Some Shower-thoughts on the LV-N Nerf

[Arugela]

Or you could make sure you rendezvous in front of the craft or with the engines off. Kerbins poofing in EVA would be funny. compromises make the game simpler and more boring for everyone.

[nosirrbro]

Ive heard alot of talk of spool-up and spool-down and the works, which is fine and dandy, however, given that compared to the NERVA the LV-N is actually relatively underpowered in ISP and thrust to make other rockets make sense, adding something to nerf the LV-N even further down is probably a bad idea. If you want more realism in difficulty, you would have to increase the thrust and ISP too or else your making it, in a way, less realistic, however at this point your making them just as useful as they were before, but simply adding more complexity, and for a game like KSP added complexity that adds no real benifit is a horrible idea.

[NathanKell]

Chemical rocket engines have 1/4 to 1/6 the TWR of their real counterparts. The LV-N has 2/3 the TWR of its real counterpart. I'd say it's already massively OP compared to chemical engines.

[Kerbol Macrosystems]

On 12/14/2015, 5:12:48, Hannu2 said:

Real nerva would also immediately make all large chemical engines completely obsolete. It would have huge thrust, huge TWR, huge ISP and reasonable price

The price for a real-life nerva would not be reasonable.  The soviets already have experience launching fission reactors into space (and crashing them too).  You would need to do a hell of a job protecting your fissile materials in the event of a crash today.  This large structural shield will also end up providing shielding around the reactor, limiting the radiation exposure for any kerbal smart enough not to crawl into the reactor.  We cannot help the ones that can't stay away from the pretty blue glow.

On 12/14/2015, 12:52:15, MalfunctionM1Ke said:

So in fact the engine should cool down while it is working and heat up while it is not, right?

If the mechanics of the LV-N break your immersion I think I can explain their current behavior on Kerbal logic.  

Scientist - "Hey Werner, this stuff is kind of hot, and when you put more of it together it gets hotter!"

Werner - "This gives me an idea."

some hours pass

Werner - "Here we go! We'll put our liquid fuel over this, and it will come out really fast on the other end.  If we need to go faster, we'll just put more of it together. The hotter stuff will go faster! Put this on the next mission to Duna, let's try it out."

test is a success!

Scientist - "That worked really well, but the heat made me nervous.  Shouldn't we do something about that?"

Werner - "But it still got to Duna, right?"

Scientist - "...yes."

Werner - "That sounds like Jeb's problem.  Speaking of Jeb, he didn't take all the snacks to Duna, did he?"

On 12/14/2015, 12:52:15, MalfunctionM1Ke said:

Not sure if the Oxygen wouldnt eat away everything it touches at those temperatures

I've had the pleasure to work with strong oxidizers.  At 3000K you can expect the the oxygen to burn anything that is not already an oxide.  The metal would burn.  If you're not using an oxidized nuclear fuel it would burn (not burn as in get really hot from fission, it would be on fire).  Everything would burn.  Your fire would start somewhere near the reactor, then burn back from there until all of the oxygen was either vented away from the craft or consumed in burning up the ship.  This is one of the reasons rocket engines run fuel-rich.  You don't want hot oxygen in contact with your rocket nozzle, where it can start a metal fire.