Why are MK1/MK2 fuselage, 24-77/48-7S engine so inconsistent?

[Andersenman]

Hello,

It's been puzzling me, and the forum search didn't help, either:

Why are the MK1 and MK2 Fuselages so inconsistent in their values? We have:

[table=width: 300, class: grid]

[tr]

[td][/td]

[td]MK1[/td]

[td]MK2[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Image[/td]

[td][/td]

[td][/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Dry mass, tons[/td]

[td]0.35[/td]

[td]0.2[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Fuel, units[/td]

[td]150[/td]

[td]160[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Impact tolerance[/td]

[td]20[/td]

[td]50[/td]

[/tr][tr]

[td]Cost[/td]

[td]550[/td]

[td]550[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

Why is the bigger MK2 fuselage lighter and more durable than MK1? Is this a typo in the stock config? (I assume their prices will be reviewed with the projected career mode changes, so I'll leave those one alone.)

Next, the newly stockified in-line brother of the 24-77:

[table=width: 300, class: grid]

[tr]

[td][/td]

[td]24-77[/td]

[td]48-7S[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Image[/td]

[td][/td]

[td][/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Isp[/td]

[td]250-300[/td]

[td]300-350[/td]

[/tr][tr]

[td]Mass, t[/td]

[td]0.09[/td]

[td]0.1[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Cost[/td]

[td]240[/td]

[td]300[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

I'll attribute the extra 10 kilos of weight to the nice dark shroud instead of just having the engine hang by its pipes, but why these big differences in Isp and price? Shouldn't they really be equals, or are these typos again and should I rather report them as bugs?

Many thanks for reading and your input.

A.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Andersenman

[Themohawkninja]

Why is the big ASAS unit lighter than the 1 meter one?

I can't say about the first example, but the second example can simply be explained by the fact that it's just a different engine, and so Squad felt like making the inline one more efficient.

[Sir_Tramalot]

Well with the MK1 and MK2 fuselage, The MK1 one is a fuel tank, so it is heavier and weaker. You can get the MK1 normal structural component in the Structural tab, which is lighter and I think stronger. The Normal mass (full) of the MK1 fuel tank is 1.1 t, and the full mass of the structural fuselage is 0.4t. It has an impact tolerance of 70 m/s, and costs 550.

[CodatheSpaceFox]

This is just a sign that KSP is still in it's creation stage. Just like how the mk2 and mk3 spaceplane pods lack IVA, yet the passenger pod... thing... (Can never remember the name) Was recently given one. Squad is going about things in a progressive state, as the engine issue is not game breaking, and is actually easily adjusted by the player, or mods that fix the variables, they're not making it a priority at the moment, while they get back to making your landing places more dangerous.

A lot of the parts are due for a bit of a value touch up, you'd be surprised how inconsistent they are, but there's plenty of modders who've made a mission to bring some consistency to them in their mods, to make themselves and anyone who'd like that kind of comfort in their rockets a bit more content without adding a million extra parts. Give it time, things will be fixed, and you'll get your radial attached cupholder in a few more updates too. In the meantime, there is no shame in hunting down such inconsistencies for the sake of knowledge, just as well, Showing interest in the parts being rebalanced may get enough attention for squad to take a few minutes away from adding more craters to things and adjust a few .txt files.

[Andersenman]

not making it a priority at the moment

Good enough for me, thanks!

[Tw1]

My thoughts are that the radial engines have lower ISPs to reduce the advantage from spamming crafts with them.

The 48-7S's isp is a bit more like that of a mainsail, as it's inline, and maybe has a better system inside for making thrust efficiently.

[CodatheSpaceFox]

Good enough for me, thanks!

Believe me, I wish it wasn't that easy to sum up why they couldn't put 15 minutes into solving a lot of problems that the community has been asking to be fixed.

[Supernovy]

I believe the 48-7S was like that when it was in KSPX. I think it gets the Isp bonus as compensation for having restricted placement - something I might like to see on the LV-1 versus the LV-1R.

As for aircraft fuselages, I don't they've been touched since 0.18. There are a lot of config inconsistencies like this, and presumably they will be rectified at some point. Submitting a bug report/feature request may help in this respect.

