Starting planes useless?

[Jetski]

I always go for early plane parts, as the tail fin is ideal for steering my style of rocket, and I can make a quick Sci rover with a Juno to hoover up KSC science fast. Agree that as actual plane parts not overly useful. Wings are handy as big fins for big lifters, and as low drag pylons to attach boosters far away from main body of the rocket, I use the type C for this a lot. After the first plane node I rarely bother with aero nodes except for completing the tree.

 

Edit: also wings sideways at the top of a lander for max drag are epic for Eve descents, keep you pointed straight, lots of drag, and high heat tolerance!  Ugly but highly effective 

Edited February 18, 2016 by Jetski

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

I mean, if you have patience, you can pick up lots of science from Kerbin. If you assume at this point you have just the Mystery Goo, Science Jr., and Thermometer, you can get... approximately... 18.5 science? (3 Goo + 7.5 Jr. + 2.5 Thermometer + 3 crew report + 2.5 EVA?) from each biome. (That's a very, very rough estimate). If you add science from flying above the biome, that adds 2.5 from the thermometer, 3 from crew report? and maybe 2.5 if you can manage an EVA report. That's 26.5 in total. If you have unlocked surface samples at this time, or are playing Science mode, surface samples add another 9 science, for a total of 35.5 biome. This isn't even counting science from doing multiple of the same experiment per biome.

Multiply that by 19 biomes (9 from Kerbin, more than 10 KSC biomes (estimate)), and you can get 674.5 science from Kerbin with basic tech. From that, you can get even more experiments to use.

I know my math is probably wrong, but I'm just trying to say you can get a lot of science with planes. Don't judge me, I'm very tired. While it does take a good amount of time to fly across Kerbin to get science, there's plenty of science to be had just at KSC.

[Nich]

Everything but highlands, poles, desert, badlands, and mountain can be picked up with this.  Supposedly you can get a splashed variant on a bunch of them

Personally I now play normal and don't bother collecting much science anymore from kerbin.  btw 674 science is nothing the flight tree takes 3705 science to fill.  1600 to get stuff short of usable space plane parts.

[Jhawk1099]

On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 10:56 AM, GDJ said:

The anomaly contracts do take care of this, and the payouts are pretty good.

Yeah, a few more Kerbin only contracts would be nice, but....

I have yet to see an anamoly contract

[Kosmognome]

7 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

ultiply that by 19 biomes (9 from Kerbin, more than 10 KSC biomes (estimate)), and you can get 674.5 science from Kerbin with basic tech. From that, you can get even more experiments to use.

Or you do one single mun landing which takes *a lot* less time and you also get 600 science. As I already said, 10 science needed to orbit kerbin, one kerbin orbit needed to et EVAs above all biomes, which gives you enough science to go for the mun.

 

Yes, you can get science from kerbin, but it is simply too slow. Planes take forever even with 4x time warp, so that using rockets is actually much, much faster. 

 

As far as plane parts like fins are concerned, I never need more then the basic fins that are available from the start of the game for my rockets. Just build them aerodynamically stable and the incentive to go for plane parts just keeps plummeting.

 

I would really like to see some more actual useful roles for plane parts. Give incentives to actually use planes, especially early planes. late plane tech is super useful, but early plane tech is just a tremendous waste of time.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

42 minutes ago, Jhawk1099 said:

I have yet to see an anamoly contract

World's First gives money for discovering each anomaly.

2 minutes ago, Kosmognome said:

Give incentives to actually use planes, especially early planes. late plane tech is super useful, but early plane tech is just a tremendous waste of time.

Is the fact that they're super duper fun a good incentive?

[Kosmognome]

2 minutes ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

Is the fact that they're super duper fun a good incentive?

To me, they are not. They are just slow. You might have fun with them for a while, but going on a 45min trip to get to the tundra/poles during which nothing at all happens except your plane getting unstable as soon as you eneter 4x time warp. Yeah, no.

 

I would really love to see more usage and actual gameplay for planes. Sitting there for dozens of minutes just to reach a destination without having anything meaningful to do in the meantime isn#t interesting for me. That why we get time warp for our rockets, so that we don#t have to sit around all the time...

