How do YOU define "air-hoggy"

[Princepapa]

I spend most of my time making SSTO space planes, and I tend to have my own rules regarding what IS and ISN'T allowed for a "valid" space plane. For example, part-clipping is ok, but actually embedding one part inside of another is not.

Air intakes are obviously necessary, but at no more than a 2:1 intake to engine ratio.

I'm curious as to how the rest of the community defines "air-hoggy". Do you have a specific ratio that you won't move beyond before you consider it "cheating"?

[Domfluff]

It's not a ratio, it's an aesthetic. For a common, three-tubed space plane design (e.g., Jet-Aerospike-Jet) I would have ramjet intakes on the pointy ends of the jets, and then perhaps two radial intakes in each jet engine. Each Jet engine would have three intakes, but nothing would clip or clash, and it still looks plausible to me.

[arq]

I avoid stacking air intakes in front of each other, but sometimes I'll put them on the front of a bi/tricoupler. Still, I do this sparingly. Also, they always go on the front of a fuel tank and I avoid having fuel tanks without engines. At the end of all this almost all of my SSTO's end with an intake/engine ratio of 2-3. Once you start getting up in the 4 or 5 range (or higher), I start placing it in the 'airhogging' category, because it is significantly in excess of what is necessary to get to orbit. I tend to avoid that.

Ofc, my SSTO's have only ever made round-trips to Minmus. If I wanted to go to Duna in one, for example, I would have difficulty unless I added some more intakes.

But ultimately it's a sandbox. I consider airhogging 'SSTO easymode' and avoid it for the design challenge, but the game is in the eye of the player. Also, if your goal is to create and SSTO lifter and not the act of merely creating an independent SSTO (maybe you enjoy launching payloads on the backs of planes more than the tops of rockets?), then airhogging is probably necessary to get anything but the smallest payloads into orbit.

[bogpad]

I only do very slight partclipping for aesthetics, and only on the wing part of my aircraft. I don't clip or stag intakes, I usually roll with 4 intakes for 2 engines, so I can enable 2 of them when the air gets a bit thin to run them on only 2 intakes, and it works just fine, I didn't ever feel the need to "cheat" with absurd counts of intakes tbh.

can't wait for the new ASAS, I set high hopes in this update, since I do have some good designs at hand that are a bit hard to handle atm, and I hope to get them in space when the ASAS get's it update.

[sal_vager]

There's nothing preventing you from stacking intakes though, it's fun to see what is possible so don't let some notion of what is right and what isn't deter you.

Some really impressive craft are possible, if you don't mind creative construction

[Princepapa]

Oh sure, I'm not saying that any one way of doing it is "correct", I'm just curious as to what other rules people have set for themselves.

I actually DID create one VERY air-hoggy space plan and really enjoyed nearly getting to orbit without rockets at all.

[spikeyhat09]

i define it as having more than 3:1 intake-engine ratio (with the use of tri adapter). attaching intakes to cubic octagonal struts is a definite no-no for me

Some really impressive craft are possible, if you don't mind creative construction

to me that's like saying "Some really impressive craft are possible, if you don't mind infinite fuel and hack gravity enabled"

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
Merged multipost

[Aphox]

I think this modified Albatross 3 was as bad as I ever got with airhogging... Didn't use clipping, but attaching them to cubic struts makes less sense.

[acealeam]

I think it depends on if you can make it work. You can have a 5:1 ratio and if it still looks feasible, then it's not airhogging.

[Flixxbeatz]

My god... it's full of intakes!

[spikeyhat09]

I think it depends on if you can make it work. You can have a 5:1 ratio and if it still looks feasible, then it's not airhogging.

show me a craft with a 5:1 ratio (oh btw i mean ram-air intakes and circular intakes only) that looks feasible

[sal_vager]

show me a craft with a 5:1 ratio (oh btw i mean ram-air intakes and circular intakes only) that looks feasible

Good enough? It's an all-stock SSTO with working cargo bay and it was made by pa1983

[spikeyhat09]

Good enough? It's an all-stock SSTO with working cargo bay and it was made by pa1983

great but where are the intakes

also thats really cool how he used the hardpoint things as hinges, ive known that they can pivot but i never thought to do that XD

Edited July 22, 2013 by spikeyhat09

[sal_vager]

It has 120 intakes hidden in the engine pods

[spikeyhat09]

It has 120 intakes hidden in the engine pods

wwwwwwttttttffffff

so apparently the conclusion to this discussion is "its not airhogging in the intakes are concealed"

[Princepapa]

The "Stabojet" by MeticulousMitch is a good example of air-hoggy that isn't ugly as sin.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/34917-StaboJet-VTOL-Single-Stage-to-Anywhere%21?highlight=SSTO

[allmhuran]

I never did much with "intake abuse" because I didn't like simply hiding them inside wings etc. However, I have recently decided on a technique which actually produces something that I think looks good, namely, like so:

The intakes are stacked front to rear to form a long, black, angular cylinder in front of each engine, and I actually think it looks pretty neat. It's a way of extending the black engine aesthetic with the added benefit of giving you super intake capacity. The pictured plane gets into orbit with both of those orange tanks pretty much full.