[Andersenman]

why they couldn't put 15 minutes into

Bear in mind those items are used in the stock space planes, simply tweaking configs may well make them fly even wonkier. New or corrected spaceplanes would have to be built, at least for presentation's sake, and that takes time. Way more than just 15 minutes.

I think it gets the Isp bonus as compensation for having restricted placement

Personally, I would dislike this sort of compensation. It's like paying in apples and getting the change in pears. It doesn't feel right in the sense of the KSP theme "Ok, we've got this burner here, let's slap it somewhere and bend the pipes a little to make it fit".

Just my two cherries.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Andersenman

[Supernovy]

Would you prefer them having the same stats, or a TWR boost to the stack version? Just wondering.

Personally, I think that having two parts with the same stats would be redundant even if they had different attachment logic.

[Lexif]

Not that I was asked, but I personally would prefer the inline version of the same engine to be lighter than the radial version, with both having the same ISP. After all, the radial engine should have a beefier structure to transmit the forces into the vessel if the rest is identical. Alternatively, the inline version could get a bit more thrust. This might benefit the Ant engine if the same principle is applied. There's quite the huge gap in thrust between the Ant and the 24-77 that was only halfway closed by the 48-7S. There's still nothing practical available if you need 5 to 10 units of thrust.

[Supernovy]

I think I agree with you there, Lexif.

At least now we can use multiple LV-1Rs as a stopgap solution to the intermediate thrust problem.

[Mr. Scruffy]

Hmmm... going a bit off trail, here, but: Wouldnt it be nice, if, when an engine is avaiable as radial and inline version, there´d be a little button in its icon on the left-side part-selection tab in the VAB, toggling between the two, uncluttering the tabs a bit? The stats of both versions could still be different, maybe even in a consistent way among all engines (e.g.: radial version always feature -10% thrust or whatnot, when compared to their inline versions).

The same could go for sizes via a second button inside the parts´ buttons. Like have a single liquid fuel tank icon (if you wanted to take this to the extreme) and have a button like this ´<->´ and another indicating vertical direction inside that icon, and the first would switch between the various thicknesses (1.25m, 3m...) while the other switches between the verious avaiable lengths (1/4x, 1/2x, 1x, 2x).

[Andersenman]

More buttons and manual cycling would probably save space, but at the same time would turn things into clickfests. I like having the parts all for quick grabs so a rocket can easily be thrown together. Granted, I do not play with any part-intensive expansion packs like KSPX or Sceppie's Minipack, so your mileage may vary. I would still like a better display, but elaborating on that would derail my own thread, haha.

As for the Intermediates, I do agree that they are nice, but I somehow like the limited range of stock items. It makes the game "Kerbal" for me, you have got to make do with the items Jeb scrounges together in his junkyard, and sometimes you just have to steal someone's pool frame.

Also, to get back on the specific case of 24-77/48-7S: As said, I don't mind small discrepancies such as the one in weight, as in "beefier structure" vs. "nice black shroud". It was the rather noticeable and inexplicable difference in Isp of something that looks like it had the core engine identical with its radial brother. It's those inexplicable differences that raised my eyebrow, not the small and explicable ones, if that makes sense. Balancing for balancing's sake is what breaks the immersion: KSP is a sandbox game, not a PvP MMO.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Andersenman

[jfx]

Bear in mind those items are used in the stock space planes, simply tweaking configs may well make them fly even wonkier. New or corrected spaceplanes would have to be built, at least for presentation's sake, and that takes time. Way more than just 15 minutes.

Personally, I would dislike this sort of compensation. It's like paying in apples and getting the change in pears. It doesn't feel right in the sense of the KSP theme "Ok, we've got this burner here, let's slap it somewhere and bend the pipes a little to make it fit".

Just my two cherries.

Community contest - problem solved. The Stock planes were awful to begin with.

I guess the two/three (?) people they have handling that sort of stuff are too busy running a ghost online TV show?

[RealHogweed]

the inconsistency of the values of the fuselages are likely due to the fact that those are amongst the oldest part still in the game. if i remember correctly C7 has stated that he would gladly redo all the aviation related parts (though he said this before B9 was hired as a dev, so i'm not sure if they'll assign him the job). so there's really no need to work on those old moels, as they will be probably replaced.