Engine crafting/customization

[Wjolcz]

So recently I've been thinking about how crafting systems work in some games (like Fallout 4). Then I remembered that people like to clip engines into one another and thought that it might be interesting to be able to design your own engines in KSP instead of using the cheat menu.

So let's take the LEGO rockets to the next level.

How I see it is you would be able to edit one of already in-game engines. Click the "Edit" button and the engine is taken apart so you can clearly see all the critical parts like pumps, gimbal nodes, the nozzle and other things. Then you click on one of the components you want to replace:

• Nozzle: length, width (1.25m or 2.5m?), type of the nozzle itself (aerospike or RAPIER-like multi nozzle)
• The pump: how much fuel do you want to flow through the pipes per second
• Gimbal range: limited by the size and type of the nozzle you chose
• Type of fuel: Mono, LF-only, LF+O or Hybrid?
• Something else?

I don't mean procedural parts, btw. More like cycle-through mechanic. All the stats (ISP, Thrust, etc.) would update as you'd cycle through the components, of course.

 

What do you think? Would that be any useful? Are there any IRL examples of taking apart engines and creating Frankenrockets? Imagine a gimballing atomic aerospike o.o

Edited December 20, 2015 by Veeltch

[Red Iron Crown]

You say it's not a procedural part, but the description is of a procedural part. This isn't Lego-like at all, I have a feeling this is something better left to mods.

[Jatwaa]

I like this idea, shouldn't be hard to put together for people with better modeling skill. There are plenty of historic examples of engines being hacked together to work. There are other games (mostly car) that allow details down to this level. The interesting part would be making them work together on the component level. 

Engine, Nozzle, Fuel, Gimbal Control all these are controlled in the CFG while the thrustTransform is in Unity. 
 

So the Nozzle would have the ThrustTransform but no thrust. The engine would have the power, but no thrustTransform. The CFG could house the fuel per requirement (or use a nonstock toggle). Gimbal component could be easily done on a part level via CFG. 

But...would they work together as one unit would be the main question. I have never tried anything like that. My one engine I created was very basic, lol. May take some C# coding to work right. I am still learning C# lol. 

[Wjolcz]

3 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

You say it's not a procedural part, but the description is of a procedural part. This isn't Lego-like at all, I have a feeling this is something better left to mods.

Well, I always thought of procedural as being stretchy like the pWing. Where you have some sort of indicators and drag them around in order to "mold" a structure.

But my native language isn't English so I might be wrong.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Veeltch