Having played KSP for quite some time, I've wondered about some of the stock parts, which seem to be almost entirely pointless to the game. Take the large aerodynamic nosecone for instance. It weighs quite a lot, and causes a fair amount of drag. I've stuck one on the top of a test rocket to use as an example: Pointing this baby straight at the sky will get you to a height of 363,642m. But looking at the other parts available, I think we can make something rather more efficient using structural parts and a smaller nosecone: This one is vastly more efficient - the structural part is waaay lighter than the nosecone. This reached a height of 420,037m. That's 56,000m higher for the sake of adding a 1 to your part count. So the question is, what's the point of an "aerodynamic nosecone" when it's much less aerodynamic that the structural part? But I'm not done yet - here's another idea based on the same principles. Take the Rockomax Skipper engine I had on that test rocket - it provides a thrust of 650kN and an ISP of 300-350. You can build a very similar rocket using three LV-T45 engines instead: In total, these will give you 600kN of thrust, so not quite as much as the skipper. But they have a higher ISP - 320-370. So they're a little more efficient. Using these, I got this rocket another 35,000m higher than with the Skippers. They don't have thrust vectoring, but if that's really important you can use the slightly smaller LV-T30s. Just a little thought experiment for you there folks - are there any other parts you never use, simply because there are much better alternatives?
