Kerbal Space Program 1.6: “To Vee or not To Vee” Grand Discussion Thread

[Nebbie]

On 1/27/2019 at 2:50 AM, KerikBalm said:

Coming back to KSP after an Arma3 bender... Making history parts are rebalanced? Good in theory.

Looking at the changelog:

Mastadon: Was inferior IMO to the mainsail, still very very close in role - "Improved Isp" A good change because it wasn't very good, still basically redundant with mainsail... I'm Ok with this change though, it looks better. Better to be nearly the same as the mainsaile and look better, than to loook better but be worse than the mainsail.

Bobcat: EC and crash tolerance changed? Meh, I remember it as a bit underpowered relative to the others... so I guess it still is. It looks to be just a wee but better than the reliant.

Cheetah: I thought this was fine where it was. I see its 355 Isp, not 345 Isp now. Its not on the wiki as a change though... maybe something changed on the bobcat too? Anything over the old stock poodle may be a bit OPd IMO... but I'll be playing on 3x rescale, so... Ok

Skiff: one of the OP'd engines previously... had the highest vacuum TWR of LFO engines in the game, and decent vacuum Isp. Its weakness IMO was its low thrust to cross section area. It got hit with the nerf bat hard.... a 60% increase in mass, no change to thrust or Isp. I guess it needed it, but its still too weak for its size IMO, I would have tripled mass and doubled thrust... now its just a better swivel engine, but for similar size rockets.

Wolfhound: Nerfed... I see the wiki notes aren't very good "improved Isp"... when it has a worse Isp (better for balance, but worse for performance). its mass was increased too... but 380 Isp is still really good. I would have nerf batted this down to 360

Kodiak: Used to be just a slightly worse reliant engine. The changes make it better as a first stage engine, worse as a 2nd stage (well, at least lower vacuum Isp), relative to the Reliant. I'll approve... There's still a lot of overlap, but at least there is some differentiation and strengths for each.

Mastodon now absolutely destroys the Mainsail. Then again, the Mainsail is almost never the correct engine regardless.

Bobcat is good at a very particular niche, mainly due to good Isp. It's actually potentially worth it to cluster them I've found.

Cheetah vs. Poodle is about TWR. Cheetah will give you better efficiency, but lower TWR.

Skiff is still good in some niches. I used one recently as an ascent stage engine because it has good atmospheric thrust. My biggest gripe is that for its niches, you never want the tank butt variant, which is the default.

Wolfhound isn't terribly OP now, in practice its mass means it's not much better than a Cheetah, though it absolutely creams the Poodle because it gives both efficiency and TWR. I agree they should've gone a tad further.

Kodiak I still see no reason to use, as something needs to be awfully cheap to make up for a lack of gimbal.

 

Overall, they did a decent job. My main gripe is they didn't touch the Mainsail, and despite all these different ascent stage engines, I'm still finding it hair-pulling to deal with anything needing thrust between the Skipper and Mastodon or out near the Twin Boar.

[KerikBalm]

1 hour ago, Nebbie said:

Mastodon now absolutely destroys the Mainsail. Then again, the Mainsail is almost never the correct engine regardless.

Well.... Its TWR is about 10% higher, and its got better atmo Isp... I guess it looks better than the mainsail now.

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Bobcat is good at a very particular niche, mainly due to good Isp. It's actually potentially worth it to cluster them I've found.

I could swear they've buffed it more than what the wiki change notes mention... it seems decent now... Generally performane increases with size... the 3.75m engines are better than the basic 1.25m engines (swivel, reliant, terrier), and this 1.875m engine seems like its a bit better than the reliant (better atmo Isp, gimbal), so it seems OK now.

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Cheetah vs. Poodle is about TWR. Cheetah will give you better efficiency, but lower TWR.

