The Vector: Your thoughts

[NathanKell]

Twin Boar has the best TWR if you discount the mass of the orange tank that's always glued to it. Then the Mammoth. Only then the Vector (it pays in mass for the extra gimbal).

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, blowfish said:

Well it actually still has lower TWR than the Mammoth, and it's incredibly expensive.

I was more thinking about how powerful it is compared to its size and other engines of the same class.

[NathanKell]

The engines "of its same class" are the other NASA engines unlocked at the end of the tree. And it has a lower TWR than the Mammoth, a much lower TWR (but higher Isp) than the Twin Boar, and a higher TWR but much lower Vac Isp than the Rhino.

 

In KSP engine balancing, class comes from tech tree position. Not size.

[regex]

1 minute ago, NathanKell said:

In KSP engine balancing, class comes from tech tree position. Not size.

But ... but ... tank butts!

[NathanKell]

And yes, we're well aware that the 1.25m engines can't compete with later engines in terms of efficiency/TWR/whatever. We have thoughts on that, but none of those thoughts are "let's just nerf all the NASA engines so they don't have better TWR than a Swivel, because everything has to be balanced in Sandbox, not just Career."

[r_rolo1]

Nice to know, Nathan. Feel free to add some thoughts about adding some extra solid fuel rocket engines as well , given this thread comments on that

[NoMrBond]

5 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

We have thoughts on that

Something like the progression on the 11D4x lineage from RD-220 → RD-221 → RD-222 (11D41) → RD-223 (11D42) → RD-253 (11D43/4/F) → RD-275 (14D14) → RD-275М (14D14М) (or the SSME's own upgrade lineage) where the basic engine role/shape/configuration stays fairly constant but is improved over time (slight ISP improvements, with +4% ish thrust for every decade equivalent of science progress).

So (for example) you unlock the LVT-45 with Basic Rocketry, then as you unlock future science milestones, some of those (perhaps also requiring combinations of unlocks) could give you slight bonuses to already unlocked engines (like +1 slISP/+3vISP, -mass, +4% thrust etc) representing increases in your programs materials technology, manufacturing etc.

Of course then you'll end up with Block-I, Block-II etc variants of engines, which is more data to manage as well as complexity and balancing concerns

[Tweeker]

15 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

And yes, we're well aware that the 1.25m engines can't compete with later engines in terms of efficiency/TWR/whatever. We have thoughts on that, but none of those thoughts are "let's just nerf all the NASA engines so they don't have better TWR than a Swivel, because everything has to be balanced in Sandbox, not just Career."

I am OK with the 1.25m engines being lower on the TWR than the later engines for me the thing is the lack of any progression in the 1.25m range. The swivel and reliant are still basically snowclones, and there is no late career, higher tech 1.25m engine. 

     As far as the Nasa engines go it seems that all the liquid engines are overpowered thrust wise (that is not to say they are OP, they still seem balanced game wise),  and that the SRB, the "Kickback", is under powered. 

  

[r_rolo1]

7 minutes ago, Tweeker said:

I am OK with the 1.25m engines being lower on the TWR than the later engines for me the thing is the lack of any progression in the 1.25m range. The swivel and reliant are still basically snowclones, and there is no late career, higher tech 1.25m engine. 

     As far as the Nasa engines go it seems that all the liquid engines are overpowered thrust wise (that is not to say they are OP, they still seem balanced game wise),  and that the SRB, the "Kickback", is under powered. 

  

Well, I for myself, can't see why nozzle size would have much to do with performance after a certain point, but yeah, the issue with the 1,25m LFO size engines ( except the Vector, that is arguably a 2,5m engine without tankbutt ) is pretty much that, due to reasons, both the double digits LVs are designed as low tech engines for career and the rest of the LFO 1,25m engines are pretty much specialist engines ( the 909 is a 3rd stage engine, the aerospike is aimed at high pressures atmo burns and the rapier, well, it is a jet engine mashed with a rocket ). So we are lacking a higher tech 1,25m first stage engine with some slightly better specs and maybe  a second stage directed 1,25m engine ...

That said, the Solid fuel rockets we have in game were pretty much designed as "cans full of boom" and aimed mostly to give a small extra kick at launch until the big boys on LFO start kicking ( there is a reason people consistently call them SRB ( as in Solid rocket boosters ) instead of simply solid fuel engines :/ ). In other words simple, low tech and not very strong Roman candles. Added to that, they only come at one diameter and there is very little costumization that you can do on them because they are sold with preloaded fuel tanks attached, unlike most LF/LFO/Ion engines ( imagine if all LFO engines came in like Twin Boar ... people would love it ). Besides that there is no fuel shaping avaliable or even thrust vectoring ...

Ok, I digressed a little, but atleast I would like a 2,5m diameter solid fuel engine and a 0,625m engine as well. For starters, that would be nice  

[Jouni]

31 minutes ago, Tweeker said:

     As far as the Nasa engines go it seems that all the liquid engines are overpowered thrust wise (that is not to say they are OP, they still seem balanced game wise),  and that the SRB, the "Kickback", is under powered. 

