Engines not better identified in the last feature video

[Laxez]

I was watching the latest feature video and i noticed these two engines that i am not familiar with.

does anyone know what it is?

I'm not sure if the first one below is actually a particular type, but I noticed a different exhaust jet from the 4 engines next to it

This i think is a nuclear engine, but it has an unusual shape for any engine, and i doubt it is some sort of nuclear Aero Spike

[Zaffre]

The second one isn't an engine. It bears the distinct shape and mounting of a nuclear reactor.

[intelliCom]

6 hours ago, Zaffre said:

The second one isn't an engine. It bears the distinct shape and mounting of a nuclear reactor.

Considering its position far at the back too, it's likely right there to stop the crew from getting a radiation dosage.

Which means we're probably getting radiation poisoning in KSP2.

[Laxez]

14 hours ago, Zaffre said:

The second one isn't an engine. It bears the distinct shape and mounting of a nuclear reactor.

Could you give me a reference image just to understand the shape of the reactor?

[leopardenthusiast]

The first one is almost certainly the Swivel.

Spoiler

Same engine on what appears to be the same spacecraft, just with a red upper section instead of yellow:

Swivel in the parts list from "Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 3 - Next Gen Astronauts" at 1:45:

 

[intelliCom]

3 hours ago, leopardenthusiast said:

The first one is almost certainly the Swivel.

  Hide contents

Same engine on what appears to be the same spacecraft, just with a red upper section instead of yellow:

Swivel in the parts list from "Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 3 - Next Gen Astronauts" at 1:45:

 

Wait, I didn't notice this before; "Methalox engines like this". Does this confirm Methane as a fuel source, or is it simply a replacement for "Liquid Fuel"?

[leopardenthusiast]

2 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

Wait, I didn't notice this before; "Methalox engines like this". Does this confirm Methane as a fuel source, or is it simply a replacement for "Liquid Fuel"?

LF and Ox resources are visible in the staging list several times in "Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 6 - Early Access".  My guess is one of the following:
1) Methane was at one point planned to be the Standard Chemical Rocket Fuel, but this has since been switched back to the kerosene-like LiquidFuel
2) LiquidFuel is methane now

[intelliCom]

6 minutes ago, leopardenthusiast said:

LF and Ox resources are visible in the staging list several times in "Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 6 - Early Access".  My guess is one of the following:
1) Methane was at one point planned to be the Standard Chemical Rocket Fuel, but this has since been switched back to the kerosene-like LiquidFuel
2) LiquidFuel is methane now

Problem with No. 2 is that all of the jet engines would run on methane instead of kerosene. Is this normal?

[leopardenthusiast]

1 minute ago, intelliCom said:

Problem with No. 2 is that all of the jet engines would run on methane instead of kerosene. Is this normal?

It's not nearly as common as using kerosene, but jet engines can be powered by natural gas, and that's mostly methane.  They've also been run on hydrogen.

[Timmon26]

5 hours ago, Laxez said:

Could you give me a reference image just to understand the shape of the reactor?

Here's the SP-100, the kind of reactor the one in the screenshot was likely based on. Space fission reactors tend to be conical so shielding can be minimized – everything is designed so that sensitive bits and the rest of the spacecraft can fit inside the radiation shadow of the shield. 

Spoiler

In the screenshot, some of the outboard fuel tanks and radiators look like they're still in the radiation zone. Hope that won't cause any problems 

[aNERVASman]

i always thought of LF as being hydrogen because it's also used for nuclear engines

[Rutabaga22]

On 10/24/2022 at 6:47 AM, intelliCom said:

Methalox engines like this".

They've said they're having more fuels than just LFO. They've talked about one of the nuclear engines being hydrogen and the swivel being methalox. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Rutabaga22

[K^2]

54 minutes ago, aNERVASman said:

i always thought of LF as being hydrogen because it's also used for nuclear engines

Yeah, but it's also used for jet engines, and the density doesn't make sense. FL-T200 holds 1T of fuel and oxidizer and has a maximum usable volume of about 1.5m³. There is no way to hold that much hydrogen in such a small volume. However, this is plenty for methalox or kerlox, both of which have an average density around 1T/m³, which allows for some usable volume loss to internal tank structure and plumbing.