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Just now, Kosmognome said:

To me, they are not. They are just slow. You might have fun with them for a while, but going on a 45min trip to get to the tundra/poles during which nothing at all happens except your plane getting unstable as soon as you eneter 4x time warp. Yeah, no.

 

I would really love to see more usage and actual gameplay for planes. Sitting there for dozens of minutes just to reach a destination without having anything meaningful to do in the meantime isn#t interesting for me. That why we get time warp for our rockets, so that we don#t have to sit around all the time...

You have a point
I generally don't fly planes too far, mostly just getting whatever science is available on the KSC continent. 

They're useful for me for grabbing science when I don't have the best tech for unmanned launches and don't want to do too much manned launches to start for the sake of roleplaying. But that's just me.

[Evanitis]

3 minutes ago, Kosmognome said:

going on a 45min trip to get to the tundra/poles during which nothing at all happens except your plane getting unstable as soon as you eneter 4x time warp. Yeah, no.

Just now, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

You have a point

You guys should try spaceplanes. You go faster if there's no air around.

Mind you, I'm not talking about SSTO planes (that would require late tech), just planes that get to space by 'conventional' staged rockets. Reaching the poles or other continents doesn't even require a full orbit. And it's great fun to try ways you can launch spaceplanes, as gluing one to the top of a rocket won't really work.

By the way.. Anomaly Surveyor and GAP Contracts are great mods that both give many exciting things to do with conventional jet-planes too.

[Kosmognome]

4 minutes ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

They're useful for me for grabbing science when I don't have the best tech for unmanned launches and don't want to do too much manned launches to start for the sake of roleplaying. But that's just me.

To be honest, I would *love* a tech tree that better supports starting with unmanned rockets in stock. But if the tech tree really got fixed, planes would still be in the same spot - useless.

 

They need some more reason to be and more interesting things to do then just wasting time while waiting for your arrival at the destination. Rockets solve that elegantly with time warp. No need to wait, just warp to the next interesting thing. With planes, it just feels very clunky, and as soon as you hit higher time warp levels, the behavior beomes erratic at best and RUD in flight is a constant danger.

Grinding down the KSC biomes isn't interesting in a plane, either. You don't need to actually fly anywhere to get all KSC biomes quickly.

 

So yeh, I'd love them to give early planes more meaningful gameplay that has more engaged parts. Sure, you ge some contracts, but I find them to be generally broing and time-consuming just because the aforementioned limitations of planes.

 

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

1 minute ago, Kosmognome said:

They need some more reason to be and more interesting things to do then just wasting time while waiting for your arrival at the destination.

That is true.

All in favor of inflight movies raise your hand

2 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

just planes that get to space by 'conventional' staged rockets.

I tried that once. It exploded upon reentry because I'm terrible :/

[Kosmognome]

1 minute ago, Evanitis said:

You guys should try spaceplanes. You go faster if there's no air around.

Mind you, I'm not talking about SSTO planes (that would require late tech), just planes that get to space by 'conventional' staged rockets. Reaching the poles or other continents doesn't even require a full orbit. And it's great fun to try ways you can launch spaceplanes, as gluing one to the top of a rocket won't really work. 

Yeah, but you can do that simply with a ballistic rocket, too. No need for plane parts at all, and the cost if roughly the same.

 

So yeah, there isn't really a niche where early plane parts really shine. It is possible to use them, but every other option is just more or at least equally efficient.

[Evanitis]

Just now, Kosmognome said:

every other option is just more or at least equally efficient.

Well, that I can't debate with.

[rcp27]

Perhaps some early career tourist contracts could help. At present the least demanding tourists want sub-orbital, requiring escaping the atmosphere. A tourist wanting, say, fly over a particular kerbin biome at ~8,000 m might give planes a bit more utility.

Edited February 19, 2016 by rcp27
Autocorrect doesn't know "Kerbin"

[KerikBalm]

On 2/17/2016 at 2:37 PM, meuqsaco said:

Hello guys.

