Developer Insights #17 - Engines Archetypes

[Drakenred65]

1 hour ago, Lowi_Sace said:

Correct me if I am wrong, there will be more feul types, but the old engines just got converted to methane. Methane will be the base feul for most liquid engines, but not all. Heard in video's about hydrogen, metallic hydrogen, Helium3 and xenon feul and they said they will add a lot of feul types. Hope we will also get kerosine too (just love the saturn v), looks just so great

Well not realy converted to, just named. I suspect it’s an effort to simplify early rockets from the historical development (gasoline, alcohol, kerosine Tetroxide,/hydrazine and other propellants) that were developed from the 1930s to 1980s, and just stick with one that seems to be more currently in the news, because it’s recently become popular to use as fuel, for various reasons.

And yes I’m aware that apparently it’s been Methane all along.

[ArmchairGravy]

I have a confession. I never used half of the engines in KSP1. They were either too hard to match with existing payloads or seemingly inferior to what I was already using (Terrier, Swivel, Skipper, Poodle) either in performance or they didn't work with landing gear. I'm hoping I can find a more useful array in KSP2.

Edited January 13, 2023 by ArmchairGravy

[snkiz]

I'm a little late, but here goes. I don't agree with the decision to  default to methane. The og engines were inspired by real world engines, not just in visual design, but loosely in performance as well. (we won't talk about the vector.) The choice of fuel has an impact on thrust, performance, power to weight, and complexity that can't be ignored. Methane powered jets are just not practical. Methane is only a liquid under pressure or cryro. The fuel complexity problem is being over blown. You don't need every exotic fuel, are we doing that for SRB's or the many types of mono props? No I'll bet those will still be entirely generic, and that's fine. But liquid fuels, there's really only three, kerosene should not be ignored, it's to versatile. Methane is the fuel of the future, it can be pretty basic or very complex, and is the middle ground. It wasn't worth doing until we started thinking about not chucking every launch into the ocean. And Hydrogen, must be cryo, leaks through solid steel, not really enough power to weight to be useful in atmo. But that ISP. If there is going to be any consideration for different fuel types, from the sound of things I don't know how anying late game is going to happen without it. Then how confusing is it really? Tell me you weren't planning to to use hydrogen anyway. I don't see the issue of retconning fuel types onto the KSP1 engines, it's mostly straightforward. Your are giving them a balance pass already.

Now that that's off my chest everything else about the post is is great! From the picture I can see that these egine classes are colour coded as well. I hope that the use of part variants continues though. Just because an engine has a certain use in mind, doesn't mean they aren't useful elsewhere. Boat tails are great, as long as I can take them off.

 

[magnemoe]

On 12/21/2022 at 9:29 AM, The Aziz said:

One of the earliest showcases of VAB UI

 

Is other than me hyped about the 3x engines? Small is 1.25 meter, with some long but thinner parts included. Medium is 2.5 meter, large is 3.75, XL should then probably be 5 meter or the Apollo 5 from making history. 
As 1.25 meter increase from here looks kind of pointless as in 25% increase to 6.25, I assume 2XL is 7.5 meter and 3XL is 10 meter or larger. 
Who implies Orion pulse nuclear or huge fusion engines, I doubt the later would come before interstellar but was kind of scared for Orion. 

[magnemoe]

On 1/13/2023 at 11:42 PM, ArmchairGravy said:

I have a confession. I never used half of the engines in KSP1. They were either too hard to match with existing payloads or seemingly inferior to what I was already using (Terrier, Swivel, Skipper, Poodle) either in performance or they didn't work with landing gear. I'm hoping I can find a more useful array in KSP2.

You have the spark who is my go to if the Terrier is to heavy or OP.  small Minmus landers and satellites. 
You have mainsail, twin boar or mammoth, also groups of vectors for heavy lift, launching bases and motherships. 
LV-N for the larger interplanetary stuff, rapier for spaceplanes. 
Twitch and Thud if you don't want bells below you, nice for rovers and bases. 
Spider and ant for small probes / secondary payloads. Aerospike for Eve, these are little used. 

Reliant, that is limited, used it for liquid fueled side boosters for mun missions as I did not have large SRB unlocked and they are to heavy. Rhino is probably my least used engine. 
 

