What parts did you used to use all the time that you don't use anymore?

[Fearless Son]

I find that the way I design craft has changed gradually since I started playing KSP.  There are times when I used to think that certain parts were essential, but I eventually phased them out when I realized that I was probably using them excessively.  Sometimes this is motivated by changes to the game that force me to reevaluate my design (like when career mode was introduced and I needed to adapt to not having certain parts yet,) other times I just find that my understanding and play style have changed.  What are some of the parts you used to use all the time that you do not anymore?  

To get started, one thing I used to use a bunch of is Seperatrons.  I would stick them on everything that had to get separated.  But these days, I find them too complicated and finicky to deal with, getting the positioning just right and trying to track their staging became a pain.  Now I use offset tools to carefully position parts I need separated to ensure the leverage of the detachment bolts is enough to ensure a clean separation.  I rarely have to deal with anything so massive and unwieldy that it needs the extra force generated by Seperatrons.  

[michal.don]

-The big SRBs. My beginner crafts had obscene amounts of those, often on both first and second stage. Now I just use biggen LF/O engines for my lifting purposes (thanks, SpaceY)

-Lots of reaction wheels. If you need lots of those, you should reevaluate your design.

That are the first that come to mind.

[Freshmeat]

Mainsails. I use them in a few designs as I travel up the tech tree, but Twin Boars are just so much better. In opposition to michal I use more Kickbacks than I used to, as they are cheap dV to get off the pad. Otoh, I use as few LOX boosters as possible, when they used to be my standard setup, due to price.

[DualDesertEagle]

In the very beginning the only kind of rocket engines I used were solid fuel boosters. My whole ship except the pod was made up of those until I realized that even with their different sizes they don't offer enough of a "resolution" to precisely hit a certain trajectory. But then I found out that I needed tanks with both fuel and oxidizer in them in order to get LF/O rocket engines to work.

In the more recent past I mostly don't use solid fuel boosters AT ALL coz with LF/O engines I can also set up asparagus staging, which in many cases really helps me getting stuff hauled with less fuel than I would nor!ally use.

 

And I also stopped using big clusters of batteries on ships with low power consumption, which instead now get fitted with retractable solar panels. I do still add lots of batteries to my space stations which are usually orbiting planets or moons along their equators and thus fitted with lights to allow working on and docking with the station while it's in the shadow of the body it's orbiting.

 

And something I've started using even more is RCS, sometimes the reaction wheels just don't do the trick for me. Even when I'm not gonna do any docking maneuvers I like to give my vessels something to just turn faster with.

[memes in space]

14 hours ago, michal.don said:

-Lots of reaction wheels. If you need lots of those, you should reevaluate your design.

14 hours ago, michal.don said:

reevaluate your design.

 

Serious: Jet engines. I never use planes, so I don't have much use for jet engines. I use wings as fins for yuuge rockets but I can't fly planes that are USEFUL. here's what happens:

 

when I build a SSTO: skids off runway

When I fly a stock SSTO: i can't get enough altitude to go into spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace

when I try to land any plane, SSTO or not: I always end up landing in the grasslands behind the space center because I never get anywhere near the runway and better to land on grass than in water (instant explosion, as all players know)

 

Also advanced science instruments. I usually just slap a science jr and 2 mystery goo on my 1.25m capsule and I get some science but I get a lot of science from not-Kerbin, which are Mun and Minmus because I'll never fly to duna cause I might run out of fuel and strand Jeb (I killed in one playthrough)

Edited January 17, 2017 by memes in space

[panzerknoef]

The orange fuel tank, now I want my stuff prettier and orange just doesn't cut it anymore

[metl]

The Spark. It used to be my go-to engine for landers, but since it got nerfed, I now just use the tried and true 909.

 

[KerikBalm]

Well, a lot of parts due to changes in stats... the LV-T30 saw a lot of use when I first started playing, as did the mainsail... but Its not just me that has changed, the game has too. There was a time when an asparagus'd mainsail launcher was the most powerful launcher you could make... no more.

The old RT-10 SRB barely sees any use now... ditto on the BAC - I used fleas for my first launches in career, then LF launchers, and then *maybe* a bacc or two before getting kickbacks. In sandbox... go straight to kickbacks...

Struts.. there was a time when it seemed 3/4 of part count was struts, now, I can make entire designs without using them - also they are not massless and dragless as before, so...

and also... the one thats really due to myself changing, and not the game: decouplers... Well, I use them, but not nearly as much as I did.

Now I use a lot of docking connections and I make use of reuable stages. I wont single stage to laythe, but I'll single stage to LKO, assemble a ship and have a reusable ejection booster send it most of the way to its jool trajectory (then retroburn and aerobrake down to LKO or mun intercept for refueling) - or combine that with going to mun/minus first to top off, then do the final ejection burn.

