Please don't buff reaction wheels

[Vortygont]

In KSP1 reaction wheels were overpowerd, all crafts with cabin could rotate easily because of their reaction wheels, and there were no need to think about rcs other than docking. Reaction wheels were panacea from most problem of orientation, which block development of construction creativity 
I believe that rightbalance is: reaction wheels are weak but electricty is renewable resource because of sun, and rcs is strong but amount of monofuel is limited. Now you must bring rcs for medium/huge spaceships if you want to rotate it comfortly and properly in vacuum of space. It brings more challenge, realism and adds interest in game, which is about constructing spaceships and solving puzzles about fuel managment, stabilization, dv-calculation. It teach players how to design spacecraft more properly and control craft more considered. You must take into account another solutions: rcs, stabilazers, place center of mass properly, make form more aero-stable and others. It makes game more complicated, but more interesting and exciting

Edited February 20, 2023 by Vortygont
added some text

[OPERATOR571]

As a reaction wheel addict, I'd love to have to actually put effort into my ships' RCS.

[dansiegel30]

I was excited to see a content streamer invited to the ESA demo, having massive problems with control of the vehicle using just a single small reaction wheel.  I'm happy about that - I didnt appreciate how unrealistic they were until I tried KSP1 RP-1, where you dont even get reaction wheels until you reach space station tech.  Yep attitude adjustment should be done with RCS when under acceleration, while using reaction wheels just for attitude adjustment for solar or possible docking alignment.  Yes, please do not buff reaction wheels.  But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, have a dedicated tutorial for the use of RCS and Reaction Wheels....otherwise new comers to KSP will be lost and get too frustrated.  Perhaps included this section with the docking tutorial.  Heck, as an experienced KSP/RP-1 player,  im interested to see a docking tutorial from the devs - considering their in game docking tool on KSP1 never seemed to do anything.

[Unfawkable]

I second this a lot. Even this weaker variant is far more powerful than the realistic counterpart. If they don't stay the way they are, at least add it as a difficulty option.

[sumghai]

I definitely agree with this sentiment.

[The Aziz]

I'm on the fence. I have nothing against using RCS for attitude control when needed, though I do hope for more sensible sizes (the 2.5m monoprop tank is just huge when all you have is a mid sized craft). On the other hand, using thrusters to turn an enormous ship around in a way that doesn't take ages, uses sooo much of monopropellant that I rarely use it, and rely on reaction wheels.

[Crytum]

i love putting more focus on rcs     
BUT 
i´d like a middle ground. 
a slight buff to  reaction wheels in ksp2 to make adjustments to rotation smoother but still requiring rcs for faster adjustments

[Vl3d]

I don't agree at all. I think it's great that reaction wheels are buffed. Use RCS more!

[Crytum]

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I don't agree at all. I think it's great that reaction wheels are buffed. Use RCS more!

reaction wheels have been nerfed massively, not buffed when comparing to ksp1.  
but yes i do agree, they have been way to strong in ksp1 and i´d like to see RCS be used more and not just for docking. 
that said, i´d like to have reaction wheels still viable/usefull unlike the current condition in ksp2 where you have to stack multiple of them to get about half the strength of a single reaction wheel in ksp1. 
 

[KerikBalm]

7 hours ago, The Aziz said:

I'm on the fence. I have nothing against using RCS for attitude control when needed, though I do hope for more sensible sizes (the 2.5m monoprop tank is just huge when all you have is a mid sized craft). On the other hand, using thrusters to turn an enormous ship around in a way that doesn't take ages, uses sooo much of monopropellant that I rarely use it, and rely on reaction wheels.

After they added Vernors, I never found a need for large monopropellant tanks.

Anything big enough that more than a few rcs blocks wasn't sufficient would get Vernors, and then RCS shared fuel with the main reserves.

Then you start to notice that the rotation really only consumes tiny amounts of dV. Also, aligning for a burn can be done very slowly -but it's tedious - persistent rotation/ rotation during warp is the answer here.

Then you really only need fast rotation rates for landers

[regex]

I would love it if the SAS used RCS for big movements and reaction wheels for the small stuff, together, so I could keep the RCS turned on while aligned to a node without it wasting fuel flopping back and forth. It's not really critical though, judicious toggling of SAS and RCS takes care of that. Either way, happy with much, much weaker reaction wheels.

