Make the Inline Reaction Wheel a 0.625m part

[peadar1987]

It would be handy for me to add extra righting/stability torque to my smaller rovers

[Andersenman]

[...] and we as players have to design around these gaps. [...]

In a sandbox game like KSP that is also decidedly moddable even, any such difficulty would be completely pointless: If you feel a part is lacking, go ahead and make or modify one. Likewise, if you want the challenge to live without certain parts, don't use them.

Interpreting absence of a certain part - real absence, not just 'locked by tech tree' - as difficulty measure is therefore a fallacy. Measured with the nature and scale of KSP it is way more likely that IAS was kept for legacy or place-holding reasons. "Leave it in, it doesn't hurt anyone, we have enough issues at hand for .21 to spend time on thinking what to do with this thing here" would be a perfectly reasonable call for a KSP producer.

At any rate: Yes, I would have loved a tiny IRW for my rovers that kept tripping out whenever it coasted over a crease in terrain geometry, so I would welcome such an item, OP. It could be a rescaled IAS with adjusted torque values and amended flavour text along the lines of:

In an inverted (pun intended) case of Reading The Plans Up-Side Down, the workshop had been interpreting the scaling factor wrong all the time when building this probe-sized torque wheel module.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Andersenman

[LethalDose]

In a sandbox game like KSP that is also decidedly moddable even, any such difficulty would be completely pointless: If you feel a part is lacking, go ahead and make or modify one. Likewise, if you want the challenge to live without certain parts, don't use them.

Interpreting absence of a certain part - real absence, not just 'locked by tech tree' - as difficulty measure is therefore a fallacy.

Becauses third parties can mod gear into the game, the design challenge is in the stock game is pointless?

Because a piece of equipment can be modded in then it should be included as stock in the game?

Uhm. No. That's absurd on it's face. You can't interpret the fact that the dev's allow modding into the game to be equivalent to their intent to obliviate design difficulty from the game.

We don't have a 0.625 Mainsail with an ISP better than an nuke engines, but players can mod in a 0.625 Mainsail with an ISP better than an nuke engines... So I guess according to your "logic" the design challenge of getting heavy loads into space are equally pointless?

[Kasuha]

While it is sure nice that mods can add parts, the base game should be complete to certain reasonable degree, too.

Mods are unreliable. Their lifetime is often limited to how long their author is interested in the game and they may (and often do) get broken with any next release. Especially since the game is still in alpha and things are changing a lot.

[Psycix]

I have found many applications (like rovers and heavy probes) where a full-size reaction wheel is overkill and a probe core simply doesn't cut it (unless I use 10, but they drain power even when not in use).

Even when I can afford the extra mass, the big reaction wheel simply doesn't fit aesthetically in small crafts.

[SofusRud]

I totally favor this. The lack of a small-sized reaction wheel has practically killed my space-bike program. probe cores are too weak, and the whole point of a space-bike is that it is not just a probe with a seat dammit!

I had tried to suggest this back before 0.21, but it just got shrugged off by people who assumed that just because it was in KSPX then it would probably be added very soon. Well it hasn't, and its just one of those small part additions that are needed to close a few gaps, radial drogue chutes being another example of the same thing.

So...+1 for this suggestion

[Andersenman]

Uhm. No. That's absurd on its face. You can't interpret the fact that the dev's allow modding into the game to be equivalent to their intent to obliviate design difficulty from the game.

We don't have a 0.625 Mainsail with an ISP better than an nuke engines, but players can mod in a 0.625 Mainsail with an ISP better than an nuke engines... So I guess according to your "logic" the design challenge of getting heavy loads into space are equally pointless?

You guess wrongly. It's not that it has no point, it's that you're missing it. KSP is a sandbox game made by a small indie developer with limited funding, staff and audience. Not a nerfed-to-death multiplayer Korea grinder by a humongous Conglom-O, micro-transactioning pocket money and souls from trillions of braindead mouse mechanics testers.¹ You decide however you want to enjoy it. Add stuff, mod stuff, use infinite fuel, Hyperedit, or <spooky>Mechjeb</spooky> ...

If all omissions were deliberate, why did Squad add the Jumbo when you can stack two X200-32? Why did they add the radial Ant when you can use the inline one with [strange contraption with Cubics, Oscars and fuel lines]? Where was your difficulty slider then? Talk about logic.

Correlation, let alone coincidence, does not imply causality. "Oh no, Squad's Dark Council of Doom must have decreed the lack of a certain part to remind everyone to whose draconian rule their players owe their pleasure in little-green-men gaming"² is not the first thing that should reasonably come to mind when contemplating said lack.

¹ Totally true.

² Dramaticised for entertainment purposes.

… Or, is it?

Edited August 11, 2015 by Andersenman

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'd like it to be made into a small part, half the height, and with only 10 torque perhaps. The probe bodies have very little torque in them, and I find myself wanting more even with some of my smaller probes. Often I don't want a lot, so 5-10 would be plenty. With a size and mass to match, it would make a fine addition to the parts and I would use it a lot.

Also, pretty sure the 0.2 ton large reaction wheel has a typo on the mass, as the medium is 0.5 tons. And can we get a large reaction wheel with 40 or more torque? Those large ones may be light, but they just aren't enough for my biggest ships. I put six on sometimes and still turn faster with RCS.

What I really want:

Six reaction weels:

1.) large, 2 tons, 80 torque, 1.0e/s

2.) large, 1 ton, 20 torque, 0.2e/s

3.) medium, 0.5 tons, 20 torque, 0.25e/s

4.) medium, 0.25 tons, 5 torque, 0.05e/s

5.) small, 0.14 tons, 8 torque, 0.1e/s

6.) small, 0.07 tons, 2 torque, 0.02e/s

Edited December 13, 2013 by thereaverofdarkness