Are there any planetary-only engines mods?

[Madeiner]

Hi there.

I'm trying to design a small vessel able to fly around most planets or moons, with or without atmosphere and with a very long flight time. Not for a specific missions, just for flying around delivering needed parts. A bit like the shuttles from star trek.

I have mods that might be able to do that (with very efficient engines, or electrical ones), but they are essentially overpowered and i don't want this vessel to be able to be used for interplanetary transfers. It should need a mothership for that. Also i'd love if it had some sort of interesting gameplay to it, like having to stop for refuel every once in a while, or having to meet some prerequisite while flying.

I was thinking about some engines which had thrust based on the local gravity force: the farther you get from a planet, the less thrust you get. Or maybe an engine slaved to a mothership: get too far, lose thrust.

Maybe KSP interstellar can do this with beamed power networks, but i'm not sure. I'd have to setup a network in advance around each planet?

Edited June 16, 2017 by Madeiner

[Streetwind]

2 hours ago, Madeiner said:

I was thinking about some engines which had thrust based on the local gravity force: the farther you get from a planet, the less thrust you get. Or maybe an engine slaved to a mothership: get too far, lose thrust.

Jet engines already do something similar, in the form of having their maximum possible thrust decrease with altitude. Perhaps you can patch some of your rocket engines with Module Manager to perform similarly?

(Unless the performance loss is dependant on air density, not altitude. I'm no expect on the implementation. In that case it would not work for airless worlds, only for ones with an atmosphere.)

 

EDIT: I looked it up. Looks like it's tied to air density, sorry 

Edited June 16, 2017 by Streetwind