Tweeker

That is true, kind of. It is more like a 1.5 stage. it isn't the primary lifter however,.-- the SRBs are. Saturn had 35,000 KN of thrust in the first stage. The SLS should have 39,500 KN, but only ~7500 KN comes from the core stage that the mammoth is based on. To put it another way it has only about as much thrust as 1 of the F-1 engines on the Saturn 1st stage. .

Really its more than that, the parts are just plain mis-sized. The twin boar for example is suposed to be a "Pyrios" liquid booster. Which is supposed to replace the SRBs later in the design process. However, the kickback isn't even close to it in size or thrust. Each booster makes about 1.5-2x the thrust of the core stage. The kickback to mammoth thrust ratio is 1:6 it should be ~ 1.75:1 I haven't messed around with re-specing the mammoth, but I have re-balanced the vector and kickback to make a shuttle with more real world performance. The kickback back ended up being 2,500 Kn and the vector 425 Kn.

It's not just the upper stage engines that suffer from this. the Rhino, Mammoth, and Vector are all way OP vs their real life counterparts. The Mammoth for example should be a high efficiency second stage/sustainer ~1700KN with mid/high ISP. SRBs on the other hand are greatly under powered. The kickback for example should be a heavy lift brute, 2.5M with ~2500 KN

Slashy, For me one of the Poodle's big problems is it feels stuck in the middle between the 909 and the NERVA. It is not as tunable as the 909, because of the way it relates mass wise to the 2.5m fuel tanks. and capsules. this means it's delta/v and TWR moves in a very notchy manner. And it is not as efficient as the NERVA. For me Either one is a better choice..

Slashy, I really don't see any reason to spec a TWR of .5 for a transfer stage, except to knee-cap the NERVA or Terrier. By insisting on this requirement you force an extra 3 tonnes on the NERVA powered stage, and an extra 10,000$. The only time your going to have to worry about losing delta/v burning off angle is leaving LKO, and that is easily solved by making your departure in 2 or 3 burns. .

Slashy, You are not going to get the same TWRs from these 2 engines, The only way that would happen is to strap 3 NERVAS under this load, which *would* be a flawed comparison. The Delta/v are different because . the Poodle's delta/v moves in a very granular way. You can either have 2231 or 1686 m/s with this load. 1686 m/s is farther from the ~2000 you spec'd so 2231 it is. The NERVA can have either 2055 m/s or 2865 using only MK 1 fuel tanks. I could have gone with 2055m/s and de-fueled Poodle to get a similar delta/v, But that wouldn't be a realistic. You could say that the poodles extra fuel is spent circularizing, or you could adjust the tanks on the NERVA, which is what I elected to do. The closest you can get is 2070 m/s with 2 MK1 + 2 MK 0. this fits cleanly under the 2.5M load, but does not seem like a configuration that someone would naturally use. 1 + 8 gives you 2068m/s, too low. 1 + 9 gives you 2170 which is close, but putting 3 sets of 3 tanks on seems like someone might do it, but it you need to do it in 3 steps, and it looks a little odd . 1+10 ..gives you 2270, but there is no 5X symmetry, and putting on a row of 6 and a row of 4 doesn't really seem like a natural choice either. So I went with 1+12 which fits under the 2.5m load, and feels like a realistic choice. One thing I did not do was change out the 2.5 m de-coupler for a 1.25m one. This would be a natural choice but I didn't want to get side track into how 2.5 m are heavier, or be accused of stacking the deck for the NERVA.

I assume you mean the payload + Transfer stage weighs 50 tonnes. How much payload? How much delta/V?

Slashy, Operating around 2,000 m/s is on the low end of the scale for the NERVA, but even here you can see it's benefits over the Poodle. Consider the following 2 stages. Both pushing the same 9460 kg payload. The NERVA cost 9350 more, but the payload + transfer stage weighs 6,700 less, that's 26% less weight you have to lift to LKO. .Lifting that extra weight will eat up the funds you saved by using the Poodle. The same is true in swapping the Poodle for a Terrier. In this case you would gain ~130 m/s or about 6% more delta/v and save 910 funds. you also save 1.25 tones, or. 5% less weight to lift to LKO. IF your payload is a lander the terrier also serves there, meaning you can omit the descent engine from the paylod, for even more savings, in this case another 500 KG, which means more delta/v, If that is too much extra delta/v, you can cut the fuel in the transfer stage back to maintain the same ~2200 m/s from the example you end up with a mass to LKO that is 12% lighter, and costs 1,300 funds less. To me it seems you can always gain something or save by swapping out the Poodle. It maybe immediately obvious such as the delta/v saving or harder to see such as the weight savings, which compound down thru the booster stages.