Closeup of the engines. If you fiddle around you can fill that little gap at the back by sticking a disc shaped battery in there, which also looks pretty good.

Here's a more extreme version, this gets into space faster than most of my rockets...

[pa1983]

I usually stack them with the 1kg cube in between so they have there own space to take up. I dont like part clipping where two parts use the same volume of space say one fuel tank clipping another. I usually mount intakes in front of the engines so in the end I end up with something approximately the size of a jet engine. jet engines are not 1m long if there 1m diameter there more like 4-5 meters at least.

Also I wrote a post some days ago about intake abuse and my view on it.

So lets quote my self.

The thing that annoys me with the current engine and intake setup in KSP is that its even more unrealistic then intake abuse to some extent. First off a jet engine is not 1m long its at least 5-6 times as long. Second is the fact that you dont use ram air intakes for a jet engine. You use a nosecone or similar for high speed craft or a intact duct that will reduce the incoming air to subsonic speeds for it to work with the Jet engine. So raimair makes 0 sense because a jet has its own compressor and it requires subsonic speeds. Even sens they added intakes they used no known logic behind it at all. Also the fact that engines are limited to intake air with some bucket system rather then Temperature and altitude makes even less sens. Real jets at Mach 3 have problems with temperature first of all but also the fact that they need intakes that reduces the airspeed to a working subsonic speed so ramair makes no sens.

So what we actually need is proper intakes that are altitude limited first of all that would make intake abuse well not working at all. Sure if you had on intake for two engines you could get a less well preforming craft but once your at say 2x intakes per engine there is no more gain to be had. Could also differ from intakes to intakes. Would be smaller once where two equals one big etc.

Then we would need a precooler to even make efficient SSTO spaceplanes realistic. Thats whats needed IRL and thats whats being tested for the Skylon. Part exist in KSP as fare as I am concerned but it has 0 use atm.

I would like to see that jet engines overheat and either explodes or shuts down when exceeding mach 3 for longer periods. Going past this would require t his precooler part that would be 1m long at least and 1-2 tons sens its the heaviest part of a precooled jet engine.

When I use intake abuse I use it because KSP stock wont allow for efficient SSTO spaceplanes the way they the once under development IRL would work.

Intakes atm are unrealistic and counter productive.

At least when I stack 10 of them in a row with cubes and have a jet behind it I get a total size at least closer to a real jet engine and I have to make room for that.

So intake abuse might be more efficient but if you just dont stack intakes on the same intake giving the same volume as one it still requires some added engineering and the howl power plant requires more space.

I was also much against intake abuse before I gave it a closer examination but the fact that the way intakes works now is at least as unrealistic as intake abuse if not even more and I dont realy see why one should not use it if one can get more work done with less engines etc. Only real problem with intake abuse is the big part count that comes with it and the fact that engines dont overheat at high speeds due to the 1000C intake air on would have at mach 5.5.

But I have no problems with people not wanting to use intake abuse. I didn't either and I still dont like it but I dont like the stock idea of intakes either. Its like they say, its crap either way because both are just as unrealistic.

We can just hope for more realistic intakes and precoolers in the final stage of the game. If not Im probably going mods by then to solve that problem.

[Sathurn]

To me Air hogging is anytime you have a intake behind another intake. To some degree I don't mind clipping radial intank into each other a little. But one behind the other is just taking advantage of a bug in the game.

[pa1983]

Its not a bug in the game. Its a dumb implementation. Limit them to altitude and temperature instead. If you want to go faster add a precooler.

The games aerodynamics is so unrealistic it wont take in to account on part blocking the other. Even those how dont like stacking still abuse the game by that definition even if they dont think they do.

[Tw1]

I reckon if it looks like air can get to them, then it's not unrealistic.

That said, if it's currently in the game, it can be used, as long as you don't try to claim that you didn't use it.

If someone makes infinigliding practical, I'd love to see something use it to get to orbit. It's mastering of the unique kerbal physics.

Which can be pretty awesome at times.

Round and round and round for all eternity...

[Torham234]

I personally do not use part clipping at all. in my SSTO, I try to aim for 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. I really do not like the designs with ram intakes covering every inch of the wing surfaces, to me that's just not aerodynamic at all, whatever the game engine says.

This is the closest I have ever gotten to "Air Hogging" - 4:1 ratio

[Sapphire]

show me a craft with a 5:1 ratio (oh btw i mean ram-air intakes and circular intakes only) that looks feasible

How's this?

Speaking for myself, I generally do 3-5:1 on my SSTO intakes, but I like using radial air intakes. They look nicer. And as for airhogging, I think you can have a flying wing that has a leading edge of nothing but intakes, and you'd be fine, but the second you start putting them one behind the other, you're airhogging.

[ddavis425]

When I play I feel like airhogging is just exploiting the current aerodynamics. I prefer to have one intake per engine and those intakes get put along the same stack as the engine.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I define an airhogger with an air intake to engine ratio of 4:1