Any Engine to RCS

[marcello639]

Would be nice to select mode for any engine or thruster. Main engines or RCS. It could be ideal solution for VTOL's or big size ships. 

[Tex]

The main trouble I see for this is that RCS is much, much less powerful than LF/O engines. There are new engines that cross the border such as the "Vernor" engine and the "Puff" RCS engine that consumes more but gives more power. To get the same sort of performance as the engines have now, you'd have to consume way more monopropellant, and by the time that comes up it's better just to stick to rocket engines anyway.

Plus, the LF/O engines and RCS thrusters are noticeably different in construction. It wouldn't make much sense to be able to switch, though of course you could always mod the game to do so if you wish, I'm pretty sure its possible.

And then, of course, is the fuel problem. If you were to have, say, a "Rhino" engine pumping monopropellant rather than LF/O, you'd have to have massive tanks full of the fuel, which we don't realistically have. Largest ones I can think of are stacks of FL-R1s, which would become pretty unstable if stacked too much without reinforcement.

TL;DR - Doesn't make a lot of sense logistically, current systems are better in theory and practice anyway.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Maximus97

[pincushionman]

I don't think he's suggesting engines being convertible between LF/O and monopropellant. I think he's suggesting setting engines to respond to RCS controls rather than the throttle. Like using Thuds like Vernors on steroids.

[marcello639]

Well, I probably didn't explain properly what I meant. Fuels/propellants stays same. Changes way they are being controlled. Lets say we have VTOL what uses for vertical liftoff 4 mainsails. They still uses Lf/Ox mix. But they responds to RCS controls. Crafts balancing gonna be much easier.

 

Or let's take vernors and switch them to main engine group. Benefit - low profile, lightweight engines 

[Nich]

Ya I think tweak scaling vernors is your best bet.  But really you want VTOL engines throatable. 

[NoMrBond]

This may already be coming up as part of the 'harmonisation' of engines to the newer ModuleEngineFX system

Everything will end up all working on one system (RCS would also gain access to emissives, particles and sound etc), and whether an engine accepts inputs via the RCS control or Engine throttle system will be set via a flag in the config, but engines will be able to have their input switched (via tweakable) as desired (although probably not all engines).

[Tex]

Ohhhhhhh, I see. Whoopsie.

I suppose that would come in handy, but as with a ton of other stuff, I never personally found any issue with doing it the normal way. I mean, if I ever decided to build VTOLs I'm sure I could probably see where the OP is coming from, as of right now I don't.

[Halo_003]

I would kick some butts for the ability to use ion engine clusters with RCS controls.

[Blaf]

16 hours ago, marcello639 said:

Would be nice to select mode for any engine or thruster. Main engines or RCS. It could be ideal solution for VTOL's or big size ships. 

This, and stabilisation autopilot capable of control thrust separately for each engine, as well with maintaining altitude.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I've made some pretty big VTOL's (like 300+ parts big) and I've never had an issue with just using action groups to separate the vertical/horizontal engines.

Really all that would change is being able to run both groups of engines at the same time, but I can't really see a use for this as most VTOL's only have rear facing horizontal engines anyways, making true RCS style control impossible. As far as really huge space ships it would be a touch more useful but it'd have to be particularly awe inspiring in size that extra RCS or Vernors couldn't solve the problem.

I'm sure there would be a market for this as a mod though, If for no other reason than building crazy and wacky ideas.

[Temeter]

 Thought so too, but that would be a bit absurd tbh. Real life crafts use dedicated RCS for a reason, w/o that distinction you'd never use RCS/monoprop in KSP.

[Navy2k]

There are perfectly fine mods for such things:

 

[Tex]

3 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I'm sure there would be a market for this as a mod though, If for no other reason than building crazy and wacky ideas.

I agree, seems like a task best handled by a quick mod.

[Stoney3K]

4 hours ago, Maximus97 said:

I agree, seems like a task best handled by a quick mod.

I found that, when using a mod like TCA, the stock jet engines are still too slow to act as any kind of RCS when trying to maintain a decent hover. Even the "Yellowjacket" VTOL jet (from Nertea's Mk4 mod) which is supposedly faster on throttle response wasn't much use in that area either.

Some parts that allow for decent VTOL without having to resort to a crapton of mods would be immensely popular I guess. Along with RCS thrusters that can run on atmospheric air (like the ones on the Harrier) so we can fly true VTOL missions on jet engines.

IMO, a mechanism like TCA which ties into the engine thrust control should be part of the stock gameplay. A LOT of rockets use that as their primary means for attitude control so it would make sense to implement it, even through a separate part you can bolt on and/or by activating RCS.

[PanzerAce]

I'm actually looking for something similar. Something were I could use some of the electric engines from the near future packs as my RCS on a OPM grand tour ship. Even the SpaceY vernors are too small (and I'm actually trying to avoid taking any LF....)

[GeneralVeers]

With my Ceres V mothership design, I actually used some serious overengineering to make the prograde/retrograde RCS system.

The ship has twenty-four ion engines on it. Yes. Twenty-four. No typos there. Twelve facing forward and twelve facing backward. Each set of twelve is tied to an Action Group hotkey, so when I'm doing a dock or whatever else requires forward or reverse RCS, I use the action hotkeys to turn on the right engines. Does the job, great fuel economy, but massive addition to the ship's part count. Oh, and lately I've noticed my computer's CPU occasionally emits smoke for some reason.........

It's a cheesy workaround, and it's not actually RCS 'cause you have to turn off the ship's main drives, turn on the right ion engine group, and then use the standard throttle. But I'm with Halo on this, there are a lot of times when an ion-drive RCS cluster would be real handy.