[darthgently]

15 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Reliant, that is limited, used it for liquid fueled side boosters for mun missions as I did not have large SRB unlocked and they are to heavy. Rhino is probably my least used engine

Good points.  I would add another negative being no gimbal which is crucial on early craft without control surfaces or verniers

[tstein]

On 1/13/2023 at 7:42 PM, ArmchairGravy said:

I have a confession. I never used half of the engines in KSP1. They were either too hard to match with existing payloads or seemingly inferior to what I was already using (Terrier, Swivel, Skipper, Poodle) either in performance or they didn't work with landing gear. I'm hoping I can find a more useful array in KSP2.

true.  Most of my ships use only Swivel, TErrier, Cheeta, the 4 noozled soyuz liek one (forgot the name), skipper, the tiny ones that fit in an octogonal struct,  and mainsail. I try to  keep my ships small enough that I only need these

[EnderiumSmith]

I would name the fuel Liquid Hydrocarbons. That solves the methane jet engines problem, gives more options for engine plumes and allows the fuel to be gathered from both Eve's oceans and Tekto's atmosphere without requiring a processing intermediate. It also allows more freedom with choosing ISPs. With methane the old engines would have to get boosted ISPs to be more in range.

Also i think Hydrolox should be an engine option. Instead of orbital and deep space classes make the really long nozzle be the hydrolox orbital engine. Experienced players will find a way to make a lander with them anyway. Maybe have hydrolox only have sustainer and orbital engines so you need SRBs or liquid boosters to lift things efficiently. It also gives the player a taste of low density fuels before going all in with nuclear. Also places like the Mun wouldnt have carbon deposits so hydrolox would be better for ISRU.

Will nuclear engines be able to "burn" water in addition to hydrogen. The ISP is an acceptable 320s and would allow a ship to refuel as fast it can drill. The stock system only has Vall and Eeloo as icy bodies but if DebDeb's gas giant has multiple icy moons it could be very useful there.

Since Nertea is on the dev team will the restock poodle make a return? that model is really nice.

Also what about early engines like the swivel/reliant? In ksp1 they are quite bad. Will they get upgrades in ISP/TWR to be more in line with bigger engines as you unlock the tech tree?

[Drakenred65]

Basically it’s a month before the game goes live, there not going to make a major overhaul at this point. Yes there going to be making adjustments as we go but suddenly needing to balance and tweek  all the possible fuel options is probably a non starter for them.

 

as several have pointed out before, LFO has always been MethLOx. we got along just fine with just that untill we got jet engines, Even Nerv used LFO until then.
 

Mods added options, yes, but usually most new players don’t load up on mods. And let’s be honest, the list of every fuel possible should not be part of the base game at this point when the reality is that the average new player does not know the actual difference between LHO, RP1, MethLOx or any of the other propellants out there from a hole in the ground.

 

well other than realizing that poring them into a hole in the ground is dangerous

Edited January 20, 2023 by Drakenred65

[JebsBigToe]

On 12/15/2022 at 1:44 PM, Intercept Games said:

The Way Too Useful region is a story for later in Early Access with more exotic engines , which have their own, unique challenges for building and flying.

That's what I'm curious about! I'm thinking it'll be like in the original trailer the huge flat-end-looking engine with rays converging together (can't remember the name), THAT will be really useful for interstellar travel.

On a side note, I also hope they figure a way for faster time warping for both huge distances and extremely low thrust-to-weight ratio engines... guess will see

[SolarAdmiral]

4 hours ago, JebsBigToe said:

That's what I'm curious about! I'm thinking it'll be like in the original trailer the huge flat-end-looking engine with rays converging together (can't remember the name), THAT will be really useful for interstellar travel.

On a side note, I also hope they figure a way for faster time warping for both huge distances and extremely low thrust-to-weight ratio engines... guess will see

That's a daedalus style fusion engine. Looks like ksp2 is calling it "the crucible". And funny enough I don't think it will fall into the "too useful" section of that chart. It's meant to be super high isp. But because it's so massive and heavy, I don't expect it to have spectacular twr. It will be super useful for interstellar, just in a way that's off that particular chart.

 

And yes they've confirmed you can time warp while engines are burning. So low twr engines can burn for days or even years and you don't have to sit and watch it in real time.

[Zero266]

this is one of the most exciting dev diaries so far! i missed it during the holidays because i was really busy. The hype is real for ksp 2

[Lowi_Sace]

On 12/16/2022 at 3:38 PM, Vl3d said:

I think everyone completely missed this post... Amazing!

PS1: Somewhat related to engines - a quick question. Because we have a few preset diameters and length steps for fuel tanks - can the length be adjustable from the tank properties instead of each fuel tank with the same diameter being a separate part? Not asking for completely procedural tanks, just step-wise for length. It would declutter the part picker list. Same for solid fuel boosters..

PS2: "For their space program, Kerbals have passed over the brutish kerosene, toxic hypergolics and seductive lure of liquid hydrogen..." - does this mean the mentioned fuel types are not going to be in the game? I'm surprised, because Nate mentioned liquid hydrogen as being a fuel type used for the nuclear thermal engines. A little confused..

