Tweeker

I'm not saying over-haul the engines to make them hyper-real. I'm not advocating changes to any of the existing engines. {except the vector} What I am saying is that the changes you advocate would make the KSP engine less realistic. You want to be able to cluster engines as is done IRL. Which Is great, but the top of the engines are cut down too much. The engine can't be any shorter than the power head plus the gimbal. The top of the engine don't need to be any narrower than the width of the engine bell, otherwise you will part of the engine sticking out past the tank you are clustering it under. Or if it is an upper stage it will be sticking out of the side of the stack.

Nobody said that, Or that the engine is only intended for certain size tanks, But what I am saying is that the compact version of the Rhino, and Vector is too compact. The top of the compact version needs to be taller, and wider.

I understand where the throat is, thank you. The problem is in the term "tankbutt" I haven't ever seen that outside of KSP. I think it is more accurate to call the area above the powerhead, and the thrust structure. By call it "tankbutt" instead many people try to make the case that it is part of the tank, and therefore ok to remove. That is, however not the case, for a couple of reasons, First, In KSP the tanks do not protrude out of the ends of the second even on the Saturn's upper stage this isn't the case , The fuel tank ends about where the helium tanks are, Between the top of the engine and the bottom of the tank is the thrust structure (I apologize if I am being patronizing here , but people repeatedly insist that this are is fuel tank butt of the fuel tank.) If the skirt of the tank above extended to cover the end of the tank and the current Rhino, where a 2.5m engine it would approximate this stage very well. The new Rhino is taller, and might be even better, but the compact version is the cutoff at the powerhead, and does not include any provision for the thrust structure. or interconnects which would take up space above the engine. such as in the 2nd stage of the Saturn, The power head does not mount directly to the bottom of the tank. The vector, even the new one is even worse, the powerhead in the compact model is too short; The power head needs to be at least 33% taller, or It needs to be wider, or the power head needs to be offset to one side. As far as the rest of the engines rest of the engines go, I don't think a new art pass is needed, and I don't like the art I have seen. Some of the new engines seem a bit redundant, the 303 for example is almost exactly on top of the spark, thrust wise, It seems like the Isp will make it more space tuned, But still it is too close to the spark's niche. For a longtime this was my main complaint about the LV-T 30 & T 45. They where essentially snow clones of each other I am glad you are pushing the farther apart, and very glad that one of them is is being pushed up to the 300 kN range. I am not entirely sold on the LV-T 15, It makes sense that it is a fractional size of the other 2 engines, but the ISP wise the quoted stats are extremely bad. I am glad you are nerfing the Vector, it still needs to be nerfed more more, but it's getting closer to where it needs to be. I wish you would ditch the Twin Boar and Mammoth entirely, and replace them with a bi- and quad- adapter, and add more adapters as well, maybe a 5 way for Apollo type applications, I think having adapters that you could mount whichever engine you choose, would be much more versatile than having dedicated dual and quad engines. The poodle really needs a buff, it's main problem is the way it relates to the 2.5m parts, While the poodle can be viewed as basically a 4X version of the LV-909, the other the equivilant parts don't follow this trend,. The small fuel tank in the 2.5m range is 9X heavier, The capsule is 5X heavier, The lander can is the best of the bunch at being just over 4X heavier than the 1.25m version. The result of this is that it's TWR in a stack moves in a very granular way. If it was 50% -60% larger it would give you a lot finer adjustment. Buffing the LV-909s thrust will make the poodle shortcomings that much more obvious. Consider tweaking the poodle instead. One last thought I had while writing this, It would be fantastic if the engines could serve as size adapters like the J-2 in between the Saturn II and the Saturn IV-B stages. I would like that WAY more than having boattail/bare vesions of engines. And finally sorry for going on so much.

No, it is inconsistent Rockets are 1 way, and jets another. Because I don't fly aircraft I can ignore the way the jet engine are. Most of the rocket engine where fine as they were, and they were consistent, But now the vector, and now some of the new "compact" engines are changing this, for the worse. You are getting some rockets that have the thrust structure on them ,and some that don't.. The thing is the engines where consistent before the vector came along; they all had a thrust structure at the top Then because the space plane people wanted a real looking space shuttle we got the vector. So instead of consistency we get something that looks real, in one instance, (on the shuttle) and wrong in others, (when put on a rocket)

I am well aware of the problem with jets, And they need to be fixed too, However I rarely build planes, so it concerns me less . But using one wrong to justify another is,... wrong

The area above the throat in the "compact" version is much less than the real version. The full sized rhino could conceivable fit the power head under the fairing above the throat. There is not enough room of that machinery to exist in the compacted version. The pumps are both wider and tall than in the compacted version.

The thing is that the "compacted" versions, and the vector are part of the realism problem.

Those engine have a lot more above the "throat" than the "compact" versions do.