I got my single stage to tylo surface and back designs figured out... I can even get to Moho and back with reusable designs. I don't have any need for single use de-couplers except on Eve... and I've seen some designs posted by others that make me start thinking about a reusable Eve SSTO lander (it has been done)

[Aegolius13]

-The radial engines, especially Twitches.  I think I had three of them on my first Minmus lander... shudder.  

-SRBs smaller than Kickbacks.  Most of the time, if I'm gonna spend money on a decoupler and nosecone, I'll just go big and use less on the LF front.  The one exception is that the Flea is great for those "test ____ splashed down" contracts.    

-Front cockpits.  The inline ones tend to survive much better, and give you more design options since you can put an intake or docking port up front.  

-RCS and monopropellant, especially the thruster blocks.  I tend to dock smaller ships without any RCS, and on really big ships, I'd rather just use the Verniers. 

 

30 minutes ago, metl said:

The Spark. It used to be my go-to engine for landers, but since it got nerfed, I now just use the tried and true 909.

Have you tried it in 1.2?  Vacuum thrust and ISP have been bumped fairly substantially.  I use it a ton lately,  and it can give the Terrier a run for its money on smallish ships.  It a

 

1 hour ago, Freshmeat said:

Mainsails. I use them in a few designs as I travel up the tech tree, but Twin Boars are just so much better. In opposition to michal I use more Kickbacks than I used to, as they are cheap dV to get off the pad. Otoh, I use as few LOX boosters as possible, when they used to be my standard setup, due to price.

Agree on both counts.  The Mainsail needs some love, and/or the TwinBoar needs to be tone downed a bit.  

[klesh]

The CH-J3 Fly-By-Wire Avionics Hub.  I used to use it when it was called the Sensor Array Computing Nose Cone. Since its been turned back to SAS only, not so much.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Aegolius13 said:

RCS and monopropellant, especially the thruster blocks.  I tend to dock smaller ships without any RCS, and on really big ships, I'd rather just use the Verniers. 

Very much this. Starting out, I had RCS (usually 10-100 times more than I needed) on every ship and thruster blocks everywhere. Then for a long time I just didn't use them at all. Now I've started putting Verniers on everything.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Swivels and Skippers.

I used the Skipper a lot for that spot where the Mainsail was too big but the others were too small... Nowadays I don't seem to need it, it's either too big or too small for what I'm doing. I don't know if they changed the stats or my play style just changed but the poor Skipper is there collecting dust. Hope whoever made them had some other business on the side.

Something similar happened to the Swivel. There was a time when I would choose between the more powerful but non-vectoring Reliant and the less powerful but vectoring Swivel... and sometimes use both on the same rocket. Nowadays, unless tech-tree limited, I put fins on my rockets and use the Reliant 100% of the time. I hope that business on the side for these guys wasn't making Skippers.

[Aegolius13]

7 minutes ago, Rosco P. Coltrane said:

Swivels and Skippers.

I used the Skipper a lot for that spot where the Mainsail was too big but the others were too small... Nowadays I don't seem to need it, it's either too big or too small for what I'm doing. I don't know if they changed the stats or my play style just changed but the poor Skipper is there collecting dust. Hope whoever made them had some other business on the side.

Something similar happened to the Swivel. There was a time when I would choose between the more powerful but non-vectoring Reliant and the less powerful but vectoring Swivel... and sometimes use both on the same rocket. Nowadays, unless tech-tree limited, I put fins on my rockets and use the Reliant 100% of the time. I hope that business on the side for these guys wasn't making Skippers.

The Swivel did get downgraded on sea level thrust and ISP in 1.2.  It's... bad now.  I still use it since it's the simplest option for little rockets, but it's irritating. 

The Skipper, on the other hand, I continue to love.  Probably my most used core stage.  I find it way outclasses everything smaller as a launch engine (though the Reliant ain't bad if you're willing to use fins... I just never am).  And you have to get as big as TwinBoar territory before it's economical to move up.  For a light payload you can add more fuel and take it single-stage to orbit or beyond.  Or with a heavy load, just add some Kickbacks, and you can lift quite a bit for pretty cheap. 

[sardia]

I stopped using nose cone parachutes. It's much more flexible to use radial parachutes.

[vitekc45c]

Radialy atachable batteries, I used to put exessive amouth of them on everything, now i use one or two inline packs.

Also struts, thanks to the autostrut function I olny use them for aesthetic.

[Sharpy]

FUEL PIPES AND STRUTS New crossfeed rules and autostrut rule!