PS3: Will there be fuel switching for engines, will we have engines that can use multiple fuel types? Is the Vector a methalox engine?

Ps1: Would be nice if after you select the right diameter feul tank that you could use a slider to make the tank as long as you want. Maybe even independent sliders for feul and oxidiser (some engines can use oxidiser, but dont't need it)

PS2: correct me if I am wrong. But I thought they included liquid hydrogen for nucleur engines. All the regular engines will run on methane

[Lowi_Sace]

On 1/15/2023 at 3:41 PM, snkiz said:

You don't need every exotic fuel, are we doing that for SRB's or the many types of mono props? No I'll bet those will still be entirely generic, and that's fine. But liquid fuels, there's really only three, kerosene should not be ignored, it's to versatile. Methane is the fuel of the future, it can be pretty basic or very complex, and is the middle ground. It wasn't worth doing until we started thinking about not chucking every launch into the ocean. And Hydrogen, must be cryo, leaks through solid steel, not really enough power to weight to be useful in atmo. But that ISP. If there is going to be any consideration for different fuel types, from the sound of things I don't know how anying late game is going to happen without it. Then how confusing is it really? Tell me you weren't planning to to use hydrogen anyway. I don't see the issue of retconning fuel types onto the KSP1 engines, it's mostly straightforward. Your are giving them a balance pass already.

Totally agree, This three liquid fuel types would be enough. Liquid hydrogen is already in the game (for nuclear engines), so having a few (non nucleur) liquid hydrogen engines would be nice. Kerosine would be good for some engines and the jet engines

[X-Marshal]

On 12/21/2022 at 7:29 PM, The Aziz said:

One of the earliest showcases of VAB UI

 

What is 2X Large and 3X Large? The 1.875m size has been dropped, so why not 5m? And now there is even bigger?

[obney kerman]

7 minutes ago, X-Marshal said:

What is 2X Large and 3X Large? The 1.875m size has been dropped, so why not 5m? And now there is even bigger?

My guess is there was no need for the 1.875m size from Making History (at least in the eyes of the devs), but given the larger and larger ships we're going to be making in KSP2, 5m and larger parts were more of a priority. Also, I'd be willing to bet that 2XL and 3XL are more for interstellar stuff than anything else.

[JadeOfMaar]

52 minutes ago, X-Marshal said:

What is 2X Large and 3X Large? The 1.875m size has been dropped, so why not 5m? And now there is even bigger?

Where were you the whole time when we all first saw the Jool station and stock Daedalus engine? Those things aren't 1.25m through 3.75m.

[tstein]

19 hours ago, obney kerman said:

My guess is there was no need for the 1.875m size from Making History (at least in the eyes of the devs), but given the larger and larger ships we're going to be making in KSP2, 5m and larger parts were more of a priority. Also, I'd be willing to bet that 2XL and 3XL are more for interstellar stuff than anything else.

Am I the only one that likes to make the ships small? 1.875m Was a good size for unmanned missions with multiple components.

[SolarAdmiral]

50 minutes ago, tstein said:

Am I the only one that likes to make the ships small? 1.875m Was a good size for unmanned missions with multiple components.

I agree. I'm sad to see the size go. After MH, I used a titan replica with the cheetah and bobcat to launch all my unmanned missions, and all my non landing manned missions.

[tstein]

19 minutes ago, SolarAdmiral said:

I agree. I'm sad to see the size go. After MH, I used a titan replica with the cheetah and bobcat to launch all my unmanned missions, and all my non landing manned missions.

Yup   I think  on my  last 100 launches  about 80 had either one of these engines

[X-Marshal]

21 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Where were you the whole time when we all first saw the Jool station and stock Daedalus engine? Those things aren't 1.25m through 3.75m.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about those

[airtrafficcontroller]

On 1/29/2023 at 6:04 PM, X-Marshal said:

And now there is even bigger?

In one of the show and tell, they say that the engine of a interstellar ship does not fit inside the VAB, and thats just the engine!

[Bej Kerman]

11 hours ago, tstein said:

Am I the only one that likes to make the ships small? 1.875m Was a good size for unmanned missions with multiple components.

With all five of the 1.875m parts Squad gave us

[tstein]

6 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

With all five of the 1.875m parts Squad gave us

Yet I used them in  almost ALL my missions because they were the best  balance for the scale of ships I built.

[X-Marshal]

On 1/31/2023 at 10:11 PM, tstein said:

Yet I used them in  almost ALL my missions because they were the best  balance for the scale of ships I built.

Yes, I agree, 1.875m is the best size.