Propellers Please?

[KerikBalm]

20 hours ago, Kenobi McCormick said:

Monoprop tanks are tiny and have love all monoprop in them. You need far more of your craft dedicated to containing fuel than you would an LF/IA engine.

For a high Isp engine, you don't need a high fuel fraction. Also we've got some fairly large monoprop tanks like the mk2 and mk3 fusalages.

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Electric? If you're building anything practically large you're gonna need far more than 'a battery and an RTG/Solar Panel' to get reasoanble performance out of the thing, and if you want to be able to run it full throttle it's gonna have to be 70% generation equipment. Even then it's gonna be beat out by a big ol' Pratt R2800 every time.

Well, I was envisioning these not as large WW2 bomber type things, but little scouts for Duna and Eve... like so:

A rentry test:

Spoiler

Now I do have quite a few solar panels on those, but there's nothing preventing the use of a single RTG and limiting the flight to short hops. It depends if you want to be able to cruise non-stop or not.

If I want to go faster or lift more, jet engines on kerbin and laythe (and mod worlds with O2) work even better. For non-O2 operations, a turborocket would work:

This next one was a bit more complicated:

It was configured as a ram-rocket with no thrust augmentation at 0 speed, the air augmented mode (with high Isp) only worked above mach 0.35 so it needed a closed cycle mode to accelerate to the speed where the rameffect can work. I actually gave it 2 engine modules, with velocity curves so that the closed cycle starter motor fades away as the ramrocket engine takes over (since we can't vary Isp with speed)

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You could also apply a KISS approach and just set its ISP curve properly. The recips we get with Firespitter produce love all thrust above 15,000km even if you use cheats to keep them running that high up. The game fully supports engines having different thrusts at different altitudes and it'd be trivial for a skilled modder to set that curve up such that the engine just flat out stops doing anything useful above the sort of atomspheric densities required for a propeller to work at all. It's already done in the recip mods we have now.

you could do it that way, but you need an intake module to determine if there is O2. For one that only needs atmosphere, that can work... but it won't work with electric motors. You need to expel something with mass, so you can use intakeAtm (or intakeAir, and have the intake flag for checking for O2 to be false). If ramrockets/air augmented rockets (since those shouldn't work without an intake, unless you incorporate the intake into the engine model) + electric props were added alongside recirpocating engine props, the system would already be there.

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Yes. A selection. Small, Med, Large LF/IA recips, an electric, and a monoprop.

That would be nice, but I really doubt they'll do that, I think we'd be lucky to get 1 new engine for atmospheric stuff. Given the similarity in purpose between props and turbofans, it should be one that works on Eve/Duna/without O2. If we had to have just 1, I'd choose electric for the most gameplay versatility. If we get 2, then I'd want an electric and an air augmented rocket.

If we can get 3 or more, then by all means, yes, lets have reciprocating engines turning props.

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No. The most versatile would be the LF/IA recips. You can't scale the electric ones up very large before the weight of the support equipment exceeds the craft's ability to get off the ground, a problem that doesn't exist with ICE powerplants. You're not gonna be building any fully electric four engine propjobs that can carry several tons of payload, such a craft would be so heavy from all the batteries and such that it'd barely be able to carry itself to the heavens.

Strongly disagree. LF/IA would be the most redundant and least versatile. Their role would overlap with the Wheesley and Goliath, but have a lower max speed and altitude. They wouldn't work on Duna or Eve, they'd be worse than electric for subs (changing buoyancy, don't work on Eve), and worse for spaceplanes on Duna and Eve.

They'd be far worse for carrying large payloads than air augmented rockets (even if they are LFO reciprocating engines).

Electric props scale linearly with payload, they seem to scale just fine in my modded experiments... not that I have ever felt an incentive to use them for large craft. I've always used them for small surface exploration craft (particularly for science gathering). If I want to lift large payloads (also... to where, props generally aren't helping you get to space to space), that's the work of a jet turbine/air augmented rocket, IMO.

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Fuel cells? Well hell, you're still burning LF/O, why not cut the middleman out and just pipe the LF straight into the engine? KISS is a wonderful thing to apply when it comes to engineering, especially when you're looking at early game tech which is where these engines would fall. The whole point of giving us prop jobs is to make fixed wing atmospheric flight more viable early game.

See, that's where we fundamentally disagree... to me the whole point of props is to aid exploration of bodies without O2 in their atmosphere. You can unlock the Juno after just a couple launches, which is still early in career. I would not be opposed to a piston engine and basic wings and control surface being unlocked right from the start alongside the flea booster... but I recognize the limited resources and will of squad, and I would want to focus on just one or two parts that would open up the most gameplay possibilities for us.

By adding 1 part (an electric motor), we get a lot of gameplay options. Fuel cells would turn it into effectively an LFO burning prop engine, and reducing part count is a good goal, but then to get the same gameplay possibilities, we need 2 new parts, instead of 1 new part that can be used in combination with existing parts for different effects.

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Subs don't have to worry about lift. The also don't have to worry about batteries. Submarines in modern navies haven't run on batteries in 40 or 50 years, what with them all being run straight off a massive nuclear reactor and all. The only navies still using batteries in their subs are using hilariously outdated antiques

What do lift and batteries have to do with anything? I didn't even bring them up. I only mentioned buoyancy (and an RTG). As to other points. 1) There are quite a few modern diesel electric subs in modern militaries. 2) There are many many modern submersibles for underwater work (oil rig inspection, scientific research, etc), none of which are nuclear powered. What I want to build are exploration submersibles, not ballistic missile submarines.

diesel electric sub:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sōryū-class_submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotland-class_submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilo-class_submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-1700-class_submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upholder/Victoria-class_submarine

The list goes on....

