Ballast parts.

[check]

I think having small (radially-attached battery-size) parts that are very heavy and that could be used for ballast would be helpful in some situations. Example:

Often times when players want to attach a rover to their landing rocket, they'll attach one radially and use a fuel tank on the opposite side to balance it out. A ballast part could be used instead. Or it could be useful in adjusting the centre of mass on aircraft. Or for keeping the center of mass low on rovers (prevent tipping).

When the aerodynamic model is revamped, ballast could be used for steering of lifting bodies. Ideally the ballast parts could be ejectable, but attaching them to decouplers would work too.

Anyway, it's just a simple, super-dense part that could be useful to some people. Thoughts?

Edited December 9, 2013 by check

[bgraves]

Ballast parts would be useful, especially for adjusting the CoM on airplanes, where it must be tweaked so much.

[tetryds]

That is a good idea.

But remember that the more useless weight, the less deltav.

[check]

That is a good idea.

But remember that the more useless weight, the less deltav.

Of course, but even real life spacecraft use ballast.

[CodatheSpaceFox]

This is a great idea. Counter weights are more than worth their weight in... weight.

[Nuke]

i usually just move fuel around. a ballast tank to offset a side mounted rover or lander will be jettisoned at some point. if its fuel, you can transfer it to another tank before getting rid of the tank. dead weight has no use, so you put some dv into moving it around and then just throw it away and its a waste. better it be mass you can use.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I would use ballast parts for the ease of use. It'd be nice on any of the many missions I fly where a small weight difference doesn't matter much. Also, I can't find a dense enough material to weigh my planes down in front. The mass always seems to center at the back while the lift centers toward the front even though they're built with almost all of th elifting surface in the back. I don't understand why they do that, but it's really annoying and I'd love to have something denser than RCS tanks to put in the front to weigh it down without taking up a lot of valuable attachment space.

[404james]

This could be even better with the coming tweakable parts, so you could specifically tune your ballast.

[BoJaN]

A ballast with automatic weight shifting would be great. For example, if you had 2 ballasts on your craft, it would shift weight(water?) from one to another in an attempt to keep the center of mass where it would be if all fuel tanks were full.

[Tw1]

I use these, but the download version isn't up to date.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/surface-mounted-counterweights/

I can probably offer a working version if you PM me.

[NQMT]

Lack Luster Labs comes with ballast parts. Hope this helps.

[Justin Kerbice]

There exists ring shaped dead weights in Modular Girder system AWT v0.2 (not displayed on pic)