Parts I Never Use

[cantab]

Responses to common parts:

Micronode - I used it as the centre of a probe rover so I'd have an easy attachment point. But now we have the reroot tool that's less needed. Still, you can use them to play Tetris If they weren't so heavy I'd use them more I think.

Ant - Good for small probes where even a Spark is too heavy. Though last time I used it I got fed up of the burn times and switched the later copies of the same probe to the Spark.

Inline and Mk2 docking ports - I use FAR, which will make an external docking port affect the aerodynamics for sure.

Stack Separators - plenty of cases where you need to split a ship in two and use both pieces.

Mk55 Thud engine - I used this on my Serran landers. One Swivel would make the lander too tall, two Swivels would have been massive overkill and excess weight, the 909 performs badly in atmosphere, and a Spark cluster would have been tons of parts. The pair of Thuds was the best option. Plus the huge gimbal range was reassuring when ascending through a poorly-understood atmosphere.

Now as for my nominations:

Both Canards. I just rarely if ever use these, I prefer the look of the AV-R8 fin.

Poodle. For my orbital spacecraft it's just overkill, I'll use the 909 if I'm not going nuclear. As an upper stage for a launcher I might consider the Poodle, but I'll probably end up going with the Swivel instead, it's lighter. The new stock fairings let me shroud 1.25m engines in a 2.5m stack fine.

[Coyote27]

Poodle. For my orbital spacecraft it's just overkill, I'll use the 909 if I'm not going nuclear. As an upper stage for a launcher I might consider the Poodle, but I'll probably end up going with the Swivel instead, it's lighter. The new stock fairings let me shroud 1.25m engines in a 2.5m stack fine.

I use the Poodle myself merely because it's the best upper-stage engine in 2.5m size. If the 909 had an option for a 2.5m engine fairing I'd choose that at least half the time, but as it is I'd rather use an engine that fits the craft than one that's a little better but doesn't. And yes, the stock fairings exist, but they're a hassle - especially since we can't start an engine inside the fairing at the same time that the fairing is deployed. Maybe that's a really petty nitpick, but it aggravates me.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Coyote27

[Sharpy]

- I concur on the Not-Rockomax Micronode - and for that matter the Rockomax node too. It doesn't really do anything that some other part doesn't do just as well, and it weighs significantly more than things like the cubic strut.

They are good for weird constructions like rover-bases or space stations. Not for ships.

Oh, I used the Rockomax node for a lifter, central point where payload attaches.

- Stack separators of any kind. The only thing they do that a stack decoupler doesn't is detach radially-attached parts, which I find counterproductive more often than useful.

I use them quite frequently when I send a batch of probes. I can stack a bunch of probes on top of each other. Generally, any bulk payload of a number of similar items. Also, the large separator instead of the Rockomax decoupler which is about 5 times thicker.

Oh, and fun projects like a cluster bomb or fireworks. Things radially attached to a separator get cleanly separated too.

- The Skipper engine. Its size, TWR, and efficiency are all too "average" and can be beaten either by a small cluster of Size 1 engines or a single Mainsail.

It fits a very narrow niche for things too heavy for Reliant/Aerospike/LV-N and not heavy enough for Mainsail - which is simply considerably heavier. But that's such a narrow niche almost nothing fits there.

- Those lousy white radial engines. The idea of radial engine attachment is great, but the implementation is inferior to simply using a nose cone and a regular engine in pretty much every way.

- some landers, especially early in the game.

- when Vernors don't cut it. For stabilizing, setting upright, flipping upside down heavy things.

Place-Anywhere 7 Linear RCS Port

It can burn one direction only so I’d rather use RV-105 Thruster Block, or Vernors when I need higher thrust.

One block and one port provide as much control authority as two blocks in about half the drag and weight. Four blocks and four ports provide a full RCS setup of all translations and rotations. You'd need 8 blocks if you give up the ports.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Sharpy

[problemecium]

I'm all over the structural pylon - it's the only radial decoupler that doesn't leave an ugly little nub on the parent part.

Unfortunately it's rather expensive and heavy for what it does, but the only places I ever find a need to use it are on huge motherships and station cores where a few hundred extra funds and kilograms are drops in the proverbial bucket.

[Superfluous J]

I'm all over the structural pylon - it's the only radial decoupler that doesn't leave an ugly little nub on the parent part.

F5/F9 and those nubs vanish.

[MaxwellsDemon]

I think it's obvious that there's a variety of building styles... some parts that some people never use, others use all the time. To cite examples from this thread, I'm a regular user of the "Ant" and "Skipper" engines when appropriate, and I find the "Thud" a good way to boost up just bit more thrust without going all the way up to a larger central engine, as well as a choice for the ascent stage of a lander that I want to keep lower in profile.

