals arent making a game interesting, when do we get to see anything about the promised new game mechanics?

It's not much, but they've basically been drip-feeding like this with show and tells every second friday for a while now. Just showing off new planet textures and so on. Were you expecting one of those in-depth 7+ minute episodes they were making on the development of the game? Those don't really have a schedule to them, and they take a while to make. For now, we should accept what we're given and be happy with it.

[mcwaffles2003]

1 hour ago, intelliCom said:

• K: [no ideas]

Kerbal?... :p

[intelliCom]

5 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Kerbal?... :p

That's a little on-the-nose. It's not exactly Kerbal-related either. I'd probably do that for some kind of "Kerbal storage", such as command pods and passenger bays.

What about an NTR would be "Kerbal" besides being Kerbal-built? Kerbal-powered? Kerbal-shaped?

[Pthigrivi]

Good info, folks.  From a gameplay standpoint it could be that nervas produce a small but noticeable level of radiation that early-stage habitation modules don’t shield from but later stage modules do to introduce players to the principal without much consequence, but later engines would be much more detrimental. Maybe kerbals with too much exposure turn pale like bleached coral and don’t perform as well. 

[minerbat]

What about NERD? Nuclear Extendable Rocket Drive

[Deddly]

I forgot the U in my earlier suggestion somehow... should have been:

Nuclear Engine with Retractable Vent and Oxygen Utilisation for Spacecraft

N.E.R.V.O.U.S.

I thought something felt wrong 

[Souptime]

again i think my switcharoo name was pretty good just sayin

[mattinoz]

5 hours ago, minerbat said:

What about NERD? Nuclear Extendable Rocket Drive

Why not just NER or NED?

or KERN - Kerbal Extendable Rocket Nuclear - "Putting the right space between things"

[Fullmetal Analyst]

12 hours ago, intelliCom said:

It's not much, but they've basically been drip-feeding like this with show and tells every second friday for a while now. Just showing off new planet textures and so on. Were you expecting one of those in-depth 7+ minute episodes they were making on the development of the game? Those don't really have a schedule to them, and they take a while to make. For now, we should accept what we're given and be happy with it.

with their oh so great funding and new publisher i just expected more than that every 2 weeks...

Edited June 26, 2021 by Fullmetal Analyst

[mcwaffles2003]

1 hour ago, Fullmetal Analyst said:

with their oh so great funding and new publisher i just expected more than that every 2 weeks...

To be fair, we weren't getting scheduled updates for the first year+ after announcement and the devs deciding to make them scheduled is very nice and they have every right to keep everything under wraps if they want. Regular updates on game development pre-launch like this certainly isn't the standard for the industry. That said, this weeks update seemed like an afterthought just to keep the every other friday thing going. Though, it seems semi confirmed now that multiple early fuels will exist with this posts reference to burning hydrogen and I believe prior threads mention of methane (someone make sure I'm right on that) so we've learned more than just what 1 engines early design and purpose is.

20 hours ago, The Aziz said:

there's only one kind of unknown fuel left.

Was it confirmed there will only be 3 different fuels in the game total? Or are you referencing the lack of an RP-1 equivalent?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Fullmetal Analyst said:

with their oh so great funding and new publisher i just expected more than that every 2 weeks...

This isn't an indie game (which lives by selling promises of future development goals) nor a fully fledged AAA title (which has half the budget dedicated to pumping the hype a decade before release). 

They probably have a tiny budget for marketing and have to spend it closer to release, these reveals are not part of that plan, they're probably just community management since this forum tends to go a little paranoid when left without news for too long.

 

Yep, I'd like to see everything they're working on, but that would require quite an amount of work that has to be done by someone that has to be paid detracting from the overall budget or from the actual development time.

All in all giving to the community manager some little internal things to show off seems to be a good way to fill the gaps that the slow pace of the marketing machine leaves back.

 

PS the publisher isn't new and hasn't changed since they bought KSP IP back in 2017 and commissioned the sequel.

[MechBFP]

2 hours ago, Fullmetal Analyst said:

with their oh so great funding and new publisher i just expected more than that every 2 weeks...

Well that is the problem right there, expecting something for nothing.

[The Physics Engineer]

13 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Maybe kerbals with too much exposure turn pale like bleached coral and don’t perform as well. 

This makes me think about Kerbal infirmaries (which I doubt will be in the game). We still haven't got any details on life support or any other possible game mechanics related to taking care of our Kerbals (besides the small greenhouses).

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, The Physics Engineer said:

This makes me think about Kerbal infirmaries (which I doubt will be in the game). We still haven't got any details on life support or any other possible game mechanics related to taking care of our Kerbals (besides the small greenhouses).

Just re-reading the bleached coral idea and it suddenly made me irrationally sad haha

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Was it confirmed there will only be 3 different fuels in the game total? Or are you referencing the lack of an RP-1 equivalent?

That (5 types) and a comment from Nate on page 2 that there are more than 4 types of fuel in the game and 2 that hadn't been revealed yet. Now we got LH so I suppose that leaves only one kind of fuel that is a mystery.

 

[cubinator]

On 6/25/2021 at 11:02 AM, Spaceman.Spiff said:

WOW! These look great!

Also, with a Kerb for scale, we can see that this is a BIG engine.

BIG engine for BIG fast 

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, The Aziz said:

That (5 types) and a comment from Nate on page 2 that there are more than 4 types of fuel in the game and 2 that hadn't been revealed yet. Now we got LH so I suppose that leaves only one kind of fuel that is a mystery.

 

One might be antimatter. Id have to reread the conversation but I thought LH was already accounted for and there were still two more after that?