In principle, while kerosene would be an absolutely awful fuel for a NERVA, methane isn't quite as bad. You can get about 30% of I_SP you'd get from hydrogen if you run with methane instead, assuming methane decomposes into carbon and H₂ gas in the core. And while KSP's LV-N engine's impulse seems to be based on real life NERVA, theoretical maximum for NTR is closer to 2000 seconds for a gas core, which would bring us up to about 600s on methane. It's still a little lower than what we see in the game, but it's starting to get to a point where I'm prepared to accept, with a stretch, that maybe the liquid fluid is liquid methane.

Of course, a very strong argument could be made that it's just kerosene, and we shouldn't be considering LV-N in this picture at all, because Squad is on the record that they didn't want to add yet another kind of liquid fuel.

[GoldForest]

1 hour ago, aNERVASman said:

i always thought of LF as being hydrogen because it's also used for nuclear engines

 

35 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Of course, a very strong argument could be made that it's just kerosene, and we shouldn't be considering LV-N in this picture at all, because Squad is on the record that they didn't want to add yet another kind of liquid fuel.

I always thought of it as Kerosene and that the LV-N was just an oddball/outlier because limitations/laziness. Kerosene makes the most sense since both rockets and planes use it. 

[AtomicTech]

On 10/24/2022 at 2:10 AM, leopardenthusiast said:

The first one is almost certainly the Swivel.

  Hide contents

Same engine on what appears to be the same spacecraft, just with a red upper section instead of yellow:

Swivel in the parts list from "Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 3 - Next Gen Astronauts" at 1:45:

 

Looks like the new model in KSP 1.12 and also the Restock Swivel.

2 hours ago, K^2 said:

Yeah, but it's also used for jet engines, and the density doesn't make sense. FL-T200 holds 1T of fuel and oxidizer and has a maximum usable volume of about 1.5m³. There is no way to hold that much hydrogen in such a small volume. However, this is plenty for methalox or kerlox, both of which have an average density around 1T/m³, which allows for some usable volume loss to internal tank structure and plumbing.

In principle, while kerosene would be an absolutely awful fuel for a NERVA, methane isn't quite as bad. You can get about 30% of I_SP you'd get from hydrogen if you run with methane instead, assuming methane decomposes into carbon and H₂ gas in the core. And while KSP's LV-N engine's impulse seems to be based on real life NERVA, theoretical maximum for NTR is closer to 2000 seconds for a gas core, which would bring us up to about 600s on methane. It's still a little lower than what we see in the game, but it's starting to get to a point where I'm prepared to accept, with a stretch, that maybe the liquid fluid is liquid methane.

Of course, a very strong argument could be made that it's just kerosene, and we shouldn't be considering LV-N in this picture at all, because Squad is on the record that they didn't want to add yet another kind of liquid fuel.

I think we're getting the real fuels treatment.

[Strawberry]

On 10/24/2022 at 5:53 AM, leopardenthusiast said:

LF and Ox resources are visible in the staging list several times in "Kerbal Space Program 2: Episode 6 - Early Access".  My guess is one of the following:
1) Methane was at one point planned to be the Standard Chemical Rocket Fuel, but this has since been switched back to the kerosene-like LiquidFuel
2) LiquidFuel is methane now

I think its two as the image of the swivel description is pretty old. Lots of speculation but Im guessing they changed it for gameplay reasons so they can make LF factories just be biofuel factories, as food will be something you will produce on all colonies anyways thus itll make LF a very convenient fuel to produce as no extra supply chains are needed.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, UXW-20 said:

I think we're getting the real fuels treatment.

I highly doubt that. We might get another fuel type, or maybe three, to handle metallic hydrogen and fusion engines (also the Orion drive which will require nuclear bomb cartridges), but there's no way we're going to get any other meaningful fuel types outside of "liquid fuel" and "oxidizer".

