KSP2 Hype Train Thread

[Vl3d]

22 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

The Vector is definitely not Methalox, unless they do indeed have fuel switching for engines, or are putting multiple of the same engine with different fuel types.

I think Vector's gonna be just hydrolox. It's not mentioned as a methane engine.

Later edit: Although it works be cool to have at least one hydrolox engine, the Vector is probably methalox as well. I just hope it has the same large gimbal range.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Vl3d

[GoldForest]

3 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

I think Vector's gonna be just hydrolox. It's not mentioned as a methane engine.

You said "All those engines are methalox," yet the Vector is in the picture. 

Edit: Also, I missed that all Liquid Fuel engines are now Methalox, so my bad. But's its weird that the Vector, an RS-25 based engine, is getting a Methalox version instead of a Hydrolox. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by GoldForest

[Vl3d]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

You said "All those engines are methalox," yet the Vector is in the picture. 

Yeah I asked in the post, it's not clear.

[GoldForest]

Just now, Vl3d said:

Yeah I asked in the post, it's not clear.

If they are giving us an RS-25 Methalox engine, they just nerfed the RS-25 (Vector) I think. 

[Vl3d]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

If they are giving us an RS-25 Methalox engine, they just nerfed the RS-25 (Vector) I think. 

"Liquid Fuel -> Methane

Before we get into this, a bit of terminology. Let’s start with talking about… methane and methane accessories. KSP1 gave us an abstracted resource to run our most common workhorse engines: the well-regarded Liquid Fuel . For KSP2, we’ve decided to take this resource and… name it. It’s methane. For their space program, Kerbals have passed over the brutish kerosene, toxic hypergolics and seductive lure of liquid hydrogen to settle on this nice middle ground fuel. It’s a good choice – a number of commercial companies are currently moving engines using methane and oxygen propellants to operational readiness.

When we talk about engines you might recall from KSP1 that sported the Liquid Fuel/Oxidizer moniker, we’re always talking about methalox engines. Yes, this nomenclature change applies to jet engines as well for simplicity, so jet engines are now methane engines."

 

That's why I thought all of them are methalox, but it's weird for the Vector...

[The Aziz]

Read the whole post. All engines are balanced to fill their niches and don't have to represent real engines in any way. They just happen to be.. visually. You say nerfed not knowing their parameters. How is Methalox in any way worse than LF-O mix?

Edited December 16, 2022 by The Aziz

[Strawberry]

They actually added fuel switching, but it only applies to vector and it permanently switches the fuel from hydrolox to methalox and you cant swap it off of methalox

Vector is still visually a sustainer engine, I wonder if vector will still have that stupidly high TWR? Honestly I wont complain if they "nerf" the vector engine because its just a blatant upgrade to the reliant and swivel engines. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Strawberry

[AtomicTech]

2 hours ago, Luriss said:

Seeing as the new dev log mentioned that Scott Manley named one of the new engines, I have an increasingly strong suspicion that Scott will voice the in game tutorials.

Holy crap! That'd be awesome!!

[GoldForest]

23 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Read the whole post. All engines are balanced to fill their niches and don't have to represent real engines in any way. They just happen to be.. visually. You say nerfed not knowing their parameters. How is Methalox in any way worse than LF-O mix?

Sorry, I meant nerfing as in not making it Hydrolox. Hydrolox would have given it much more ISP than Methalox. That's how I feel it's been nerfed. 

[Strawberry]

31 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Sorry, I meant nerfing as in not making it Hydrolox. Hydrolox would have given it much more ISP than Methalox. That's how I feel it's been nerfed. 

Vector in ksp1 only has 295 isp sea level, whereas the RS25 has around 360 isp sea level. The raptor engine achieves even better then vector and gets around 320 isp sea level. While we dont know the new values of the vector engine, I dont think it will be worse in isp then it was in ksp1.

[GoldForest]

12 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

Vector in ksp1 only has 295 isp sea level, whereas the RS25 has around 360 isp sea level. The raptor engine achieves even better then vector and gets around 320 isp sea level. While we dont know the new values of the vector engine, I dont think it will be worse in isp then it was in ksp1.

Hmmm. Perhaps. I'm still on the fence on a Methalox Vector. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Hmmm. Perhaps. I'm still on the fence on a Methalox Vector. 

They're all LF+O... Except they're changing the names for noobs to LFMethane+O.  Supposed to be less confusing. 

I actually would prefer the game to simply have an LF+O fuel tank and whenever you slap on an engine it tells you whether you are running hydralox or methalox (and why) - but they admit that they are building the game with new players in mind, and hoping modders will come in and do the granularity thing for those who want it

[GoldForest]

23 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

They're all LF+O... Except they're changing the names for noobs to LFMethane+O.  Supposed to be less confusing. 

I actually would prefer the game to simply have an LF+O fuel tank and whenever you slap on an engine it tells you whether you are running hydralox or methalox (and why) - but they admit that they are building the game with new players in mind, and hoping modders will come in and do the granularity thing for those who want it

I understand the reasoning, but they could have still had Kerosene, Methane and Hydrogen, and still made it easy for new players to understand, imo.

[SolarAdmiral]

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

I understand the reasoning, but they could have still had Kerosene, Methane and Hydrogen, and still made it easy for new players to understand, imo.

