Least favourite engine

[Godot]

Wow, I pretty much couldn't disagree with you more. The Aerospike has a very important niche, having a high atmosphere ISP and relatively high thrust for its weight means it's a good choice for atmospheric launches. Particularly from Eve, where you'll be spending entirely too long in thick atmosphere. ...

Not to forget that its ISp in Atmosphere is roughly the same as in vacuum.

The reason why my innermost layer of the lifter rockets for my heavy interplanetary spaceship + versatile Lander uses a bundle of 4 rockets with Toroidal Aerospikes that are active from the start of the rocket till ~90 % completion of the 100km orbit around Kerbin.

[Stealth2668]

My least favourite engine is the unity engine because it only supports 1 core.

[astropapi1]

I voted the Rockomax 24-77 as my least favourite engine! D: That's my favorite one

My least favourite is the white radial one, I never use it.

[Sᴄɪɴᴛɪʟʟᴀᴛᴏʀ]

The large radial engine by far. Every craft that I put that engine on has crashed numerous times, I don't trust it at all.

[csiler2]

I voted for the white radial as I can't really find a good use for it. The poodle is almost as worthless. I usually use the smallest rockomax 2.5m tank and slap a 909 on the back for my orbital SMs. I get less TWR, but I get better ISP and I get a nice spot for my RCS tanks on the back.

[CozmikR5]

Mark 55. I can't find a good use for this engine. Point final.

[M5000]

The ant is by far, the most useless engine I have ever seen. It has only three times the power of an Ion engine, with significantly more than 10 times worse Isp.

The ONLY thing I have used the Ant for is making a fake "gun" on the tip of a model A-10 Warthog, and even then, I switched to the small orange engine, because the Ant didn't even have enough thrust to simulate the recoil of the GAU-8 Avenger.

The other useless one, IMO is the Rockomax bigger radial engine.. I just never use it and it's ugly looking in my opinion.

But yes, Ant.

But Devs, please don't get rid of it, it's so adorable.

Edited June 4, 2013 by M5000
Changed 100 times worse to 10 times worse because I can't math.

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Ion engine and ant, useful for some small probes.

Rockomax 24-77 is, just an amazing radial engine.

Poodle is good for pushing around large payloads in orbit, (mostly used in my case for docking large payloads).

Aerospike is good for SSTO planes, or SSTO rockets.

The large radial engine, just, just... no.

[Krizzen]

I've never completed a burn with the ion engine. It just takes too damn long.

I think the Poodle is quite useful. It's especially useful for LKO maneuvers and for circularizing orbits of relatively large payloads. It really shines when you want a simple solution with a decent TWR. Slapping a Poodle inline with your main rocket is much simpler (and lower part count) than working in some 909s.

[CalculusWarrior]

I think the description of the tiny engine says it all--it's just too small! Hence, you can't use it to land any probe of sufficient mass. Combined with it's poor efficiency, this means that the engine can't really be used for interplanetary transport, as you'll wind up carrying a bunch of fuel.

Granted, there is a place for it in the game, like there is for every engine. I just don't like using it, though...

[WhiteWeasel]

I voted the ant, while not as bad as the Mark 55, it would be so, so much more useful if It could be radially mounted. I also completely disagree about the 24-77's and Ion engines. 24-77 is the little engine that could, nuff said. And the Ion engine, yeah slow, but stupidly efficient in return. They do need a large package, but If you're just using one Ion engine you're doing it wrong. Let's assume One battery, xenon tank, and gigantor solar array. Gigantors are heavy, but provides 20% (18 E/s) more power than the Ion uses (14.562 E/s), weight ratio gets better the more Ion engines you slap on, because you won't necessarily need one gigantor per engine. And realistically, you won't need more than 2 or 3 Xenon tanks in mosts situations. And batteries for night time aren't that heavy, 4 Z-400's are only the weight of one RTG, and 6 equates to one Xenon tank. I usually use 3-4 ions on my (~4 ton) probes, with a oscar-b + small rockomax for 'emergencies'.

With proper maneuvers such as the Hohmann transfer & oberth effect, you can get a lot of Delta V out of them.

Edited June 5, 2013 by WhiteWeasel

[GmixerGaming]

I'd say the large white radial ones are my least favorite. Tried them once and then never used them again. Way too inefficient. Okay thrust and the nice fatc that it is a radial engine, but I'd rather use the smaller orange ones.

I do love the Ion engines even if they are very slow and not very powerful. They are efficient and frankly look quite nice when they are throttled up.

[sparty48]

I dislike the ANT the most. Because the ant is not that great for anything.

[M5000]

Surely the most useless is the Ant, but it's like a small outdated car: It has character...

The Rockomax 55 is like a new car that nobody likes because the dealers just did it wrong, but it's actually, well, drivable at the very least. It's not notable or memorable in any one way and it isn't all that great looking..

So yes, the most useless is the Ant, but the Rockomax 55 is surely my least favorite.

[Supernovy]

I can find uses for the ant (and yes it would be awesome if it could be radial mounted), but the mark 55 I just can't find a use for.

Adding radial T45s or 24-77s gives an advantage in almost everything except part count and gimbal range, and the thrust is low enough to make me feel that the gimbal range isn't worth it.