Saturatable Reaction Wheels?

[KerikBalm]

3 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Question in school should be answered before they are even asked.

Well, this is going off topic, but I don't neccassarily agree.

I think kids asking questions is a good thing, and can show that they have understood what was given to them, and are thinking about it.

Some teaching methods will first ask a student what they think and why.

It is important that students understand the reasoning behind the science that iis taught to them, and how we know what we know. They shouldn't just accept what they are told without question.

[OHara]

I tried using realistic reaction wheels built from Breaking-Ground servos to do a Mun mission.  The servos don't rotate nearly fast enough to turn a 3-Kerbal craft.  But there was another idea in this thread.

So I applied it, https://kerbalx.com/OHara/Real-Reaction-Wheels and flew a Mun mission with the pod's built-in reaction wheels disabled.   The way I hooked up the controls, saturation of the reaction wheels never happens, but that means they are no use to counter persistent torques, or to stop leftover rotation from an engine burn.  We need RCS thrusters for that, and fins to steer in the atmosphere.

[Multivac]

I like the idea of making this a difficulty setting. In "normal" difficulty reaction wheels would work as they do in KSP1, so new players would have an easier time getting into orbit and playing around with spacecraft design. Once they get some experience, those who want more of a challenge and/or more realism in their game could then change to a harder difficulty setting, which would "de-power" the reaction wheels and force them to rely more on other means of control. And at the highest difficulty settings, reaction wheels could function more like a monopropellant-saving add-on to a thruster-based RCS rather than a full spacecraft control solution in their own right. As others have mentioned, RCS thrusters would need to be moved lower in the tech tree for this, but honestly, why not? Maybe introduce weak, basic RCS thrusters very early on, and just add more powerful thrusters higher in the tree; maybe the ability to use translation controls (as opposed to using the RCS thrusters just for pitch and stability) could also be unlocked later, around the time when the player is going to be mastering docking.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Multivac