Would you want procedural engine nozzles in ksp 2?

[Ryaja]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

And as I've said before, that idea is completely and utterly useless in a world where the way an atmosphere works for an engine really is as simple as "use atmo engine if you plan on going inside the atmosphere".

You know how hard it is to escape Eve? With a optimized engine for Eve's atmosphere it would be much easier to escape.

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

You know how hard it is to escape Eve? With a optimized engine for Eve's atmosphere it would be much easier to escape.

Said engine will work better in all atmospheres regardless if it's Eve's or not. An atmosphere is a generic environment that does not change much from planet to planet; your idea is still pointless.

[t_v]

16 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Said engine will work better in all atmospheres regardless if it's Eve's or not. An atmosphere is a generic environment that does not change much from planet to planet; your idea is still pointless.

Can we get someone else in here to explain that this is not the case? A Jool- optimized engine is actually worse in Kerbin’s atmosphere than a Vacuum optimized engine. There’s a situation in which your “atmospheric” engine is worse than a vacuum engine within an atmosphere. What exactly are you debating? The fact that there is a gradient of atmospheric densities and having only two presets is not optimal? Or the question of whether it should be included? Because the second point is only subjective and it is fine to suggest things.

[Ryaja]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Said engine will work better in all atmospheres regardless if it's Eve's or not. An atmosphere is a generic environment that does not change much from planet to planet; your idea is still pointless.

Again, all atmospheres are different. Just because it works in one atmosphere does not mean it works in all atmospheres. For example, I cannot fly a rocket engine rated for sea level at Kerbin at sea level on Kerbol.

[Bej Kerman]

7 hours ago, Ryaja said:

Again, all atmospheres are different. Just because it works in one atmosphere does not mean it works in all atmospheres. For example, I cannot fly a rocket engine rated for sea level at Kerbin at sea level on Kerbol.

Literally nothing can exist on Kerbol. Come up with an actual example.

An atmosphere rated for atmospheres will work better on a planet than a vacuum rated engine regardless if the pressure is 0.1x or 10x that of Kerbin. Still a pointless, useless idea to make categorization any more complicated than that.

[Ryaja]

8 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Literally nothing can exist on Kerbol. Come up with an actual example.

An atmosphere rated for atmospheres will work better on a planet than a vacuum rated engine regardless if the pressure is 0.1x or 10x that of Kerbin. Still a pointless, useless idea to make categorization any more complicated than that.

With your logic I can use any atmospheric engine in the center of jool.

 

[Bej Kerman]

11 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

With your logic I can use any atmospheric engine in the center of jool.

I'm saying an atmospheric engine that barely works in the depths of Jool will still work better than a vacuum engine in the same situation.

[Ryaja]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

I'm saying an atmospheric engine that barely works in the depths of Jool will still work better than a vacuum engine in the same situation.

Yes, I am saying you start out using a basic Kerbin atmospheric engine but once you establish permanent residence on a planet you get engines optimized for its atmosphere(If it has one)

[Bej Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

Yes, I am saying you start out using a basic Kerbin atmospheric engine but once you establish permanent residence on a planet you get engines optimized for its atmosphere(If it has one)

if you optimize an engine for an atmosphere, it will work better in all atmospheres than a vacuum engine would, everywhere, period. What part of that am I not clearly communicating?

[t_v]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

if you optimize an engine for an atmosphere, it will work better in all atmospheres than a vacuum engine would, everywhere, period. What part of that am I not clearly communicating?

You are very clear, and very incorrect. A Jool-optimized engine will work worse in Duna's atmosphere than a vacuum optimized engine. There is an example for you. We completely understand you - and think that what you are saying is patently incorrect. use a NERV engine on Duna, you'll see that it essentially has vacuum ISP, while an atmosphere-optimized engine will perform about as poorly as it can. so, there's the concrete evidence that it is not "everywhere, period."

Another thing, these things work on a gradient, and there is no such thing as a vacuum optimized engine. They just don't exist, plain and simple. Every engine, even deep-space ion engines, are actually optimal for a certain amount of pressure, because a true vacuum optimized engine would have an infinitely large bell cone. At a certain point, like in Duna's atmosphere, the level of pressure that "vacuum optimized" engines have is closer to the atmospheric pressure than the "atmospheric optimized" engine. For example, in terms of multiplication, which one is closer to Mars' atmosphere (610 Pascals): something optimized for 110,000 pascals, or a "vacuum optimized" engine, which is optimized for 5 pascals at best (getting lower would mean a large and heavy engine cone). Well, one is 180 times the pressure, while the other is 1/122 times the pressure. This isn't an on/off switch sort of thing, and the range of pressures in the universe is so large that having only two options is essentially never going to work for most atmospheres. 

 

Lastly, I'll reiterate my question, why are you debating this? Even if an "atmospheric engine" always performs better than a "vacuum engine," why would it be so bad to have a slider or other non-binary choice? It wouldn't add any more clutter than the button you would have to have for those two options, it would give more control to the player, and it would reduce the work the devs would have to do per engine. Instead of determining two meaningful sets of values for every engine in the game, they could have the same slider system be applied to each engine and save themselves the work while giving the player more options at no expense. 

