An collection of Ideas to improve engines

[Rath]

Jet Engines: What I am hoping for SQUAD to do is to add a set of actual jets engines that are not just a nozzle with their center of mass offset. There could be a high altitude engine, a low speed one and maybe a High speed/low alt one. Although the high alt one could work with the BJE it would be best with the TRJ/RAPIER.

NERVA: For the NERV I think that there should be a 'Toggle reactor' button and a 'toggle engine' button-when powering (Very long spool up) up the reactor there will be LOTS of heat produced- when the engine is activated during spool up of the reactor, it will have a lower ISP. The massive heat will go away when the the engine is turned on. This is both realistic and I think it would enhance gameplay. Oh, and 2.5/.625m Nukes.

Post your other Ideas below:

[Lord Aurelius]

In response to your ideas:

Stock already has engines for all the situations you mentioned (or at least it will as of 1.1). The current basic jet is basically a subsonic turbofan like you find on most big jets and fills the low speed/high efficiency role. The current turboramjet is a high altitude engine. The new panther engine planned for the next update is a low-bypass turbofan like fighter jets have for the high speed/low altitude role.

I agree that the current engine parts are silly with putting the entire engine in the nozzle. What I would propose to fix that would be to have the actual engine be a resource generator part shaped something like a structural fuselage. It could generate a thrust resource which would then be sent to a nozzle part (which would be much lighter as a result).

For the nerva, that sounds good, and the engine should have maximum cooling at maximum thrust.

New ideas:

Thrust reversers for jet engines

Propeller engines (at the very least an electric prop for small planes on eve/duna/jool)

[Rath]

I know that they fill these roles, however I was hoping that by combining the High Alt engine and the BJE nozzle you could get a low speed /high alt setup or something.

[Rath]

Like some sort of drone High Alt thing with really big wings (Ive always wanted to build a cool-looking High alt 99% wing drone)

[CaptainTurbomuffin]

I had a similar idea to the nuke one. See it in one of my old posts, from my signature. The only problem is that currently, nukes are rather over-nerfed. I suggested something like that in order to balance a necessary buff, wich I am missing from your suggestion. Also, staging?

For jets... In 1.1, jet engines will become right that! See this. And for basic jets? add a nacelle. I have a great idea for that, also described in the suggestion in my signature. (stock balances)

[Rath]

Ive seen the new learjet (MOVE THE DOOR) cockpit, however Im talking about jet engines, not the actual cockpit/fuselage. The Panther is cool, but I don't remember fighter jets ever being slow (Except in early WWI they were barley faster than bombers which led to a MAD-style fear of bombers.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Rath

[jwbrase]

NERVA: For the NERV I think that there should be a 'Toggle reactor' button and a 'toggle engine' button-when powering (Very long spool up) up the reactor there will be LOTS of heat produced- when the engine is activated during spool up of the reactor, it will have a lower ISP. The massive heat will go away when the the engine is turned on. This is both realistic and I think it would enhance gameplay. Oh, and 2.5/.625m Nukes.

I've had a similar idea wherein the NERV has open-cycle and closed-cycle cooling modes. In open-cycle mode, it behaves as it does currently (your idea is nice from a realism perspective, but I'm not sure I'd want that much complexity in engine management). In closed-cycle mode, it provides no thrust, but acts as a source of copious amounts of heat and electricity (say two or three times more than the existing alternator output). If more than a certain amount of fuel is available in attached tankage, the heat is transferred to the tankage and can from there be disposed of with radiators. If insufficient fuel is available, no electricity is produced, and the heat builds up in and quickly destroys the engine. (Basically, in closed cycle mode the NERV is acting as a nuclear power plant and needs a source of coolant, which the fuel provides. The fuel is recycled in closed cycle mode, so it's not used up, but enough of it has to be present to fill the cooling loop). The idea is to make the NERV provide more than enough power to large spacecraft that are already using a NERV for propulsion, but, due to the weight of the engine and the fuel required for coolant, not have it be a great option for smaller spacecraft, especially those that can use an engine with less ISP.

[F117nighthawkX]

New ideas:

Thrust reversers for jet engines

Propeller engines (at the very least an electric prop for small planes on eve/duna/jool)

I would like to expand on these ideas, as I have been wanting these for quite some time.

First of all, the trust reversers for jet engines would be interesting, as you could key-bind that functionality to your "break" key. This would make landing more interesting, and possibly less dangerous, especially if you are going too fast.

Concerning the propeller engines, I would really like to see multiple versions of these, i.e. electric, open cycle, and closed cycle. The electric option would obviously only be for drone class aircraft, where you could use them to scout areas, or just for a light, long range flyer. The open cycle propeller engines would be more powerful, and only use liquid fuel in atmosphere (only Kerbin and Laythe). I would also like to see a closed cycle propeller engine, where it uses liquid fuel and oxidizer. For the closed cycle props, they should be decently efficient, to allow long duration flights in atmospheres that do not have combustible gases.

All of this considered, the question I have is: should these props induce a torque on the craft? If you add props, people will automatically ask for helicopter blades as well, but I think that topic is out of scope for my response.

[DocMoriarty]

Improvments for engines:

- Better jet engine simulation where a small delta in thrust setting is executed a lot faster than now. Currently it doesn't matter what the delta is, it always takes a lot of time to be executed which makes it hard to fly VTOL's

- Electric propeller engine (useful for explorers in non-oxigen atmospheres), not too powerful just for small planes and runnable with fuel cells.

- Reset COM of jet engines to a reasonable spot. The current COM is totally unintuitive because outside the model and WAY TOO FAR ahead of the engine. An engine COM of an engine constructed from intake, engine body and rear end looks like this currently and doesn't make no sense whatsoever: - it should at least be in the center of nacelle or it is definitly not possible to build a well balanced nacelle where COM stays in middle during flight! Should have never been changed!

- 2.5m, 3.75m nuclear engines, having only 1.25m nuclear engines unnecessarely increases part count for long range tugs dramatically and of course either some 2.5m and 3.75m LF only tanks OR make all tanks configurable either as LF, LF+OX, Mono(, Xenon?) to decrease number of parts.

Edited September 16, 2015 by DocMoriarty