proposal to fix the spam-intake-to-jet-till-70km exploit.

[Flixxbeatz]

Well at this point in time if people wants to airhog and have fun, then who we are to tell them to not do so...

It's one's personal options anyway - if you don't want to airhog, then don't airhog, but never tell people to stop airhogging - better keep it to yourself until Squad fixes a thing or two.

[patrickcanttype]

Air intakes that require part clipping to put on generally aren't really seen as "legit" anyway, so I don't see how it requires fixing. If someone wants to use part clipping to make an OP plane or rocket, that's their business.

If someone builds a complicated rocket that gets tons of intake without using part clipping; that is engineering to use the physics available, which is a fun part of playing.

[Sof]

This. The original post doesn't address the problem in a realistic way, and as for the followup suggestion of drag, we have a drag system, just not a good one, and open air intakes are already high enough drag that some people use them as airbrakes. If anything, a more realistic drag system will reduce the drag, not increase it. You don't see spamming air intakes in reality because having an air intake that isn't in the unobstructed airflow is far less effective.

The game atm simply applies a drag value for all the parts in the craft to work against the direction of motion. Aerodynamics never comes into play. IRL, you couldn't have tons of scoops on the front of an aircraft because the drag caused by doing so would be like trying to fly a brick wall. You don't see intake spam in reality because you wouldn't take off with such a design. It has got nothing to do with the airflow into them. Putting all the intakes on the front would mean 100% airflow, but would also mean maximum drag.

A proper drag model will fix this problem. Wait until the devs add that in. All the other suggestions here are inconsequential once drag has been introduced.

[Jason_25]

I would prefer they wait to fix this until we have: a larger variety of turbojets, ramjets, turbofans, afterburning turbofans, hybrid turbo-ramjets, scramjets, SABRE-like designs, more powerful NERVAs, nuclear salt water rockets, and heavy ion engines first.

The way it is now allows for cool spacecraft to be built until more advanced parts come along.

[TouhouTorpedo]

The real problem is that jet engines are very OP themselves. They produce an incredible amount of power for very little fuel, and that needs to change. Reduce the power of jet engines, and jet spamming will be less effective.The overlapping of intakes isn't a real problem. Just turn off part clipping and air hogging becomes much less effective. People using the cheat interface are doing just that; cheating.

Well, no to a lot of that. First off Airhogging, even with massive ammounts of clipping, is actually very possible without using the cheat interface. (infact I've done this before quite a few times, its quite easy) and also the Jet engine ISP is quite a realistic one at 3000 sec, so "ammount of fuel used for the power" is actually about right. What you do have right is the thrust possibly being too high, or the weight being too low. To give an example of some very high performance jet engines, the F-22 engines have TWR of about 8. The Harrier engine about 6. KSP Jet engines - about 20.

I do disagree on what you said about "Jet hogging" as well as I don't know of anyone who does that. Air hogging, yes, Jet, no. Though indeed the returns for more engines are almost as great provided they have enough air.

I think one of the reasons Jets have so much thrust in KSP though is probably because of the problematic aero model. I can picture if the jets had realistic thrust a lot of aircraft designs becoming useless in KSP, and then the funfactor quickly goes down the toilet.

[Sir Nahme]

Ok so I'm thinking "out loud" here...

The problem isn't so much the engines (and TWR argument's don't exactly count, the real world engines TWR includes alot more than the raw engine twr in ksp because it includes the weight of their intakes and fuel systems, which are accounted for separately in ksp)

And the problem isn't having jet engines that can work on the edge of space (we have those in real life too)

The problem would then be HOW we achieve it;

-In real life they do use more collection area to maintain the airflow, so yeah they "air hog" it as well. However they don't have to go to the same extremes we do in ksp.

-In real life they need additional compression systems to process that air so it is useable by the engine. We do not have this, thus we need even more surface area to achieve the same effect.

-In real life the surface area for collection collects a volume of air based on atmospheric density x speed but the amount of oxygen in the upper atmosphere diminishes due to dissociation, as far as I can tell the amount of oxygen in kerbin air is a constant and only density changes, reducing the need for compression and increases the efficiency of using more surface area to collect intake air.

Now we already know they are looking to improve the atmospheric accuracy of the simulation so it stands to reason that like asparagus staging air hogging will become less efficient in the future. It also stands to reason that they WILL provide a more accurate model for ram intakes in addition it simply hasn't been a priority. The new drag model and atmospheric effects should solve the "problem" which isn't really a problem at all because the people doing it aren't hurting anyone (and you are welcome not to use it, I know I don't)

[boolybooly]

Dont take away peoples toys without giving them a better one or they wont appreciate the "improvement" eg a hypersonic ramjet which starts to work when you are at 3 times the speed of sound and has an optimum speed of about Mach5.

