KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[The Aziz]

You can talk trivial if you want, but me with over a decade of experience in KSP, only managed to safely land on Tylo twice, once per game. And never took off of it. Probably could've done it if I sent the isru in 1, but here, I'm stuck until resources come.

[steveman0]

I still find it weird that engines can stand freely without damage with a rocket sitting on them.  If engines were destroyed by the weight of the rocket, it would at least make the SWERV less desirable as you would need to build some massive scaffolding to get landing legs below the engines or do some weird radial mounting to avoid sitting on the engines.

[The Aziz]

I mean... Mass really hardly matters.

 

 

[rogerawong]

3 hours ago, steveman0 said:

If engines were destroyed by the weight of the rocket, it would at least make the SWERV less desirable as you would need to build some massive scaffolding to get landing legs below the engines or do some weird radial mounting to avoid sitting on the engines.

Radial mounting does it easily without needing to clip parts.  Engine in the middle, fuel tanks extend around it, legs attached to fuel tanks. 

[steveman0]

Engine does appear to be clipping there, but I get the idea. I still suspect, and have mentioned this elsewhere, that once they add resources, I expect the SWERV will have some exotic material costs. These might sway some favor for the simpler methalaox engines in the future.

[The Aziz]

I mean, for instance, hydrogen may be quite tricky to extract and process (despite being the most abundant resource in the universe).

[steveman0]

I suspect the hydrogen will be the easy part. The engine complexity itself may require exotic metals as well as the radioactive source.

[Kimera Industries]

13 hours ago, steveman0 said:

I still find it weird that engines can stand freely without damage with a rocket sitting on them.  If engines were destroyed by the weight of the rocket, it would at least make the SWERV less desirable as you would need to build some massive scaffolding to get landing legs below the engines or do some weird radial mounting to avoid sitting on the engines.

Compared to the size of the spherical hydrogen fuel tank, the scaffolding required isn't really that big. And besides, it looks like a cool bacteriophage when you do.

[stephensmat]

 

Towards the end, when they have a Kerbal walking across to a rescue ship, they mention that 0.2.1 is coming next week, on Tuesday.

[The Aziz]

I fixed the announcement poster so it matches the current look of the game

[KincaidFrankMF]

On 1/16/2024 at 5:59 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

See, I have the medium hydrogen tanks unlocked...but I only have the small SWERV's.  So I end up having to use multiple SWERV engines on a single hydrogen tank.  And as I don't have a large enough engine plate unlocked, I have to mount the SWERV's radially.

Ah, you mean the NERV? I couldn't find a use for that either. I found it pretty niche in KSP1 too, even though it's the only nuclear option there. Wait till you unlock the actual SWERV, especially with the XL tanks - double the ISP and a much higher TWR. It's so effective it's almost a problem, given the lack of cost/resources/any other limiting factor beyond whatever part count your rig can handle. Like, I could create a streamlined, efficient build, or I can just stick a giant cannonball on the bottom with a SWERV attached and bingo, 12,000dv for the cost of two parts.

[The Aziz]

You're going to hate the Orion drives then...

[magnemoe]

12 minutes ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Ah, you mean the NERV? I couldn't find a use for that either. I found it pretty niche in KSP1 too, even though it's the only nuclear option there. Wait till you unlock the actual SWERV, especially with the XL tanks - double the ISP and a much higher TWR. It's so effective it's almost a problem, given the lack of cost/resources/any other limiting factor beyond whatever part count your rig can handle. Like, I could create a streamlined, efficient build, or I can just stick a giant cannonball on the bottom with a SWERV attached and bingo, 12,000dv for the cost of two parts.

I tend to use two NERV and piling on the medium hydrogen tanks, starting with 4 long and two short and ending with 7 on top and 5 below with engines in the cutouts. 
Except the tanker I sent to Jool with two extra sets of 7 tanks so looking forward to larger tanks. 