That's not what I want at all, that is infact my complaint, The vector assumes the machinery is tucked away inside the fuel tank, but the rest of the engines represent this machinery by having a structure above the throat of the nozzle. Changing the rear-plate of the shuttle in KSP to have recessed mounts would solve any problems, But instead they are doubling down, and adding the compact engines

Just because it is simplified, doesn't mean it is inaccurate. There is enough space under the tankbutt for the powerhead to exist, that is enough, just the suggestion that it is there. The compact version doesn't give that impression, and that is what makes it inaccurate.

The most basic level, I expect that the engines represent both the nozzle and the powerhead. Not cut every engine off at the throat, or slightly above. Reference the picture above. The outline at the center represents the area that the game should try to convey as being physically present. Is this hard to do? NO! every engine currently in the game, except the vector does this. The vector functions as a magic nozzle, the is no indication that any of pumps ect are present above the nozzle. Just stick it on, and thrust come out. Now with these new engines, especially the compact versions we are getting more in this mold.

The compact model deletes pretty much everything above the throat of the nozzle, Comparing it with the real J-2x on the right you can see there is lot of the powerhead that has been removed. Without this the nozzle isn't much good. Normally this is hidden, along with the mounting hardware behind a shroud, A lot of people on this forum have taken to calling this the tankbutt,, and insinuating because it is part of the tank (see the name) it should be removed from the engine, Many of the legacy KSP engines at least suggest that all this machinery is there tucked under a fairing, but the vector, and it looks like now the Rhino omit, or truncate the powerhead. At the risk of repeating myself, I doesn't look correct, For the machinery to be there it would have to be poking up into the fuel tank, or hidden inside the nozzle. The full sized Rhino has space space this machinery might be, but the compact one does not.

The Rhino is base on the j-2 However as you can see, The actual engine has much more machinery than the "compact" version, that's because the machinery is inside what you call the "Tank butt" It is an essential part of the engine. Hence why the "compact" version is a magic nozzle.

The Rhino is based on the J2

Spot-on, I've said this quite a few times.

The boat tail version is the closest to what we have now, the machinery is there, but hidden under a shroud, that also likely hides the supports that attach the engine to the tank. There is no magic nozzle in this case. The "compact" version often results in a magic nozzle, the vector is a prime example of this. Judging by the design sheet, the Rhino in compact form will become another magic nozzle. The vector in compact version does not cover machinery, it removes it. Even the new compact concept omits about 1/2 of the machinery, Hence it is a magic nozzle

So what you have to put down a base, then a nozzle? Why split engines into 2 parts?

The problem is in how the base vector relates to all the other engines, it is OP vs the whole of the 1.25m line, and OP in it's intended application. A better solution would have been to introduce a 2.5m SRB with ~2500kn thrust, and a vector in the 450 KN range. Then the vector is not so crazy OP vs the rest of the 1.25m engine, and large launches are not so reliant on the more expensive liquid fuel rockets, or large clusters of 1.25m SRBs

can't let it slide saying these new engines are accurate, the vector in particular, is nothing more that a magic nozzle, It omits the bulk of the turbo machinery that makes the engine actually work.

Believe me Regex, I've been down this road before. But for the benefit of others who may not have I'll go down it again, Having a shuttle analog in laudable, but There are several problem with the vector as a SSME 1) it is vastly OP for that purpose, It has to be to compensate for the underpowered SRBs, IRL the SSME has 1,850 Kn to the SRBs 12,000 Kn so the shuttles provides about 5500 KN of thrust to the 24,000 for the boosters, or about 1:6 In KSP the SRBs provide about 1200KNn at launch vs the shuttle's 2900KN or about 2.5:1 2) on the shuttle the machinery is recessed in the shuttle's rear, It would be better to have an engine with all the pumps ect, and a adapter that served as a shroud. Sure it looks right when it is put on the shuttle, but on anything else it is just wrong, And that's really the issue

I looked at it before I posted my statement, and again after. The vector is a SSME analogue, hard to argue agaist that, But the compact version omit much of the machinery The compact version has only about 1/2 of the pumps ect, and none of the mounting strurcture

The vector OMITS a lot of the machinery,

The problem with the compact design is it turns rockets into "magic nozzels" by omitting the turbo machinery and the support structure that hides under the boat-tail. The vector is a prime example of this.

What a complete waste of time, plus they are trying to sneak in magic nozzles.

Don't fall for it, It's a trick The 303 is redundant, it is only 2 KN off in thrust from the spark, "Boat tail" designs are not that much different from the existing designs, the "skirt " is just longer. The "compact" design is just a way to sneak in the magic nozzle school of thought. Instead of wasting time with this they could be adding the outer planets, or life support, or maybe some thermo-/arc/resisto- jet engines, or any other amount of actually new content,.