I've used the I-beams as ways to increase a rover's wheelbase and therefore stability, and also on orbital tugs as a way to position RCS thrusters near the combined COM.

Probably I only have lists of parts I "haven't used yet," rather than ones I'd "never use."

I haven't solved the mysteries of the Launch Escape System yet. I'd like to use it, but I haven't been able to figure out how to A) use it when needed or to effectively jettison it when I no longer need it.

I have to admit that I'm baffled as to what the cubic micronode is for.

[Red Iron Crown]

My list changes from time to time, but here's the current one:

The airliner parts, all of them. I build my planes to go to space, 1200K of heat tolerance is not enough (at least the way I fly). A shame since the control surface and tail are quite nice looking.

The Shuttle tail. Too big for a tail for my designs, looks bad when used elsewhere.

The basic jet engine. Also useless for spaceplanes.

Mk2, Mk3 and 2.5m monoprop tanks. I never need that much.

Radiators. Nothing produces enough heat to require them, and I figured out how to make explosion resistant LV-N powered craft without them so they're superfluous for me. Maybe if I make a sundiver or something.

The short Mk3 payload bay. If I'm building a Mk3 vessel it needs more room for cargo than this, and I never seem to want to add so little (the middle sized one gets used occasionally).

The 2.5m nosecone. I don't like the way this one looks, so if I need to cap a 2.5m stack I'll use a fueled or structural adapter and a 1.25m nosecone.

The 1.25m fairing base. Pretty rare for me to make a rocket with a 1.25m core stage, and when I do it usually doesn't need a fairing. I think I've used this one once, when making an ASAT missile.

The Flea and Hammer SRBs. Not enough propellant for the types of rocket I build. Though I did use a hammer for the aforementioned ASAT missile.

Probe cores other than the Remote Guidance Units, the Mk2 Probe Core, and the HECS. Most of my stuff is crewed anyway.

Fuel cells. KSP is in many ways a game about managing mass, I do not trade massful fuel for massless electricity.

I haven't solved the mysteries of the Launch Escape System yet. I'd like to use it, but I haven't been able to figure out how to A) use it when needed or to effectively jettison it when I no longer need it.

The classic method to use it is to have the pod decoupler and the LES itself assigned to an action group, usually Abort. Trigger the group and the pod is flung away forcefully.

As for jettisoning it, an upside down decoupler between the LES and pod works nicely, trigger both in a stage at the appropriate time and the LES disposes of itself.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Red Iron Crown

[_stilgar_]

Radiators. Nothing produces enough heat to require them, and I figured out how to make explosion resistant LV-N powered craft without them so they're superfluous for me. Maybe if I make a sundiver or something.

The Flea and Hammer SRBs. Not enough propellant for the types of rocket I build. Though I did use a hammer for the aforementioned ASAT missile.

Twin Boars make enough heat if you fly them to orbit on max thrust (if they get fuel from other tanks )

And Fleas are excellent as larger separatrons for giant boosters

You can see both things here:

(fleas at 1:50, twin boars as a part of interplanetary stage at 3:30 - running constantly from the launch)

[Renegrade]

Fuel cells. KSP is in many ways a game about managing mass, I do not trade massful fuel for massless electricity.

One thing I'd like to add here is that I feel those come way too late in the tech tree (for career, obviously). I'd personally prefer to see them appearing earlier, so players would have to play Apollo-style for while. (Well, and batteries should be even sooner in the tree, but that's been a pet peeve of mine since forever and a half. Maybe I should update my Horrible Nerf to 1.0.x)

[MaxwellsDemon]

The classic method to use it is to have the pod decoupler and the LES itself assigned to an action group, usually Abort. Trigger the group and the pod is flung away forcefully.

As for jettisoning it, an upside down decoupler between the LES and pod works nicely, trigger both in a stage at the appropriate time and the LES disposes of itself.

I haven't really delved into Action Groups yet; I usually just depend on the staging sequence. I should look into that.

The last time I tried a decoupler with the LES, I ended up with a "tube" remnant from the decoupler blocking my docking port At that point, I gave up fiddling with it, reasoning that anything I'd abort for I'd likely revert instead anyway... though perhaps the inverted orientation would prevent that specific result. I'll give it a go.

[Superfluous J]

One thing I'd like to add here is that I feel those come way too late in the tech tree (for career, obviously). I'd personally prefer to see them appearing earlier, so players would have to play Apollo-style for while. (Well, and batteries should be even sooner in the tree, but that's been a pet peeve of mine since forever and a half. Maybe I should update my Horrible Nerf to 1.0.x)

Yeah if you started with a fuel cell and didn't see Solar for another tier or even two, then I'd use them. But really their main purpose it seems is as an ISRU electricity source. Use some of the fuel you're pulling out of the ground to keep your drills running all night.