I'm not even particularly convinced that any switching needs to be in the game; I think that having restricted choices and areas where there are no parts to fill a niche means that players need to be creative with their solutions, but if this engine tweaking is implemented, it would be so much better to have a slider. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by t_v

[Ryaja]

On 6/4/2022 at 5:41 PM, Bej Kerman said:

 

Nvm

2 hours ago, t_v said:

I'm not even particularly convinced that any switching needs to be in the game

I think it would be a better addition if you had to do research on the planets to get and optimized engine for that planet.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Ryaja

[attosecond]

On 5/20/2022 at 6:40 PM, JadeOfMaar said:

where the solid fuel is pure alkali metal and the Oxidizer is a liquid

like this? 

 

[Bej Kerman]

18 hours ago, t_v said:

You are very clear, and very incorrect. A Jool-optimized engine will work worse in Duna's atmosphere than a vacuum optimized engine. There is an example for you. We completely understand you - and think that what you are saying is patently incorrect. use a NERV engine on Duna, you'll see that it essentially has vacuum ISP, while an atmosphere-optimized engine will perform about as poorly as it can. so, there's the concrete evidence that it is not "everywhere, period."

Duna's atmosphere is still essentially a vacuum. When the atmosphere actually begins to act as an atmosphere, vacuum engines stop working and you need atmospheric engines. I am still right. Either way, where's the necessity in labelling all the atmospheric engines as ones that work on Eve, Kerbin, Laythe, etc. and labelling the NERV as the engine that works on Duna, Ike, Mun, Moho, Bop, Pol, etc? I still maintain that the idea of needing to segregate engines by planet has 0 uses whatsoever.

[t_v]

43 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Duna's atmosphere is still essentially a vacuum. When the atmosphere actually begins to act as an atmosphere, vacuum engines stop working and you need atmospheric engines. I am still right. Either way, where's the necessity in labelling all the atmospheric engines as ones that work on Eve, Kerbin, Laythe, etc. and labelling the NERV as the engine that works on Duna, Ike, Mun, Moho, Bop, Pol, etc? I still maintain that the idea of needing to segregate engines by planet has 0 uses whatsoever.

Are you arguing with the nomenclature? Why? Nowhere was it said that the system you mentioned would be in place, where a list of planets where an engine works is the way it is labeled. To clarify: there would be a slider or other thing on which all of the planets would be shown with their respective atmospheric pressure. You would select the atmospheric pressure you want to optimize for. The only place that the planets come in is that they are shown to give a point of reference so that the player can tell that their engine will work well at Jool sea level or on Ovin without having to check an external chart of pressures or just estimate and then test it out a few times. Nothing to do with labeling engines. 

[pandaman]

Hmm.  Not for me. 

Two versions of the same basic engine (Raptor like),  maybe.  Vacuum or Atmospheric, and just maybe a mid point that's 'ok' for both, but as distinct parts, not options of the same engine/part.

 

[magnemoe]

Procedural sounds a bit like an overkill to me, having an surface an vacuum option for relevant engines would be nice. Having selected engines like aerospike have an high pressure optimization for high pressure would be nice if even needed for them.

Now one engine who was shown was an larger nuclear thermal engine with an retractable vacuum nozzle so it can be used both in atmosphere and in vacuum. 
It also had the option to inject oxidizer into the hot fuel flow as an afterburner effect. Yes this is mostly intended for atmospheric use but it would also be very nice then dropped from Mun orbit down to LKO for the Jool injection burn. 

And it an engine who is easy to refuel at another star system. Splitting water is easy compared to other more advanced engines like pulse nuclear,fusion or metallic hydrogen.

[JadeOfMaar]

5 hours ago, attosecond said:

like this? 

Absolutely.

[mcwaffles2003]

On 6/4/2022 at 7:54 PM, Ryaja said:

You know how hard it is to escape Eve? With a optimized engine for Eve's atmosphere it would be much easier to escape.

That's what aerospikes are for. In planetary atmospheres with unusually high surface pressures bell nozzles become inefficient and aerosols just keep getting better. Fate just has it for us on earth that they're practical enough to be interesting but still less efficient in the long run to be ultimately useful. 

[Ryaja]

4 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

That's what aerospikes are for. In planetary atmospheres with unusually high surface pressures bell nozzles become inefficient and aerosols just keep getting better. Fate just has it for us on earth that they're practical enough to be interesting but still less efficient in the long run to be ultimately useful. 

Yes, but a specialized bell nozzle is better for metallic hydrogen, it is easier to cool.

[mcwaffles2003]

13 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

Yes, but a specialized bell nozzle is better for metallic hydrogen, it is easier to cool

Technically, but if we're going to talk practically we'll have to dive into things like chamber pressure because in really dense atmospheres nozzles matter less and less while over expanded nozzles are more easily shattered from flow separation. 

 

Basically, you have to shed the booster quicker in more dense atmo anyways and go to more vacuum optimized anyway

Edited June 7, 2022 by mcwaffles2003