Well, it used to be lower TWR and lower Isp... just like the terrier was and still is lower TWR and lower Isp than the poodle. Considering they had a general progression of slightly better stats going from equivalent 1.25>2.5>3.75m engines, these 1.875m engines (and variant switching makes them also fit 1.25m or 2.5m nodes... visually at least, the drag is more complicated) are a bit weird.

I'd like to see optimal engine charts for these now, I think the cheetah will beat the poodle in most cases where the poodle previously made sense (of course, this may not be so apparent if the wolfhound is still kicking arsch)

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Skiff is still good in some niches. I used one recently as an ascent stage engine because it has good atmospheric thrust. My biggest gripe is that for its niches, you never want the tank butt variant, which is the default.

Yes, I think the tankbut thing relates to its thrust being too low for a 1.875m engine. I'd have rather seen the thrust go up 2x, and the mass 3x, than just increasing the mass by 60%. Its thrust isn't all that much more than a reliant, and is far less than a vector - is 330 vs 315 Isp worth having only 75% the TWR... this isn't a vacuum engine or at least an engine for a craft that operates in a vacuum, the Isp isn't so high for that. It seems to be intended as an engine for lifting something to orbit (so, 2nd stage or rocket assist on a spaceplane)... but its thrust is a bit too low for that role IMO. At the moment, I see it more of as a Swivel upgrade, with its 1.25m tank butt.

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Wolfhound isn't terribly OP now, in practice its mass means it's not much better than a Cheetah, though it absolutely creams the Poodle because it gives both efficiency and TWR. I agree they should've gone a tad further. 

420>380 is a nice improvement. Its TWR nerf is good too, its still nearly the same TWR as a terrier for 35 more Isp... I agree that its not terribly OP, but its still "power creep". We had power creep with the 3.75m engines, then 1.0 came out, and they made large changes, and while the 3.75m engines were still by and large the best (except for specialty roles like the LV-N), I think it was OK (IIRC, they even nerfed the Rhino a bit after 1.0... but then the wolfhound and skiff came out as massively overpowered engines.

The Skiff is fine now, maybe a bit too nerfed. Its no longer the highest TWR in the game (thanks to a massive 60% mass increase) with better than average vacuum Isp (it retains this, but it was the combination of this with the high TWR that was OP)

The wolfhound is still the highest Isp LFO engine in the game, so its still introducing power creep over the base game. Its not tooo bad though because it does have the lowest TWR of the inline LFO engines of 1.25m or greater in the game*.... but not by that much, not in proportion to its Isp increase.

*excluding the specialty rapier in closed cycle mode... and I still think the Rapier in closed cycle mode needs an Isp buff.

[Nebbie]

11 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Well.... Its TWR is about 10% higher, and its got better atmo Isp... I guess it looks better than the mainsail now.

I could swear they've buffed it more than what the wiki change notes mention... it seems decent now... Generally performane increases with size... the 3.75m engines are better than the basic 1.25m engines (swivel, reliant, terrier), and this 1.875m engine seems like its a bit better than the reliant (better atmo Isp, gimbal), so it seems OK now.

Well, it used to be lower TWR and lower Isp... just like the terrier was and still is lower TWR and lower Isp than the poodle. Considering they had a general progression of slightly better stats going from equivalent 1.25>2.5>3.75m engines, these 1.875m engines (and variant switching makes them also fit 1.25m or 2.5m nodes... visually at least, the drag is more complicated) are a bit weird.

I'd like to see optimal engine charts for these now, I think the cheetah will beat the poodle in most cases where the poodle previously made sense (of course, this may not be so apparent if the wolfhound is still kicking arsch)

Yes, I think the tankbut thing relates to its thrust being too low for a 1.875m engine. I'd have rather seen the thrust go up 2x, and the mass 3x, than just increasing the mass by 60%. Its thrust isn't all that much more than a reliant, and is far less than a vector - is 330 vs 315 Isp worth having only 75% the TWR... this isn't a vacuum engine or at least an engine for a craft that operates in a vacuum, the Isp isn't so high for that. It seems to be intended as an engine for lifting something to orbit (so, 2nd stage or rocket assist on a spaceplane)... but its thrust is a bit too low for that role IMO. At the moment, I see it more of as a Swivel upgrade, with its 1.25m tank butt.