[MaxwellsDemon]

Yeah if you started with a fuel cell and didn't see Solar for another tier or even two, then I'd use them. But really their main purpose it seems is as an ISRU electricity source. Use some of the fuel you're pulling out of the ground to keep your drills running all night.

See, that's a classic example of why the variety of parts is good... what's useless to one is useful to another!

[cantab]

Unless you only ever play Sandbox you're probably gonna use the Flea at least once. But I'll grant that is pretty much it. I have made launchers that use the RT-10 well though, although it's a bit rarer that I don't want the extra power and fuel from the BACC. Maybe it should be rebalanced as an upper stage SRB, with modest thrust (but enough to get the starter pod into the air in career) but good Isp.

Regarding non-use of the Launch Escape System by people who just click revert: wimps I swear by ironman mode, no reverts or quickloads except in response to blatant game bugs. With that I need some sort of abort plan unless I want to kill my Kerbals. (Though I'll admit shutting everything else down and powering clear with the final stage engine works OK most of the time.)

[Superfluous J]

Regarding non-use of the Launch Escape System by people who just click revert: wimps I swear by ironman mode, no reverts or quickloads except in response to blatant game bugs. With that I need some sort of abort plan unless I want to kill my Kerbals. (Though I'll admit shutting everything else down and powering clear with the final stage engine works OK most of the time.)

I'll admit to reverting a lot but that's during testing. If the actual launch fails, I do one of 2 things:

1) Calmly throttle down, separate the return stage from the rest of the rocket, burn it clear, and hit the chutes.

2) Freak out, mash spacebar like I'm keeping time for a dubstep track, and hope everybody's okay when the smoke clears.

[Nich]

Ion craft just are not feasible outside dres without power cells. Believe me I hate trading mass fuel for massless electricty drives me nuts but RGTs and Batteries required are so heave that power cells are required

[MaxwellsDemon]

:: shrug :: Revert's an option for a reason. If you choose not to use it, it's up to you; for my part, I play for enjoyment, and I wouldn't enjoy that constraint.

[Nori]

I wish the fuelcell used water and split it into oxidizer and LH2 (I know it wouldn't be liquid for real) and then maybe have some LH2 engines, or just allow dumping the resources.

The smaller one is pretty light so I frequently include it on ships as a emergency backup.

On to parts I don't use.

This is tough because I rebalance stock parts to make them useful.

For instance, the Thud. It's primary issue is that it has less ISP than even much larger engines (the skipper for instance). I'm of the mind that adding a high gimbal range should increase mass, not decrease ISP.

In any case I changed it's max ISP to 325 now. So it actually has some use. Without that change I would occasionally use it on early stages to provide more vector control.

Basic Jet is only useful until you get the Whiplash.

Ant isn't very useful. Don't recall having ever used it. The radial version is marginally useful.

Outside of really early career rockets I rarely use the LV-T30/T45. They are just so large and are either way to little or way too much thrust.

Any of the smaller SRBs are pretty worthless outside of early on.

Most of the probe cores are redundant. I generally only use one or two of them.

The MK1 Cockpit looks cool, but it masses more than the MK1 Inline, so I never use it. Don't love MK1 plane parts anyway, but you need them early.

The rover body is nifty, but always is too small for what I am trying to do.

Structural parts are a mixed bag. I think they are generally too heavy for what they do. For instance, the Modular Girder Segment is 125x more massive than the Cubic Octagonal Strut. Now the Strut is probably too light, but still. Anyway, I would say I use most of the structural parts even the I-Beams occasionally.

Haven't had to use the Thermal parts yet. Though I did make a ship with a Atomic Age RTG rocket and I could only burn about 450 Deltav before getting hot, so I wish I had put a panel or two.

I'm sure I'll need them at some point.

Don't use the big decouplers (radial or otherwise). Always more weight efficient to use smaller ones with struts.

I feel like the Telus-LV is better than any of the other ladders by a long shot.

Don't use the LES, or the Linear RCS. Don't use inline docking ports or the shielded one either.

[JetJaguar]

I play ironman-style and set up my abort action group and all that, and I never use the LES, either. I generally set up the abort to ignite the final stage's engine, shut down all others, and decouple everything but the capsule from it's engine. That will get the crew away, then I can figure out what to do from there. Mostly I don't use the LES because I'd rather use that location for something else.

I also never use radiators because I've never seen a need for them. Perhaps if the thermal model were changed so that components that consumed power also generated waste heat that had to be dealt with, as in real life, then they would have a use.

[BlueCanary]

Basic Jet is only useful until you get the Whiplash.

The MK1 Cockpit looks cool, but it masses more than the MK1 Inline, so I never use it. Don't love MK1 plane parts anyway, but you need them early.

.

Looks like this will all change with 1.1 though, basic jet is becoming (I think) a very efficient subsonic only jet good for long range cruising with a much better TWR than it has now, and maybe with it's redesign the Mk1 cockpit will get rebalanced too.

