Conjectural balance pass

[Whirligig Girl]

KSP rockets are currently balanced against the 1/10th size solar system incorrectly.

The problem is this. Real rockets, with realistic performance, would get insane performance in the stock system. The mass ratio from payload to fuel would be huge. This is all well and good if you're a space program on a budget, but it doesn't work so well if you're trying to make a video game with any kind of challenge. So KSP has done two things to reduce the effectiveness of rockets and result in payload/fuel ratios that are much more reasonable (though still much better than real world mass ratios). This is accomplished by increasing the mass of engines, the dry mass of fuel tanks, and the mass of some structural and crew parts. But the specific impulse of the rocket engines themselves are more or less within reason for real world kerosene/liquid-oxygen or some hypergolic rocket engines (a reasonable fit for the density of KSP's fuels and engine throttleability, in fact.) This method isn't bad, but it's not physically correct either.

The Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation:

Δv = Ln[m₀ / m₁] * V_e

m0 = Initial mass, m1 = dry mass, Ve = Exhaust Velocity = 9.81 * Specific Impulse, Ln = Natural Log function, Δv = Delta V.

This equation, which many of you will have seen or even used before, is the embodiment of the rocket in equation form! And it can give us a hint as to how to scale rockets, we just need context for the Δv requirements. Another equation, the Rescaled System equation, will help us. It turns out that the delta-v to pull off one manuever is multiplied by the square root of the rescale factor. The rescale factor going from the Real Solar System to the Kerbol System is about 0.1. (Technically it's closer to 0.09091 but let's not be too accurate, these are estimations after all)

Δv_rescaled = (Δv_default)^(1/2)

It turns out that rockets need 0.31623 = 10^0.5 times less delta-v to get around the stock system as they do to get around the real solar system. This is fairly accurate, as 3200 m/s is a fairly standard launch into Kerbin orbit, and that corresponds to a real world delta-v of 10,000 m/s, which is about true of real rockets. It also works on orbital periods too, but that's not important.

Anyway, how do we get all rockets to have exactly 0.31623 times less delta-v? The variables are the mass ratio (which is what KSP changes) and the exhaust velocity. But the mass ratio is not a linear change. The correct way to scale all rockets to have 0.31622 times less delta-v is to reduce the exhaust velocity (or the specific impulse).

So my proposal, and I say this not having tested this out in game to see how it feels--hence "conjectural", is to rebalance parts so that they have realistic masses, and instead reduce the Isp of rocket engines to 0.5-0.32 or so. I can forsee some problems with this plan, in addition to the specifics of totally rebalancing a game that has been released for years now! 

[linuxgurugamer]

Sounds like you want to play RO and RSS

[Gargamel]

5 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

I can forsee some problems with this plan, in addition to the specifics of totally rebalancing a game that has been released for years now! 

Back in the alpha days, this might have been a good idea.  But today, with all the players used to a certain game play mechanic, and all the mods that work based upon the given stats, I think a balancing pass like this will only lead to serious issues that nobody will enjoy. 

[Whirligig Girl]

12 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Sounds like you want to play RO and RSS

It would sound like that if you didn't actually pay attention to anything I was saying, wouldn't it?

[linuxgurugamer]

13 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

It would sound like that if you didn't actually pay attention to anything I was saying, wouldn't it?

I did.  And it would have made sense a few years ago.

but, the game has been released, there are thousands of mods, hundreds of thousands if not millions of players all used to the current way it works.

RSS/RO have done what you are asking for.  There are other mods which rebalance parts.  But it is nonsensical to talk about rebalancing the stock game itself.

You even acknowledged this yourself in your post:

12 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

I can forsee some problems with this plan, in addition to the specifics of totally rebalancing a game that has been released for years now! 

 

So, rather than talk about this, why not look at those mods which already do what you are proposing?  If no mods do exactly what you want, then it sounds like you could have a possible mod here.

Having done a balancing pass on three mods myself, to fix the weights and fuel ratios, I have an idea as to how much work would be involved.  and then there would be extensive playtesting to make sure it still works as a game.

 

[Whirligig Girl]

4 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

RSS/RO have done what you are asking for.  There are other mods which rebalance parts.  But it is nonsensical to talk about rebalancing the stock game itself.

RSS/RO does not do what I want, which is balance the stock parts to have realistic part masses and unrealistically low specific impulse. SMURFF does the first part to stock parts, but that's neither RSS nor RO. The

I don't care enough about living to continue

[linuxgurugamer]

36 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

RSS/RO does not do what I want, which is balance the stock parts to have realistic part masses and unrealistically low specific impulse. SMURFF does the first part to stock parts, but that's neither RSS nor RO. The

I don't care enough about living to continue

I never played RSS/RO, so obviously I was mistaken about those.  But as you say, SMURFF does the first part.  why not do the 2nd part yourself?