What is your definition of air hogging

[Madrias]

Airhogging, for me, is intakes occupying the same space, or more than 3 radial intakes per engine.

That being said, I've done a lot of designs with blatant airhogging because it's fun flying jet engines toward LKO, watching the last wisps of intake air vanish at 60km, then coasting to apoapsis to fire off minimal amounts of rocket.

[Renegrade]

Well they help. I want to try AJE but I don't want to have to install real fuels as a pre-requisite.

Unless it's changed since 1.4, you can easily fix it to work without RealFuels.

There's directions in the thread, you just have to make some simple changes to the @PART[RAPIER]:FINAL component in AJE.cfg. You have to change the thrustVectorTransformName to thrustTransform and the propellent from Kerosene/LH2/LOX to LiquidFuel/Oxidizer. That's only for the rapier though, the other parts will work without change.

I think Nathan might have updated it to automatically configure depending on whether or not RealFuels is installed, so these steps may not be necessary if you use the GitHub version.

[StevenJ]

Depending on the engine config you use for Real Fuels KW and B9 are supported, as well as NP2 and FASA, for instance. I'm not entirely sure if Real Fuels has a stock-alike engine config that isn't designed for Real Solar System, but it's not all that hard to make one. Also, Kethane isn't realistic by a long shot and KSPI has its own problems, but if that's how you want to play KSP, that's how you want to play. At some point I bet we'll see some sort of ISRU for the Realism suite but it won't be anything like what we've seen in KSP so far; it'll be very specific to each planet/situation and you won't be able to do everything everywhere or have access to some One-Size-Fits-All-Magical-Princess-Pony-Resource.

Also, on-topic: #lolintakes

I understand what you are saying but even the NASA Constellation Program planned to mine fuel on Mars for the return vehicle so it's not out of the question, just not realistic how Kethane does it. It would be nice to be able to mine frozen ice at least to convert it into fuel in real fuels.

Unless it's changed since 1.4, you can easily fix it to work without RealFuels.

There's directions in the thread, you just have to make some simple changes to the @PART[RAPIER]:FINAL component in AJE.cfg. You have to change the thrustVectorTransformName to thrustTransform and the propellent from Kerosene/LH2/LOX to LiquidFuel/Oxidizer. That's only for the rapier though, the other parts will work without change.

I think Nathan might have updated it to automatically configure depending on whether or not RealFuels is installed, so these steps may not be necessary if you use the GitHub version.

I'll take a look into it again then. I heard of others having problems without real fuels. Will it conflict with FAR now that FAR nerfed all atmospheric engines 50% I don't think it should.

Edited August 13, 2014 by StevenJ

[Guest]

I understand what you are saying but even the NASA Constellation Program planned to mine fuel on Mars for the return vehicle so it's not out of the question, just not realistic how Kethane does it.

That's exactly what I said.

[Renegrade]

I'll take a look into it again then. I heard of others having problems without real fuels. Will it conflict with FAR now that FAR nerfed all atmospheric engines 50% I don't think it should.

Current versions of FAR won't apply the nerf if MM can detect AJE, so that part is taken care of automatically.

AJE is all about the engines, by the way, you only need to satisfy their maximum required intake (right click on the engine will tell you how much it needs, and the intakes all say how much they provide, it's simple, like small integer numbers, like this engine needs 4, that needs 6, this intake provides 3, that one 5, etc), and don't need to #lolintake / airhog at all.

(RealFuels is actually pretty cool, although it has too many fuels for my tastes.. I would have been happy with like aerozine/LH2/kerosene and maybe one or two more.)

[Kasuha]

According to my experience, you don't need more than 3 RAM intakes per engine to get comfortably to orbit. One is enough if you are really careful about your altitude/speed ratio. So I would declare anything above three RAMs airhogging not because it is unrealistic but because it is unnecessary. In real world, number of intakes is irrelevant because what is scaled is the intake area and that can be made (almost) arbitrarily large. You can't scale intake area in KSP any other ways but by count. On realism note, what I don't like are intakes hidden behind obstacles (e.g. other intakes) as such ones would not draw much air in reality.

[Overfloater]

my definition for air-hogging is to circularize on jets alone. You can do it with about 1 intake per 1.3-1.5 tons.

a 6-ton craft with 4 intakes is air-hogging, for example.

(i'm talking about "ram intakes")

Let me correct myself...

Air-hogging is to use your jets to their maximum potential: ascend slowly until you no longer gain horizontal speed.

then there's the simpler (non air-hogging) method: just get out of thick atmosphere, keep aiming at 35-45 degrees and switch to rockets.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Overfloater

[katateochi]

part clipping. If the intakes aren't clipped, they aren't hogged. This also goes for using cubic octo to attach an intake to an intake.

This is what I always thought was meant by airhogging

Pretty much any quantity of intakes that lets you manage sustained horizontal flight with a jet engine at 22,000m is borderline air-hogging, and anything above that elevation is ever more blatantly so.