[Zacspace]

I don't think they even nerfed the reaction wheels. We're just seeing KSP2's weirdly bad SAS overshooting its mark and then not being strong enough to un-overcorrect itself. I distinctly remember having about as hard a time keeping my craft pointed straight in 0.20 as the youtubers seemed to in their videos. The way SAS was working for their aircraft reminded me of old-old KSP1 SAS too. In Matt Lowne's SSTO video you can see the plane flipping back and forth in high atmosphere. It obviously has enough torque to point itself at the target, even a much smaller than usual amount could manage that, it was just using that torque to point itself everywhere else instead.

That said. I'd love it if there was a bigger focus on reaction thrusters in the sequel, it just doesn't look to me like it's going to be the case.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Zacspace

[TheOtherDave]

I suspect I’ll agree that reaction wheels should be nerfed compared to KSP 1, but I don’t think we really know enough to say whether they’ve got it right at the moment.

Edited February 22, 2023 by TheOtherDave

[Vortygont]

I think that if reaction wheels will be weak it is unimportant because you can warp comfortly now and wait until your ship rotate for maneuvor. And for stable orientation wheels are very good. But for fast actions, like plane and rocket control they should not replace things designed for these situations

If in KSP2 rotation is saving then I would like to test: will orientation modes save with any value of time warp? So then your carft will be rotated for example always to body's surface.

[jacksawild]

I'm in favour of semi-saturable reaction wheels, persistant rotation and improved RCS.

[gussi111]

Agreed

[magnemoe]

Add 4 way metalox vernor thrusters and its fine. 

23 hours ago, Zacspace said:

I don't think they even nerfed the reaction wheels. We're just seeing KSP2's weirdly bad SAS overshooting its mark and then not being strong enough to un-overcorrect itself. I distinctly remember having about as hard a time keeping my craft pointed straight in 0.20 as the youtubers seemed to in their videos. The way SAS was working for their aircraft reminded me of old-old KSP1 SAS too. In Matt Lowne's SSTO video you can see the plane flipping back and forth in high atmosphere. It obviously has enough torque to point itself at the target, even a much smaller than usual amount could manage that, it was just using that torque to point itself everywhere else instead.

That said. I'd love it if there was a bigger focus on reaction thrusters in the sequel, it just doesn't look to me like it's going to be the case.

This will be easy to test on Friday,   just bring something heavy and long into orbit an try to rotate it. 
But many said SAS did not work on planes, who is fun as SAS is an airline  

[royying]

Using RCS with SAS in KSP1 is a fuel monster, it will keep blasting monopropellant until vessel reach it's target, that's why many people don't want to use it.

[snkiz]

I support this. Provided the PID for SAS is much better. It was shockingly bad during the preview.

[MarcAbaddon]

I am going to disagree; I believe the weirdly strong reaction wheels were good for KSP 1. Now, I a readily admit that real-life reactions wheels have a lot of important limitation, but I would agree that the maximum force they can exert isn't one (saturation would be).

Imagine flying a space craft in KSP without RCS and very weak reaction wheels. Assuming you have a gimbaling engine (which is a fairly safe bet) it won't really matter that much for ascent and descent. So where it might matter is when you are trying to do an orbital maneuver.

Once in orbit your activities are very very rarely time critical, so weaker reaction wheels still allow you to do everything strong reaction wheels do. It just takes up more of your time, You might have to align to the maneuver node 5 minutes in advance instead of 30 seconds. Ergo, you can still do everything with reaction wheels. It's just takes more time and is more boring. 

[magnemoe]

On 2/21/2023 at 12:57 PM, The Aziz said:

I'm on the fence. I have nothing against using RCS for attitude control when needed, though I do hope for more sensible sizes (the 2.5m monoprop tank is just huge when all you have is a mid sized craft). On the other hand, using thrusters to turn an enormous ship around in a way that doesn't take ages, uses sooo much of monopropellant that I rarely use it, and rely on reaction wheels.

I tend to put smaller monoprop tanks inside an service bay, or some radials on crafts who only stay in vacuum and is launched inside an fairing. The 2.5 meter tanks I only use on large bases. 
Saw service bays in KSP 2 in an rocket breakdown but it might just be the shortest cargo bays 

[Vortygont]

8 hours ago, MarcAbaddon said:

You might have to align to the maneuver node 5 minutes in advance instead of 30 seconds.

You forgot about time warp, which is better in KSP2 . You can use time warp while rotating to skip time when craft rotates. I am usually not choose certain time to begin rotation because I start it immediately after I created manevour and never rotate 5 seconds before manevour because you can be certainly late to perform it. I'm not sure before EA beginning but I think, that rotation works with more time warp modes than they were in the first game