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Also not the scope of our discussion, we're referring to aviation usage, not naval usage.

I'm referring to gameplay usage, and discussions are between multiple people, 1 person alone does not dictate the scope. Naval usage is within the scope of potential usage or propellers, so I think it does fall within the scope of this discussion.

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They'd use a fraction of the fuel a turbofan uses and an order of magnitude less fuel than a non-turbofan jet engine uses. You'd be trading off the ability to cruise along 575MPH @ 35,000' for being able to go nearly twice as far on the same quantity of fuel. Turbine engines are LUDICROUSLY thirsty and you need only look at the M1 Abrams to see this in action. Abrams has roughly the same shaft horsepower going to its tracks that the Leo 2 has, yet needs twice as much fuel to go the same distance.

There's nothing inherently thirsty about turbines at all. That's why power generators use turbines to generate power, not reciprocating ICEs (except for small portable generators). It all comes down to how much mass you throw back vs how fast you throw that mass back, and thermodynamic efficiency (ICEs are often quite bad with that, it basically comes down to expansion ratio).

A Abrams gas turbine is not comparable to an ultra high bypass turbofan at all. Generally, doubling the volume of air you throw back can incrase your Isp by a factor of root 2 (assuming no other changes in efficiency). The amount of air used as working mass is a factor of the cross section of the blade arc, the density of the air, the percent and degree that air is deflected. Now props have a fairly large cross section... still larger than the ultra high bxpass turbofans seen on commercial airliners.

A more valid comparison is a turboprop vs a piston engine. The difference is quite low:

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/turbines-vs-pistons/#.W-VUbZNKhPY

"Turbines aren't as efficient as piston mills, but the difference isn't as much as you might think ... piston engines are more efficient and offer a lower specific fuel consumption (.43 lbs./hp/hr) compared to turbines (.58 lbs./shp/hr)."

Anyway, KSP's turbofans (and jets in general) are already ludicrously efficient (about 2x RL values, except for the Rapier, which is about right if we assume H2 as fuel and not kerosene). We don't need something with 20,000 Isp (since the goliath is already over 10,000 Isp). What would that add to gameplay? to space exploration? 

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We already have one of those, in case you weren't aware. We've had it for ages, too.

Not a ramrocket that has higher atmospheric efficiency even withoutusing O2 in the atmosphere

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I'd rather have a Pratt R2800 and R4360 in my game. I can do far more with one of those monsters than I ever could with a desk fan taped to the front of the plane. I don't build small recips, I build big ones. Think B-29, B-36, B-24, Lockheed Super-Connie. Planes like that are too large to be practical on an electric power system.

Well... that's you... I have little no interest in such craft in my KSP game (WW2 flight sims are another story, they make good targets for fighter planes).

Also electric motors have great power to weight ratios (its why the old tesla roadster was a very very sporty car, particularly in acceleration. The problem is and has been for a long time, the battery capacity, and duration. If you want to lift a large plane, electric motors are more than capable of doing it. If you want to lift a large plane, and fly it for hours, electric motors start to have a problem. This of course swings in the favor of electric propulsion when operating a spaceprogram and an exploration craft on another world where it can recharge batteries, but not refuel itself.

I guess we have fundamentally different gameplay goals here.

Of course, many electric things are already OP'd in KSP... like Ion engines and reaction wheels, so I wouldn't object if it was relatively easy for solar panels to supply the needed power for sustained flight.

 

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There's also another factor you're not considering that's incredibly relevant...perhaps moreso than any other point you've brought up so far...to our discussion: Part count.

...

Now, let's say you get your way and all I have are electric powerplants. That means I'd have to spam batteries all over the fuselage and solar panels will need to coat every last square inch of the sun-facing side of this airplane(Which due to its size we will assume is only the top, not something generally expected to fly inverted). Ok, my part count's now hovering around 130 parts, and I haven't even begun to apply a useful payload yet.

You'd only space panels if you want continuous flight, if you can land, timewarp to recharge, and fly again, you can get away with a lot less. Also you could forget most of the batteries and solar panels, and just add some fuel cell arrays. The could be balanced such that its 1 array per motor... part count goes up by 4... not a huge deal.

Also, I'm still confused by what exactly this payload is supposed to be, if its not going to space? is this a sub-orbital mk3 cargoplane to move cargo around the surface?

If there's O2, the jets we have are already plenty good for that.

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If I get my way and we get electric props and ICE props(Keep in mind I'm not arguing against having electrics, I'm arguing for having them alongside piston engines, something I think you're missing somehow),

I am also not arguing against getting ICE props.

I am arguing which should be the higher priority *IF* the devs decide to add prop motors/atmospheric motors for use on worlds without O2, but only 1 or 2 of such motors. 

