Why isn't the ion tech listed under propulsion?

[Spartwo]

I agree they may be piddly in regards to thrust but they are a godsend for high D/v.

[Tank Buddy]

Because someone might accidentally use them.

Good one! But too true. They are far from practical.

[Javster]

Its not propulsion, its more like aggressive blowing, in space.

Except blowing would be more effective.

[Javster]

You know what the ironic part is? The ion engines in ksp are horrendous overpowered, by a factor of about 1000

The other rocket engines in the game are actually a little worse than the state of the art engines (high end Russian liquid fueled rocket engines have better performance and weigh less, the NERVA rocket is worse than prototype nuclear engines) but the ion engine has about 1000 times more thrust than the real thing.

Yes, I think that's quite IONIC.

[LethalDose]

I may just be a coding thing. However, they REALLY need to relax the "Warp may not be increased beyond X1 when the throttle is up" restriction on these. If you can compress time flying a jet in the atmosphere, you should be able to compress time using a Xeon engine in the system.

Edited November 13, 2013 by LethalDose

[dudester28]

The Ion engine actually produces more thrust than you may think. 0.5 KN (500 Newtons) equates to just about 51 Kg or 113 pounds of thrust. That is much more than an actual ion engine produces. Obviously, though, we (some of us) have other things to do with our time than wait for burns to complete with engines that have less push than a piece of paper.

[Dun Kirk]

I wish RCS tanks were in command, just so I'm not scrolling so much through propulsion

I think xenon is so useless but for probes and its currently high up the tech tree

[BrickedKeyboard]

You can, using the hotkey. However, even 4x time warp is not enough for ion engines.

Still, it does make interplanetary burns manageable. They are about 40 minutes long for a major burn, and you can just go into 4x time warp and use mechjeb so it only takes 10-15 minutes of real time.

Ion drive powered spacecraft do have a huge range advantage, and you have tons of delta V to space - you just gotta wait a long time to use it. It's quite easy to make a spacecraft that can burn it's ion engine for 5-10 hours.

Edited November 12, 2013 by BrickedKeyboard

[allmhuran]

srb's do not use liquid fuel either

True dat. I guess "fuel" vs "liquid fuel" is a better differentiator, assuming we accept that monopropellant is a kind of fuel. Which I would suggest it is, since it does decompose when used (it just uses a catalyst to do that instead of being oxidized). Xenon gas, on the other hand, isn't decomposed on use, it's just thrown out the back as is.

[Holo]

I may just be a coding thing. However, they REALLY need to relax the "Warp may not be increased beyond X1 when the throttle is up" restriction on these. If you can compress time flying a jet in the atmosphere, you should be able to compress time using a Xeon engine in the system.

Press Alt + . and you can timewarp up to 4× no matter which situation you find yourself in.