[GoldForest]

5 hours ago, regex said:

I highly doubt that. We might get another fuel type, or maybe three, to handle metallic hydrogen and fusion engines (also the Orion drive which will require nuclear bomb cartridges), but there's no way we're going to get any other meaningful fuel types outside of "liquid fuel" and "oxidizer".

I feel like we're going to see tons of new fuels. It's already been confirmed that Hydrogen and Metallic Hydrogen are in game. I wouldn't be surprised if Methane makes an appearance. Heck, Liquid Fuel might be changed to Kerosene. I wouldn't be surprised if it was. And then you have the possibility of He-3 which will more than likely be in game, along with H-2 and H-3, to power direct fusion drives. Then you have pellets for the Daedalus engine. 

Yeah, I think we're getting a whole overhaul to the fuel system in KSP 2, and a ton of more fuels than we think. 

[jimmymcgoochie]

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

I feel like we're going to see tons of new fuels. It's already been confirmed that Hydrogen and Metallic Hydrogen are in game. I wouldn't be surprised if Methane makes an appearance. Heck, Liquid Fuel might be changed to Kerosene. I wouldn't be surprised if it was. And then you have the possibility of He-3 which will more than likely be in game, along with H-2 and H-3, to power direct fusion drives. Then you have pellets for the Daedalus engine. 

Yeah, I think we're getting a whole overhaul to the fuel system in KSP 2, and a ton of more fuels than we think. 

Or just a generic “fusion fuel” and “fission pellets” that can be made of whatever they need to be made of at that given moment- liquid fuel, oxidiser, solid fuel and monopropellant aren’t specified, hence the debate on whether LF/Ox is kerolox, methane-peroxide or even high-performance hypergolics (and the apparent weirdness of the NERV getting liquid hydrogen-level ISP while using kerosene or methane as propellant), so why should more exotic substances be specified when a more generic term would offer greater flexibility? I don’t care what combination of deuterium, tritium and/or helium-3 you’re throwing into that fusion reactor, only that reactor go brrrr and rocket go fast.

[GoldForest]

4 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Or just a generic “fusion fuel” and “fission pellets” that can be made of whatever they need to be made of at that given moment- liquid fuel, oxidiser, solid fuel and monopropellant aren’t specified, hence the debate on whether LF/Ox is kerolox, methane-peroxide or even high-performance hypergolics (and the apparent weirdness of the NERV getting liquid hydrogen-level ISP while using kerosene or methane as propellant), so why should more exotic substances be specified when a more generic term would offer greater flexibility? I don’t care what combination of deuterium, tritium and/or helium-3 you’re throwing into that fusion reactor, only that reactor go brrrr and rocket go fast.

Well, KSP 2 is supposed to expand upon and fix a lot of problems in KSP 1, while still retaining that fun, and learning, experience. The fuel system needs an overhaul, let's be honest. The base fuel system in KSP 1 is... basic to say the least. That's why most mods use CRP or integrate their own fuels, for better expandability. And since Nate confirmed there are several new fuels, one of which being Hydrogen, I have no doubt they wouldn't go with other fuel types or even more exotic fuels, like H2, H3 and He-3. Putting H2, H3 and He-3 all together as simply 'fusion fuel' is going to lead to people griping about it, just like how they gripe about LV-N using Liquid Fuel. 

KSP 2 also serves to add more 'learning' aspect to the game. Can't really teach people about fission and fusion fuels without having said fuels present. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by GoldForest

[Guest]

17 hours ago, GoldForest said:

It's already been confirmed that Hydrogen and Metallic Hydrogen are in game.

Is it confirmed absolutely that we'll have both? Or was there just mention of "hydrogen"? Because I can easily see a situation where we have "hydrogen" and then denser "metallic hydrogen fuel tank"s that just carries "hydrogen". In fact, having hydrogen as a fuel neatly solves LV-N, metallic hydrogen engines (with dense fuel tanks for late game), and fusion engines without a myriad of additional fuels.

I honestly think a healthy fuel ecosystem is kind of a pipe dream for stock. Part of the reason is this screenshot from up above:

Notice that it's called a "Liquid Fuel Engine". I don't really care what the fluff says because the fluff text in this game is just used for dumb jokes, but that title is very informative and more often what the user will care about.