If we get only 1, I want electric. If we get 2, I want electric and air augmented rocket

If we get 5, I want:

1) electric

2) air augmented rocket

3) 0.625 or1.25m piston/turboprop (either monoprop or duel mode with LFO/LF+IA option)

4) 2.5m piston/turboprop (either monoprop or duel mode with LFO/LF+IA option)

5) 0.625m or 1.25m basic piston engine, unlocked from the start of the career alongside the flea

Edited November 9, 2018 by KerikBalm

[Kenobi McCormick]

7 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Well, I was envisioning these not as large WW2 bomber type things, but little scouts for Duna and Eve... like so:

Those are tasks I build rovers for. I don't waste three hours of my evening trying to engineer an aircraft that can gain sufficient lift and control in Duna's paper thin atmo when I can spend 20 minutes throwing some tracks and a reactor on a sheet of structural steel to achieving the same exact mission goal.

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Now I do have quite a few solar panels on those, but there's nothing preventing the use of a single RTG and limiting the flight to short hops. It depends if you want to be able to cruise non-stop or not.

What's the point of an airplane that can only do short hops? Just build a rover instead. If the airplane can't fly continuously for distances and/or at speeds higher than I can manage with a rover and MechJeb's cruise control it's not worth a single speso.

 

 

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If I want to go faster or lift more, jet engines on kerbin and laythe (and mod worlds with O2) work even better.

Sure, but sometimes the task doesn't necessitate a jet engine. I'm not gonna waste my time engineering a supersonic airliner to send four kerbals across to the island runway. I'm gonna dust off the ol' Cessna or hand 'em the keys to a P-47 instead.

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That would be nice, but I really doubt they'll do that, I think we'd be lucky to get 1 new engine for atmospheric stuff. Given the similarity in purpose between props and turbofans, it should be one that works on Eve/Duna/without O2. If we had to have just 1, I'd choose electric for the most gameplay versatility. If we get 2, then I'd want an electric and an air augmented rocket.

We should get the whole smattering.

 

 

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Strongly disagree. LF/IA would be the most redundant and least versatile.

Then I guess we're never going to agree, because I don't see the versatility or scalability.

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Their role would overlap with the Wheesley and Goliath, but have a lower max speed and altitude.

And come far earlier in the tech tree, if not being unlocked right from the beginning. They'd let us move those engines farther down the science tree.

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They wouldn't work on Duna or Eve,

They'd work fine if they had a dual-mode intake system like I proposed the other night.

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they'd be worse than electric for subs

You wouldn't use an aircraft engine on a submarine anyway.

 

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and worse for spaceplanes on Duna and Eve.

You also wouldn't be using a prop powerplant on a spaceplane.

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Electric props scale linearly with payload, they seem to scale just fine in my modded experiments..

The problem is their power consumption doesn't scale well. You end up needing so many batteries and RTGs and solar panels that either A: the damn thing's too heavy to lift itself off the runway or B: Your processor starts trying to get you on the hook for war crimes.

 

 

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I've always used them for small surface exploration craft (particularly for science gathering).

Rovers are great for that. So much so, in fact, that I've been using the same design for about six or seven game patches now. Simple little craft, ~2.5 tons on two KF Long tracks, has two of every vanilla science experiment and two of most mod experiments on board. Can pull 10,000 science out of one Mun mission with that thing. Also seats two kerbals, so that's two surface samples and two crew reports on top of the rest of the science it can gather. On top of that, it's got a MechJeb AR202 strapped to the side of the cockpit and some antennae, so it can be run autonomously as well, and the MJ unit lets me set waypoints and sip a Mountain Dew while the rover drives itself wherever I want it to go.

 

I have no use case for an extraplanetary surface exploring aircraft.

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If I want to lift large payloads (also... to where, props generally aren't helping you get to space to space), that's the work of a jet turbine/air augmented rocket, IMO.

Maybe there's something else at play, then, 'cause the largest payloads my processor can handle are well within the capabilities of an aircraft with four Pratt 2800s on it. I can't get an acceptable framerate on a payload too large for those engines to lift.

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See, that's where we fundamentally disagree... to me the whole point of props is to aid exploration of bodies without O2 in their atmosphere.

To me that's the point of rovers. To me, props are an early science tech that's used to help gather those first five or six nodes a little quicker and with a little more variety, and then from there, for making really cheap aircraft good for doing tourist contracts and testing parts in the lower atmosphere. The use-case for recips on other worlds just isn't there to me, everything you've mentioned you'd use them for I'd use a rover for.

 

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You can unlock the Juno after just a couple launches, which is still early in career. I would not be opposed to a piston engine and basic wings and control surface being unlocked right from the start alongside the flea booster...

That's precisely where I'd have them in the tree, and alongside the Juno, I'd have a larger LF/IA recip sitting there to tide players over until they got their hands on a larger jet engine. You know, exactly the way we did it in real life. The ME-262 brought us the jet engine but the super-connie was still running passenger flights 15-20 years after that. It took a while for jet engine tech to get big enough to run craft that large and that should be represented in the tech tree as well. You unlock the juno and, in that same node, you get an 18 cylinder radial with some 2,000HP to its name to build larger aircraft with. Then later on you get the bigger jet engine that renders the radial obsolete.

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but I recognize the limited resources and will of squad, and I would want to focus on just one or two parts that would open up the most gameplay possibilities for us.

If they were allowed to care about that they'd be working on new planets for us to visit and new methods of rendering those planets that'd make it more interesting to visit them in the first place.

 

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By adding 1 part (an electric motor), we get a lot of gameplay options.

Yeah, and by adding one part(An LF/IA burning recip), we get a lot of gameplay options too.

