PLEASE give the Rockomax radial engine some love!

[Frostiken]

I guess it's too late since .24 out, but this has been a long-standing horrible feature of the game for a long time. Put this in a hotfix or something for .24.1 or something, it's been driving me nuts forever.

1) The Radial engines are horribly inefficient. Not just a little bit, a lot of bit. There are few reasons to really ever use them except for aesthetics, and since they have the same TWR as a regular LV-TXX engine, there's no reason to use them 'just because' because their ISP is so tragic.

2) Their mounting... 'stut' that they come with looks hideous and never really looks good on rockets.

3) The texture is extremely low-res and is by far one of the ugliest in the game.

http://i.imgur.com/7hoRicM.png

Please show this engine some love.

[sickboy]

I could care less how they look, but I agree that they're very subpar engines and I've never found any reason to use them

[dryer_lint]

I agree. This engine is pretty cool, but the reasons you mention ruin it. Except for the third one, personally... I don't really have a problem with the texture.

[Frostiken]

I agree. This engine is pretty cool, but the reasons you mention ruin it. Except for the third one, personally... I don't really have a problem with the texture.

I only mentioned the texture because it's just so bad. It's a minor reason, but it's just one more reason why this engine is awful.

Also, there was a poll a while back on 'worst engine'. Guess which one won...

[Dispatcher]

3 Radial 55s mounted on a craft in the VAB have a combined thrust which falls between those of a single Skipper and a Poodle. The 55s, like the RAPIER, have the highest vectoring range (3). The mass of the 3 Radial 55s is 2.7 tons, which also falls between a Skipper and a Poodle. Unlike these, the Radial 55s do not generate an electric charge. The TWR of 3 Radial 55s also falls between those of a Skipper and a Poodle. 3 Radial 55s can lift over half the mass that a Skipper can lift from Kerbin (and half again as much as the Poodle can lift). The efficiency of 3 Radial 55s is ... between one each of these same engines.

The cost of 3 Radial 55s falls between, you guessed it, a Skipper and a Poodle.

An advantage of 3 or more Radial 55s is that they can be used as landing legs too.

If I'd have to choose between engines, I'd take some Radial 55s over the Poodle, when possible. Its also true that I prefer the Skipper over these other two engines, most of the time.

[Eric S]

At one time, the devs mentioned that they specifically didn't want radial engines to be able to directly compete against stack mounted engines to balance against the fact that adding more radial engines is easier than adding more stack mounted engines. I don't know if that is still the case.

[Frostiken]

3 Radial 55s mounted on a craft in the VAB have a combined thrust which falls between those of a single Skipper and a Poodle. The 55s, like the RAPIER, have the highest vectoring range (3). The mass of the 3 Radial 55s is 2.7 tons, which also falls between a Skipper and a Poodle. Unlike these, the Radial 55s do not generate an electric charge. The TWR of 3 Radial 55s also falls between those of a Skipper and a Poodle. 3 Radial 55s can lift over half the mass that a Skipper can lift from Kerbin (and half again as much as the Poodle can lift). The efficiency of 3 Radial 55s is ... between one each of these same engines.

The cost of 3 Radial 55s falls between, you guessed it, a Skipper and a Poodle.

An advantage of 3 or more Radial 55s is that they can be used as landing legs too.

If I'd have to choose between engines, I'd take some Radial 55s over the Poodle, when possible. Its also true that I prefer the Skipper over these other two engines, most of the time.

The Poodle is an upper stage engine, and has a far, far far far far superior specific impulse.

[Renegrade]

3 Radial 55s mounted on a craft in the VAB have a combined thrust which falls between those of a single Skipper and a Poodle. The 55s, like the RAPIER, have the highest vectoring range (3). The mass of the 3 Radial 55s is 2.7 tons, which also falls between a Skipper and a Poodle. Unlike these, the Radial 55s do not generate an electric charge. The TWR of 3 Radial 55s also falls between those of a Skipper and a Poodle. 3 Radial 55s can lift over half the mass that a Skipper can lift from Kerbin (and half again as much as the Poodle can lift). The efficiency of 3 Radial 55s is ... between one each of these same engines.

