Tank butts, --- your thoughts?

[ainurakne]

How about starting with making tank-shaped tanks:

Tanks would have hemispherical ends and the middle part would be covered with an outer-shell (grey part in picture 1) - this is the aerodynamic/supportive shell, that has some kind of paintjob on it and covers the metallic or single-colored capsule-shaped tank.
When tanks are stacked together (or otherwise stacked to something round with similar size) their outer shells would be connected with a fairing-like thingy (blue part in picture 2) to cover the hemispherical ends.

Or maybe it would be better and/or simpler if the skirts (extensions of the outer shell) would be toggle-able (red parts in picture 3). In that case you could choose yourself whether you want the hemispherical ends to be covered or not, depending on what the tank is attached to. Or maybe instead a solid skirt you want a mesh or supportive struts or something.
Or the whole outer shell could be toggle-able (red part in picture 4). Then you could also use "naked" tanks (tanks without aerodynamic/supportive shell) if you want. This would also allow spherical tanks, because a capsule that is short enough, is a sphere.

Engines could be just an engine bell with a combustion chamber (and turbopumps) that have some kind of supportive "legs" and/or pipes on the upper end (without tank-butt or any other large structure). Since engines would be surface-attachable, you could place them anywhere (and in any number) under the tank.

This of course makes stacking other stages below such an engine cluster problematic.
But maybe it could be possible to attach the decoupler to the upper tank while leaving enough space for the engines, and then a fairing would connect the decoupler to the upper tank (of course the engines should also horizontally fit into the fairing). Or maybe you could build the fairing yourself from the decoupler, without using a fairing base.

What do you guys think?
Would it be something that would be possible?
Would it be something that you would like?

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Seems like a pretty good idea, but it'd take me at least a while to get used to

[AlamoVampire]

The more i think about it the LESS i agree with the idea of removing them. I think what we have now is fine. Changing it could or would have a high chance of breaking ships, stations, subassemblies and anything else not mentioned. It could also mess with the games code in ways no one wants to imagine.

[cantab]

Would something a bit more flexible and a bit more realistic on the engines be nice? Sure, I think so. Does it rank high in my priorities of what to do with the engines? Heck no.

Zeroth, Kerbin wants to be bigger.

First I'd like to see the engine balance looked at. Especially the ARM engines, their performance is all wrong compared to the real-world prototypes and that wrong performance makes shuttles harder than they should be.

Next I'd like to see the fuel:oxidizer ratio changed to something more realistic, and the game display resource amounts in kilograms, not arbitrary random units. The changed LF:O ratio will implicitly buff spaceplanes too.

[Frybert]

1 minute ago, cantab said:

The changed LF:O ratio will implicitly buff spaceplanes too.

Dang, you said the magic words. Now we can forget about tankbutts because squad will focus on LF:O changes.

[FungusForge]

Ven's stock revamp ended up making the tank butts on most engines basically optional by using the autofairing that engines already use.

However, it should be noted that the Badger that Ven had before the vector released didn't have a tank butt. After all it is supposed to be an advanced compact engine.

[Tweeker]

This is the thing that gets me, calling it a "tank butt" is disingenuous. It makes it sound like it is part of the tank. It's not, it is a fairing covering the powerhead and other important pars of the engine. 

 

 

Without it all you have is an exhaust nozzle. On the mammoth, it can be seen that this machinery is inside the bulges above each engine.

 

On the space shuttle it is recessed inside the rearend

I really don't understand the need for such a change to the game.

[AlamoVampire]

@Tweeker If i had to hazard a guess? Ppl love to complain. But i agree with you that its a change we dont need. I dont think it will be changed anyway, which is ok by me tbh

[Tfin]

On 1/22/2016 at 9:58 PM, cantab said:

..and the game display resource amounts in kilograms, not arbitrary random units.

The kg to u conversion is there in the VAB displays, but the units of fuel are volume, not mass.

LF and O (yes, the ratio is off, but the LF used is a mystery substance) have a mass of 5kg per unit, mono propellant has a mass of 4kg per unit, and xenon gas has a mass of 100g per unit. Some tanks are off a bit, but those are due to rounding to 2 decimal places.

 

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Removal of tank but ill also allow engine clustering which will be nice. Atm trying to make a falcon 9 replica results in a load of flat plates sticking out the sides of the rocket. I do think that maybe the Vector should be made a tiny bit longer to show the machinery as atm its just a magic nozzle.

[BloodDusk]

They should be optional, indeed. I'm not sure why procedural parts aren't a thing yet, as well as scalable tanks and engines.

[NeMeSiS]

11 hours ago, Tweeker said:

This is the thing that gets me, calling it a "tank butt" is disingenuous. It makes it sound like it is part of the tank. It's not, it is a fairing covering the powerhead and other important pars of the engine. 

I really don't understand the need for such a change to the game.

This. It is where various bits of plumbing are kept and its part of the engine. Just as important: It balances the game. I think it adds to the game that not every engine fits everywhere, some stuff is just too big for some use cases, and working around such limitations is part of the fun.

[Andem]

Keep them. IMO, They give a nice subtle nudge to the kind of rockets KSPs parts are designed around, and I like them. If you want them gone, then we need to change the way engines work in KSP... we would need different engines, AND THEN different nozzles as well... something that doesn't need that kind of overhaul is the engines.

[Frozen_Heart]

In KSP you're meant to have a choice about how you build your rockets. Lots of little engines like Falcon 9 or 1 big one like Delta IV. Having 1 engine for each size and no choice about how you use them defeats the point of it being a modular building game.

If you remove tank butts you can still put a mainsail on a 2.5m rocket, it just means that you can also use a Cluster of LV-30s or a pair of Skippers without it looking ugly. The choice of how you build is what makes KSP fun and trying to force players to only do certain things takes away from that.

The Space Shuttle and the Falcon 9 don't have huge great plates sticking out the side of them.

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by Frozen_Heart

[regex]

On 1/29/2016 at 0:52 AM, Tfin said:

The kg to u conversion is there in the VAB displays, but the units of fuel are volume, not mass.

And said units of volume are completely arbitrary.  The closest we've come is measuring the volume of a fuel tank in KSP, resulting in somewhere between 4.5 and 5 liters per unit.

Quote

LF and O (yes, the ratio is off, but the LF used is a mystery substance)

So is the oxidizer.  In 1.0.x the fuels' thermal properties were based off of Aerozine50 as a fuel and N2O4 as an oxidizer, and engine isps were changed to approximate the theoretical limits of engines using those substances (KSP engines were already pretty close there anyway).

Also, the ratio isn't necessarily off because we don't have any idea what those fuels actually are, although the mixture mentioned (AZ50/N2O4) most closely matches the overall properties of KSP fuels, insofar as rockets are concerned (near infinite storability, hypergolic for near unlimited restarts, deep throttling engines, etc...)

Edited January 30, 2016 by regex

[Andem]

6 hours ago, Frozen_Heart said:

In KSP you're meant to have a choice about how you build your rockets. Lots of little engines like Falcon 9 or 1 big one like Delta IV. Having 1 engine for each size and no choice about how you use them defeats the point of it being a modular building game.

If you remove tank butts you can still put a mainsail on a 2.5m rocket, it just means that you can also use a Cluster of LV-30s or a pair of Skippers without it looking ugly. The choice of how you build is what makes KSP fun and trying to force players to only do certain things takes away from that.

The Space Shuttle and the Falcon 9 don't have huge great plates sticking out the side of them.

 

Perhaps we will need an engine overhaul soon. perhaps it scans the diameter and adjusts the butt to match, like the shielding on decouplers.