22km as the ceiling? I'd agree if you need lots of intakes to go above that, but I think that it's pretty easy to cruse at 28-30km without intake abuse. Would you consider this air-hoggy?

This is my kerbin circumnavigator, it easily gets up to 30km & a speed of ~1800ms and can maintain that all the way round. I don't think this is air hogish, there's no part clipping or intakes attached to strange places. It has 3 turbo jets with 2 ram intakes and one engine nacelle (this was built before the recent changes to the engine nacelle). It climbs to around 18km on its 3 engines then two are shut down and it continues climbing and accelerating gradually on the central engine.

(all stock parts, repainted with kerbpaint + mechjeb for info and precision pitch control)

I don't think there is ever a need to clip intakes or attach them to unnatural places. For most craft a 1:1 or max 2:1 ratio of intakes to engines is usually plenty. (note: I don't use FAR, yet). This fairly large SR-71 has 8 jet engines with 1 ram intake per engine. (I'm not actually sure how heavy this one is but it carries ~ 4000l of liquid fuel and 2600 oxidizer so its pretty heavy). It can reach 30km at a speed of 1500ms before flame out. There is clipping here, the engines are smushed together a bit to make it look better, but that doesn't yield any performance gains, its still just a straight 1:1 ratio.

(stock + repaint)

I would consider this payload carrying SSTO an airhog, but we're entering the realm of the ridiculous a bit with this one. Still, it only has 1 ram intake per engine, but it has an additional 3 radial intakes per engine. This is a much slower (lumbering) craft.

(plain ol' stock)

I think its all about speed, slow aircraft need more intakes, the fast ones get more out of each intake as more air is forced into them. So its not about slapping on more intakes, its about having enough thrust to achieve high speeds in the upper atmo and flying them so they gain as much speed as possible before reaching the thinner atmo. I don't think of that as air-hogging, I think of that as efficient flying.

[Wanderfound]

my definition for air-hogging is to circularize on jets alone. You can do it with about 1 intake per 1.3-1.5 tons.

a 6-ton craft with 4 intakes is air-hogging, for example.

(i'm talking about "ram intakes")

Let me correct myself...

Air-hogging is to use your jets to their maximum potential: ascend slowly until you no longer gain horizontal speed.

then there's the simpler (non air-hogging) method: just get out of thick atmosphere, keep aiming at 35-45 degrees and switch to rockets.

That seems to be a bit of a contrast to the usual intake-spamming definition. Intake spam gets you the benefits of a careful shallow ascent without actually having to fly sensibly. It covers up otherwise suboptimal piloting or design.

Shallow doesn't necessarily mean slow, though. With a high-thrust low-drag plane (nothing ridiculous, just a TWR above 1.5 and a relatively sleek design) you can climb vertically out of the sub-10,000m soup and then top it off with a smooth arc that zeroes out your climb rate just before the engines choke at around 30,000m.

If your design is slick enough, you can start the final burn immediately; if it's more of a lumbering sort of craft, you may need to stay level for a minute or two to get up enough speed (Mach 4 to 5). You only need an extended runup if you're going hypersonic, and there's no need to do that except for the fun of it.

I'm talking FAR, of course; no idea how it works in stock.

[DocMoriarty]

Most of my bigger designs use 5 (4 ram, 1 nacelle) air intakes, smaller ones go down to 2. Most have a switch altitude from air breathing to closed cycle around 33km. This is my definition of 'normal' in KSP.

[SkyRender]

Are you talking about basic jets or turbojets here? Stock aero?

With FAR installed, it's trivial to keep a turbojet running indefinitely in the high 20's with only a single intake.

FAR is kind of an air-hogging simulator, I find. Though it is made up for considerably by the fact that you have to build properly aerodynamic craft to fly them, whereas in stock a flying brick will get to space just fine.

[Javster]

Having air intakes in unrealistic places, for example slipping through each other, where IRL they'd block each other.

[alacrity]

I am by no means any kind of Plane Builder in KSP (blimps and Rockets are my thing) but for my the airhogging limit would be a aesthetic call... (clipping I never use so I always call BullSh*t on "stock" ships that are all clipped parts). If it looks uncluttered then I say it works. When on rare occasions I make planes, I usually use Mod Parts that include over sized air intakes. I put one of these on plus one small one for each engine. Gives me a clean look and plenty of air.

As far as SSTO designs, I can't even risk an opinion... I have never made one that worked.

Alacrity

[quasarrgames]

I asked this question a while back, and came to the conclusion that anymore than 3 air intakes (of any kind) to 1 jet engine is air hoggy.

[ecat]

Let me see...

Those are not wings

Then there was the time Jeb found an entire batch of intakes at the bottom of a lake...

Edited August 13, 2014 by ecat

[Threadsinger]

Personally, for me it's what I don't allow myself to do which is clipping parts to get more air intakes into less space than what I perceive subjectively to be the intent of the game. I have no problem using as many air intakes as function (and in-game restrictions) dictates, however. I just don't personally believe in cheating the system, although I understand you've only got a limited set of "lego blocks" to build with and sometimes you want to make something awesome and not-quite-to-spec.