I currently never use the extended radial decouplers, after "discovering" structural pylon. Lots of drag, expensive, and the ejection force is always too small, regardless of what I use, so I use other separation techniques.

Thud. Stopped using it when I noticed how poor ISp it has and learned how to radial-attach Terriers for the same effect. (hint: slanted nose cone).

The 2.5m nose cone, since I "discovered" the 2.5 to 1.5m adapters that carry fuel.

The medium rover wheels. If the small wheel is too small, that means the ruggedized wheel is the solution.

The small ISRU. If I need to go small, I have a 0.625m ISRU from Mining Expansion.

Delta-Deluxe.

 

[Theysen]

12 hours ago, memes in space said:

i'm done thank you. 

[michal.don]

13 hours ago, memes in space said:

I meant those cases when you build a mothership, that is kind of assymetrical, so you can't burn the engines and keep going straight. I believe that in those cases, rather than slapping tonnes of reaction wheels, a change in design is the way to go

[memes in space]

33 minutes ago, michal.don said:

I meant those cases when you build a mothership, that is kind of assymetrical, so you can't burn the engines and keep going straight. I believe that in those cases, rather than slapping tonnes of reaction wheels, a change in design is the way to go

I was joking about how you never tell a Kerbal to change his design.

 

 

I understand that in actual play where you're being serious, that's kind of what you do.

I literally never put reaction wheels on a ship unless it's yuuge and I can't turn with the command pod.

[benad]

1 hour ago, michal.don said:

I meant those cases when you build a mothership, that is kind of assymetrical, so you can't burn the engines and keep going straight. I believe that in those cases, rather than slapping tonnes of reaction wheels, a change in design is the way to go

TCA all the way, it'll auto balance those engines and keep the thrust vector straight down the centre line. Only problems is it's then not firing on full thrust so you have to adjust burn times. Makes for some really cool designs.

In regards to the OP mechjeb and KER parts, i can't remember the last time i slapped one of those on as i've had mehcjeb and KER for everyone installed on every game since i discovered MM.

[Magzimum]

Mk1 engines. When I found out about the Rhino and Mammoth...

*hides under the table, while whispering "Moar Boosters!"*

[Ty Tan Tu]

16 hours ago, metl said:

The Spark. It used to be my go-to engine for landers, but since it got nerfed, I now just use the tried and true 909.

 

I use to use the TVR-2160C Mk2 Stack Quad-Coupler with four Sparks. Then I switched to radial mounted 24-77 "Twitch" Liquid Fuel Engine for landers and simply landed on the Quad-Coupler. It doesn't use much more fuel than the Terrier and has almost four times the thrust in the atmosphere. I am not sure why I stopped use it. Probably because I have been land on moons with no atmosphere lately. I should revisit that for my planned trip to Laythe.

It should be noted, I play in sandbox, so expense is not an issue.

[klesh]

17 hours ago, metl said:

The Spark. It used to be my go-to engine for landers, but since it got nerfed, I now just use the tried and true 909.

 

 

 

I too, quite liked the old spark.  I started using the LV-303 from Porkjet's fantastic parts pack that Squad decided to re-prioritize as a replacement. 

[wumpus]

RT-10 hammer.  This is an extreme example, because for the first several months of play, my rockets were easily 90%+ RT-10s by mass and partcount (not including struts).  You'd be surprised at just what you used to be able to do with just RT-10s, either in simple explosive staging (thankfully returned in the form of the flea) or in huge stacks of "wedding cake" structures.  You could get to the Mun (and back) with little more than a small LV-909 stage and a whole lot of RT-10s.  I think orbit was pretty easy with a tiny LV-909 and about 4 (three on stage 1, one on stage 2) RT-909s with explosive staging (might have used a LV-30 or LV-45 if the LV-909 didn't explode the RT-10).

Struts aren't quite as needed, it used to be Kerbal Strut Program.  Also fuel pipes have essentially been replaced by ever larger engines (and much of the benefit of asparagas was thanks to the old broken aero model: you used to want to keep TWR=2.0 throughout the flight).  Drop tanks are still pretty useful, but nothing like before.

[GluttonyReaper]

21 hours ago, memes in space said:

(instant explosion, as all players know)

Eh, not so much nowadays. The water physics changed at some point (one of the 1.0 versions?), and now it's actually a pretty reasonable option.

21 hours ago, metl said:

The Spark. It used to be my go-to engine for landers, but since it got nerfed, I now just use the tried and true 909.

I used to use it pretty often for landers pre-1.0 too. And for lifters. And as a transfer engine. And for escape pods. Yeah, that thing really needed the nerf.

The parts I barely use nowadays are the stack seperators, actually. Since I realized docking ports can decouple too, there's a lot less reason to use them.