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Fuel cells would turn it into effectively an LFO burning prop engine, and reducing part count is a good goal, but then to get the same gameplay possibilities, we need 2 new parts, instead of 1 new part that can be used in combination with existing parts for different effects.

Where's the second part? They throw us an LF/IA recip and we only need one part to explore those gameplay possibilities. We won't need to engineer an entirely new power system for the aircraft with it, we'd just use the same exact liquid fuel tanks we've been using for jets since C7 Aerospace was a mod back in 0.14. We wouldn't need to dick around with solar panels and RTGs and fuel cells, we wouldn't need to have all that added kraken-attracting complexity...it's KISS in action.

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What do lift and batteries have to do with anything?

Batteries have weight. Batteries are necessary to run an electric prop in KSP. Lift is what gets craft off the ground. See the connection now?

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I didn't even bring them up.

You literally said 'subs', which is bringing them up.

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Anyway, KSP's turbofans (and jets in general) are already ludicrously efficient (about 2x RL values, except for the Rapier, which is about right if we assume H2 as fuel and not kerosene). We don't need something with 20,000 Isp (since the goliath is already over 10,000 Isp). What would that add to gameplay?

The ability to circumnavigate the planet with an airplane that'll give acceptable framerates on a craptop isn't a valuable addition to gameplay? Or the ability to free up more fuselage room in a given plane for useful payload items? That doesn't hold value either?

 

 

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to space exploration? 

You could say that to the new spacesuits Squad gave us, too. Literally just a cosmetic update, zero gameplay changes whatsoever, yet we got it anyway. And far as I can tell nobody was even asking for it.

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Also electric motors have great power to weight ratios (its why the old tesla roadster was a very very sporty car, particularly in acceleration. The problem is and has been for a long time, the battery capacity, and duration. If you want to lift a large plane, electric motors are more than capable of doing it. If you want to lift a large plane, and fly it for hours, electric motors start to have a problem.

And that's why they're not practical in large planes. What's the point of a large airplane that can't fly more than a handful of miles before it has to land and recharge for 8 hours? It's the same reason I don't want anything to do with an electric car. Batteries suck. They're heavy and they have a fraction the energy density that even a low grade hydrocarbon has. Something high grade and refined is lightyears more dense than the best battery chemistry we can dream up right now and that's not lookin' to change anytime soon.

 

Only way you're getting more energy density is if you start splitting atoms...

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This of course swings in the favor of electric propulsion when operating a spaceprogram and an exploration craft on another world where it can recharge batteries, but not refuel itself.

I have no problem with fuel on my rovers. Generally I either use a fuel cell running off LF/O or a nuclear reactor for that. My fuel cell rovers have no batteries capable of moving them, what little battery capacity they do have is there solely so I can set the parking brake without a kerbal in it. Never even come close to running one out of fuel either, usually get bored and RTB long before then.

 

You might have a point if there was a reason to venture more than a couple kilometers from your lander, but as the game currently sits, there just sort of isnt'. Land within that distance of a biome border, use a rover to cross it, get your science, head back to kerbin. That's pretty much it. Large reason I don't play the game very much anymore...

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I guess we have fundamentally different gameplay goals here.

Yeah, mine's to add something fun to the game, whereas yours seems to be to add....what is it again? The ability to run short hops on non-O2-bearing worlds that, by your own words, can be done better with other engine types?

 

 

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Of course, many electric things are already OP'd in KSP... like Ion engines and reaction wheels, so I wouldn't object if it was relatively easy for solar panels to supply the needed power for sustained flight.

The only panels we can use are the little 1x1 tiles, on account of everything else being too fragile to survive flight speeds. And those things are inefficient on a good day, doubly so on an an airplane where they're almost never going to have ideal tracking.

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You'd only space panels if you want continuous flight,

Again, what's the point of an airplane that can't do that? Especially an electric one?

 

You want to argue electric airplanes and then in the same breath argue that it's ok for them to be utterly pointless when their practical range can be bested by a space car you're just going to confuse and bewilder the audience.

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Also, I'm still confused by what exactly this payload is supposed to be, if its not going to space?

Whatever the hell I want to shove up the cheeks end of a cargo plane. It might be a science package, it might be a rover, or a base part or a deployable ISRU system. Hell it might be a nuclear bomb, I don't know. Half the time I don't know what i'm going to be putting in the thing while I'm building it.

 

 

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iI am also not arguing against getting ICE props.

Every post you've sent my way has been 'We don't need ICE props just give us electric props'.

 

IF you're not arguing against ICE props you're doin' an awfully good job of making me think you are with every word you type.

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1) electric

2) air augmented rocket

3) 0.625 or1.25m piston/turboprop (either monoprop or duel mode with LFO/LF+IA option)

4) 2.5m piston/turboprop (either monoprop or duel mode with LFO/LF+IA option)

5) 0.625m or 1.25m basic piston engine, unlocked from the start of the career alongside the flea

My wishlist?

 

1: Some sort of 4 or 6 cylinder Lycominc boxer in a housing on the half meter size(Available right from game start)

2: A small single-row radial on the half meter size.(Available right at game start)

3: A large liquid cooled V-12 on the one meter size.(Unlocked alongside the Juno)

4: A dual row 18 cylinder radial on the one meter size.(Unlocked alongside the Juno)

5: a four row radial on the one-meter size.(Unlocked one node past the Juno, also unlocks dual-mode operation on all ICE engines)

6: An electric prop on the half-meter size.(Unlocked the same time we get fuel cells so players can actually run the thing for a reasonable amount of time)

Edited November 9, 2018 by Kenobi McCormick

[Lisias]

I think you guys missed an important point: KSP is not only a game, but a commercial game.