420>380 is a nice improvement. Its TWR nerf is good too, its still nearly the same TWR as a terrier for 35 more Isp... I agree that its not terribly OP, but its still "power creep". We had power creep with the 3.75m engines, then 1.0 came out, and they made large changes, and while the 3.75m engines were still by and large the best (except for specialty roles like the LV-N), I think it was OK (IIRC, they even nerfed the Rhino a bit after 1.0... but then the wolfhound and skiff came out as massively overpowered engines.

The Skiff is fine now, maybe a bit too nerfed. Its no longer the highest TWR in the game (thanks to a massive 60% mass increase) with better than average vacuum Isp (it retains this, but it was the combination of this with the high TWR that was OP)

The wolfhound is still the highest Isp LFO engine in the game, so its still introducing power creep over the base game. Its not tooo bad though because it does have the lowest TWR of the inline LFO engines of 1.25m or greater in the game*.... but not by that much, not in proportion to its Isp increase.

*excluding the specialty rapier in closed cycle mode... and I still think the Rapier in closed cycle mode needs an Isp buff.

I think from tinkering that the Wolfhound doesn't eclipse the Cheetah because of its rather large 3.3t mass, but it does the Poodle, because the Poodle's almost 2t anyways and that extra 40s of Isp makes up for it. I'd love to see someone run the numbers into a graph. Wolfhound definitely becomes a great option at large masses.

I really wish the Rhino had the highest LFO Isp in the game. It's so weird having that honor go to the Wolfhound, a 2.5m engine, and I really don't see much point using the Rhino when it's so easy to cluster engines now. To compare with similar-mass and similar-thrust, with at-least-same Isp engine configurations in vacuum:

1 Rhino: 9t, 340s, 2000kN

9 Aerospikes: 9t, 340s, 1620kN - 11 Aerospikes: 11t, 340s, 1980kN

18 Terriers: 9t, 345s, 1080kN - 33 Terriers: 16.5t, 345s, 1980kN

6 Poodles: 10.5t, 350s, 1500kN - 9 Poodles: 15.75t, 350s, 2000kN

9 Cheetahs: 9t, 355s, 1125kN  - 16 Cheetahs: 16t, 355s, 2000kN

3 Wolfhounds: 9.9t, 380s, 1125kN - 5 Wolfhounds: 16.5t, 380s, 1875kN

I don't know about you, but I'd probably go for a Wolfhound cluster. At the scale of needing 2MN of thrust, 7.5t probably doesn't matter compared to 40s of Isp.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Nebbie
Similar-thrust cluster comparison

[sneekyzeke]

On 12/26/2018 at 2:22 AM, Xurkitree said:

I seriously can't understand whether that statement is sarcastic or not lmao 

No! Not at all, I was being earnest.

[Nich]

I have been playing RP-0 for a while.  I recently had the Itch to play stock and I have to say I am loving 1.6.1.  The game finally has a nice polish and feels like a completed game.  Although I still have the end game content to do but I have unlocked 90% of the tech tree and everything feels really good so far.

[klgraham1013]

Despite a few issues, 1.6.1 seems to be doing quite well with the community.  Haven't seen much complaining at all.  Hopefully a good sign for updates to come.  We don't need anymore 1.4's.

[PunkyFickle]

I didn't play between 0.90 and 1.6.1 and the difference is night and day. Despite heavily modding the game, I haven't experienced any crash yet, while in the past no game session ended without a crash (I have a decent computer now, though). Besides, the dV readings in the VAB indeed makes vanilla playable alone.

