Solid boosters vs Liquid+Engine?

[Tigermisu]

Which ones are more weight-effective?

[Spartwo]

IF you mean highest twr I would say solid boosters.liquid engines are more efficient.

[drakesdoom]

Depends on what you want them to do.

[Giggleplex777]

Solid rockets are supposed to be cheaper. They will be more useful in career mode.

[rryy]

Liquid boosters will give much more delta-v than an SRB. However, they are cheaper in the soon-to-come Career Mode.

[BFalcon]

I did a cost analysis before the wipe and SRBs are far cheaper than the liquid fuel rockets... but you need alternative methods for steering (either aerodynamic or RCS) since they can't vector their thrust.

You'll need to get someone else to go into the TWR though...

[UmbralRaptor]

LFEs win in Isp, and generally ÃŽâ€V. SRBs currently have better TWR and decent (sometimes better) mass ratios, partially offsetting this. There is some utility to them (especially RT-10s) on the pad, though after that...

[Daze]

We need bigger and gimballing SRB like for the STS or the Are I project...

[ant1nam3]

solid fuel boosters are HIGHLY unrecommended for orbital mananours as you cant control their throtal, but they have their own fuel and they are powerful and if used correctly can aid you out of the athmoshphere of kerbin

[magnemoe]

solid fuel boosters are HIGHLY unrecommended for orbital mananours as you cant control their throtal, but they have their own fuel and they are powerful and if used correctly can aid you out of the athmoshphere of kerbin

Solid fuel is for takeoff. you usually use them in combination with liquid fueled ones as on the space shuttle.

Main use in KSP is to give you an better TWR on liftoff or to quickly give you some more capacity on an lifter.

[AustralianFries]

Psh, all of you are wrong. SRB's are obviously used for docking. Because real men dock with SRB's.

/sarcasm

SRB's are used for the takeoff stage of flight (and if you count the Seperatrons, which use solid fuel as well, those are used for blasting away spent stages). The other engines are used for everything else.