Balanced mods for use with the engineering tech tree?

[CYoungCS]

What are some good mods to use that add rockets, SRBs, plane parts, and other stuff to flesh out the engineering tech tree, without being overpowered? I have bluedog design bureau and a bunch of others and bdb's faq says it's designed for a slightly bigger solar system. I have spaceY heavy lifters and can almost get a pod to escape velocity with it, with some 300 ton boosters. SpaceX seemed way too OP.

Or do the costs balance it out? I'm using Kerbal construction time, as well. Just want more than stock parts but want it to stay well balanced.

[GrubbyZebra]

AirplanesPlus for planes, USI Constellation (about 7? different mods) adds all sorts of stuff, ProbesPlus! is another good one, DMagic Orbital Sciences, KW Rocketry, etc

BDB is rescaled to stock, the problem is that when rescaling a full-scale rocket to stock scale, you end up with a rocket that is balanced for a 2.5x scaled system. You could either reduce thrust/fuel in the VAB for the BDB parts or write a module manager patch for them (which I have been thinking about doing for myself anyway). Of course, you may also find that stock parts are not balanced well for the stock system (for example, the Saturn V analogs are either really under powered or really over powered depending on the stage, and the Titan-like dual rocket nozzle is too weak to propel a Gemini-like rocket, even ignoring the fact that it should be a 2.5m rocket instead of 1.875m).

[CobaltWolf]

On 7/27/2018 at 3:44 PM, GrubbyZebra said:

Titan-like dual rocket nozzle is too weak to propel a Gemini-like rocket, even ignoring the fact that it should be a 2.5m rocket instead of 1.875m).

Just wanted to comment on this - 10-foot stages like the Titan should be 1.875m, not 2.5m in KSP. Depending on who you ask the scaling is either 62.5% or 64%, both of which result in 10 foot rockets (and anything in the 3 meter class) being 1.875m in game.

[GrubbyZebra]

8 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Just wanted to comment on this - 10-foot stages like the Titan should be 1.875m, not 2.5m in KSP. Depending on who you ask the scaling is either 62.5% or 64%, both of which result in 10 foot rockets (and anything in the 3 meter class) being 1.875m in game.

Yea, it is 1.875m for size scale, but if you want the tapered asthetic of the Titan-Gemini rocket (using the stock parts), then it requires using the 2.5m parts to make the Titan (and a mod to get the tapered SM). I kind of wish they (squad) would have made the Gemini-esque capsule 1.5m and then the 1.875m titan parts would work. Oh well, that's why I like BDB

On 7/27/2018 at 3:44 PM, GrubbyZebra said:

AirplanesPlus for planes, USI Constellation (about 7? different mods) adds all sorts of stuff, ProbesPlus! is another good one, DMagic Orbital Sciences, KW Rocketry, etc

BDB is rescaled to stock, the problem is that when rescaling a full-scale rocket to stock scale, you end up with a rocket that is balanced for a 2.5x scaled system. You could either reduce thrust/fuel in the VAB for the BDB parts or write a module manager patch for them (which I have been thinking about doing for myself anyway). Of course, you may also find that stock parts are not balanced well for the stock system (for example, the Saturn V analogs are either really under powered or really over powered depending on the stage, and the Titan-like dual rocket nozzle is too weak to propel a Gemini-like rocket, even ignoring the fact that it should be a 2.5m rocket instead of 1.875m).

Oh, and I have a MM patch to reduce the fuel on the BDB parts so that getting to space is a bit trickier (unfortunately it doesn't affect the fuel loads in my pre-built BDB craft). 

Edited July 31, 2018 by GrubbyZebra