I really like the fact that Kerbin has two natural satellites, one being the Mun which is much harder to land on, due to the terrain and gravity and then Minmus which has almost no gravity and thus allows to easily explore with the same rocket you use to land with. My problem is that there is nothing around(besides Kerbin) which has atmosphere so I can bring a plane around(rover exploring is SLOW). The closest place I found was Eve or Duna which are a long trip away from. For me, this makes planes useless until you have unlocked the tech. for spaceplanes. Wouldn't it make sense to have a third natural satellite with atmosphere or change Minmus to have it? This way we can practice before sending more dangerous missions to other planets.

So use them on Kerbin. See the pyramids, visit the poles, follow a river on Kerbin. The science output is small, but what will you don once you've unlocked all the science anyway?

Duna isn't much "father" than Mun in terms of dV anyway... I used ot be intimidated by interplanetary too, but its just mental. when sending a craft to another body... establishing orbit or landing is pretty much the same as at a moon of kerbin.

 

On 2/17/2016 at 2:56 PM, Elway358 said:

 I see absolutely no need for planes of any type and honestly have no desire to even build one. I have all but 3 nodes of the tech tree unlocked even.

I know a lot of people love the spaceplanes but for me, if I wanted to fly planes I would play a flight simulator made for that. Rockets4Lyfe!

You are right, there is no need. But they can be useful, especially if one is on a budget (like no contracts accepted, or very low payouts set via the difficulty sliders).

I use planes and rockets. My planes don't go beyond low orbit, except when transfering to another destination(typically as a payload on a rocket tug) where they won't go beyond low orbit either

On 2/17/2016 at 3:25 PM, Elway358 said:

The rockets definitely aren't cheap but really after I got all the buildings upgraded and stuff, I've had more money than I can even think about spending.

Yea, but different settings can make money much tighter, or you can play without accepting any contracts, using the science to funds strategy, and then you budget your mission based on how much science you expect to gain - often the budgets end up being quite small.

On 2/17/2016 at 4:23 PM, meuqsaco said:

Oh, I wasn't aware that these planets don't have oxygen which is required for the engine to run... Damn, so there is nowhere else we can fly our planes besides Kerbin?

Laythe, a moon of Jool, has oxygen in its atmosphere. You can also fly around on Duna, but without jet engine. Due to its very low atmospheric pressure, a LV-N gets very good Isp. Sure, its will use 3x as much fuel as a rapier for the same thrust (3200 vs 800 Isp), but its workable. I modded myself some electric engines, and many people do the same. The way I have they modded now, I can cruise around duna at 200 m/s, which is a lot better than roving.

Eve is.... well I sometimes use wings on Eve to steer to my intended landing zone. I've even put wings on decouplers on rovers, and I jettison the wings after landing (the intent is to aim for the intersection of multiple biomes, or a shore line to get splashed and landed science reports, and then rove between them). I've also made some attempts at a balanced air augmented ramrocket (or turbo-ramrocket), but so far I don't feel I have the balance quite right. Flying on eve, especially in stock, is mostly limited to gliding descents. I will note that in 1.04, someone managed an Eve SSTO, and it was a winged rocket, using wings to reduce gravity drag and enable a single engine to lift more fuel (increased high altitude drag and heating in 1.05 killed the already marginal design)

On 2/17/2016 at 6:57 PM, Stoney3K said:

I was talking about SCIENCE career, not contracts.

In science, funds don't matter, and I do use rockets a whole lot more. Still, planes are fun for exploring laythe (and duna with some modded electric props) after the tech tree is all unlocked, and one isn't concerned with collecting science anymore.

On 2/17/2016 at 0:34 AM, GoSlash27 said:

This complaint doesn't include spaceplanes. Spaceplanes are awesome for shuttling kerbonauts between KSC and LKO and ferrying fuel to orbit cheaply. But unless you just want to check off all the science boxes for Kerbin, there's just no reason to fly anywhere.