However, hydrogen has been confirmed, at least for the NERV, and noted "storage challenges". So maybe there will be other hydrogen oxygen fueled engines.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

I understand the reasoning, but they could have still had Kerosene, Methane and Hydrogen, and still made it easy for new players to understand, imo.

I've kind of wrestled with this since the announcement.  Partly because of where I am now with my knowledge of rocketry from playing KSP and having swam in these forums for years gobbling up information that otherwise would not even be on my radar. 

Specifically I'm thinking of a couple of videos I've seen in the last year* that did deep dives into how rockets work, what the various fuel and pump configurations are and the history and development of several generations of rocket. 

Having years of playing time and enthusiast levels of knowledge already under my belt makes me appreciate why people want granularity in fuel types and engine configurations.  I kinda want it too. 

But if I'm honest with myself - back when I was a new player just trying to figure out how to play the game, accomplish missions, get a rocket to orbit and land / return from a moon... Knowing that there were different fuel types besides SRB and LF+O would not have been relevant.  Like - there was already a ton of stuff to learn - and just knowing that SRB was on/off and lots of power vs LF+O allowed me to throttle was enough.  It would not have added anything to the new player experience to have to figure out whether it made sense for a particular mission to use a keralox or a methalox engine, and if deciding among unlocks?  Too much, too fast. 

The only thing that kind of confuses me is why they decided to go 'methalox' and not just stick with LF+O.  That worked for KSP... So I'm guessing that having this slight level of specificity is because they will have parts (later) that carry liquid fuel but don't work with keralox engines. Kind of like a xenon tank or a monopropellant tank. 

And maybe - just maybe - that methalox is the LF that's available during EA and that possibly on Release they may add back in Keralox and other fuels if their data shows people actually want that level of granularity and it doesn't adversely affect new players' experience. 

 

 

 

*(thinking Everyday Astronaut - but they could be from several sources) 

[MARL_Mk1]

NICE

[Hutsul228]

Methalox ... I wonder how will they call orion propellant? Kerbukes ? Nukies?

[Luriss]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The only thing that kind of confuses me is why they decided to go 'methalox' and not just stick with LF+O.  That worked for KSP... So I'm guessing that having this slight level of specificity is because they will have parts (later) that carry liquid fuel but don't work with keralox engines. Kind of like a xenon tank or a monopropellant tank. 

My guess is that they were forced to pick a fuel because of the new mining and colony stuff; if you use water ice to make "liquid fuel" you're really just making hydrogen with a fancy name. Same goes for any other resource.

[Vl3d]

2 hours ago, Hutsul228 said:

Methalox ... I wonder how will they call orion propellant? Kerbukes ? Nukies?

Kerbonukes

[Drakenred65]

6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've kind of wrestled with this since the announcement.  Partly because of where I am now with my knowledge of rocketry from playing KSP and having swam in these forums for years gobbling up information that otherwise would not even be on my radar. 

Specifically I'm thinking of a couple of videos I've seen in the last year* that did deep dives into how rockets work, what the various fuel and pump configurations are and the history and development of several generations of rocket. 

Having years of playing time and enthusiast levels of knowledge already under my belt makes me appreciate why people want granularity in fuel types and engine configurations.  I kinda want it too. 

But if I'm honest with myself - back when I was a new player just trying to figure out how to play the game, accomplish missions, get a rocket to orbit and land / return from a moon... Knowing that there were different fuel types besides SRB and LF+O would not have been relevant.  Like - there was already a ton of stuff to learn - and just knowing that SRB was on/off and lots of power vs LF+O allowed me to throttle was enough.  It would not have added anything to the new player experience to have to figure out whether it made sense for a particular mission to use a keralox or a methalox engine, and if deciding among unlocks?  Too much, too fast. 

The only thing that kind of confuses me is why they decided to go 'methalox' and not just stick with LF+O.  That worked for KSP... So I'm guessing that having this slight level of specificity is because they will have parts (later) that carry liquid fuel but don't work with keralox engines. 

And maybe - just maybe - that methalox is the LF that's available during EA and that possibly on Release they may add back in Keralox and other fuels if their data shows people actually want that level of granularity and it doesn't adversely affect new players' experience. 

 

I think it’s because NERV US uses HLOX, and they wanted to keep things a bit more realistic, but not overwhelming.

 

6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

[AtomicTech]

I wonder what's going to happen to our RP-1?

[GoldForest]

14 minutes ago, AtomicTech said:

I wonder what's going to happen to our RP-1?

RP-1 was never technically in game. LFO could be seen as kerosene or rp-1 since it powers both rockets and jets.  But to answer your question, to paraphrase the devs, kerbals have basically moved beyond the need for LFO/Kerosene and work now with methane. 

[Gargamel]

Guys, we have multiple threads for discussing the engines.  Do we really need another?    Keep this one for hype please. 

[Minmus Taster]

On 12/16/2022 at 9:38 AM, Luriss said:

Seeing as the new dev log mentioned that Scott Manley named one of the new engines, I have an increasingly strong suspicion that Scott will voice the in game tutorials.

If Scott's doing the tutorials in KSP2 then I'm never going to question anything about the game again, it's automatically a masterpiece in my book.

[Drakenred65]

He commented on doing that a while back, but I’m bot sure if I could find it