Liquid fuel engine error

[asenfly]

Hi!

I've got a big problem with liqid fuel engines. When I build a rocket and place a liquid fuelsage and to this bottom, a liqid fuel engine "Swiwel". Than, at launchpad I hit spacebar, but the engine seems not working. When I'm clicking with right click to the engine, I seen the status: off. And I don't know, what I can do

[jimmymcgoochie]

A couple of things might help you:

If you're using a liquid fuel rocket, you need to use the fuel tanks that contain liquid fuel and oxidiser- a liquid fuel fuselage is a plane part and ONLY has liquid fuel in it, which is fine for planes but no use for rockets. Use FL-T100/200/400/800 fuel tanks for your rockets.

Liquid fuel engines are also throttle controlled- use shift to steadily increase the throttle, Z to set it to 100%, control to reduce it slowly and X to set it to 0%. To launch a liquid fuel rocket the normal sequence is T (activate SAS to keep the rocket pointing towards space) Z (full power!) space (engage engines)

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum @asenfly, your question has been moved to gameplay questions.

[UncleManuel]

15 hours ago, asenfly said:

Than, at launchpad I hit spacebar, but the engine seems not working. When I'm clicking with right click to the engine, I seen the status: off. And I don't know, what I can do

First of all: Space cycles the staging, which depends on how you built the rocket in the VAB. But at the launchpad the first hit on the spacebar activates all engines within stage 1. Just so that you know... 

A surefire way to tell why the engines are not firing on the launchpad is to look at your main throttle (that little arrow on the left side of the navball). You have to apply throttle to actually get moving. The shortcuts are Y (100% throttle) and X (0% throttle). T is for the stability control S.A.S. . These are the basics you learn by playing the tutorial. 

[WilliamC]

My pointers on how to successfully launch your first liquid fueled rocket:

In the VAB, make sure that you are using rocket fuel tanks, not the liquid fuel fuselages that you get with the plane parts. The liquid fuel fuselages don't work for rocket engines because they don't have any oxidizer, and rocket engines need that since they do not have air intakes. To check if your fuel tank has oxidizer, right-click on it. If you just see one green bar labeled liquid fuel, you are using the wrong fuel tank. Swap it out with another that does have oxidizer. If you see two green bars, one liquid fuel and one oxidizer, then you're all good to go. One very important thing to do before launch is to look at your staging, the bar on the bottom-right with orange labels. Make sure that your engine does not fire the same time as your separator (if you have one on the rocket) or your parachute (which I'm assuming you do have, if not just stick one at the top and pretend it was there all along). Drag the engine, separator, and parachute icons to separate levels, and to add or remove a level, just use the + and - button, although I assume you already know this. Now press launch.

Pilot kerbals (Like Jeb) have stability control by default since they're pilots. They help you keep the rocket pointing where you last turned it with w, a, s, and d. To turn this feature on, you have to press t on the keyboard. A light will light up on the top right side of the ball at the bottom.

Next thing you want to do is press z to throttle up to max. This is what I recommend for beginners to launch at. If you want to change your throttle to be somewhere in between max and off, you can use ctrl and shift to raise and lower the throttle, respectively.

Lastly, press space to take off! You also use space to activate the next stage, so when your liquid fuel has run out, press space (if you have a separator) to separate the capsule and rocket. If you have your separator and parachutes on different stages, make sure not to forget to press space again to release the parachute. Don't worry if the parachute doesn't come out immediately, you have to be going slower than about 255 meters per second, and you have to be at a low altitude. Also don't worry if the parachute doesn't open all the way, it will open completely when you are closer to the ground. That's pretty much it. It is very important to remember, however, that if you are going too fast, the parachute will never open, and you will crash into the ground. Make sure that your reentry path is always sloped and long, not straight down.

Good luck and you will love this game!

[Snark]

Hi @asenfly, and welcome to the forums! 

On 5/25/2020 at 4:11 AM, asenfly said:

I've got a big problem with liqid fuel engines. When I build a rocket and place a liquid fuelsage and to this bottom, a liqid fuel engine "Swiwel". Than, at launchpad I hit spacebar, but the engine seems not working. When I'm clicking with right click to the engine, I seen the status: off. And I don't know, what I can do

One question-- exactly what part do you mean?

By any chance do you mean this part, here (or any of the other parts that have "liquid fuel fuselage" in their names)?

If so, that won't work.  You've got the wrong fuel tank-- that's a tank that's designed for jet engines, not rocket engines.

Different types of engines need different types of propellants in KSP:

• Rocket engines (the kind that take you to space) need liquid fuel plus oxidizer (often abbreviated "LFO").
• Jet engines (for airplanes) use liquid fuel only (they don't need any oxidizer).

So, this means that since there are two types of engines that need two types of fuel... to supply them, there are two types of fuel tanks.

There are a bunch of fuel tanks that have "liquid fuel fuselage" in the name.  They contain only liquid fuel.  They don't contain any oxidizer.  That's because they're intended for use with jet engines.  If you put one of these tanks on a ship that uses a rocket engine... the engine won't work.  Because it also needs oxidizer to work, and you don't have any oxidizer.

So, for a ship like that, you should use a tank that has both liquid fuel and oxidizer in it.  These generally have names that either say "Fuel Tank" or "Rocket Fuel Fuselage".

 

Might this be your issue?

 

[bestPlayer_xu]

you need both oxidizer AND liquid fuel (even though it is shown as liquid fuel engine, but every engine except nerv, dawn and jet engines require oxidizer)