Do you think Squad should leave the Round8 Toroidal Tank alone?

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

OH HELL NAW

I want my toroidal fuel tank back. Seriously, half my probes use the thing.

[Tweety]

Well I'm now going to be pulling that part out of my config and saving it in a safe place if they are going to ditch it. I find it so damn useful, I pretty much always clip a couple into my craft somewhere so I've got a 'oh crap I need more fuel' buffer!

Tweety

[Norcalplanner]

Never used it. Not even once. FLT-100 is as small as I ever go in stock KSP. Now that I'm finally getting into small tanks in RO, procedural tanks are where it's at.

[Twreed87]

Hard to misinterpret this post from HarvesteR in this week's devnotes thread:

Yeah, never saw that. That seems silly. First of all, redundant except for design? Design is a pretty big deal in this game, it's not something to dismiss. And secondly, what's the harm in having an extra part? I know that massive part counts, like with a lot of mods installed, can lead to longer load times, but a single extra part seems like very little harm. There's really no reason not to have both.

[Daze]

Ok, say that is not correct to remove that LF/O Tank (and i'm with you), but please please and please do not say that "is only useful if you enjoy waiting for hour long burns" because if you are in this position you are using it wrong

[MiniMatt]

Whilst I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, I do consider the loss of an LF+O little golden toroidal a shame.

It's such a useful little part for probes and light landers. Great for easily adding a little more DV to Mun landers, as an aesthetically pleasing adapter between 1.25m & 0.625m parts and for adding visual variety to some of the most used crafts in any save file.

Assuming (quite possibly, dangerously) that ion engines won't be any more powerful in 1.0 I'd also question the practical need for a larger xenon tank (though more choice remains a good thing). An LF+O toroidal on a lightweight ant powered probe might add ~500dv, ensuring the LF+O toroidal is often in the mix of possible design choices. As a xenon tank, guessing it'll have larger capacity than the existing 0.625m & radial tanks, it's possibly going to add another 5,000dv or so to a lightweight probe which may already easily have 3,000dv.

Lack of xenon gas is rarely top of the design challenges in ion powered craft, whereas lack of rocket fuel is frequently a foremost consideration in LF+O fueled probes and light landers.

[Majorjim!]

Why not both?

One has LF/O

One has Xenon

This. Why not just change the texture??

[Brotoro]

I am very much against removing the Round8 LFO tank (or the Oscar-B tank). They are both very useful.

I am ALSO in favor of an inline 1.25 Xenon tank... but why can't Squad just make a new model for that? Have they painted themselves into a corner by aiming for a too-soon 1.0 release that they can't take the time to make a new tank? If so, just use an old tank model and change the color. I favor blue for Xenon.

[ShadowZone]

I started a Round 8 memorial thread where you can post your designs using this little gem of a part.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115633-The-ROUND8-memorial-thread

[Fel]

It is a 1 second change from Xenon to LFO... why, should I release a mod that consists of a single config file to make this change? Or use module manager to make the simple change?

Heck, I know that, at one point, I attached an engine to that tank's config, increased the scale a bit, and made some "anti-gravity pads" as I termed them. (It was initially suppose to be some kind of "cushion" for hover tanks but it never panned out)

And a major NO on procedural parts. If we had procedural tanks, we would NEVER have had a Round8 Toroidal Tank. We would just have a single generic tank which we would drag around and get bored of very quickly.

[Superfluous J]

And a major NO on procedural parts. If we had procedural tanks, we would NEVER have had a Round8 Toroidal Tank. We would just have a single generic tank which we would drag around and get bored of very quickly.

Unless there was a procedural toroidal tank. Then you'd get bored of *2* tanks quickly.

And the rest of us would have even more options.

[Merinsan]

I'm not fused by them removing it, however I think it's kind of a mistake. There should be no reason not to add a new tank (except memory usage). If memory usage is the problem, good luck with mods come 1.0.

[Fel]

Unless there was a procedural toroidal tank. Then you'd get bored of *2* tanks quickly.

And the rest of us would have even less options.

Fixed.

If you want them, download the mod, but it doesn't replace the need for TRUE artwork; it only makes it easier to reduce part count.

[Columbia]

Well.. if nothing's going to change, then I'm going to grab my own Torodial Tank, back it up - along with other parts that will go obsolete - and compile it as a mod.

It's the only thing we can do.

[Torham234]

I still can't believe that Squad hasn't adopted toggle-able tanks like in B9 so we can choose what we want in a tank. It is such a no brainer, solves so many problems and essentially multiplies the usefulness of the stock parts inventory while decreasing the actual number of parts needed. No more need for Jet fuel tanks and rocket tanks and mono tanks. Just tanks.

What puzzles me is that exactly this feature was in the Planned features for Years. I was fully expecting this feature in the full game, since they must have been planning for it since the early stages of development.

[MiniMatt]

Lack of xenon gas is rarely top of the design challenges in ion powered craft, whereas lack of rocket fuel is frequently a foremost consideration in LF+O fueled probes and light landers.