Things are added in function of the added benefit on sales versus the cost of maintaining it across the game's life cycle .

It makes sense to add propellera to the game? Totally! Makes so much sense that Firespitter was made.

But such stock addition would make KSP more profitable? I'm not so sure. Who here would be willing to buy a Propeller Pack DLC ?

[Klapaucius]

 

45 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But such stock addition would make KSP more profitable? I'm not so sure. Who here would be willing to buy a Propeller Pack DLC ?

I would be willing to pay for a propellor DLC. As a board game player, I am very used to buying expansions, as long as the pricing is reasonable.  Having said that, what in the "Dressed for Success" update made KSP more profitable?  Other than bug fixes, all of it to me was superfluous--nice but hardly necessary.  If they can spend all that time repainting engines, why not spend it creating more options, like they did when they added the Woomerang launch site?

[XLjedi]

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

 

I would be willing to pay for a propellor DLC. As a board game player, I am very used to buying expansions, as long as the pricing is reasonable.  Having said that, what in the "Dressed for Success" update made KSP more profitable?  Other than bug fixes, all of it to me was superfluous--nice but hardly necessary.  If they can spend all that time repainting engines, why not spend it creating more options, like they did when they added the Woomerang launch site?

Tempted to just make my own personal mod for all the parts that I think are missing....  props, rotors, hydraulic lifts, rotating joints, hinges, shuttle arm, etc.  

I don't really see a single mod that has everything I'd want.  I've nearly given up on Squad ever adding them.  And I don't want to have to rely on someone else to update these things every time there's a new version released.  So the DIY approach is probably my best option.  I've built assets for other games before with Blender so may make it my new side project.

Would I pay for DLC for a single rotor?  NO...  would I pay for DLC that included all the missing parts?  Absolutely!   

 

Edited November 9, 2018 by XLjedi

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

If they can spend all that time repainting engines, why not spend it creating more options, like they did when they added the Woomerang launch site?

Because someone, somewhere, spend some time studying the installed user base and their gaming habits, and decided that the people willing to pay for better looking existent parts are in bigger numbers than people willing to have new, niche specific parts.  

 

1 hour ago, XLjedi said:

I don't really see a single mod that has everything I'd want. 

And ideally you won't. For weekend developers  , some degree of specialization is needed. You open too many battle fronts, you loose the war.

Mod Development are not necessarily hard, but are complicated and effort demanding.

[SlinkyMcman]

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

I think you guys missed an important point: KSP is not only a game, but a commercial game.

Things are added in function of the added benefit on sales versus the cost of maintaining it across the game's life cycle .

It makes sense to add propellera to the game? Totally! Makes so much sense that Firespitter was made.

But such stock addition would make KSP more profitable? I'm not so sure. Who here would be willing to buy a Propeller Pack DLC ?

I would def spend 20$ on a 10 part propeller pack with 5 propellers, and 5 plane parts. 

[XLjedi]

38 minutes ago, Lisias said:

And ideally you won't. For weekend developers  , some degree of specialization is needed. You open too many battle fronts, you loose the war.

Mod Development are not necessarily hard, but are complicated and effort demanding.

I was kinda going the other way...  I think there are large mods out there that, when combined with other large mods, would have all the parts I want.  I just don't want to add all that overhead.  I don't need every part just one or two critical ones from each.  So thinking to make myself about 10-12 that I really want and just manage those on my own.   Just want the rotor from this one, the prop from that one...  the hydraulic lift from IR, etc.

Edited November 9, 2018 by XLjedi

[Klapaucius]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

Because someone, somewhere, spend some time studying the installed user base and their gaming habits, and decided that the people willing to pay for better looking existent parts are in bigger numbers than people willing to have new, niche specific parts.  

Except that the player base already plays.  We are not adding any value as far as sales go other than talking up the game to others.  

 

 

8 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Tempted to just make my own personal mod for all the parts that I think are missing....  props, rotors, hydraulic lifts, rotating joints, hinges, shuttle arm, etc.  

 

For personal gameplay that is actually fine, but when you are sharing on KerbalX or creating challenges, you often need to all come with the same set of parts.   All my uploads are stock for that reason.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Klapaucius

[Lisias]

20 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Except that the player base already plays.  We are not adding any value as far as sales go other than talking up the game to others.  

I'm not sure my English is good enough to follow you. Can you please rephrase it?

[Klapaucius]

20 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I'm not sure my English is good enough to follow you. Can you please rephrase it?

You said somebody took a look at the player base and decided they would be more willing to have better looking existing parts. But, the player base are all of us who have already bought the game. Unless they release a new expansion, we are no longer contributing to their profits.  You could ask why they are bothering at all, really.  So, if they are going to spend the time to create an update called "Dressed for Success", which is not going to bring them any more money from existing players, why not give us new parts that are sorely lacking in the stock game?  

 

PS. I''ve studied a few other languages, but have never achieved the kind of written fluency so many of your non-native English speakers achieve. I'm jealous 

[Arugela]

22 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I get a feeling that @KerikBalm and @Kenobi McCormick are talking at cross purposes here a bit.

