How do we fix intake spam?

[Sirrobert]

So limiting intake spam is OK, as long as we get an option in the cheats menu to enable it?

Congratulations on impressively missing the point.

[Hodo]

FAR would be perfectly fine, but I would prefer to do without DRE. I'm already bad enough at forgetting RCS thrusters, solar panels, or antennas that I wouldn't want to add heat shields to my already too long "Why I Failed" list.

I play with both of those and many more (see sig), and I can tell you I often forget those things. DRE is not as bad as it appears.

[Khobai]

Players should not be limited except in cases where physical laws are violated. Intake spam is such a case.

The easiest solution is to significantly reduce the amount of oxygen from 20km-25km making it impossible for even intake spam to overcome the lack of oxygen.

[Kasuha]

I really don't understand why do you even have problems with air intakes. Is it hurting your feelings or what? Real aircraft has as big intakes as needed too. For instance if you compare the following two pictures, you see clear signs of real intake spam in order to increase airflow

Air intakes also don't have to be in line with the engine.

[Khobai]

you see clear signs of real intake spam in order to increase airflow

Except that's not intake spam. Intake spam is when you have dozens of intakes stacked inside eachother occupying the same space. Which shouldnt even be possible since two atoms cant occupy the same space.

[Nuke]

I don't think that the problem is that engines become more powerfull with more intakes, they just workat much higher altitudes and high altitudes mean less drag and that means that you can almost reach orbit with jet engines.

yea but i still think doing so should produce more heat and drag. if you take off with 20 intakes feeding one engine, you should have drag up the wazoo, and thats a 20:1 compression ratio. this would melt a lot of engines. in a real engine having more intake capacity than you need is a major drag (sorry for horrible pun), and high compression ratios are a major source of heat.

i think the problem is treating intake air like any other resource. you use a resource tank as a buffer. the intake fills the buffer and the engine drains it. engine stops working when buffer is empty. but this doesn't pass much information, all it does is tell the engine if it can run. parts modules that operate off of each other like this need better communication than that, they need to pass variables back and fourth in a way that conforms to fuel routing rules. essentially the parts that share a resource form a network. flowMode = ALL_VESSEL would be like a bus topology (everything shares info with everything), flowMode = STACK_PRIORITY_SEARCH would be a star topology (info is shared based on connection), and of course NO_FLOW means no bars. resource definitions can define the communication pipes, a variable name and a direction (consumer -> producer and vise versa), the resource itself acts like a port address. part modules would be able to use the send and receive pipes. unlike a network the variables behave like their resources. splitting when lines diverge, adding up when they converge. this would provide a mechanism for intakes to tell engines to overheat and for engines to tell intakes that they are underutilized and need to start dragging (and many other parts could benefit from similar networks).

[sal_vager]

This is really no different to regular part clipping, you can massively increase fuel load by clipping tanks inside each other for instance.

It's up to the individual player to how they want to build, the player is free to exercise restraint in their building or go all-out and make something crazy, part clipping is used in many stock designs for aesthetics or for necessity (see Cupcakes dropships).

This flexibility in KSP allows for different players to have fun in different ways, neither way is "right", what matters is that players have fun

[m4v]

I really don't understand why do you even have problems with air intakes. Is it hurting your feelings or what?

My issue is not that it hurts my feelings or anything, but that it kinds of reduces intake strategies because Ram air intake stacking is a one-size-fits-all solution, so some guidelines need to be enforced so part variety has a gameplay justification and is not just some rule that the player has to force himself.

[Joonatan1998]

This is really no different to regular part clipping, you can massively increase fuel load by clipping tanks inside each other for instance.

It's up to the individual player to how they want to build, the player is free to exercise restraint in their building or go all-out and make something crazy, part clipping is used in many stock designs for aesthetics or for necessity (see Cupcakes dropships).

This flexibility in KSP allows for different players to have fun in different ways, neither way is "right", what matters is that players have fun

Actually it is very different, with tanks your craft has (almost) the same mass and other properties as it would have if you had built it without cheats/clipping, but with intakes it allows you to build very overpowered crafts with low cost (once money is implemented). This is OK in sandbox mode, but career mode should give players some limits.

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

Face it: the fact that turbojets in KSP can reach DOUBLE the top speed of real-life turbojets is completely absurd, especially since mach 6 is practically orbit in KSP.

Also, note that the engine used on the SR-71 has a TWR of 6. The stock turbojet has a TWR of 18. Yes, kerbal aircraft need a higher TWR than real ones because of Kerbin's soupy atmosphere, but every other engine and fuel tank in the game is underpowered compared to reality.

[Comrade Jenkens]

1: Remove the fuel crossfeed from intakes.

2: Add a limit to the amount of intake air each engines can use.

3: The jet engines need a HUGE nerf anyway! They act more like ramjets than turbojets!

[LordOfTheOrbits]

Players should not be limited except in cases where physical laws are violated. Intake spam is such a case.

The easiest solution is to significantly reduce the amount of oxygen from 20km-25km making it impossible for even intake spam to overcome the lack of oxygen.