Best,
-Slashy

Well, they are also nice for laythe... I have some suborbital Juno propelled planes for use on Laythe. I suppose they transit through space, but as payload, they are suborbital, and can't escape the atmosphere under their own power. I intend to use them for shuttling kerbonauts between continents on laythe (also contemplating a bigger turbofan powered variant once I send more kerbals to laythe).

On 2/17/2016 at 3:38 PM, juanml82 said:

Duna is doable, with either aerospikes or nukes, but have you tried landing a plane there?

Terriers and poodles are also good, but the aerospike is nice due to its TWR and decent vacuum stats... but not because of its "aerospike" properties (the near optimal Isp at various altitudes)

Landing a plane there... I often do tail sitting planes with parachute landings.

It glides well enough for me to land quite close to the surface base (fly a course right over the top, pop drogue chutes, then pop main chutes before I pass it)

 

 

I also use lift fans/jets and braking chutes, like on this one (electric prop mod):

 

My little laythe explorers:

(undergoing testing on Kerbin)

[Knaapie]

Everybody is right in this topic. Kinda funny after this wall of text.

 

- planes are slow boring with (too) few benefits.

- They can be cool and nice for variation (see pics above). Spaceplanes can even be useful.

- They do give easier access to perform science on kerbin biomes (can give you the few missing science points at some time), which is considered to be inefficient by proficient players.

They should stay in the game for variation and fans.

 

The only actual discussion is if there are actually TOO few benefits. 

One could increase benefits by reducing the main downside: costs for unlocking. Perhaps the basic plane parts should be unlocked at the very start. Be able to fly planes before going to space. So you don't need to waste science points to get science points on Kerbin. I would want to go for that.

Then again, I also like Kerbals to be space crazy and have rockets before they can fly planes. It is why I like science to be low on Kerbin.  I'm undecided.

 

And to answer your sub question: would it be cool to have a 3rd satellite around Kerbin?

Imo adding the 2nd satellite around Kerbin has already done wonders. One could make more easy to reach bodies, but imo, it is time to explore further, you should plan a visit to laythe  . Less gravity than Kerbin and a pretty thick atmosphere makes this a great planet to fly around (and easy to re-orbit).

Edited February 19, 2016 by Knaapie

[dantedarkstar]

On 17.02.2016 at 3:38 PM, juanml82 said:

That said, electric propellers would be a welcome addition to the game and aren't as outlandish as atomic jets (doable in real life if you want to kill your pilot by radiation poisoning) or the magic atmospheric engines which use karbonite or kethane as propellant and "intake atmosphere" as oxidizer.

Now that this was mentioned, I don't see any fundamental reason why there couldn't be a turbojet engine that uses both fuel and oxidizer to produce thrust in any gaseous atmosphere. There's nothing magic to it. Turbojet (or even better turbofan) are so efficient not because they don't have to carry oxidizer (then they would have just around 2 times more ISP than rocket or so, depending on relative weight of oxidizer and fuel) but because they use lots of atmosphere as reaction mass to push backwards. So taking a turbojet and modifying it so that it supplies both fuel and oxidizer, should allow an engine with half ISP of traditional turbojet but not relying on atmospheric oxygen. Actually there probably would be some real issuses, like oxidizer and fuel being hard to burn if they are both sparse in inert gas. I think this could be solved though, perhaps by making it more like "rocket-turbofan engine" where the core is essentially a rocket, that uses inert gas added to rocket exhaust to cool it down enough for the turbine, which drives large fan found in typical turbofan engine, which provides majority of thrust. Or maybe by using monopropellant-powered turbojet ? (then the issue of fuel not burning because both fuel and oxidizer are too sparse wouldn't exist at all)

I suppose we never saw anything like that in reality, because we are nowhere near the point where we need such engine. Unless of course somebody with actual experience in turbojet engineering could point out fatal flaws in my reasoning that I don't see.

[Mipe]

No atmospheric moon around Kerbin? No problem. Just launch your plane into orbit, heck, around Mun or Minmus if you want, then pretend Kerbin is some other exotic planet with atmosphere and have at it. It's plenty good.

If that doesn't satisfy you, there are quite a few planet mods floating around thanks to Kopernicus. I think there was a single planet mod with orbit between Kerbin and Duna that has atmosphere in wide, long canyons. The name eludes me.