Of course it would be nice if we could have cartridges for lithium liners, nitrogen tetroxide, methane, kerosene, LOX, helium-3, tritium pellets, liquid hydrogen, metallic hydrogen, and all kinds of other crap, as well as procedural fuel tanks with selectable inventories (god that would be amazing), but I don't think that's a very realistic view for the stock game. They're going to keep it as simple as possible so that people can build crazy crap with simple fuel systems and simple refueling decisions.

Edited December 3, 2022 by regex

[K^2]

Personally, I think the best design would be go with minimalist set, kind of like KSP - where I think even xenon might have been an overkill, but then instead of hard-coding the game for resources X, Y, and Z, have a table of them somewhere that mods can add to, and have the relevant parts tagged with the relevant fuel type. If you want to make a mod that adds Unobtanium as a new fuel type and add Unobtanium tanks, engines, and cross-feed rules, it's just a resource config file + matching tags in the mod part configs. That way, an average player is not overwhelmed, and the modding community will be on it to make "Realistic Fuels Overhaul" mod within weeks. That will probably keep everyone happy.

[shdwlrd]

Everyone seems to forget about this thread.

Section 2.2 is about what fuels have been confirmed. 

@K^2 A stock resource table is a good method for adding the new resources when the devs are ready to do so. I really hope that the devs have a similar mindset as you.

 

[The Aziz]

Which reminds me I need to update that section with not-so-recent news about nuclear engines.

[GoldForest]

9 hours ago, regex said:

Is it confirmed absolutely that we'll have both? Or was there just mention of "hydrogen"? Because I can easily see a situation where we have "hydrogen" and then denser "metallic hydrogen fuel tank"s that just carries "hydrogen". In fact, having hydrogen as a fuel neatly solves LV-N, metallic hydrogen engines (with dense fuel tanks for late game), and fusion engines without a myriad of additional fuels.

I honestly think a healthy fuel ecosystem is kind of a pipe dream for stock. Part of the reason is this screenshot from up above:

Notice that it's called a "Liquid Fuel Engine". I don't really care what the fluff says because the fluff text in this game is just used for dumb jokes, but that title is very informative and more often what the user will care about.

Of course it would be nice if we could have cartridges for lithium liners, nitrogen tetroxide, methane, kerosene, LOX, helium-3, tritium pellets, liquid hydrogen, metallic hydrogen, and all kinds of other crap, as well as procedural fuel tanks with selectable inventories (god that would be amazing), but I don't think that's a very realistic view for the stock game. They're going to keep it as simple as possible so that people can build crazy crap with simple fuel systems and simple refueling decisions.

"Liquid fuel engine" could be literal, meaning it takes liquid fuel instead of solid fuel or ionizing fuel like Xenon engines, or plasma, etc. IMO, that engine being called "Liquid Fuel Engine" is the same as calling the RS-25 or RS-68 Liquid Fuel Engines. It's not wrong, nor is it misleading.

And yes, metallic hydrogen has been confirmed. Several times. Never once have I heard Nate or the other's mention that the metallic hydrogen will run off regular hydrogen but have MH properties. And honestly, if they did do that, it would be kind of crappy imo. They'd literally be making another LV-N situation again, which I'm fairly certain they do not want. 

I feel we're going to get tons of more fuels. Well, maybe not a ton, but definitely more than the grab bag that we got in KSP 1. I think we will see Methane, LOX, He-3, H2, H3, Fission/Fusion pellets, Hydrogen, metallic hydrogen. If we don't, I feel like it would hurt KSP 2 if the only new fuel they added was hydrogen and nukes. KSP 2 is supposed to expand on KSP 1, if they don't expand the fuels, I would say they failed in one of their goals. To teach about space and space science. Yes, the educational aspect might be a low priority, but they have mentioned several times they'd like to teach people about interstellar travel, about what it takes to colonize other planets. With that in mind, they'd have to expand the fuel roster to be more genuine and fleshed out.