electric propellors

[JtPB]

it would be nice to fly an airplane probe at atmospheres that doesnt consist of oxygen. there will be at least 2 types of propellors:

large propellor: the one on top of helicopters, creates a tourqe that offends its rotation & spins the vessel if there's no contra-torque to resist it.

small propellor: the one on tails of the above helicopters & on non-jet planes. doesnt create contra torque.

there will be options to make them foldable and invert the rotation of the large one. they will be inefficient at low atmospheric pressure, that means high altitude.

there will be need for foldable wings as well for launching them to other planets...

[Tex_NL]

In other words you want the FireSpitter mod to become stock?

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm not sure how I feel about flying vehicles that have infinite endurance. You can already fly aircraft-style probes in non-oxygen atmospheres using rockets or ions.

[JtPB]

I'm not sure how I feel about flying vehicles that have infinite endurance. You can already fly aircraft-style probes in non-oxygen atmospheres using rockets or ions.

but rockets will ran out fast & ion take so much electricity. i suggested the disadvantages: they couldnt make much at high altitude & when theres no atmosphere, that means that they wont help you when you want to launch the vessel into orbit...

[Laie]

I'm not sure how I feel about flying vehicles that have infinite endurance.

Well, what I want is a reasonably quick way to move around on (or near) the surface of a planet. Rovers take ages, even on 4x physicswarp. Propellers would be one possible answer... even though I already see people employing them in an Eve SSTO. Better aerodynamics might help, too, if it means that rocket planes can be built to have a reasonable range. Or autonomous rovers, though that'd be another can of worms.

Of all these, propellers seem to be the least problematic to me.

[Francois424]

There is another post in here somewhere that suggested the same thing.

And obviously, I agree.

No need for the whole Firespitter, only an electric propeller, and a fuel one maybe depending where it is in the science tree. I only got ONE piece from firespitter and that's an electric prop. Works like a charm.

[Wanderfound]

I want the propellors, I don't care so much about the electric. Make 'em slowly burn LF, with a special advanced-tech option to burn LFO for use off Kerbin. I'd prefer that, actually; electric props aren't realistic [1] for anything bigger than a small drone, anyway.

The game has the ability to let us build all sorts of nifty planes and helicopters, and adding a couple of parts to enable that is not going to substantially weaken the focus on rocketry. Why not do it?

[1] Yes, I know, long-endurance solar powered planes exist. That is a very specialised edge case, and they have minimal ability to carry any payload or do anything useful apart from demonstrate technology.

[Nuke]

you can already make electric-intake air engines with stock modules. only thing you cant do is prop/rotor animations. firespitter has a module for that, but squad wouldn't need to do much to get it working, just a new animation module or expand upon an existing one.

[Capt Snuggler]

I understand the concerns some people have with electric propellers being over over powered. but there are a few ways they could be balanced, and they are rooted in reality.

props loose allot of thrust in thin atmosphere. they would be less powerful on Duna for example.

also they are susceptible to overheating and burning out if run at full throttle for too long or in hot environments like Eve (a kerbal could repair them)

[Wanderfound]

I understand the concerns some people have with electric propellers being over over powered. but there are a few ways they could be balanced, and they are rooted in reality. props loose allot of thrust in thin atmosphere. they would be less powerful on Duna for example.also they are susceptible to overheating and burning out if run at full throttle for too long or in hot environments like Eve (a kerbal could repair them)

The easiest way to prevent overpowered electric props is just to give them realistic power drain. Unless half the mass of your ship is batteries, they should exhaust the power supply in minutes.

[Red Iron Crown]

The easiest way to prevent overpowered electric props is just to give them realistic power drain. Unless half the mass of your ship is batteries, they should exhaust the power supply in minutes.

Electrical requirements are currently not that good for balancing as there need not be a mass penalty for the electrical system if it uses massless solar panels and batteries.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Unless half the mass of your ship is batteries, they should exhaust the power supply in minutes.

And unless radial batteries get changed so they're not physicsless, that is unfortuantely irrelevant. Don't forget, with physicsless solar panels and batteries, you can just keep on adding batteries at zero cost (except part count and aesthetics).

[Capt Snuggler]

Electrical requirements are currently not that good for balancing as there need not be a mass penalty for the electrical system if it uses massless solar panels and batteries.

I think its reasonable to think that massless parts will be corrected at some point.

[Wanderfound]

Electrical requirements are currently not that good for balancing as there need not be a mass penalty for the electrical system if it uses massless solar panels and batteries.

Yeah, I know. One of the first changes that I'd make if I was KSP dictator would be to get rid of massless batteries.

Batteries are heavy.

[Red Iron Crown]

I think its reasonable to think that massless parts will be corrected at some point.

I hope so. The trend seems to be the opposite though, heavier parts were added in the last update for which the simulation ignores mass (Vernor at 80kg, O-10 at 90kg).

[sal_vager]

Really, every part should have mass and not be physicsless, though Unity has issues with parts that are less then one game unit in size.

Might require another upscale to fix it, 2 meter Mk1 command pod anyone?

[Laie]

The easiest way to prevent overpowered electric props is just to give them realistic power drain. Unless half the mass of your ship is batteries, they should exhaust the power supply in minutes.

Not as long as we have the weightless OxStat. I really like your idea of fuel-powered propellers, though.

[Nemrav]

As in the previous thread about this, I'l mention that at around 0.14 there was work done on propellers... In addition to a bigger landing gear and airbrakes and cargo bays...

other plane things on chad's channel...

[chaos_forge]

Has anyone used the electric propellers from KAX? They start losing power at about 5km up on Kerbin, and consume an impressive amount of electricity, making them useful almost exclusively for small lightweight unmanned drones. I sent one to Eve and had tons of fun. If an electric propeller is added, that might be the right way to go.

[Nuke]

Really, every part should have mass and not be physicsless, though Unity has issues with parts that are less then one game unit in size.

Might require another upscale to fix it, 2 meter Mk1 command pod anyone?

another solution would be to add the mass of the physicsless parts to the mass of its parent. if you have a ton of batteries attached to a ton of tank, the tank would weigh 2 tons. in cases where a phyicsless part is attached to another physicsless part, the mass would propagate up the tree until it found a physics part and be added there. you could also do more advanced nitpicking and adjust the center of mass, moment of inertia, etc so that the parent's physics properties best describe the whole system of parts.