Asperagus Staging?

[Corona688]

22 hours ago, wumpus said:

[TL:DR forget about aspargus and onion staging and just use drop tanks.]

First, "pure asparagus" has a lot of hype thanks to fitting well with KSP's pre-1.0 broken aero-model.  I'd expect drop tanks to make more sense for modern usage.

The problem with pure drop-tank is TWR.  You need a monster engine cluster to lift all your fuel, but by the end of the burn, you have way more engines than you need.

[sh1pman]

13 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

The problem with pure drop-tank is TWR.  You need a monster engine cluster to lift all your fuel, but by the end of the burn, you have way more engines than you need.

Drop tanks make much more sense on upper and deep-space stages where you don't need TWR. It's very effective with NTR-powered upper stages, for example.

[The Man Myth and Legend]

4 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Drop tanks make much more sense on upper and deep-space stages where you don't need TWR. It's very effective with NTR-powered upper stages, for example.

What is NTR?

[wumpus]

4 hours ago, Corona688 said:

The problem with pure drop-tank is TWR.  You need a monster engine cluster to lift all your fuel, but by the end of the burn, you have way more engines than you need.

Sometimes you use them with monster tanks, but leaving Kerbin you are likely having thrust supplied by kickers and don't necessarily have a monster engine cluster.  You can also use drop tanks with a single terrier or NERV (this is often ideal as you can stack them on top and turn sideways and eject spent fuel tanks between Pe kicking).

One other reason asparagus is not as wildly popular as it was in beta and before is that monster clusters are an option.  Before you would create them out of huge asparagused groups, now you simply drag and drop a more efficient engine.  For instance it might make more sense to vertically stage a twin boar with a poodle staged above (and never fired simultaneously) but give each drop tanks.

[sh1pman]

5 minutes ago, The Man Myth and Legend said:

What is NTR?

Nuclear Thermal Rocket. Stock LV-N, for instance.