[Nich]

@PunkyFickle Yep but I am getting tired of switching from atm for lift off TWR to vac.  I may just install KER again for more complete dv info and of course the HUD info.  That being said I would never want KER in stock as I really like how clean the current dv displays are now.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

I'm still waiting for the mods I use to update so no 1.6 for me.. =(

[Cavscout74]

The only issue I've encountered in 1.6.1 is the constant duplicating of the launch site waypoints (now that they've been added as selectable nav waypoints), but that's only really noticeable if you have waypoint manager mod installed.  

Like this - 11 duplicate KSC runway waypoints, spread over several km.  Without WP manager, they don't show on-screen like this.

[steve_v]

Only two issues remain to get back to 1.3.1 quality: Joystick support on GNU/Linux, which Squad appears not to give a crap about, and the performance hogging DV readouts.
#1 is preventing me from saying anything outright nice about the game at the moment, leaving a regression like that unaddressed and unmentioned for 3 major releases is ridiculous, particularly in a game that involves flying aircraft.
Clearly Squad does not give a fat rodent's posterior about their non-windows userbase, something I have suspected to be true since 1.1.

[Starhawk]

 

A few posts which began life in another thread have been merged into this one since this is the place for discussions of version 1.6

Thanks for your understanding.

[tater]

Seems the MEM is still borked in terms of the RCS. It should be able to function as an ascent stage. Not so much.

[GrandProtectorDark]

On 2/5/2019 at 5:34 PM, Nich said:

Yep but I am getting tired of switching from atm for lift off TWR to vac

But doesn't ker in editor also have an atmo/vac display mode thst works pretty much the same as squads?

[Superfluous J]

5 minutes ago, GrandProtectorDark said:

But doesn't ker in editor also have an atmo/vac display mode thst works pretty much the same as squads?

Yes but KER defaults to Vacuum. And (IIRC) remembers how you last set it.

[DMagic]

7 hours ago, GrandProtectorDark said:

But doesn't ker in editor also have an atmo/vac display mode thst works pretty much the same as squads?

You can also ditch the garbagy stock back-end and  replace it with something better:

 

[GRS]

How much stress 1.6 can handle ??? Will it crash due to my 21 Kiloton ship ??? (In 6GB RAM, and when OPM and some other planet mods are on)

Edited February 21, 2019 by GRS

[Superfluous J]

9 minutes ago, GRS said:

How much stress 1.6 can handle ??? Will it crash due to my 21 Kiloton ship ??? (In 6GB RAM, and when OPM and some other planet mods are on)

That depends on your PC, I'd guess. Though from your question I'm guessing that it DID crash in 1.5.x so sure, it probably will.

[GRS]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

That depends on your PC, I'd guess. Though from your question I'm guessing that it DID crash in 1.5.x so sure, it probably will.

Well, it survive, but just barely (took a hour to get it into orbit) mostly thanks to a lot of luck.

[Nich]

On 2/20/2019 at 10:44 AM, GrandProtectorDark said:

But doesn't ker in editor also have an atmo/vac display mode thst works pretty much the same as squads?

I can't remember as it has been a while but I thought you could get it to show both atm and vac at the same time.  Not sure if it is the large window or something I set up in the custom window.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Nich

[HebaruSan]

14 minutes ago, Nich said:

I can't remember as it has been a while but I thought you could get it to show both atm and vac at the same time.  Not sure if it is the large window or something I set up in the custom window.

Unlikely; the switch between vacuum and atmosphere is built into the KER simulator. It only calculates one or the other.

https://github.com/jrbudda/KerbalEngineer/blob/29cf9af2144dd7bbef80beecb696c98e98346687/KerbalEngineer/VesselSimulator/Simulation.cs#L142

[KSP38]

Can't wait for the update to come out gonna be a heck of a ride.

[Starhelperdude]

5 minutes ago, KSP38 said:

Can't wait for the update to come out gonna be a heck of a ride.

the update 1.6 came out like ages ago, 1.11 is the newest out there

[KSP38]

Can't wait for the update.

Edited December 17, 2020 by KSP38

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum @KSP38, yes, KSP 1.11 is being released tomorrow.