EDIT: Gotcha - it is Asclepius :

Have at it!

Edited February 20, 2016 by Mipe

[Foxster]

It's true that planes are actually pretty useless for career or science mode. You can do anything they can do better/cheaper with some small rocket. 

Which is odd considering the huge amount of dev effort that has gone into plane parts and aerodynamics. 

[KerikBalm]

4 hours ago, dantedarkstar said:

Now that this was mentioned, I don't see any fundamental reason why there couldn't be a turbojet engine that uses both fuel and oxidizer to produce thrust in any gaseous atmosphere. There's nothing magic to it. Turbojet (or even better turbofan) are so efficient not because they don't have to carry oxidizer (then they would have just around 2 times more ISP than rocket or so, depending on relative weight of oxidizer and fuel) but because they use lots of atmosphere as reaction mass to push backwards. So taking a turbojet and modifying it so that it supplies both fuel and oxidizer, should allow an engine with half ISP of traditional turbojet but not relying on atmospheric oxygen. Actually there probably would be some real issuses, like oxidizer and fuel being hard to burn if they are both sparse in inert gas. I think this could be solved though, perhaps by making it more like "rocket-turbofan engine" where the core is essentially a rocket, that uses inert gas added to rocket exhaust to cool it down enough for the turbine, which drives large fan found in typical turbofan engine, which provides majority of thrust. Or maybe by using monopropellant-powered turbojet ? (then the issue of fuel not burning because both fuel and oxidizer are too sparse wouldn't exist at all)

I suppose we never saw anything like that in reality, because we are nowhere near the point where we need such engine. Unless of course somebody with actual experience in turbojet engineering could point out fatal flaws in my reasoning that I don't see.

Its called a ramrocket, or an air augmented rocket.

They aren't used (much) in reality because we have O2 here, and there's not many other places we'd want to use one.

But, they do exist... although its not such a binary distinction, many of them do run fuel rich so that atmospheric oxygen can contribute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-augmented_rocket

"

The first^{[citation needed]} serious attempt to make a production air-augmented rocket was the Soviet Gnom rocket design, implemented by Decree 708-336 of the Soviet Ministers of 2 July 1958. This was an ICBM whose performance was so improved^{[citation needed]} that it weighed half that of conventional designs. This led to it being light enough, about 30 tonnes, that it could be mounted on the back of a large tank chassis and made fully transportable. Design and test work continued on the design throughout the early 1960s, but ended in 1965 when the chief designer died.

 

NASA GTX Reference vehicle

More recently NASA has re-examined similar technology for the GTX program as part of an effort to develop SSTO spacecraft.

Many modern solid fueled 'ramjet' powered missiles, such as the MBDA meteor, may in fact be air augmented rockets,^{[citation needed]} and the distinction between a ramjet and an air augmented missile is rather blurred. Many solid fueled ramjet missiles seem to be solid fueled ramrockets in all but name.

"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_%28rocket%29#Moon_missions

"To achieve the required amount of thrust, it was proposed that a large number of NK-15s would be used in a clustered configuration around the outer rim of the lower-stage booster. The "inside" of the ring of engines would be open, with air piped into the hole via inlets near the top of the booster stage. The air would be mixed with the exhaust in order to provide thrust augmentation, as well as additional combustion with the deliberately fuel-rich exhaust."

You'll notice I mentioned an air agument ramrocket/turboramrocket in my post... but it was a rather long post

While simple ramrockets (ie a ramjet using oxidizer and fuel, not just fuel) have been made, I haven't heard of any proposals to use them to drive a turbine as some form of turbo-rocket - but yes, in theory it could be done.

Here was my attempt at modding a part to simulate such an engine:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eojo85ycjbpkk5w/jetEngineTurboRamRocket.cfg?dl=0

(drop it in the folder where the turboramjet files are stored).