Hell, I've strapped two dozen radials to a fusion thermal rocket to achieve SSTO from Eve. But no clipping, never clipping. Except into the closest Kerbin mountain-range on reentry.

[OgreMagi]

well its Kerbal space program you can do what you want. Myself, I tend to try to make my craft look good but I do not spend hours tweeking each part ect ect ect.

My first SSTO was a simple mod of the Aeris 4a ( called it the Hermes 4a) replace the nuke with a Turbo jet, replace the turbo jets with Lv 909 rockets and adding 2 more ram intake, ( total of 4 ) and removing the radial intakes. By most definitions here that is air hogging but SSTOs are a steep learning curve at first and it does not hurt to have a little extra air while your trying to get the design tweeked out abd learn wherer it break point is and how to fly it well.

Now I can fly it with only 2 ram intakes it does take a while ( hate the wait to get up to altitude ) and its rather boring. I say have some fun with it and unless your in a challenge that limits parts then see what ya can do.

=

[Wanderfound]

Now I can fly it with only 2 ram intakes it does take a while ( hate the wait to get up to altitude ) and its rather boring. I say have some fun with it and unless your in a challenge that limits parts then see what ya can do.

I'm currently working on disproving the "spaceplanes take too long to get to orbit" thing, BTW. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90354-Spaceplane-speed-challenge-shortest-elapsed-time-from-runway-to-orbit

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm currently working on disproving the "spaceplanes take too long to get to orbit" thing, BTW. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90354-Spaceplane-speed-challenge-shortest-elapsed-time-from-runway-to-orbit

Good luck. A spaceplane will always take longer than a conventional rocket, unless you make it so powerful that it's just a conventional rocket with wings tacked on. Just the nature of the ascent profile. Though if you like planes, more time flying them hardly seems like a penalty.

[MarvinKitFox]

My recent spaceplanes use only 1 or 2 ramscoop intakes per turbojet.

But I still airhog!

Rather than any silly throttling down, when the engines begin to starve, i just shut them down in pairs from the outside inwards.

By the time I'm at 45000m, I have one engine being fed by 16 intakes! (and 6 other engines shut down)

I've found this maintains a tolerable look, good enough thrust, and completely eliminates the odd-engined flameout flat spins.

[soulreaver1981]

What is your definition of air hogging???

Every plane i make

[Wanderfound]

Good luck. A spaceplane will always take longer than a conventional rocket, unless you make it so powerful that it's just a conventional rocket with wings tacked on. Just the nature of the ascent profile. Though if you like planes, more time flying them hardly seems like a penalty.

Yup. Not looking to beat rockets, just looking to beat "it takes ages...".

We've already got runway-to-orbit times of six minutes for a serious cargo plane and four minutes for a specialised speedster, and I reckon there's a minute or two to be shaved off yet.

[georgTF]

1 intake per engine +1 extra in case there's room at the tip of the plane. That isn't airhogging, it also isn't going to acomplish much.

I normaly add several radial intakes because they make high athmospheric flight easier (or possible), and save rocket fuel. I am not bothered by this airhogging too much, though it also depends on what type of craft i'm building. I do not use LKO, and don't really have much patience for athmospheric flight. My planes are either suborbital hoppers, or spaceplanes servicing a space station in a 500k orbit. If a spaceplane is built for LKO it shouldn't need to airhog, but if you expect to ferry 3+ kerbals to a 500k rendezvous, then you will need some, and should not feel too bad about it, since the target is much higher than normal LKO orbits.

Correction... i thought airhogging was neccesary but it turns out it's not. This heavy SSTO shocked me when it went there during a quick test flight expected to be reverted shortly after a fireworks display on the runway... I've lucked into a very nice design. All stock, no airhogging whatsoever, and the only thing clipped is the cockpit inside the nose cone. It's actually attached to a radial attachment node and the game is cool with it without debugging. In case you're wondering, it was done to move the CoM forward without reworking the plane too much, since CoL cannot move further back.

Sorry, for the longwinded post.

[sal_vager]

To me, if an intake is positioned so it's blocked by other intakes, other parts, inside other parts or on backwards then that is an airhogging intake, it's just there to give more intake air but wouldn't work in real life.

Plenty of aircraft have big intakes to provide enough air for high altitude work so having several intakes per engine isn't a problem, as long as it looks right, having intakes all the way along your wings would normally prevent the wing from working so again would be air hogging (or wing hogging? and what about wings inside wings?) in my opinion

[Hodo]

For me it is no more than a 3:1 ratio, but most of the time I am a 1:1 or at best a 2:1 intake to jet ratio.

I personally can't stand those walls of intakes slapped on bicouplers and quadcouplers so they look like a wall of ram intakes just so they can get the craft to use its jet engine till 60km altitude. They are horrible to look at and worse to even attempt to fly in FAR.