I mostly play career. Well, for landers I define better as more delta/v, shorter/ wider construction for stability, and a lower TWR to facilitate finer throttle adjustments on landing. For transfer stages I define better as more Delta/v.for less weight I don't have a minimum TWR for transfer stages. The only reason you would worry about a higher TWR is impatience. The NERVA is often my choice in these stages. The engine costs more but it is cheaper to lift to orbit because the stage as a whole ends up being lighter,

I can agree that the Poodle deserves to be forgotten. But seriously, what do you use the Poodle for? In almost every case where you use a Poodle you can make the rocket better by swapping in a different engine.

You forgt one.... The Poodle.

Completely correct. The kickback should be ~2500 thrust with 6+ degrees of gimbal and 15,000 solid fuel The vector should be ~400 thrust With these changes it is so much easier to build a shuttle.

Well, if you don't want to do a contract you aren't forced to. But I think it is better to have it available for people who like these types of contracts, and anyone who doesn't can ignore or decline it.

Really? I enjoyed them, and I felt like they where a better example of things that you would do to advance your research than coing yet another crew report from the Mun

One possibility might be to give the "special engines" that won't have a compact design a 1.5-2X buff to compensate. for the fact that they wont be able to cluster.

There used to be Kerbin world's first contracts, such as fly above 5km, 10km, 30km, etc or fly faster than 300m/s. Wish they would bring those back

The width of the bell being the limiting factor on clustering is one reason I suggested, making the mounting point about the same width as the bell. That way the limiting factor is similar engine to engine, and also you have a good representation of the gimbal. In the course of this discussion it also occurred to me that giving the engine the ability at generate a faring above it. If this already matches the width of the bell all the better. As far as the aerospike, I'm not really sure where to class it, it is kind of an odd duck. I'm not really sure what engine the aerospike is based on, I always thought it was the j-2t derived from the Saturn j-2 engine. Of course the shuttle engine is descended from the J-2 too....... Clustering seems like it will amount to a de facto buff to most engines. I doubt anyone will be using single engines very much,

The problem is it's not significantly smaller than the Reliant, but it's thrust is, Also the aerospike is right there, just above it in thust. Maybe if you swapped it with the swivel? then you could have a progression thru the 1.25 range of Vac engines, Utility engines, Sustainer, Lifter.

Recessed mounting points would be a bad approach, recessing the mounting plane however would be better, or you could use the offset tool. it is not only physical changes that would have this effect, but also thrust/ISP changes. You will find that suddenly you rocket doesn't make orbit, or runs out od fuel coming back from Duna, or you probe need rebuilt because it doesn't function the same with Kerbnet, or that your rocket now flips out because of changes in how fuel transfers, Best just to shrug your shoulders and go on.

If you don't want to talk about it here, then don't talk about it. but since you bring it up again.... Once again I remind you that the changes to the vector are not the only changes being made. so whay is this one change any more heinous than they others? What I suggested was recessing the mouning plane, which is much better, and less restrictive. than your approach of putting mounting hole in the part, The fact that vector are surface attachable is all the more reason to change the mounting point, otherwise it's ower head will clip out of the sides of the fuel tank when it is clustered close to the edge. Changing all the other engine to mount like the vector is a terrible idea. you jumping thru 9 hoops to justify, and hide 1 problem. .

If you where so concerned about staying on topic you wouldn't keep comenting on it in the other topic. And why is that any worse than the other changes? Or do you just general oppose the engine revamp?

I think a lot of it depends on the player, I find a lot of times that I end up sticking to 1 or 2 engine now. I think part of it has to do with how carrer is setup up. you fall into a rut of building certain types of rockets, and progress along a path. even if you unlock a new engine it might be hard to use it well because you don't have the complentary pieces unlocked, or there are not complementary pieces. For example in the .625 realm. there is only the spark and the twitch. In addition there is only 1 size of fuel tank, so your part count is higher than it needs to be. The 1.25 m range is really over populated, more so with the proposed additions. I think it would be better if they changed the lv-303 to a .625m part, maybe a 2/9ths sized 909, call it a lv-202. and make the twitch more of a "heavy" lifter. with less isp. and the spark an midthrust sustainer. That would go along way towards making the .625 range more useable. The only other thin would be adding a couple of taller fuel tanks, and a small radial decoupler. I'm still not sold on the idea of the lv-t15 either It seems a bit redundant, you already have the aerospike pretty close to that thrust range, and now that it has a bottom mounting point there is no reason not to use it in stacks. I like the symmetry of having an LV engine at 100/200/300 thrust, but not enough to convince me the lv-t15 is a good idea.

If it is recessed there would be no extra length, so no problem with saves, and no problem with looks. If all the engine mount in the same way then there are a lot of options, such as the skipper which I mentioned earlier. If you don't want to talk about this here then don't. I posted in the other thread You're more than welcome to comment over there

By special request, I am commenting here on the vector, I say the vector needs to have its mounting point raised to the top of the power head, so it mounts in the same way as all he other engines, right now it is a special case engine, the only rocket engine in KSP that mounts at the throat of the nozzle. If rocket engine are getting a revamp it is the perfect time to fix this problem.