Eh? 2.7 tons does fall between a Skipper and Poodle...but a Skipper is 3 tons now, not 4, and it's 320-370 Isp.. the mass fractions should be very similar, and the (significantly) superior Isp of the Skipper should allow it to lift a lot more payload than the '55, since it should need less fuel for the same delta-v trip. Unless the masses involved a very low, but the advantage of the '55 in that case would be very narrow.

I'd personally love to see them upped to 300-310 sea level Isp and 340-360 vac Isp and the model spruced up a bit.

I try to avoid using engines as landing legs, as it's kinda bad form..and I'm also kinda addicted to it.

At one time, the devs mentioned that they specifically didn't want radial engines to be able to directly compete against stack mounted engines to balance against the fact that adding more radial engines is easier than adding more stack mounted engines. I don't know if that is still the case.

Yeah, I'm not sure if that still applies...it's not that hard to radially attach fuel tanks or cubic struts or whatever and run fuel lines to additional stack mounted engines.

Also they seem to have failed to apply that to the LV-1R, which is literally identical to the LV-1.

[LethalDose]

I think the Mk 55 could use some stat-love (maybe make it's ISP not quite so abysmal) but the model is cool, and I don't see a need for new textures until the game is "scope complete". I think the orange rockomax and "ant engines" are fine.

At one time, the devs mentioned that they specifically didn't want radial engines to be able to directly compete against stack mounted engines to balance against the fact that adding more radial engines is easier than adding more stack mounted engines. I don't know if that is still the case.

I agree with reasoning, and it makes sense. Radial engines just shouldn't be on-par with axial/stack engines because of how easy they are to use.

[UmbralRaptor]

3 Radial 55s mounted on a craft in the VAB have a combined thrust which falls between those of a single Skipper and a Poodle. The 55s, like the RAPIER, have the highest vectoring range (3). The mass of the 3 Radial 55s is 2.7 tons, which also falls between a Skipper and a Poodle. Unlike these, the Radial 55s do not generate an electric charge. The TWR of 3 Radial 55s also falls between those of a Skipper and a Poodle. 3 Radial 55s can lift over half the mass that a Skipper can lift from Kerbin (and half again as much as the Poodle can lift). The efficiency of 3 Radial 55s is ... between one each of these same engines.

The cost of 3 Radial 55s falls between, you guessed it, a Skipper and a Poodle.

An advantage of 3 or more Radial 55s is that they can be used as landing legs too.

If I'd have to choose between engines, I'd take some Radial 55s over the Poodle, when possible. Its also true that I prefer the Skipper over these other two engines, most of the time.

The Isp of the Mk 55 is lower than the Skipper. Or the Poodle if you're at least 1257 m above Kerbin's surface. Actually, with the Poodle TWR buff, it might be the better lifter despite that...

In 0.18 - 0.23.5, I think my preferred description for the Mk 55 was "Isp of a Mainsail, TWR of an LV-T45." (This is also why you shouldn't use them to augment thrust) The gimbal range is more of a toy than anything else, as the largest engine doesn't have TVC is... the LV-T30.

Career modes do little to help, considering that you get the generally better LV-T45 earlier, and the Mk 55 costs as much as the (also generally better) LV-T30, but you need to mount at least 2 for symmetry...

I would like to see it either made into a thrust augmenting engine (very high TWR and low cost, but otherwise poor stats), or the gimbal made useful (say, by upping it to 5+ degrees, and removing TVC from some of the larger engines).

Edited July 19, 2014 by UmbralRaptor

[Frostiken]

The gimbal range is more of a toy than anything else

Also consider the gimbal range isn't even a big deal: it's radial mounted, which means even if it had just 1* of gimbaling, it would exert more torque by simply being offset even if it were up against a single stack-mounted identical engine.