Rakaydos

Exactly. 2 different engine types, each one extremely specialized. Not one engine to rule them all. (and into the darkness fly them. )

A hypothetical massless engine? A better example of your point would be a pure electric propulsion, like a Quantum Thruster, with a MWR (including needed power sources) approaching 0... and an actually infinite ISP. But being a lifter engine isnt the problem. Being a high TWR lifter engine AND a high ISP space engine sounds awesome for moving high mass asteroids around! But then what do your other engines do? it's the same probem with the Rocomax 48, writ large.

There's still the matter of the existing underpowered engines, though. the 909, the Rocomax 55, and the Poodle. If we're going for niche-filling, how should we differentiate them? The 909 is an early lander engine, so it should both be middle of the road- able to poorly fill other niches by clustering, like the other lvl engines- and high ISP- to give newbies with landers more hover time on less fuel, in space or on kerbin. Call it, just enough thrust to lift an FL400+itself in kerbin gravity, a high ISP, with a so-so TWR and a high gimbal The Poodle is another high gimbal lander engine that is simply overshadowed by it's contemporaries. It should probably swap TWR with the Rocomax 48 probe engine and be specialized for vacuum- Aerospike being the atmo-specialized engine. The 55 is awkward- a radial engine too bulky to fit between boosters. I want to call it a radial aerospike- an efficent lander engine on any world.

I'd actually argue for an inversion- give the KR1x2 the mainsail+orangetank's stats completely, and making the mainsail the new super-skipper. The built in orange tank is less of a drawbacck for the more powerful engine stats, and this leaves the superskipper usable in upper stages with a bottom attach node.

If stealth is nonexistant and targets defenceless, it becomes very easy to predict how any given fight will turn out. Therefore, a superior force simply needs to show up and demand surrender. Space warfare would become formalized, a code of honor reinforced by practical matters of non-total war and stretched by the long wait times transfer orbits require. For the vs scenerion, though, I prefer Jovian system vs Asteroids. Jovians have jupiter-diving hydrogen collecters to fuel bulky fusion plants, while the asteroids have ready access to plentiful fissionables. and heavy metals.

Old parts cant single stage to laythe.

I have an existing design I put togeter for a carear mode file where I only was allowed horizontal takeoff. It is a horizontal takeoff, munar orbit, capsule landing design. The wings are discarded after the jets flameout. Does this violate the spirit of the contest?

On the other hand, you spawn big fuel tanks to refuel your rocket, right? Spawn some spare SRBs at the same time, and manually attach them, and you dont need to recover them. SRBs are dirt cheap anyway, according to VAB prices...

While personally my preference for engine clusters would be a "Shuttle engine" part and fancy cluster adaptors, I would like to see mods that bring the ISP/TWR curve of the new SLS parts in line with the others. (and perhaps fix the rocomax 48 and rocomax 55 while they're at it.)

Is there any good "engine rebalancing" mods to fix the nasa engines, the 55, and the rockomax probe?

This topic is going afield of why I broght it up. The balance of the engines is only one aspect to consider. If Gas Planet 2 and Gas Planet 3 are added in the outer system, it's going to be difficult to reach them. Making the SLS parts the standard for rebalancing them keeps those planets reachable, but buffing the other engines to match the SLS parts avoids filling the inventory with useless engines.

My biggest issue is that the SLS parts all have better ISPs than other engines. Engines with no bottom attach node in particular dont need spectacular vacuum ISP, as they are almost by definition launch engines. They can be heavy and use a lot of fuel for their massive amount of thrust, and it doesnt matter- there's a reason stack separators exist.

Which is why my suggesstion, in strting the other topic, is to rebalance the engines using the SLS parts (and the equally OP rockomax probe engine) as the baseline. "If everything is equally broken, nothing is broken."

Interstellar dust (or the containment device to keep intersteller dust out) gives all the mass the antimatter needs.

I got an asteriod that spawned inside kerbin's SoI, already orbiting (apoapse 500km from the edge of the SoI.)

Any thought on the comparison between the Skipper and a cluster of 3 or 4 LV45 engines? Even counting the adapter, the 3 cluster is nearly as powerful with a better ISP, and the 4 cluster is significantly more powerful (again better ISP), but less powerful than a mainsail and the rocomax quad adaptor doesnt unlock to late in the tree. LV30 clusters are a separate issue- 3x clusters are 5n less than a skipper, but lack the gimbal. 4x clusters are a high ISP booster for all our asparagusing needs.

I had an asteroid spawn with a 83,500km apoapse. Does that count?

Which will be interesting once they add biomes to the rest of the solar system. "Test Basic Jet in Jool lower atmosphere" could be a possible mission that people might spectacularly misinterpret.

With the costs associated with high tech guidance, often it's cheaper to use a "off the shelf" organic component. In WW2, america expirimented with training pigions to fly bombs into targets. Pidgens being natually better pilots than the Japaneese Zero kamikazis of the same war. Even modern technoligy has problems stopping inteligent, self propelled, socially camoflauged terrorist suicide bombers. Of course, the western world isnt big on throwing away people as part of consumable weapon systems. But the same concept applies to weapon platforms- any F22 could shoot down a dozen Predator drones with ease. And if theres one thing developing nations like india and china have, it's people- a self-sustaining resource.

Huh. apparently, Heavier Rocketry is an OR upgrade now, instead of an And one. I can now go from Rockomax probe engines straight to mainsails, without unlocking poodles or skippers at all.

I thought the difference between a skip and an aerobreak was whether your skip's apoapsis was over the atmosphere on not. If it goes out, it's an aerobreak, if you start coming back up, but stop within the atmpsphere it's a skip.

So, I've seen a lot of talk about the Rockomax probe engine and the SLS parts being overpowered engines, at the same time people are clamoring for outer solar system bodies- asteroid belts, Gas planet 2 and 3 (saturn and uranus equivs), and heliopause biomes. What would people think of buffing the other engines to SLS and Rockomax probe effectiveness? It would make all the existing targets easier to reach, even for newbies, but a new layer of harder objectives could make it worthwhile for the experienced players. (Asteroid Magic boulder in sub-moho solar orbit, outsystem gas planets, ect) Which engines are the most useless, and what aspects would you buff to bring them up to SLS and Rocomax usefullness?

The problem is, the shuttle style is an engineering nightmare. Both times the shuttle failed were do to the inherent problems of a laterally mounted payload section- Challanger had a large shockwave striking the entire length of the craft, instead of a small disk of a capsule, and Collumbia was killed by the foam from the External tank's fuel line striking a surface BELOW it. The center of mass issue is painful, and despite claims of reusability, over 75% of the vehical had to be replaced every mission.

Is it more efficent to mine on a low gravity world and fly it where it's needed, or mine it on laythe and use turbojets to get into orbit?

While the shuttle was a lousy design, I think the best way to make this work woud be to redesign the orbital ejection component. In three launches, the shuttle could put up 1) the CSM with a 10 ton hydrogen tank, 2) the LEM with 3 ten-ton tanks, and 3) 50 tons of ejection engine, fuel, and mounting points for the 4 other tanks.