[Bej Kerman]

1 hour ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Ah, you mean the NERV? I couldn't find a use for that either. I found it pretty niche in KSP1 too, even though it's the only nuclear option there. Wait till you unlock the actual SWERV, especially with the XL tanks - double the ISP and a much higher TWR. It's so effective it's almost a problem, given the lack of cost/resources/any other limiting factor beyond whatever part count your rig can handle. Like, I could create a streamlined, efficient build, or I can just stick a giant cannonball on the bottom with a SWERV attached and bingo, 12,000dv for the cost of two parts.

Super efficient engines in a game about unlocking increasingly efficient engines?

[The Aziz]

And I bet the moment we start hauling really heavy stuff across the star system, y'all gonna start begging for a better engine than swerv.

[KincaidFrankMF]

4 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Super efficient engines in a game about unlocking increasingly efficient engines?

Nah, I'm not complaining the engine's too good as such - it's more the lack of cost/resources as a balancing factor. KSP2 is missing that right now. It's all about using the biggest tank and the biggest engine, regardless of whether that's overkill - because why not? Everything's free.

[The Aziz]

Efficiency. Is. Key.

Overengineering is easy.

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Nah, I'm not complaining the engine's too good as such - it's more the lack of cost/resources as a balancing factor. KSP2 is missing that right now. It's all about using the biggest tank and the biggest engine, regardless of whether that's overkill - because why not? Everything's free.

You can go faster if you have more dV  
Who is fun because

Entered the atmosphere at 3.8km/s after an 100 days trip. 
So having 12km/s dV I know that to do with it. 

Edited February 8 by magnemoe

[Kimera Industries]

12 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Nah, I'm not complaining the engine's too good as such - it's more the lack of cost/resources as a balancing factor. KSP2 is missing that right now. It's all about using the biggest tank and the biggest engine, regardless of whether that's overkill - because why not? Everything's free.

There will end up being a cost for stuff, I think the nuclear engines will need uranium.

[Superfluous J]

21 minutes ago, Kimera Industries said:

There will end up being a cost for stuff, I think the nuclear engines will need uranium.

Not if you bring them up from Kerbin and attach them in space You could build everything but the expensive stuff, and then custom order the expensive stuff from Kerbin where it's free.

Though we don't (and won't?) have EVA construction like we had in KSP1, where you can just take any old part and slap it on your ship. So you'd have to I guess pre-build the plate with the engines on it, and then launch that from Kerbin to dock to the engineless ship at your orbital shipyard.

 

[steveman0]

3 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Not if you bring them up from Kerbin and attach them in space You could build everything but the expensive stuff, and then custom order the expensive stuff from Kerbin where it's free.

Though we don't (and won't?) have EVA construction like we had in KSP1, where you can just take any old part and slap it on your ship. So you'd have to I guess pre-build the plate with the engines on it, and then launch that from Kerbin to dock to the engineless ship at your orbital shipyard.

 

You're assuming they will be free on Kerbin.  I don't imagine in the long run that will be the case.  I also wouldn't bet that the resources to build the nuke engines will be readily available on Kerbin either.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Not if you bring them up from Kerbin and attach them in space You could build everything but the expensive stuff, and then custom order the expensive stuff from Kerbin where it's free.

Though we don't (and won't?) have EVA construction like we had in KSP1, where you can just take any old part and slap it on your ship. So you'd have to I guess pre-build the plate with the engines on it, and then launch that from Kerbin to dock to the engineless ship at your orbital shipyard.

 

Now credits in KSP 1 was only an concern until you unlocked all the buildings. At this point you have the Mun->Minmus->Kerbin SOI runs going at least until you reached Duna or Eve. 
And you wanted these runs for training kerbals anyway.  And the kerbals was the expensive stuff, not the base I was roasting in Duna atmosphere above. 

[KincaidFrankMF]

9 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

There will end up being a cost for stuff, I think the nuclear engines will need uranium.

Yeah, it'll all get added when the devs get around to it. Nice to see the game growing and how far it's come already.

[stephensmat]

And of course there's the inherent cost: It's a long way to unlock.

I don't mind the super efficient engines being the final unlockable. In fact, I would argue that's the point. Once you've proven you can do it, the game makes doing it again easy, so that you can focus on the next big challenge.

[The Aziz]

Which is part of gameplay in all games ever with any hint of progression. You get better stuff for beating difficult challenges without the good stuff.