Fact is, stock propellers like Kerik is describing are currently ridiculously, insanely overpowered, they're effectively perpetual-motion machines and then some.

Stock props would certainly need to be balanced differently. That would mean that an electric prop would not be able to happily churn the Evian atmosphere powered by a couple of little solar panels. Reciprocating engines /should/ have much better power/weight ratios for reasonable endurance: i.e., the batteries and/or solar panels you'd need to feed an electric prop /should/ weigh more than the fuel tanks you'd use to power a reciprocator.

If Squad was feeling lazy though, I think they might be able to get away with only electric props, if they re-tuned fuel cells. That way they could make it so that you'd get reasonable power output and endurance from a fuel-cell powered electric prop, but a solar-cell powered one would still be marginal at best.

I would think you would attach them go gasoline instead of electric. Which I would assume is just liquid fuel. Maybe with different mix of properties than the current stuff. How was the ISP/fuel efficiency of propeller planes compared to the stuff the currently represents? Could you realistically go for much higher ISP in essence with much slower speeds. It would be nice for glider craft and more aerodynamically inclined and slower craft. You could basically do a propeller based missile launch easier. maybe stuff with a steadier longer flight. Might give more to do on eve. In fact it could open up eve if it can be done without oxygen. Could propellent planes go without oxygen if desired? Or were there any odd variants that went without or used an oxidizer like concept? Speaking of which why don't we have water based stuff. It could be fun to just use liquid and pressure. Even if it's just for newbie toy rockets or other odd things like boats/put put engines. Could be for practising tutorial level rockets but in the actual game. I think the game should half all the science fair level stuff in it.

 

Maybe if the use oxygen and fuel efficiently enough they could use the old store and hold oxygen trick from air intakes and run a bit on an oxygen tank. Might get them to eve and have that be a mainstay for eve exploration. Then we could get an oxygen tank and something to take oxygen from the environment of alien planets. Then we could take it to duna to do long range large wing gliders and then beyond!! Maybe jool and the sun could slowly be explored also. Some cool missions to scoop the atmosphere of the sun and other harder bodies with a drone glider/prop plane with stored oxygen/LF instead of oxidizer. If there is a difference.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Arugela

[KerikBalm]

17 hours ago, Kenobi McCormick said:

Those are tasks I build rovers for. I don't waste three hours of my evening trying to engineer an aircraft that can gain sufficient lift and control in Duna's paper thin atmo ... What's the point of an airplane that can only do short hops? Just build a rover instead. If the airplane can't fly continuously for distances and/or at speeds higher than I can manage with a rover and MechJeb's cruise control it's not worth a single speso.ount of time)

3 hours is a bit of exaggeration, no? The point is to cruise along at 150-200 m/s in 4x time warp, whereas a rover that can cruise along over rough terrain at 30m/s (particularly in low gravity as on Duna) is quite difficult. Even more so adding 4x timewarp... and then there's eve with seas that rovers can't cross. 

As to the speed and duration of the electric props, that's entirely game balance. Even if built for shorter flights, the point is biome hopping/ surface exploration.

As for mech jeb cruise control... I thought we were talking about adding stock features... if you're fine using mods for rovers for one purpose, then mod props should be fine too... unless you're also arguing that mech jeb cruise control should be stock along with piston engines.

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Sure, but sometimes the task doesn't necessitate a jet engine. I'm not gonna waste my time engineering a supersonic airliner to send four kerbals across to the island runway.

KSP's aerodynamics are simple. There is no need for swept wings, there's no shifting of the CoL as mach number changes, no need for area rule. The only challenge is a high coefficient of drag as you approach mach 1. The only difference between subsonic craft and supersonic craft is their TWR as you approach mach 1. Mostly this just needs an engine swap. Swap a wheesley for a panther, and often a subsonic design.

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Then I guess we're never going to agree, because I don't see the versatility or scalability.

Scalability: 2x the engine, 2x the payload. Part count a problem.. make a bigger size to reduce part count (like goliath vs wheesley)

Versatility: the same part works on twice as many stock planets. More destinations = more versatile. Then there are other combinations for different purposes:

combine with fuel cell: its an LFO fueled system, combine with ore tanks: its a sub propulsion, combine with solar panels: its a long duration flyer. Batteries and a single RTG: a short duration hopper that works at the poles/at night, the last two giving indefinite operation without resupply.

An airbreathing piston engine gives us pretty much the same thing that the wheesley gives us. 

But its more efficient and slower you might say... ok..? so? what new options for gameplay does that enable? We could have a Rapier with a higher top speed and lower airbreathing Isp+higher vacuum Isp for even better SSTOs... but what would that really add? it would do what the rapier doesn't already do?

A dual mode intake system could simply be added to existing jet engines, no new part needed.

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You wouldn't use an aircraft engine on a submarine anyway.

Yea, but this is KSP, and people already do that. This would be less ridiculous, it would basically just be changing the prop blades (electric motors have great torque and RPM ranges)

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You also wouldn't be using a prop powerplant on a spaceplane.

Was referring to air augmented rockets here

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The problem is their power consumption doesn't scale well.

Depends entirely on part balance. Consider how much solar power an ion engine would actually need to produce 2 kN of thrust at 4000 Isp

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If they were allowed to care about that they'd be working on new planets for us to visit and new methods of rendering those planets that'd make it more interesting to visit them in the first place.

...

