You find that the reaction wheels are unrealisticly powerful?

[Armisael]

1 hour ago, Braker said:

65% of 60 players is not the majority...

Why did you even create this poll if you weren't going to believe the results?

[Braker]

3 minutes ago, Armisael said:

Why did you even create this poll if you weren't going to believe the results?

Where you see that I don't believe the results?

[Porkjet]

Realism aside, I think managing RCS just makes things more interresting. And I mean not just for docking. With reaction wheels you never have to worry about RCS fuel or positioning of thrusters during spacecraft construction. It lets you skip a lot of interresting problems to solve

[Red Iron Crown]

15 hours ago, Braker said:

65% of 60 players is not the majority...

It literally is. 

Unless you're suggesting that 60 players isn't enough to represent the playerbase of KSP, in which case the poll is pointless as it will never get a statistically significant sample size (let alone the other issues of skewing based on where the poll is posted and self selection). IMO forum polls are only good for forum things, and even then they're questionable.

[Laie]

I can't tell you what the majority opinion would be. As for myself, I don't think the reaction wheels are something that absolutely has to be fixed.

[Braker]

18 hours ago, Porkjet said:

Realism aside, I think managing RCS just makes things more interresting. And I mean not just for docking. With reaction wheels you never have to worry about RCS fuel or positioning of thrusters during spacecraft construction. It lets you skip a lot of interresting problems to solve

Totally agree.

Worrying about the remaining RCS fuel is totally in the KSP soul and add an interesting challenge branch.

3 hours ago, Laie said:

I can't tell you what the majority opinion would be. As for myself, I don't think the reaction wheels are something that absolutely has to be fixed.

Is not a bug which need to be fixed... It is just a rebalancing in order to make the RCS more interesting/fun to use...

Edited May 2, 2016 by Braker

[Laie]

32 minutes ago, Braker said:

Is not a bug which need to be fixed... It is just a rebalancing in order to make the RCS more interesting/fun to use...

You can certainly make a case that everyone should play the game like this because it's more fun. I might even agree. Where you lose me is when you want squad to make this the mandatory playstyle for everyone. That smells of "telling others how they should enjoy the game" and I don't like it one bit.

[Nich]

Oh and just an FYI 2 sets of reaction wheels can desaturate each other with a bit of math and patience using gyroscopic forces.  So assuming every reaction wheel in KSP is actually a set of 2 reaction wheels realistically as you move constantly in 1 direction saturation would build up but as you stop accelerating saturation would decay.  As long as you are not trying to do something crazy like trying to spin up to 100 rpm or have a massively undersized reaction wheels they are effectively unsaturatable.  In addition most dockings and burns are set up hours/weeks in advance, happen much slower, and have much smaller speeds and accelerations.  It is the same reason IONs are 2000 times stronger then they should be no one wants to spend 6 hours doing a basic orbital docking or a  year burning to the Mun.

[Braker]

17 hours ago, Laie said:

You can certainly make a case that everyone should play the game like this because it's more fun. I might even agree. Where you lose me is when you want squad to make this the mandatory playstyle for everyone. That smells of "telling others how they should enjoy the game" and I don't like it one bit.

"Where you lose me is when you want squad to make this the mandatory playstyle for everyone. That smells of "telling others how they should enjoy the game" and I don't like it one bit."

I dont want to force everyone to play the game that I want... If is that I said by inadvertence, know that it's not that I wanted to mean.

I just ask the community for opinion about that. If you are against, it is your right...

But if you agree with me, just say it.

Dou you want a rebalance ? The question is simple: YES or NO.

If you are against, you can argue your point of view, just like I did in these four pages of thread...

Edited May 3, 2016 by Braker

[Starwaster]

On 5/2/2016 at 2:21 PM, Nich said:

Oh and just an FYI 2 sets of reaction wheels can desaturate each other with a bit of math and patience using gyroscopic forces.  So assuming every reaction wheel in KSP is actually a set of 2 reaction wheels realistically as you move constantly in 1 direction saturation would build up but as you stop accelerating saturation would decay.  As long as you are not trying to do something crazy like trying to spin up to 100 rpm or have a massively undersized reaction wheels they are effectively unsaturatable.  In addition most dockings and burns are set up hours/weeks in advance, happen much slower, and have much smaller speeds and accelerations.  It is the same reason IONs are 2000 times stronger then they should be no one wants to spend 6 hours doing a basic orbital docking or a  year burning to the Mun.

No, at best they can exchange momentum and what you've done is to just split it up. Sooner or later all of them would get saturated and you would run out of wheels to dump the momentum into.

And it doesn't just naturally decay by itself, you have to have a means of desaturation. That can be RCS thrusters to apply torque to make up for the momentum transferred as you desaturate the wheels or it can be atmospheric drag or gravity gradients.

This isn't made up stuff, they have to deal with this on the ISS

[Nich]

2 minutes ago, Starwaster said:

No, at best they can exchange momentum and what you've done is to just split it up. Sooner or later all of them would get saturated and you would run out of wheels to dump the momentum into.