[Jarin]

They've already said that there's more parts planned, and even designed, for after research is implemented. Hell, there's supposedly a hyperdrive planned. I suspect ramjet and scramjet engines (and their associated intake systems) will be included at some point, which will replace the current "airhogging" methods of SSTO.

[SteevyT]

Well, no to a lot of that. First off Airhogging, even with massive ammounts of clipping, is actually very possible without using the cheat interface. (infact I've done this before quite a few times, its quite easy)

-snip-

I did this without opening the cheat dialog once.

http://i.imgur.com/WlV10YO.jpg

(Just doing a link since spoilers don't work)

[leax256]

nova mentioned something about too much air at once might start choking an engine, how about that?

[technicalfool]

How about a simple engine_count / intake_count modifier?

(engine_count >= intake_count) ? intake_air_modifier = 1 : intake_air_modifier = engine_count / intake_count

Tweak the equation to suit fun gameplay. That way, so long as there are a sensible number of intakes, there is no penalty. The more intakes you spam, the less effective they are.

That is of course, assuming people are generally unhappy with the current ability to airhog. Should we have a poll with yes/no/meh options?

[Captain Sierra]

Air hogging done realistically, no clipping, no overlapping, only mild spammage:

[leax256]

Air hogging done realistically, no clipping, no overlapping, only mild spammage:

only just a bit.

it's a 6:1 ratio

[Zourin]

There isn't much you can do. part clipping is great for design on one hand, but cheating in the other depending on how you use them.

Nacelles make me cry.. they're a great part to look at, but they're so numerically horrible I can't justify ever using it.

[Orbiter]

In a way, stacking air intakes behind one another is realistic of an axial flow jet engine. In such an engine, multiple blades are stacked behind one another to compress air for the jet to use. If only the front intake was an intake and all others behind it were compressors that boosted engine efficiency, than the problem would be solved. Of course, the optimal solution is to just abstain from air hogging if you believe that it is OP. After all, there is no rule that high performance jets have to air hog, they can also be extremely light or very well piloted. It is still easy enough to get a jet to mach 4 with just two intakes and one engine, which is common in the real world.

[Captain Sierra]

See people, you can achieve SSTO without clipping, even non-debug clipping using the evil cubes.

Okay, check that. I have no idea about stock. I can't SSTO in stock. I've only ever done it with B9. I am trying to do a few with stock though.

[Captain Sierra]

only just a bit.

<snip>

it's a 6:1 ratio

Sidenote here, what is the max payload capacity on that thing?

[leax256]

Sidenote here, what is the max payload capacity on that thing?

unsure, only built it a few hours ago, it gets 18 tons of the runway.

Edited August 25, 2013 by leax256

[Tollazor]

FAR makes it unnecessary to use intake spam or clipping, just good design.

[arq]

SSTO does not require clipping (though neither does airhogging), and can be done with a very low intake/engine ratio (heck it can be done just using rockets).

Another way to make airhogging less viable is to increase the drag cap on intakes.

Though what I would really like to see is more variety in intakes and engines. Specifically, ones designed for very high altitudes and speeds (ramjets or scramjets?). Maybe some that can operate up to closer to 35km, though perhaps with lower TWR to keep them from reaching orbital speeds? Make them have even lower low-speed thrust than turbojets, have low ISP, and/or something else to keep them in-balance and give the other engines a place?

[TMS]

Dont take away peoples toys without giving them a better one or they wont appreciate the "improvement" eg a hypersonic ramjet which starts to work when you are at 3 times the speed of sound and has an optimum speed of about Mach5.

Best post in thread. Exactly right. Improvements should be just that.

Similar feelings about part-clipping. It's incredibly useful and shouldn't be removed without providing far greater flexibility via some other method of part placement.

[numerobis]

The two main errors in KSP's model of air intakes are the temperature (which is what limits jets IRL) and the feasibility of making air flow from one arbitrary point to another arbitrary point.

A wall of intakes in front of your KSP plane will make it unstable, so there's no problem there.

[boomerdog2000]

Don't you have to use dev hacks to clip all the intakes together anyway?

[leax256]

Don't you have to use dev hacks to clip all the intakes together anyway?

not always

[foamyesque]

not always

Only because the editor is glitchy and will allow you to attach parts you shouldn't and then won't let you attach parts you should.