This wouldn't be of any use, in fact it would make people do even more intake spam. Also my perfectly reasonable SSTO which is using SABREs from the b9 pack has only a 1:1 intake to engine ratio and can fly up to Mach 5 at almost 30,000 meters purely on jet power, which is about the same as skylon. If it would only be able to fly up to 20,000 meters height it would get far more drag losses so it could probably fly only up to Mach 3-4 which would make it need a lot more oxidizer and therefore it could only carry a much lighter payload, so this change would also ruin perfectly realistic SSTOs.

[Frederf]

Intakes should have a region where they draw air from (invisible selection in front) that you can put objects in but doing so fractionally reduces the intake because of the obstruction depending on how blocked they are.

[MKI]

The real question is should this be fixed? This is similar to the question to limit part count for rockets, or limit the number of engines or how much fuel you can carry.

YES Spamming air intakes can result in amazing results, but should it be balanced?

[Dodgey]

I don't see how limiting the amount of air an engine can use would help, as you gain altitude the total amount of oxygen decreases, add more intakes and it moves the intake air up the that set limit. Doesn't fix a thing. But I don't see what is wrong with self control.

[S4qFBxkFFg]

Kasuha - the third picture you posted - what aircraft type is that?

Incidentally, I started a thread recently where this topic came up: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/72881-Changing-the-way-air-breathing-jet-engines-are-constructed

[Capt Snuggler]

i think jet engines and air intakes should have Ducts that behave similarly to fuel lines. some parts the structural fuselage, Engine Nacelle and Radial Engine Body, should be "air cross-feed capable". if your intake is connected to your engine via a non air cross-feed part, you will need air ducting to connect it.

air ducts would have mass, so intake spam would require lots of heavy ducts to connect up air flow.

I have seen designs where the entire leading edge of a wing is intakes. while I'm sure the player who built this is having fun, I do feel this kind of thing falls outside the realms of possibility in this fun little artificial reality.

[Red Iron Crown]

Kasuha - the third picture you posted - what aircraft type is that?

Not to speak for Kasuha, but it looks like a PAK-FA.

I don't really care about intake spam despite it being unrealistic, but it would be nice if the game took orientation of intakes into account. A ram air intake facing backwards should produce negligible intake air. Similarly, an intake should be penalized when there is something in its airflow directly ahead of it.

Jet engines should definitely be longer, too. There's a lot more to a jet than the exhaust nozzle.

[John FX]

What I would be happy with is improving the aerodynamic model so that the current exploits are made unbeneficial due to real world effects.

What I would be unhappy with is nerfing either jets or intakes.

One is a sensible improvement of the game engine leading to a reduction of exploits, the other is punitive and petty and for no other reason than to stop people playing how you don`t want them to.

Most people want the former and not the latter I would hope.

[Capt Snuggler]

One is a sensible improvement of the game engine leading to a reduction of exploits, the other is punitive and petty and for no other reason than to stop people playing how you don`t want them to.

could not have said it better. well put.

intake spam IS an exploit. if KSP intends to teach people, then things like this will need to be corrected.

[Wahgineer]

Or: If an intake attached to a part backwards or share he same connection point with another part (say, a clipped intake), it doesn't work. So a vehicle that uses intake spam would have a nasty surprise for it's creator: it could have 3 intakes clipped into each other, but not make it past 15km. If he checked the debug console, it would say: "Ram air intake blocked by ram air intake." several times, based on how many intakes are blocked.

[Hodo]

I really don't understand why do you even have problems with air intakes. Is it hurting your feelings or what? Real aircraft has as big intakes as needed too. For instance if you compare the following two pictures, you see clear signs of real intake spam in order to increase airflow

Actually you are wrong on the spam pictures.

The first picture, looks to be of a P51 Mustang, which those weren't intakes, they were inlets for the radiators, which it had 3, 1 under the engine for the oil cooler, and 2 under the wings which were for the actual cooling system for the aircrafts inline engine.

The AV-8B, they are inline with the engine, and they actually are one intake system, there is only one impeller blade system in there and two intake cowls. This is mainly for use when the aircraft is traveling to slow for air flow to be forced into the intakes.

The third picture of a Boeing 727/L-1011 tail engine flow, is about the only accurate arguement you have had.

The fourth picture of the Su-27 intake and engine flow is pretty accurate, but if you take note this also acts as an inline baffle system to prevent high airflow shock values from getting to the impeller turbine.

[Hodo]

Not to speak for Kasuha, but it looks like a PAK-FA.

I don't really care about intake spam despite it being unrealistic, but it would be nice if the game took orientation of intakes into account. A ram air intake facing backwards should produce negligible intake air. Similarly, an intake should be penalized when there is something in its airflow directly ahead of it.

Jet engines should definitely be longer, too. There's a lot more to a jet than the exhaust nozzle.

Its actually a Su-27/31 Flanker. The give away is the intake possition being tucked under the cockpit riser and the tail pylon that sticks out the rear of the aircraft. It houses a chute on some models or ECM/ECCM equipment on others.

[Red Iron Crown]

Its actually a Su-27/31 Flanker.

I'm fairly sure the Flankers don't carry missiles internally.

[Hodo]

I'm fairly sure the Flankers don't carry missiles internally.

The frontal picture is most likely a prototype drawing. The picture below it is of the Flanker. Don't believe me look it up.