Acceleration-Limited Fuel Tanks

[ment18]

Make fuel tank structure tweak-able.  Players could add and subtract structure on their fuel tanks to change their mass ratios.  The current structure could be the max structure (impervious to acceleration) and tweak down to a mass ratio of about 20 (currently 9) where and acceleration over 5 m/s^2 would destroy them.  All fuel tanks would have optional discard-able structure that would weigh a lot, but would make the fuel tanks impervious to acceleration.  The extra structure would allow launching of fragile fuel tanks but have to be discarded to get any benefit from the fragile fuel tanks.  Reducing structure would also severely reduce impact tolerance.

What do you think?

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by ment18

[Jenyaza]

Good idea for mod, but it is not stock-a-like.

Go to Kerbal Krash System topic and propose idea there. Maybe it will be implemented.

[Pds314]

I'm not sure designing anything to survive less than 1 Gee is a good idea. 0.5 m/s crushing a fuel tank would mean Kerbin's gravity would crush it on it's own. Plus, real rocket tanks have mass ratios far exceeding 20.

I like the idea, but the details could use some serious work. It would also need to take into account crushing pressure from stacks on top of it.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Pds314

[ment18]

2 hours ago, Pds314 said:

I'm not sure designing anything to survive less than 1 Gee is a good idea. 0.5 m/s crushing a fuel tank would mean Kerbin's gravity would crush it on it's own. Plus, real rocket tanks have mass ratios far exceeding 20.

I like the idea, but the details could use some serious work. It would also need to take into account crushing pressure from stacks on top of it.

The point of the eject-able bracing is to allow launching them, it is also supposed to be 5m/s/s but I originally wrote it with gees.

[Temstar]

It would be a huge buff to rockets overall, because it's quite easy then to make a narrow center column of "load bearing" strong fuel tanks or even structural elements surrounded by tanks tweaked to minimum dry mass that are not load bearing.

[FungusForge]

I think I saw somewhere (I might be factually wrong about the following statement, take it with a grain of salt) that the structure of rockets was due more to the tanks than any internal structure.

However being able to tweak the heat and impact tolerances wouldn't be to bad. In stock, outside of interplanetary speeds, Heatshields aren't strictly necessary for re-entry, despite that real shuttles and rockets intended to return to Earth require being specially constructed to withstand the heat from re-entry. It would allow those space stations or nifty space tugs, things not intended to return to Kerbin, to be lightened up. And we could make ruggedized rovers that don't have to be delicate with their fuel tanks and ore drums. Best part is that we would be able to use those low-tech winglets on our spaceplanes.

[Nich]

bump great idea My only problem is do we really need another physics calc slowing us down?

[BloodDusk]

Sounds like a good idea for Realism Overhaul. Not so much for the stock game, IMO.

[mattinoz]

Aren't faring becoming structural in the next update?

 So if the mass reduction effected other factors of the tank so it was unlaunchable outside of a faring or cargo bay it wouldn't break the legoness of craft building. Also no need for additional covering parts as that job would be handled by the faring.

[Pds314]

On 2/11/2016 at 10:27 AM, ment18 said:

The point of the eject-able bracing is to allow launching them, it is also supposed to be 5m/s/s but I originally wrote it with gees.

Yes. You see, an object that simply maintains altitude at KSC will undergo 9.78 m/s^2 acceleration, meaning it is not possible to practically use a tank that only supports 0.5 Gee.