[Alshain]

Going through the process of building another splaceplane, I got to thinking, "Which one of these parts do I never use, and why?" Some of these parts I have literally never used once, and others I used, only to decide I would never use them again. Now, we all play the game differently (that's part of what makes it such a great game), so I may be off-base here, so I'd like other people's opinions.

So following is my list of parts I never use, and why. Maybe Squad can take this into account for future versions, if there is some agreement that we just never use some parts.

Mk2 and Mk3 Monopropellant tanks

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/6/69/Mk2_Monopropellant_Tank.png http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/6/67/Mk3_Monopropellant_Tank.png/190px-Mk3_Monopropellant_Tank.png

Why: Usually when building spaceplanes, length becomes an issue. I just don't want my craft to be too long, or else it gets kind of floppy and harder to control. I have never used these tanks for this reason - they add unnecessary length, and frankly, I can't imagine when I would need 400 or 1000 units of monopropellant, so they're also too heavy. I would much rather stash one or two of the small mono tanks somewhere, like in a bay, or even on the outside of the craft.

Solution: If you made each of these half as long, that would help (although that's still too big and I would still never use them). 1/4 this length would be good. A 1/4-length Mk2 mono tank that held 100 units would be almost perfect. If I really felt like I needed more, I could use two, and still only be half as long and half as heavy as the current tank.

Try building a shuttle with no LOX aboard the plane (like the real one). Use O-10's as an OMS replacement. The tanks are now valuable. You're welcome.

The Not-Rockomax Micronode

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/f/f1/Micronode.png/190px-Micronode.png

Why: I'm not sure what this thing is supposed to do. I think I've tried to use it a couple of times, and I can never get it to attach to the vessel correctly. It only attaches to nodes, not surfaces, so I just can't think of why I would use this. I would use the cubic octagonal strut instead.

Solution: Make it attach to surfaces. Otherwise, I can think of other parts that would do the same thing, or better. In fact even if it attached to surfaces, I would still probably use the cubic octagonal strut. It weighs less.

Yeah, I don't use it.

LV-1 "Ant" LF Engine

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/4/47/LV-1_Liquid_Fuel_Engine_HD.png/190px-LV-1_Liquid_Fuel_Engine_HD.png

Why: What is this, an engine for ants? I usually like the tiny little engines and such, because I like making tiny little spacecraft, but I've never used this. I would use two of the side-mounted LV-1 Spiders instead. This just seems kind of pointless. The extra weight of another LV-1R is insignificant, although this one does have better ISP. Also, when you attach a decoupler below it, it leaves a gap and doesn't look right.

Solution: I don't know, I guess some people might use this, but I never have.

Good for satellites if you are using remote tech. Too big an engine makes it hard to perfect the orbit and then they slip out of place quickly. The ant is perfect for any OscarB based sattelite.

Inline Clamp-o-Tron and M2 Clamp-o-Tron

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/2/2d/Inline_Clamp-O-Tron.png/167px-Inline_Clamp-O-Tron.png http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/1/10/Mk2_Clamp-O-Tron.png/190px-Mk2_Clamp-O-Tron.png

Why: Again, these things add unneeded length to a ship. I always just stick a regular Clamp-o-Tron on the side of the ship somewhere. It doesn't add any length.

Solution: I don't know. I can't think of anything that would make these appealing to me.

They just need to fix it so it isn't so heavy and maybe contains Monoprop like the MkII. Then I would use it. I use the Mk2 all the time, then I don't have to carry separate monoprop at all.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Alshain

[BlueCanary]

So following is my list of parts I never use, and why. Maybe Squad can take this into account for future versions, if there is some agreement that we just never use some parts.

Lv-1 "Ant" Engine: These can actually be really useful to maximise Delta V for very small, light probes - less weight and more efficiency than dual spiders. If you look at the charts of best engines for different roles someone made the Ant actually comes out on top for best Delta V for a lot of light craft.

Inline Clamp-oTrons: The only reason I can see to use these is that they might cause less drag than a radial clamp-o-tron. Plus the opening animations are super cool.

[Mister Kerman]

This thread should be called parts I haven't used 'yet'. ;]

[JetJaguar]

BTW, I don't mind that there are parts that are only useful early in the game before being superseded by better parts for the same reason they don't launch Mercury Redstones in real life anymore, either. That's a part of tech progression, they provide a stepping stone to better things.

[Xannari Ferrows]

I love the LV-1! It's so cute, and fits perfectly on minimalist probes [a small core, small tank, a few solar panels, some equipment, an antennae, and may a battery pack or two. Get's good Delta-V as well]

[windows_x_seven]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the 48-7S engine superior to the LV-1 in all aspects?

Better TWR and larger Delta-V? Or did it get balanced?

Edited September 2, 2015 by windows_x_seven