There is a simple test for determining whether the rocket engines are systematically too weak or too powerful: see whether they can lift a rocket that looks like a rocket.

Real single-stack rockets are typically 10-15x taller than they're wide, with the newest models of Falcon 9 approaching 20x. To see whether the KSP first stage engines can lift such rockets, we can build as tall stack of fuel tanks of the appropriate size (2.5 m for the Vector) as possible without the sea-level TWR falling below 1.20. Here are the engines sorted from the weakest to the most powerful according to the height:diameter ratio of the stack:

Rhino: 3.6
Skipper: 4.7
1x Vector: 6.6
Mammoth: 8.6
Dart: 8.8
Swivel: 9.8
Mainsail: 10.2
Reliant: 12.0
Twin-Boar: 12.9
2x Vector: 13.0

The Rhino, the Skipper, and the single Vector are quite weak, but the others seem ok.

[Tweeker]

31 minutes ago, r_rolo1 said:

Well, I for myself, can't see why nozzle size would have much to do with performance after a certain point, but yeah, the issue with the 1,25m LFO size engines ( except the Vector, that is arguably a 2,5m engine without tankbutt ) is pretty much that, due to reasons, both the double digits LVs are designed as low tech engines for career and the rest of the LFO 1,25m engines are pretty much specialist engines ( the 909 is a 3rd stage engine, the aerospike is aimed at high pressures atmo burns and the rapier, well, it is a jet engine mashed with a rocket ). So we are lacking a higher tech 1,25m first stage engine with some slightly better specs and maybe  a second stage directed 1,25m engine ..

        I agree whole heartedly 

34 minutes ago, r_rolo1 said:

That said, the Solid fuel rockets we have in game were pretty much designed as "cans full of boom" and aimed mostly to give a small extra kick at launch until the big boys on LFO start kicking ( there is a reason people consistently call them SRB ( as in Solid rocket boosters ) instead of simply solid fuel engines :/ ). In other words simple, low tech and not very strong Roman candles. Added to that, they only come at one diameter and there is very little costumization that you can do on them because they are sold with preloaded fuel tanks attached, unlike most LF/LFO/Ion engines ( imagine if all LFO engines came in like Twin Boar ... people would love it ). Besides that there is no fuel shaping avaliable or even thrust vectoring ...

Ok, I digressed a little, but atleast I would like a 2,5m diameter solid fuel engine and a 0,625m engine as well. For starters, that would be nice  

    I remember there was a parts pack that had a.625 SRB in it, I really enjoyed that part, fun and it added a lot of functionality 

 

 

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Dear Kod, 9 pages of this and people still refuse to come around the extremely simple notion that engines are about thrust, Isp, and mass. The Vector is quite adequately balanced in all of these respects. Open your mind folks. And seriously, when's the last time you wanted to slap a mainsail on a 1.25m stack but couldn't because of size? Because that's the only way the Vector is in ANY WAY "OP"

 

19 hours ago, Temstar said:

Is a 2.5m engine between Skipper and Mainsail really needed though? Why not just:

-snip-

Why have any engine variety at all? Let's just have one engine of each size and just cluster as necessary. /s

[Temstar]

14 minutes ago, I_Killed_Jeb said:

Why have any engine variety at all? Let's just have one engine of each size and just cluster as necessary. /s

Realistically you can only cluster 1.25m engines, I suppose on 3.75m stack the option exists for a centre 2.5m engine with a ring of 1.25m engine, but 1.25m engine is where it's at for clustering.

Back in beta, before LV-T30 and LV-T45 got their nicknames the 1.25m engines had higher Isp but lower TWR than 2.5m engines, particularly against the Mainsail so for core stages of asparagus it made sense to cluster engines to make use of that high Isp, plus clustering was also useful on the core stage to make a core that was more powerful than a single mainsail. Back in the days of yore this was so popular that tools were created to automatically calculate for you what engines to cluster for a given amount of thrust and booster numbers.

I am a bit saddened that 1.25m engine nerf + 2.5m engine buff + introduction of more powerful 3.75m engines closed off that niche. There's probably some sweet spot that we could aim for to make 1.25m clusters useful without being ubiquitous as it once was in beta.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Temstar

[NathanKell]

I well remember your excellent LV family, @Temstar!

[Temstar]

2 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

I well remember your excellent LV family, @Temstar!

There's just something about a rocket with a lot of engines on the bottom, I mean:

Look at dat ass. In comparison Mammoth is not nearly as satisfying

I suppose another thing that killed off clustering is part count. Back in those days my computer could easily handle 300 part ships with even 500 parts being workable. Nowadays with the game being much more complex the game engine has to do more calculation per part so for my computer above 200 parts become impractical. Hopefully 1.1 will fix that.