The Ant - No reason to live

[Blacksmith]

Just thought that the ant needs some tweaking, considering that it's only benefit over the 24-77 was that it was in-line is now gone. The 24-77 Has more thrust, efficiency, and the same utility. Anyone else like to see it having a purpose? A high efficiency low thrust engine would be nice for bridging the gap between Liquid and ion in the probe category

[NoMrBond]

The new 48-7S doesn't really balance with the other engines,

Other factors remaining, it should have something like 16-17 thrust not 20

Everything will get a balance pass eventually

[ferram4]

Here's a nice breakdown of the LV-1 Ant, 48-7s, LV-1R radial ant, and the 24-77:[TABLE=class: grid, width: 500]

[TR]

[TD]name[/TD]

[TD]LV-1 Ant[/TD]

[TD]48-7s[/TD]

[TD]LV-1R[/TD]

[TD]24-77[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Radial / Inline[/TD]

[TD]Inline[/TD]

[TD]Inline[/TD]

[TD]Radial[/TD]

[TD]Radial[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Gimbal Range (degrees)[/TD]

[TD]0[/TD]

[TD]1[/TD]

[TD]0[/TD]

[TD]1[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Mass (tonne)[/TD]

[TD]0.03[/TD]

[TD]0.1[/TD]

[TD]0.03[/TD]

[TD]0.09[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Thrust (kN)[/TD]

[TD]1.5[/TD]

[TD]20[/TD]

[TD]1.5[/TD]

[TD]20[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]TWR (Kerbin sea level)[/TD]

[TD]5.097[/TD]

[TD]20.39[/TD]

[TD]5.097[/TD]

[TD]22.65[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Vac Isp (s)[/TD]

[TD]290[/TD]

[TD]350[/TD]

[TD]290[/TD]

[TD]300[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]1 atm Isp (s)[/TD]

[TD]200[/TD]

[TD]300[/TD]

[TD]200[/TD]

[TD]250[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Currently it appears that the main benefit of the ant engines are much lower masses, which allows the payload to be much lighter (keep in mind that for a small satellite 0.07 tonnes can be a fair amount). I also think that the low thrust does have uses, considering that it can make landing very light landers easier due to the increased control over TWR with the throttle.

It might be left the way it is now and will be balanced by being more expensive or by using a different fuel mixture once the resource update happens.

Edited August 23, 2013 by ferram4

[DaRocketCat]

The Ant is very useful for circularising small payloads.

[Artophwar]

I use the Ant all the time precisely because it weighs less than the 48-7s and that can save significant dV on small craft.

[Captain Sierra]

Ant works great on light payloads (anything of mine under 2 tons). While the 24-7s often finds itself used in cluster staging for my lower end Javelin lifters.

[Francesco]

The 48-7S is extremely useful on small payloads, but for very small and micro payloads, the ant is still the best choice.

Also, I see a lot of people building Duna rover skycranes with four 24-77 engines, which are ridiculously overpowered for that job and could be swapped with LV-1Rs.

[Whirligig Girl]

I find it humoprous that the LV-1 Engine has become known as the Ant Engine because of the description.

[King Arthur]

I've used the Ant engine to propel some station modules like the Salyuts, Mir, and Zvezda, they were surprisingly effective! As such, combined with their superb performance powering small satelites, I think the Ant engine fills a niche that no other engine can really fill.

[Anton P. Nym]

I use the Ant engine for orbit transfer and circularisation on my geostationary satellites... and find it very slightly overpowered for the latter, actually. It has its uses, and I'd miss it if it were gone.

-- Steve

[Wallace]

an oscar fuel tank and an ant engine on the butt end of any small satellite should give enough dV to adjust it's orbit pretty much any way you would need.

The 48-7 has better ISP but you need to get to a fairly big sized satellite with more fuel before that pays off vs the low weight of the ant. I prefer the higher thrust ones for landing tho, means I can decelerate fast when I come in too quick