I think its a bit OP'd as it makes Eve SSTOs not only possible, but not *too* difficult (though it was still quite hard for me to get a sea level ascent to orbit without overheating on the way up and still having enough dV)

[Rocket In My Pocket]

The only compelling game play reason to use a plane in my opinion (aside from hoovering up biome science) are the career mode contracts they can be used to complete such as low altitude readings and surface samples on Kerbin, and that's only if they are reasonably close to the KSC. Spaceplanes are a different beast entirely and I think the cost benefit makes them worthwhile and gives them a place in the game.

Stock KSP needs more contracts that involve flying a Plane on Kerbin, perhaps rescue missions, part recovery, tourism? (I realize there is a mod for this but as others have noted, SQUAD has spent a lot of time and effort on planes in stock so I think this should be addressed in stock.) I think a core issue here is the lack of timewarp over x4 while flying a plane, any trip of considerable distance will take forever, especially since depending on the stability of the design it may not even be capable of flying at x4. (I actually test and then rate each of my planes in their description box with the max time warp they can handle...lest I forget.) No one wants to watch a plane fly in a straight line for 2 hours, it's not fun. Any contracts regarding planes should be fairly close to the KSC, anything further would be so much easier to do with either a plane strapped to a rocket or an actual rocket that no one is going to go through the trouble.

All that said, I'm a huge fan of flying planes in KSP and I probably spend more time designing and flying silly planes without ever leaving sight of the KSC than I do anything else in the game despite the lack of compelling game play reasons to do so.

[meuqsaco]

Would be nice if Squad could tell us their thoughts about low tech plane parts and if they intend to make them more useful as it looks like the majority of people enjoy playing with them.

[GoSlash27]

20 hours ago, Knaapie said:

The only actual discussion is if there are actually TOO few benefits. 

One could increase benefits by reducing the main downside: costs for unlocking. Perhaps the basic plane parts should be unlocked at the very start. Be able to fly planes before going to space. So you don't need to waste science points to get science points on Kerbin. I would want to go for that.

Then again, I also like Kerbals to be space crazy and have rockets before they can fly planes. It is why I like science to be low on Kerbin.  I'm undecided.

Knaapie,

 I think you've nailed it. If you start out with the Stayputnik instead of the capsule, remove the science from KSC, and make basic plane parts available from the very beginning, airplanes become a very attractive option in early career.

 You launch sounding rockets and fly a few manned science flights, and this gives you enough to unlock manned spaceflight. If you're ambitious/ skilled enough, you can create an x-15 right out of the gate and pick up the world's first for a bunch of speed records and maybe even space.

Best,
-Slashy

 

[Stoney3K]

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

Knaapie,

 I think you've nailed it. If you start out with the Stayputnik instead of the capsule, remove the science from KSC, and make basic plane parts available from the very beginning, airplanes become a very attractive option in early career.

 You launch sounding rockets and fly a few manned science flights, and this gives you enough to unlock manned spaceflight. If you're ambitious/ skilled enough, you can create an x-15 right out of the gate and pick up the world's first for a bunch of speed records and maybe even space.

Best,
-Slashy

 

How do you suppose to fly manned science flights (on planes) without a cockpit available? If there *was* a cockpit available from the very start the Stayputnik would be useless since you can do manned space flights again.

We'd need either a cockpit (mk0, open topped maybe?) which is flimsy so it will be destroyed once you take it to space, or have some means of flying unmanned planes, like using the Fly-By-Wire Avionics Hub.

The avionics hub is pretty useless right now anyway since it is later in the tree than the OKTO which can do the exact same thing, plus work as a remote guidance unit.

[GoSlash27]

34 minutes ago, Stoney3K said:

We'd need either a cockpit (mk0, open topped maybe?) which is flimsy so it will be destroyed once you take it to space,

Stoney,

Actually, I was thinking the Mk1 for that job. What would keep people from trying to go to space with it: No parachutes. This is also why the first rockets would be simple sounding rockets.
 

Anything using the Mk.1 cockpit without chutes will need wings to be survivable. Anything built with wings won't make orbit with the early tier parts... so you need science. Thankfully, there are several biomes within easy flying distance, so...

Best,
-Slashy

Edited February 20, 2016 by GoSlash27