Who uses Liquid Boosters, or Solid Boosters?

[Kenobi McCormick]

My main engines are always liquid fuel, but I will quite often reach for the Rockomax BACC. Why, I hear you asking? Why would I use a solid motor instead of a more efficient asparagus'd liquid booster?

Rule of Cool, my friends. Simple as that. Solid rocket boosters are much cooler than vegetables. Also on some vehicles I can actually save quite a bit of dV due to the solid motors having enough brute force to hit terminal velocity without the liquid engine's help.

[Alchemist]

In my sandbox games I usually used only liquid. Some of my high-end designs can be labeled with "could use some SRBs for takeoff, but flies well without".

But in the new career mode I somehow found myself trowing a layer of SRBs on most launchers early and mid-game... maybe because when you don't have all the things you're accustomed to (and for heavy payloads that seems to be Mainsail) and have to redesign your launch vehicles every time (because you do get better parts) quickly throwing some solids in is much easier than carefully designing proper liquid rockets. Besides these large SRBs at least are semi-decent things, never really used the small ones much though.

But when I really design a good launch vehicle, I end up with no solids. Probably just some Russian style. As you might know, Korolyov designed only couple solid ICBMs (and never used anything of these for space), Yangel and Chelomey always went with hypergolics, and the guys who did work on solid missiles directly worked for military and military only (while the original long-range/ICBM/space design bureaus were under a separate ministry).

[Mmmmyum]

I use solid boosters for when I need just a bit of thrust to help my first stage burn fuel until it's TWR improves to over 1. Generally I'd have an initial TWR of 0.7 boosted to 1.5 by SRBs from KW Rocketry. By the time the boosters fall off my first stage has burnt enough fuel to accelerate faster than gravity can accelerate the rocket

[Aragosnat]

Both to what ever I need. But, when budgets get introduced. I will most likely be building smaller then normal as well as using Solids a lot more just because they do cost less.

[GusTurbo]

I use both, but I find that solids can be very useful when you limit the thrust and clip several of them together.

There are 6 SRBs on each side.

Edited January 5, 2014 by GusTurbo

[Dangerous_Beans]

i play with Nova-Punch, so i have a much wider range of SRBs to play with.

i use both, if i am building for maximum efficiency i'll use all liquid engines, but in career or if i just want something in orbit i'll use SRBs for the first stage. for instance, the launcher i used for my recent Duna mission used 8 of the long stock SRBs as the first stage, because it needed more dV to get to orbit and my lack of fuel pipes meant i couldn't just add asparagus staged liquid boosters onto the side.

[Katojana]

both, mainly liquid.

[MaverickSawyer]

I use both depending on the situation. Liquids for crewed launches, solids for heavy unmanned launches.

[DerpyWagon]

I usually add SRBs to an asparagus setup. I havent tried limiting their thrust - that would make them much more useful.

I've noticed most of the pros (Scott Manley) dont use them

[chuangatronic]

I tend to strap SRBs onto my SSTO rockets to turn them interstellar return rockets. I used to stick to liquid boosters but now that SRBs can be tweaked I just keep to that unless I'm launching over 100 ton payloads. Those require mainsail boosters...

[Ascension Islander]

Screw y'all, I use SRBs as core stages

On a serious note, I've started adapting the mantra "less is more." Some of it has to do with simplicity, and the rest of it has to do with FAR.

[Eric S]

I tend to use a lot of solid boosters early on in career mode, but stop using them completely on manned flights as soon as I get fuel lines. I continue using them on light probes if I need a little boost but not a lot.

[briansun1]

need moar boosters...

[Javster]

RAPIER boosters? Sounds like a great idea. I just need to unlock them now...

[sgt_flyer]

most of the time, i tend to go with liquid boosters (even without onion staging / asparagus) - i like my stages and a half, and SRB's does not burn long enough for that at full power

[Loerelau]

It really depends on how much power I need... Sometimes the small solid rocket boosters on the liquid boosters for the first couple of km! I do agree with Ascension Islander. Less is more!

[nholzric]

"Ascension Islander" - that's a legit and meaningful name.

As folks have mentioned, the thrust limiting ability has really increased the usefulness of SRB's. Before the last release I hardly ever used them, but I use them much more now.

[ArmchairGravy]

In career I use SRB's until the Skippers are unlocked. From there it's all liquid.

[Anton P. Nym]

I have literally put boosters on my boosters; SRBs burning in parallel with liquids to quickly get my heavy-lift vehicles off the pad and up to velocities where aerodynamics work to keep the ship stable, then drop off after the liquid boosters have burnt off enough fuel to ensure the right TWR.

I have also made all-solid ascent stages just to see if I could. When economics come into play in some future build, I expect to do that more to get cheap Science and/or Budget from missions.

-- Steve

[Rickenbacker]

I generally use liquid boosters, but every now and then I add a few solids to get an extra kick off the pad.

[panzerknoef]

Liquid all the way!! Srb's are just so... Explosive!

[KittyProgram]

Liquid all the way!! Srb's are just so... Explosive!

Yeah! Another one to join the Liquid Army!

[Dean Harper]

I use liquids for all my rockets, but launch is always assisted by radially mounted solids. I've also found my liquids to be more efficient (though sometimes less stable) if I have SRBs mounted beneath them at takeoff. It's more thrust at the start and puts me a few kilometers in the air before starting up the liquids.

[MrZayas1]

I tend to use liquid boosters more than anything because instead of mostly using solid boosters, I prefer to actually use something that I can control where it lands rather than missing the moon by a couple astronomical units other that I would probably use solid boosters to get me out of the atmosphere because that tends to be what they are used for in real life

[tntristan12]

99% of the time I strictly use liquid fuel. However, for that remaining 1% I sometimes end up pushing a payload lifter to the edge and just a little beyond what it's rated for. It's not worth designing and rating an entirely new lifter so I just strap some SRBs on the side to get it out of the lower layers of the atmosphere just a little bit sooner. If you do it right you can get some pretty awesome delta-v savings out of a few SRBs early on in the design.