Ram and Circular intakes

[Thirster]

been playing for ages, still new to planes etc, and there\'s one thing I haven\'t been able to figure out.

do they do anything other than weigh my ship down

Thanks

[Vanamonde]

Several spaceplane parts are dummies right now, but will serve functions later. The intakes will enhance jet engine performance to varying degrees according to their intake draw capacity, but are dead weight at the moment. I put them on anyway, for practice and for looks.

[Thirster]

thanks, had a feeling it might be like this

[Bashkire]

Apologies to resurrect a dead thread, but while the above items don't do anything how do they work? Do you add them to the front of a fuel pod or to the back and then bolt an engine onto it?

For example: [[==]>

___________ 1 2 3

1 = Intake

2 = Fuel Pod

3 = Engine

or [==]]>

___ 1 2 3

1 Fuel Pod

2 Intake

3 Engine

[sal_vager]

Hi Bashkire, this thread is just a little over a month old, so it's only mostly dead

Anyway to answer your question, the intakes do nothing at this point, they are for show only, eventually though they will be necessary as the aircraft engines will require airflow into them in order to operate, and the various intake parts will allow for that.

As it is not yet a part of KSP things are likely to change, but as I understand it, as long as you have enough intake parts of the right type, your engines will run correctly.

[Bashkire]

Oh, yes, I understand the principle and why they are in the game even if they do nothing at the moment. I'm curious about the way that engines should be built in the future when they DO have a purpose. I mean, which of the 2 methods above should I use to design my engines when the intakes have a purpose?

[sal_vager]

The air flow through your craft will (unless it's changed) be handled in the same way that RCS fuel is distributed, as long as you have enough of the appropriate intakes your engines will be fed atmospheric air, so both methods will work just as well.

[Bashkire]

Ah right. Gotcha. Cheers for the info! Now to actually get this plane to take off and not flip around...

[Oggula]

On a vaguely related note, is the aerospike fuel bug actually a bug or an intentional simulation of aerospikes?

[sal_vager]

The fuel bug affects all of the engines that use the liquidfuelengine module in the 0.16 release, so that includes the aerospike.

[Markus Reese]

The aerospike engine is just more prevalently known due to the thrust the aerospike puts out. Being capable of lifting off and getting to the moon with no throttle practically using the aerospikes. No throttle given, no fuel really used.