Stacking ion engines (glitch, please fix)

[Vaporized Steel]

I'm a older KSP player, but even I get to learn about things from time to time that I have missed on so far. Probably a obvious and already reported issue, but one so silly I find it worthy to be mentioned, again!

I was browsing KSP videos on youtube and found this
Great job sir! But it annoys me why he would necessarily need to stack his engines just to proof his point.

It's not the best ion plane design. Thinking about it, with such a long body you could easily position the engines above and under the center wing to maintain COM stability without stacking. But the reason I share that particular video is because it shows the ion stack issue in a overdone kind of way.
That just looks absolutely ridiculous, having that one rear facing single unobstructed engine producing the same thrust as 2kn times the amount of engines he has stacked.

That is not the kind of game exploit that I think should exist in KSP. For every exploit lover out there, if you want more thrust out of a 6.25m engine part then edit the part file.

Having said that, can we update the ion engine so stacked ion engines will nullify the forward thrust?
It seems the right thing to do.

The same issue is probably already reported, more then once.
But this is so silly, this deserves to be pointed out, although personally I just learned about this even being possible as I never even considered trying to stack them.

 

 

 

 

 

[Francois424]

That's one of the way to offset the dismal thrust of the engine... to stack them.

But I figure you're referring to the fact that they are all in a singular cylinder in the central portion of the craft ?
I don't really have a problem with it; I just don't stack them as I don't like the concept. 
I'd rather mod ONE ion engine to proved as much thrust as the stack of them personally

 

To each his/her own.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Francois424

[Vaporized Steel]

Yes that's what I'm referring to.

While it is a building concept, it's a cheaty one.
Just like you do I edit a single engine to tweak the performance needed rather then using glitches.

Stacking engines just isn't the way it is supposed to work, it's silly. While I obviously won't lie awake because of it I do think these things should get patched in any next version or later on.
 

[Red Iron Crown]

It's not clear to me why thrust blocking is turned off for the ion engine, the only other engines that do are the Wheesley and Goliath (and this was necessary for thrust reversing to work properly, as I understand it). It's easy enough to avoid I guess but it does seem pretty cheaty.

[Foxster]

Ah but it makes perfect sense really!

You accelerate the ions with the first engine, feed that into the intake of the next and so on. Or something like that. Maybe. 

[panzer1b]

Personally i like it because it lets me build insanely redundant sub-capital ships that spread the engines throughout the hull (so any one hit wont destroy the entire ship's engine array).  Also, other engines are more cheaty imo because if you want more thrust, just clip 2-10 inside each other making one engine composed of super large amount of smaller ones.  Now that i do consider cheaty, but again, noone is forcing anyone to do it that way, if you think clipping parts is cheat, then dont clip, same with engines and the thrust obstruction, if you feel its cheating to place an engine inside a craft and still get thrust from it, then dont do that.  Also, besides the two thrust reversor jets, i believe the ant/spider do not have thrust blocking (unless this was changed very recently), as do the RCS engines (vernor, quad, linear and even the OMS engine).  SO it isnt an exclusive scenario that is just the ion.  If the ion gets its thruster blocked, i say all engines should (besides possibly RCS as those can be a pain to get working otherwise).

Either way i think its about time for a larger ion engine.  Ions in their current form are useless for large ships since you would need like 500 parts minimum for just the propulsion systems (~100-200 engines, rest batteries/solars/rtgs).  Yeah i can edit the ion properties to include batteries (and some ablator to increase their dry mass to compensate for it), but id much rather get a larger ion engine and then still be able to use the batteries separately.

Still, if they do alter the thrust, ill just adapt and redesign my capital ships to let them work with the new thrust blocked ion, until then, ill stick to my insanely redundant armor layouts with enough ions spread throughout the ship to make completely killing it almost impossible (unless the enemy has 20 missiles or so).