Nuclear rockets compromise, shielding instead of nerfing?

[Buster Charlie]

I know ksp is not real life, and I know balances are made between fun game play and science fact. From reading commentary on the subject it appears the prevailing thought on why the LV-National needs to be made unrealistically weak is due to the lack of challenge or enfine diversity due to the obsolescence  of  chemical rocketry.

I would argue that the same could be said of jet turbines  vs piston driven propeller  craft. There are piston  driven propeller craft today, but they are  dwarfed by the number of jet turbine driven aircraft, weather turbojet, turboprop,  or ducted fan models.

So if you are really feeling the need to have a reason to use a piston engine turning afree "unlocking" jets,  then just reducing the thrust of the jets would work, but it wouldn't be satisfactory.

 

So instead of making nuclear rocket engines weaker, give them downsides that make them NOT the only solution to every problem.

In real life, craft with this type of engine would have a "shadow sheild" to protect he crew from radiation, as it would be too heavy to sheild the entire craft. Trying to simulate complex radiation emissions and shielding is obviously beyond themail scope of the game,  and it doesn't  address existing space radiation or shielding for long term deep space missions. 

Maybe a useful compromise would be to incorporate  a heat shield like solution. Treat  radiation like reentry heating to a degree, and require that the ships be built in a way that the non hardened  portions of the ship lay in the "shadow" of your radiation sheild. Parts or kerbals extending beyond this shadow during engine ignition would suffer heat damage and go poof.

 

You would need a simple way to show this during ship design, maybe something as simple as a shadow map style overlay view or a stage recovery  style colored overlay. 

So in summary,  by fudging radioactive  emissions of the engine as a balance against their superior thrust and isp would allow more interesting design decisions, not less.

 

 

For example: if the engine blows up the launch pad you still need chemical rockets for a 1st stage booster. Maybe a special atomic rocket launchpad could be an end game goal. 

If you are going to make an atomic rocket tug, you'd have to make sure the cargo won't be damaged, and more to the point you  may need chemical rockers for maneuvering close to a space station or any other craft when rendezvous and docking.

Finall like a heat shield,  it adds extra weight, so the better protected your craft, the heavier it's dry weight, so even if the LV-N had better thrust and better is than any chemical rocket, you wouldn't use it all the time because it may just make more sense to build a simpler and lighter craft  than deal with the reaction control needs of a larger heavier craft.

 Right now for my personal use I un-nerfed  the lv-n because it's a single player game and I can do what I want. However I'd rather see an official fix that keeps their real life awseoeness without making them a boring cure all to every problem.

 

 

 

 

[Armisael]

Both approaches are inventing nonsense that doesn't really apply to the engine - real NTRs have their shielding inside the engine already. The current model at least has the advantage of simplicity since it doesn't require any new systems.

You are, of course, free to mod this in yourself.

[Guest]

Adding extra required mass is pretty much the same as increasing the mass of the engine; you're still nerfing it.  The LV-N doesn't need any further nerfing, even in the form of shielding, it's fine as-is.

[Buster Charlie]

24 minutes ago, regex said:

Adding extra required mass is pretty much the same as increasing the mass of the engine; you're still nerfing it.  The LV-N doesn't need any further nerfing, even in the form of shielding, it's fine as-is.

I had considered  this but my thought was all this in addition to increasing the thrust (and maybe isp) of the engine to begin with.

 

Here is why it's different,  I had the thought that you could shield multiple engines under one sheild, which I realize may be unrealistic, would encourage larger ships because the same weight heat shield could be used on multiple engines as it could on one.

 

 

I also realize after further research this has been suggested ,otherwise I wouldn't have started this thread. But I really don't like artificially making atomic rockets less awesome than they should be just to prop up chemical combustion rockets.

[nosirrbro]

Maybe instead of a complex shielding system parts near the engine have the option to be 'armored' which increases the weight and makes them be unaffected, and at a certain distance admiring isn't required as it won't cause them to explode.

[Buster Charlie]

3 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

Maybe instead of a complex shielding system parts near the engine have the option to be 'armored' which increases the weight and makes them be unaffected, and at a certain distance admiring isn't required as it won't cause them to explode.

Really that wouldn't be a bad idea if it were incorporated into a larger scale mechanic of hardening crew compartments for long term flights or solar flares or sun flyby 

I guess really all I'm suggesting is, if atomic rockers are not end game engines that make chemical engines obsolete, then give us a reason why, don't just make them weaker.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Buster Charlie

[Vermil]

I think the real nuclear rocket engines which were suggested back in the days, were much more awesome than KSP's version. I think there was one with a gaseous Plutonium chamber that would do really good thrust for a long time on extremely little propellant. So the question is if nerfing LVN is "realistic"? Seems more political to me.

 

[Vermil]

I also think the notion that we need to somehow protect technology in KSP from becoming obsolete, that we need to have reasons to still use some parts, - all that is nonsense.

It's not how a game like this should work. In both career mode and science sandbox, it's a natural evolution to progress towards better technology. We should accept that some parts become obsolete and are mainly used at earlier stages of gameplay. If KSP evolves in any other way, I'm going to deeply and bitterly resent it. And that would be a dam pity, as much as I like KSP now. 

[Buster Charlie]

2 minutes ago, Vermil said:

I also think the notion that we need to somehow protect technology in KSP from becoming obsolete, that we need to have reasons to still use some parts, - all that is nonsense.

It's not how a game like this should work. In both career mode and science sandbox, it's a natural evolution to progress towards better technology. We should accept that some parts become obsolete and are mainly used at earlier stages of gameplay. If KSP evolves in any other way, I'm going to deeply and bitterly resent it. And that would be a dam pity, as much as I like KSP now. 

Pretty  much my passion on this subject and why I want a better solution than make nuclear rockets weaker.

I not interested in fantasy warp drives or purely Sci fi stuff. But I am interested in cutting edge progression of real world space technology in career mode, and if people want to play sandbox then they can use some self restraint and not use nuclear engines if they feel they are cheating. 

If we were serious about manned exploration of our own solar system you can bet We would have developed nuclear rocketry more than some 60s era prototypes. 

 

Let's face it, KSP solar system is small, and it has no life support. I think this is the real reason people are okay with artificially weak nuclear rockets. If you faced the real challenge of moving live crew over huge distances where time spent in space really mattered more than how much you had to time warp, then you'd be cheering for something a bit more advanced.

 

If people want to slap a nerv into a mum lander, that's their business.