You could say that to the new spacesuits Squad gave us, too. Literally just a cosmetic update, zero gameplay changes whatsoever, yet we got it anyway. And far as I can tell nobody was even asking for it.

And they don't... or haven't... and there's a lot more demand for that... so that's why I dont have my hopes up for a whole set of parts, and I'd focus on just 1 that adds the most gameplay options

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Batteries have weight. Batteries are necessary to run an electric prop in KSP. Lift is what gets craft off the ground. See the connection now?You literally said 'subs', which is bringing them up.

You replied to a sub thing about batteries and lift... didn't seem relevant to discussing subs...

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The ability to circumnavigate the planet with an airplane that'll give acceptable framerates on a craptop isn't a valuable addition to gameplay?

Easy to do that with a turboramjet or a goliath already.

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You might have a point if there was a reason to venture more than a couple kilometers from your lander, but as the game currently sits, there just sort of isnt'. Land within that distance of a biome border, use a rover to cross it, get your science, head back to kerbin. That's pretty much it. Large reason I don't play the game very much anymore...Yeah, mine's to add something fun to the game, whereas yours seems to be to add....what is it again? The ability to run short hops on non-O2-bearing worlds that, by your own words, can be done better with other engine types?

Yea... that's a problem brought up on the forums often... what to do after getting to a place, other than plant a flag and leave. At least some planets (mods mainly) have some interesting terrain... flying through canyons generally being more interesting than roving.

Also that lack of stuff to do is why I started experimenting with stock rotors and subs in the first place

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The only panels we can use are the little 1x1 tiles, on account of everything else being too fragile to survive flight speeds. And those things are inefficient on a good day, doubly so on an an airplane where they're almost never going to have ideal tracking.

Well, they are "physicsless" (which used to mean more in older versions where they litterally added no mass and no drag), so the effect of the higher part count is less than other parts... also you're forgetting the 2x8 static panels...

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You want to argue electric airplanes and then in the same breath argue that it's ok for them to be utterly pointless when their practical range can be bested by a space car you're just going to confuse and bewilder the audience.

Again, that depends entirely on part balance, and how one designs a plane. Spammed 2x4 surface attach solar panels are one option. Battery powered short duration ones are another, and yet another are fuel cell powered ones. As to the battery powered short duration ones, they'd have unlimited range, just not without stopping to recharge. If it takes less gameplay time than using a rover, it has a point (plus it can fly over liquid, rovers can't reach islands and such)

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Every post you've sent my way has been 'We don't need ICE props just give us electric props'.

IF you're not arguing against ICE props you're doin' an awfully good job of making me think you are with every word you type.

My argument is not that they wouldn't be nice to have. My argument is that they should be a lower priority than electric props.

Obviously that argument results in bringing up negatives... but my goal is to argue for electric props being a higher priority than ICE props. My goal is not to argue for no ICE props.

If we can get both... great... but people have been wanting props for a long time, and nothing has happened, so I think a whole set of stock props is rather unlikely, which is why I'm arguing to narrow the focus to "top priorities".

[XLjedi]

8 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

For personal gameplay that is actually fine, but when you are sharing on KerbalX or creating challenges, you often need to all come with the same set of parts.   All my uploads are stock for that reason.

Mine too...  although If I had a small mod, I might post a craft or two that uses it.  I don't necessarily see myself building a stock helo given the current requirements.  I just don't think the stock hinge solutions look very good.

[Lisias]

19 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

You said somebody took a look at the player base and decided they would be more willing to have better looking existing parts. But, the player base are all of us who have already bought the game. Unless they release a new expansion, we are no longer contributing to their profits.  You could ask why they are bothering at all, really.  So, if they are going to spend the time to create an update called "Dressed for Success", which is not going to bring them any more money from existing players, why not give us new parts that are sorely lacking in the stock game?  

Thank you!  

Well, I can tell only about what I think and what I had learnt, so even by making sense (or not), what I'm going to say it's me, not Squad. </disclaimer>

By the analysis of the gaming style of your current users, you get information that could be inferred into the target (hopefully) audience. The individual is unpredictable, but a group of individuals are pretty predictable. And the bigger the group of people being observed, the smaller is the margin of error from the predictions. Google made his fortune exactly this way.

There're a lot of pitfalls on this technique (survival bias is the most common mistake people do), but yet, it works.

Let's make a little brainstorming, using data I pulled out from my... SAS. .

Let's suppose that 80% of KSP users from Steam don't use mods. This means that KSP users don't want mods? Nops. Since Steam is not that much friendly about modded games, by looking on this number, you are ignoring that 20% of Steam users are die hard Steam users and modders that goes through the pains in order to get it working together - that 80% just go by the easier path.

Now, let's analyse that 20% - what kind of mods they are using? If by any chance, mods using better looking parts are the most common mod (and not new functionalities, or eye candyness as EVE/Scatterer), you can infer that there're people worried enough about the look'n'feel of the game itself, and not from the rendering of the planets.

Some guy that really understand statistics (I don't) can calculate how many of that 80% lazy users probably would like this too - they are only too lazy to do it by themselves. This same guy knows that most of them would be willing to spend some money for the feature (they want it, just don't want to waste time learning how to do it).

Now, with these two numbers, he can extrapolate it to the potential user base - people that are willing to buy the game are reasonably similar to the people that already bought it. That tags on Steam are there for a reason (how many people that play games that tags KSP are not yet KSP users?). This would get yet another number: the people that potentially would be interested on this feature.

