Bigger Reaction wheels.

[Arugela]

Here is an idea for a reaction wheel. Could really use it to reduce part count.

Same size as the, "protective rocket nose cone MK12A" or MK 3 parts. Slightly different variations could exist for both potentially.

Stats:

Size: 3.75m or MK3

Weight: 2.0t

Reaction: 60 each direction

Electricity: 0.7776 <- Possibly identical to the output of a PB NUK.

The rest of the stats are the same as the other reaction wheels.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Arugela

[IkranMakto]

Currently existing reaction wheels are highly overpowered and you want even stronger? Use phys warp to reduce rotation time. 

[PositronLance001]

On 10/24/2019 at 5:20 PM, IkranMakto said:

Currently existing reaction wheels are highly overpowered and you want even stronger? Use phys warp to reduce rotation time. 

Though phys warp can make large crafts that need larger reaction wheels will make them spasm.

[Fierce Wolf]

I'd actually wish reaction wheels to be souped-down, they are terrific and make monopropellant almost obsolete

 

EDIT: Look for Near Future mod, it has a lot of wheels options

Edited October 31, 2019 by Fierce Wolf

[PositronLance001]

21 minutes ago, Fierce Wolf said:

I'd actually wish reaction wheels to be souped-down, they are terrific and make monopropellant almost obsolete

Agreed. IRL, most craft maneuvering is using RCS. In KSP, RCS is for docking only.

[Arugela]

2 hours ago, Fierce Wolf said:

I'd actually wish reaction wheels to be souped-down, they are terrific and make monopropellant almost obsolete

 

EDIT: Look for Near Future mod, it has a lot of wheels options

That would be find if they didn't make all mono stuff blow up to easily. Maybe if they stopped making it impossible to go fast and turn. Or put in the mono nozzles in all the parts that hold mono and act like or had real life counters that had nozzles in those and other places. Then we wouldn't have to use the radial parts as standard. Look at the MK3 vs the real shuttle. It had lots of nozzles. some to pull away from the orange tank separation. The game, like usual, is completely underdeveloped. And in ways that should take no work or effect performance and should be easy to do and implement.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Arugela

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, Arugela said:

The game, like usual, is completely underdeveloped. And in ways that should take no work or effect performance and should be easy to do and implement.

The need for a mod, and the casual player becoming a mod maker, often arises out of the burning need for Squad or a previous mod maker to fix their stuff. Simple problems like the reaction wheel and RCS thrust problems can be solved with a teaspoon of MM config knowledge. A stock mk3 drone core and inline reaction wheel would be nice, tbh. And a proper Mk3 nose and tail for making Skylon.

 

[klgraham1013]

The way reaction wheels work in KSP was a huge design misstep by the early development team.  It gave a false impression and overuse of reaction wheels, and mostly eliminated the true use of RCS thrusters.  Hopefully (but probably not) KSP2 will address this.

[Arugela]

My current use and reason for this is stuff that needs to be in cargo bays because they are high speed parts going at speeds with as close to burning up as possible. It's also about parts count. So, I need something with few parts and electric is also nice as it's renewable in flight. I'll take reaction wheels with more electricity per force use. I don't know why you can't have bigger ones that are more waisteful either. That is not unrealistic engineering wise. I have to get parts count down if possible. I already have large solar panels for mining. I could open up my utility bays in the case of my current ship and just use them. But less parts is preferable. Unfortenately most of the ways to become efficient are a matter of more parts count. I wish they would make everything more realistic and add real engineering solutions. Maybe let us build our own parts. Even go hypothetical, as in stuff we can build but haven't based on general engineering knowledge and let us put it all together. It would still be severely shorthanded regardless. But the more the better. Starting with the premise of building and even modding parts would be fun. We could take apart and upgrade the existing parts for instance. They might just need things to cement single parts like welder or something.

 

BTW, in what way are current ones overpowered. Too electrically efficient? If it's raw power I don't see the issue. You can always upscale something in real life. We're not dealing with real life earth payload restriction or wahtever is the limiting factor potentially on earth. I'm assuming it's weight and whatnot. Or some other tertiary restriction from whatever their payload design or electrical designs were.

If the ISS was bigger I would imagine they would have bigger reaction wheels. Plus I use my stuff on an SSTO which only needs to rotate for low gravity and stuff. So, I actually need good power and small parts count. It's not unreasonable to build them for large things like inline 3.75 and whatnot is it?

Edited November 3, 2019 by Arugela

[JadeOfMaar]

32 minutes ago, Arugela said:

BTW, in what way are current ones overpowered.

IRL, reaction wheels are actually incredibly weak (just enough to hold a precise heading or orientation in vacuum) and RCS thrusters are where all the SAS muscle is. It's directly the opposite to how KSP presents them. IRL, if reaction wheels had the kind of power to turn a ship around easily, they could very possibly threaten to deform the ship and even tear themselves off. That imbalance in KSP is why this mod exists:

If you look at the huffs and puffs of RCS from the F9 lower stage (from 3:16) in this video, you get an idea of how strong RCS really should be, and how it should behave while firing. There's no single long burn of weak-sauce RCS like you're accustomed to, neither does the stage turn itself on plume-less magical over-torque from its reaction wheel.

Spoiler

 

 

[Gotmachine]

I usually give that example :
Each CMR on the ISS is roughly 1.2 meter wide, weight about 280 kg (source) and provide only 0.258 kNm of torque (source).
Compare that to the 0.625m KSP small reaction wheel : 50 kg, 5.0 kNm of torque.
In short, KSP reaction wheels are about 100x too powerful.

They are used for precise and extremely slow attitude keeping.
Never for maneuvers like we use them in KSP.

[Arugela]

Well, if they did fix the reaction wheels, maybe they would make better thrusters.

Or just use those proportions and make big ones! And better thrusters.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Arugela

[Kimera Industries]

I've honestly wished for a reaction wheel this size, really just because the 2.5 m ones look like the instrument unit located beneath the lunar lander in the saturn v, but it's too small to be used for that.

[jimmymcgoochie]

8 hours ago, chimera industries said:

I've honestly wished for a reaction wheel this size, really just because the 2.5 m ones look like the instrument unit located beneath the lunar lander in the saturn v, but it's too small to be used for that.

Near Future Launch Vehicles might just fill that need, it contains 3.75m and 5m probe cores with powerful reaction wheels, modelled on the avionics unit on the third stage of the Saturn V.

[Jacob Kerman]

They are already OP! Just use offset.

[Kerbart]

You can always add more. What really needs to happen is that the g-forces of rotation is taken into account. Nothing will take the flavor out of overpowered reaction wheels as the crew stroking out from negative g's.

[JadeOfMaar]

17 hours ago, chimera industries said:

I've honestly wished for a reaction wheel this size, really just because the 2.5 m ones look like the instrument unit located beneath the lunar lander in the saturn v, but it's too small to be used for that.

If you need reaction wheels that big (and want to avoid using mods, which is usually the case) then I suggest you pack some LFO and spam some verniers. This is why they exist.

[Martian Emigrant]

On 10/31/2019 at 2:46 PM, PositronLance001 said:

Agreed. IRL, most craft maneuvering is using RCS. In KSP, RCS is for docking only.

Hi.

Agreed on reaction wheels and all that was said so far in this tread.

Just want to add that RCS aren't required for docking. I don't use them....Maybe I would again on a really big ship.

 

ME