To illustrate this point, I cracked open that tool of the professionals, MS-Paint:

A typical example of where ion engines may be used, or where the round-8 tank in it's current LF+O configuration may be used - ~half ton probes.

The ant powered probe carries a single round-8 tank and two oscar-b tanks. The round-8 is holding roughly half the total fuel load. Massing 501kg this probe has 1838 vacuum delta-v.

The ion powered probe carries a single PB-X150 tank. Massing 635kg this probe has 4817 vacuum delta-v. The ion probe is not hurting for lack of larger xenon tanks.

Now sure, the ion engine doesn't have any larger tanks to move up to should it be needed, and sure that can be addressed, but I'd argue the instances where larger tanks become really necessary (over and above merely adding an extra PB-X150 or X150R) are, outside ultra-lightweight grand system tours, few and far between.

Meanwhile, the ant probe can move up to full size 1.25m tanks should extra DV be required, but to do so often ruins the aesthetic of 0.625m probes. Slapping on another round-8 will often get you the extra ~500 or so DV you may need whilst keeping an attractive visual style.

[h4didact]

Don't worry guys! Everything is fine. All you guys gotta do is change the ROUND8 parts for the Oscar parts. Check this out:

I built this a while ago. It lands and goes back to orbit in almost every body in the solar system:

You see, it uses 6 ROUND8 tanks, stacked and hidden (I didn't use any clipping). This is it assembled:

This is it in "real life":

Now the best part! If you convert to Oscar parts, it looks even more awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHECK THIS OUT:

But even better! It carries 25.5% less fuel, as the Oscar tank has 57% the capacity of the ROUND8!!!! Which means it will not be able to go back to orbit anymore!

[Seshins]

I voted keep it as it is. I could work around it for probe and lander design, but would much rather keep it a LFO tank.

[h4didact]

SQUAD here is what I THINK you should do:

Keep both tanks (ROUND8 and Oscar) the way they are. Both are great for small craft design. These two parts are AWESOME.

Clone the ROUND8, change the color a little (blueish would be good), call it "Xenon Whatever". BOOOM now you have THREE awesome parts instead of TWO.

Seriously. Small craft designs will be rubish without ROUND8 (and Oscar too). Just add one more part, dudes. It's such a small detail for you guys but for me.... IT's MY LIFE.

[ShadowZone]

Don't worry guys! Everything is fine. All you guys gotta do is change the ROUND8 parts for the Oscar parts. Check this out:

I built this a while ago. It lands and goes back to orbit in almost every body in the solar system:

http://i.imgur.com/DJajCRv.png?1

You see, it uses 6 ROUND8 tanks, stacked and hidden (I didn't use any clipping). This is it assembled:

http://i.imgur.com/EhFbtDq.png?1

This is it in "real life":

http://i.imgur.com/x0KwrcN.png?1

Now the best part! If you convert to Oscar parts, it looks even more awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHECK THIS OUT:

http://i.imgur.com/PLu7KY5.png?1

But even better! It carries 25.5% less fuel, as the Oscar tank has 57% the capacity of the ROUND8!!!! Which means it will not be able to go back to orbit anymore!

Thank you! A more valid point has rarely been made.

[eddiew]

Why not both?

That right there... This tank is a lovely decorative item, it would be nice to have it as an option for all fuel types

[Fel]

SQUAD here is what I THINK you should do:

Keep both tanks (ROUND8 and Oscar) the way they are. Both are great for small craft design. These two parts are AWESOME.

Clone the ROUND8, change the color a little (blueish would be good), call it "Xenon Whatever". BOOOM now you have THREE awesome parts instead of TWO.

Seriously. Small craft designs will be rubish without ROUND8 (and Oscar too). Just add one more part, dudes. It's such a small detail for you guys but for me.... IT's MY LIFE.

I always like more parts but....

What puzzles me is that exactly this feature was in the Planned features for Years. I was fully expecting this feature in the full game, since they must have been planning for it since the early stages of development.

Yeah. The idea of dynamically changing the fuel is built straight into the engine; the only thing that is missing is the GUI. If we are direly in need of a toroidal xenon tank, what about adding in a whole set of xenon tanks that would, potentially, give a most insane deltav.

And that WAS bloody planned... and it is simple enough for them to add.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Fel

[Rath]

Make a diffrent version with XE but colour it the same foil colour as the inline XE tank and keep the ROUND-8.

[Streetwind]

I think my post in the devnotes thread covers my opinion adequately.

Sorry, am on mobile right now so no linking.

Basically:

Convert the Oscar instead. But even better, ask Nertea for a 1.25m xenon tank.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Streetwind
Eff you autocorrect

[Capt Snuggler]

Make a diffrent version with XE but colour it the same foil colour as the inline XE tank and keep the ROUND-8.

get out of my brain!

Over all converting the Round-8 to Xe is a loss. Better to duplicate the model and change the texture to silver to look Xenony.

I'm in favor of a full light-weight fragile foil LFO tank set similar to the round-8. would be great for interplanetary transfer craft operating safely above the atmosphere.

more parts! more parts! more parts!...