And then, this guy would tell Squad: "Revamping the parts should bring you more revenue than adding propellers".

Edited November 11, 2018 by Lisias
some bad grammars...

[Pds314]

On 9/26/2018 at 8:40 PM, sumghai said:

My personal opinion is that given the theme of the game is Kerbal Space Program, any aircraft parts included in the stock game are those that can be feasibly used to construct spaceplanes - fixed wing aircraft that can transition between atmospheric and spaceflight. The fact that a player could also use some of the engines to build aircraft capable of only atmospheric flight just happens to be a bonus.

No propeller-powered aircraft are capable of escaping from or operating outside of the atmosphere, therefore they would see limited use. If propellers are added to the game, the title and theme would then have to be changed to Kerbal Aircraft and Space Program.

No rover can escape Eve under its own power, but I'm glad I can build rovers and send them there. Electric props as a single part would be absolutely indispensable to exploring Eve. Not to mention Duna, which has a lower takeoff speed than playing on Kerbin with FAR, and is in no way at risk of Martian-like atmosphere making takeoff impossible.

Edited November 11, 2018 by Pds314

[Klapaucius]

@Lisias But I think these are things we all discover after we start playing the game. I got asked to learn it to teach kids. I got into and and got better and thought it was cool. Since I had never played the game before, I had no idea what to expect or what was out there.  It was only after a lot of play that I started using mods or thinking about parts I would like to have. I certainly did not think to myself:  "Hmmm...This game has some odd parts, some of which need repainting, therefore I don't think I will learn it."

So while I think you are probably right as far as what the developer is doing, it is still an odd way to go about things.

[Lisias]

19 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

So while I think you are probably right as far as what the developer is doing, it is still an odd way to go about things.

I prefer to call this "weird". I can't call it "odd" because is exactly the norm "out there". This kind of knowledge is one of the most profitable trends on the market for who provides them (see Google!), besides not necessarily for the service's consumer.

As you correctly pinpointed, there're a lot of situations where the heuristics plain fail - being that the reason the people that manage to correctly extract useful data from the mess usually earns a lot of money.

[XLjedi]

14 hours ago, Pds314 said:

No rover can escape Eve under its own power, but I'm glad I can build rovers and send them there. Electric props as a single part would be absolutely indispensable to exploring Eve. Not to mention Duna, which has a lower takeoff speed than playing on Kerbin with FAR, and is in no way at risk of Martian-like atmosphere making takeoff impossible.

@sumghai  @Pds314  agreed...  and as for Sumghai's assertion...  if what you said regarding aircraft/spaceplanes were remotely true, there would be no reason to have a Goliath engine.  I take a much different point of view.  I see the aircraft on Kerbin (and possibly other planets) as Rescue and Recovery vehicles.  And I particularly enjoy missions where I have a splashdown that I have to actually recover.  In which case I do find the omission of rotors for helos to be particularly annoying.

[SlinkyMcman]

On 11/10/2018 at 6:56 AM, Lisias said:

Now, with these two numbers, he can extrapolate it to the potential user base - people that are willing to buy the game are reasonably similar to the people that already bought it. That tags on Steam are there for a reason (how many people that play games that tags KSP are not yet KSP users?). This would get yet another number: the people that potentially would be interested on this feature.

Probably an easier way to gauge interest in types of crafts would be to look at the Steam Workshop. 15500 total crafts, 8000 of them are planes(500ish of those have SSTO in title/description,).  If I ran Kerbal and wanted to make a quick buck, putting in plane specific content seems like a sure thing.

[Lisias]

10 minutes ago, SlinkyMcman said:

Probably an easier way to gauge interest in types of crafts would be to look at the Steam Workshop. 15500 total crafts, 8000 of them are planes(500ish of those have SSTO in title/description,).  If I ran Kerbal and wanted to make a quick buck, putting in plane specific content seems like a sure thing.

You are probably right - but remember what I said about "survivorship bias". People are posting planes because they like it, or because they didn't managed to build a rocket that they found worthy of sharing?

[Klapaucius]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

You are probably right - but remember what I said about "survivorship bias". People are posting planes because they like it, or because they didn't managed to build a rocket that they found worthy of sharing?

I think it probably has more to do with the creative aspect. KSP planes can be in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  Rockets tend to stay on a basic theme: long and pointy.   There is just as much engineering in a good rocket, but I have more fun from a design aspect with aircraft.  I think also, for those who are keen on replicas, that aircraft lend themselves better to that.

[SlinkyMcman]

20 hours ago, Lisias said:

You are probably right - but remember what I said about "survivorship bias". People are posting planes because they like it, or because they didn't managed to build a rocket that they found worthy of sharing?

Hmm, that's not something I had though of and probably is a factor, the 8x times more than other types of crafts probably is a result of a bunch of different factors. Maybe only counting the Downloads would be better, and would also maybe say something about the use of mods, what IDK. I feel like a data scientist would have a field date with the Steam Workshop.

[Arugela]

Isn't one of the advantages of propellers the making of pull based craft. Especially pull based craft from the nose. That is hard to do with jets. It would add some more configurations.

[l0kki]

On 10/7/2018 at 10:02 AM, Triop said:

If it didn't excist men never would have reached the Mun....

Triop you need to calm down with the KSP, irl its the Moon not the Mun