And it doesn't just naturally decay by itself, you have to have a means of desaturation. That can be RCS thrusters to apply torque to make up for the momentum transferred as you desaturate the wheels or it can be atmospheric drag or gravity gradients.

This isn't made up stuff, they have to deal with this on the ISS

Yes you can. I don't remember exactly how it works and to be honest I don't care enough to look it up but let's say you have 2 sets of reaction wheels. Now let's assume you have 10m between each set. Now let's assume X1 is saturated. X1 has become a gryo scope we can spin up y2 causing a tourqe that has to be canceled around z1 however because of the monument arm it is only equal to 1/10 th the tourqe in y2. Now that y2 is also a gryo X1 can be desaturated causing a tourqe of 1/10 around z2. Now if I remember correctly the tourqes around z1 and z2 are opposite each other so they can just cancel each other. Even if the tourqes are in the same direction because of the lever arms you are dividing the mommentum by 10 every time you transfer the momentum.

http://www.google.com/patents/US6523785

[awang]

27 minutes ago, Nich said:

Yes you can. I don't remember exactly how it works and to be honest I don't care enough to look it up but let's say you have 2 sets of reaction wheels. Now let's assume you have 10m between each set. Now let's assume X1 is saturated. X1 has become a gryo scope we can spin up y2 causing a tourqe that has to be canceled around z1 however because of the monument arm it is only equal to 1/10 th the tourqe in y2. Now that y2 is also a gryo X1 can be desaturated causing a tourqe of 1/10 around z2. Now if I remember correctly the tourqes around z1 and z2 are opposite each other so they can just cancel each other. Even if the tourqes are in the same direction because of the lever arms you are dividing the mommentum by 10 every time you transfer the momentum.

http://www.google.com/patents/US6523785

I would assume that if such a method existed NASA and other space agencies would be all over it...

In addition, you can't just "[divide] the momentum by 10 every time you transfer the momentum". Angular momentum has to be conserved, so you can't just magic away 90% of it using one maneuver or another.  Reaction wheels have more states than "on" and "off", too; I'm more than a little rusty on my physics, but I would imagine that in order to cancel the torque from X1, Y2 would have to spin at a *different* speed due to differing distances from the center of mass.

Craft in real life aren't operating in a closed system, either. There's drag, uneven gravity gradients, etc. which all constantly produce a torque on the craft, so no matter how you transfer momentum between wheels the overall amount of momentum will change to a point that you have to use RCS.

And r.e. the patent: Being granted a patent does not prove correctness. Perpetual motion machines have been patented.

Edited May 3, 2016 by awang
Whitespace

[evileye.x]

Did not read the thread, but voted NO.

Yes, default RW are cheaty and unrealistic.

Just make all reaction wheels 40 times weaker:

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleReactionWheel]]
{
  @MODULE[ModuleReactionWheel]
  {
    @PitchTorque *= 0.025
    @YawTorque *= 0.025
    @RollTorque *= 0.025
  }
}

and use  (Semi-)Saturatable Reaction Wheels

 

As I do in my games.

And you'll need rcs. Also you'll need RCS build aid

 

Edited May 3, 2016 by evileye.x

[Starwaster]

2 hours ago, awang said:

I would assume that if such a method existed NASA and other space agencies would be all over it...

In addition, you can't just "[divide] the momentum by 10 every time you transfer the momentum". Angular momentum has to be conserved, so you can't just magic away 90% of it using one maneuver or another.  Reaction wheels have more states than "on" and "off", too; I'm more than a little rusty on my physics, but I would imagine that in order to cancel the torque from X1, Y2 would have to spin at a *different* speed due to differing distances from the center of mass.

Craft in real life aren't operating in a closed system, either. There's drag, uneven gravity gradients, etc. which all constantly produce a torque on the craft, so no matter how you transfer momentum between wheels the overall amount of momentum will change to a point that you have to use RCS.

And r.e. the patent: Being granted a patent does not prove correctness. Perpetual motion machines have been patented.

Well, obviously NASA is doing it wrong. Someone better get @Nich in touch with them pronto. Just think of all the propellant we can save.

[Nich]

Well I learned the method from a Professor who spent 40 years designing gyroscopes and autopilots for honeywell and when I saw the actual math it looked legit to me so feel free to believe what ever you want.

[Accelerando]

Honestly, the bananas-OP reaction wheels strike me as somewhat redundant ever since part modules were implemented and especially ever since all command modules were fitted with RCS tanks. It feels weird being able to turn my ship around all the time with nearly zero electrical power whatsoever and no fuel at all. Probe cores and CMs could have some basic RCS thrust capability implemented by default, too, so beginning players don't need to worry about it as much. Maybe reaction wheel strength could then be adjusted as a difficulty setting.

[regex]

3 hours ago, Starwaster said:

Just think of all the propellant we can save.

#legit #perpetuallyinmotion #antigravity #moonlandinghoax

[Starwaster]

1 hour ago, Nich said:

Well I learned the method from a Professor who spent 40 years designing gyroscopes and autopilots for honeywell and when I saw the actual math it looked legit to me so feel free to believe what ever you want.

Does it not occur to you at all that maybe your comprehension of what he taught you wasn't as complete as it could have been? Or that he might have presented only a portion of something larger that you filled in the blanks on?

You can't destroy energy and what you proposed would be doing that. You can only move it around. Ease the load on one wheel by moving some of it to another one? I can totally get behind that. But the pent up energy is still there and has to be dealt with.

[Nich]

@Starwaster Well it has been 10 years since I have taken any physics classes so maybe you can enlighten me.  What happens in the following situation.

You have 6 fly wheels with identical moments of inertia

x1, x2

y1, y2

z1, z2

x1 is at max RPM.  y1 and y2 are accelerated to maximum RPM in opposite directions to cause no torque.  y1 has a positive RPM and y2 has a negative RPM.  What is the net torque required from z1 and z2 to prevent your craft from rotating when x1 is decelerated?

 

I am definitely a bit fuzzy on this math and all I can remember is right hand rule and cross products.  I believe you only need cross products if the torque is not 90 degrees.   So when decelerating x1 precession from y1 would be in the positive z direction and precession from y2 would be in the negative z direction canceling each other out.  Perhaps I am missing a coriolis effect or I have completely forgotten how gyros work or something but yes I agree this does seem to violate conservation of angular momentum.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Nich

[awang]

1 hour ago, Nich said:

@Starwaster Well it has been 10 years since I have taken any physics classes so maybe you can enlighten me.  What happens in the following situation.

You have 6 fly wheels with identical moments of inertia

x1, x2

y1, y2

z1, z2

x1 is at max RPM.  y1 and y2 are accelerated to maximum RPM in opposite directions to cause no torque.  y1 has a positive RPM and y2 has a negative RPM.  What is the net torque required from z1 and z2 to prevent your craft from rotating when x1 is decelerated?

 

I am definitely a bit fuzzy on this math and all I can remember is right hand rule and cross products.  I believe you only need cross products if the torque is not 90 degrees.   So when decelerating x1 precession from y1 would be in the positive z direction and precession from y2 would be in the negative z direction canceling each other out.  Perhaps I am missing a coriolis effect or I have completely forgotten how gyros work or something but yes I agree this does seem to violate conservation of angular momentum.

To be pedantic, the net torque required from z1 and z2 to balance x1's deceleration is the same magnitude as the torque produced by the deceleration, with an opposite sign

More seriously, though... If y1 and y2 are operating at the same RPM in opposite directions, shouldn't they cancel *each other* out, leaving no net effect on the system? So you still have the torque from x1 to deal with. z1 and z2 can cancel the torque, but at the cost of having to change their rotation rate(s), so in the end the momentum from x1 was split across z1 and z2, leaving the total the same.

It's been too long since I've had to deal with off-center angular momentum/torque problems...

[suicidejunkie]

It is quite simple.

If you really believe there is a way to take your system and absorb an unlimited amount of angular momentum by trading it between wheels? Then reverse the steps to make it emit an unlimited amount of angular momentum.  (amount, not necessarily rate of course)

Use that to turn a turbine and save the world with cheap nonpolluting energy.

 

There's nothing stopping you except the actual physics of the universe.

[ShotgunNinja]

I believe the current 'strength' of the reaction wheels is a consequence of the instability of the physics in the early days of development, then they weren't changed anymore. I personally play with them reduced to 20% and it just feel better. Lower than that, and you have to make RCS earlier in the tech tree.

The simulation is stable enough to nerf them a bit now.

[Wjolcz]

On 5/1/2016 at 10:32 PM, Porkjet said:

Realism aside, I think managing RCS just makes things more interresting. And I mean not just for docking. With reaction wheels you never have to worry about RCS fuel or positioning of thrusters during spacecraft construction. It lets you skip a lot of interresting problems to solve

I agree. I actually try to avoid using the reaction wheels when docking. Just for fun.

And I don't think they need a rebalance, or whatever. You can always switch the torque off if you don't want to use it, which is something I usually do. Especially on planes in the atmosphere. The lack of torque on planes influences the way I design my planes in a major way.

[mk1980]

yes i do believe they are unrealistic.

no i don't think they should be changed, because realistic reaction wheels would serve no purpose other than making the gameplay slower and more tedious (in my opinion)

[Sereneti]

maybee a little bit to ...unrealistic
but its okay, there are another things, with higher priority (and... for the game-play is the status-quo ok..)
A reaction-weel can generate torque by speed up, or breake down a spinning-weel.

its possible to make it realistik by cut-down the maximum impuls from a reaction-weel:
if you generate torque in one direction, the reaction-weel will increase his RPM.
-> the RPM are at max, you need to break down (generate torque in the other direction) the weel, until you can generate torque in this direction again.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Sereneti