Engine balancing issues in ARM?

[a2soup]

I was checking out the specs of the three new SLS-style liquid engines in the ARM pack (liquid fuel booster, 4-engine cluster, and KR-2L big engine), and I think that there are some serious balance issues that need to be rectified in the next patch.

Frankly, I think anyone can see the issue with all three engines having a significantly higher TWR than any other engine, in addition to having ASL and vac Isp equal to or better than all comparable engines.

The most ridiculous case, however, is that of the LFB KR-1x2 liquid fuel booster. If you subtract the mass of fuel and the standard corresponding empty tank mass (the fuel+tank component happens to be equivalent to an orange tank) from the engine, you get an engine with 2000 kN thrust, 6 t mass, and 320/360 ∆v. This makes the engine equivalent to a mainsail.... if the mainsail had 9% better vac Isp, 14% better ASL Isp, and 33% more thrust! Even more ridiculous is the fact that this liquid fuel booster unlocks IN THE SAME TECH as the mainsail! One could argue that the required orange tank of fuel and the lack of bottom attach nodes balances this booster, but when was the last time you used a mainsail without an orange tank on top or with something stacked below? What I'm trying to say is that the mainsail has become strictly worse than the LFB KR-1x2 liquid fuel booster, which frankly surprises me greatly. What was Squad thinking??

What do people think about the balance of the new SLS-style engines? I would love someone to convince me that it's not so bad.

[Supernovy]

Moved to Suggestions and Development Discussion.

I don't have a problem with certain parts being strictly better than others as long as they're higher up on the tech tree. Not the case for the LFB, obviously.

[stupid_chris]

Yeah it's been brought up here.

I've taken the time to graph it and propose some solutions:

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Excel document

They're indeed pretty OP. It's quite obvious. I get the feeling of wanting them "slightly better" than the regular parts, but that's excessive IMO, especially the KR-2L

Edited April 8, 2014 by stupid_chris
updated graph

[a2soup]

I love your analysis and suggestions-- see my reply in the other thread, which I wrote at the same time as your reply here.

[MKI]

The Dev's have said the new parts will be better than the old parts (cant find reference im sorry)

Compared to the older parts, which were all balanced against each other, these new parts are designed to REPLACE the old parts, especially in building Launch systems.

Its not bad, because thats what they are suppose to do. Yes it does screw up Sandbox mode. No one says you don't have to use them at all! Yes Main sails get the short end of the stick, but times have changed. They still should be viable at least as a cheaper option(once money is implemented in career). They should also be available in Career earlier than the new parts.

For career mode, they are basically the incentive to get to the end of the Tech tree, due to their strengths (at leas for now)

Edited April 2, 2014 by MKI

[AbhChallenger]

The balance of the engines is fine. Nerfing any parts just ends up breaking designs for no valid reason.

Yes the age of the orange tank launchers is likely done for now. However, There is nothing stopping you from ignoring SLS parts if you want.

Now when the full GAME part (The space agency part not just contracts and money) comes around (I suspect that might not even be this year) Then it will be time to start a full balance pass. Not because people want Squad to help them ignore SLS stuff.

[Joonatan1998]

The balance of the engines is fine. Nerfing any parts just ends up breaking designs for no valid reason.

Now when the full GAME part (The space agency part not just contracts and money) comes around (I suspect that might not even be this year) Then it will be time to start a full balance pass. Not because people want Squad to help them ignore SLS stuff.

What do you mean by "The space agency part not just contracts and money"? What space agency part?

[AbhChallenger]

I believe it was the video interview they had with Manley before ARM launched. Point is. The main part of the game where they can reasonably say it is feature complete for version 1.

Nerfing parts while most still use sandbox and use it to do stuff instead of game mode is absurd. There is not enough "game" in KSP to warrant nerfs. Just people who want a reason to use the lifter they spent a week designing instead of SLS parts.

There are plenty of "realism" "uber-hard mode!" etc... mods and I am sure there will be mods to nerf SLS into oblivion. Install those.

[stupid_chris]

The balance of the engines is fine.

Can you explain how you can say that, because according to math, they really aren't. I mean look at the graph, it's quite clear how far off the parts are from general tendency :/

It's not really a nerf properly said. Those parts are brand new and they need adjusting. The same happened with the parts in the early stages of the game. It's not a nerf, it's really just an adjusment to values that actually amke some logical sense.

[maccollo]

There are plenty of "realism" "uber-hard mode!" etc... mods and I am sure there will be mods to nerf SLS into oblivion. Install those.

I has nothing to do with realism. It has to do with the internal consistency of the game, and like I said you don't actually have to nerf the lifting capacity of the engines to balance them.

[SpaceGremlin]

By that logic the F-1B engines of the real SLS are overpowered because they produce 15% more thrust than the F-1's on the Saturn V. As technology improves you get better engines. The only thing wrong with the SLS parts is their position on the tech tree. Not everything has to follow an extremely rigid and arbitrary set of rules about their thrust and Isp to keep things "balanced".

[m4v]

By that logic the F-1B engines of the real SLS are overpowered because they produce 15% more thrust than the F-1's on the Saturn V. As technology improves you get better engines. The only thing wrong with the SLS parts is their position on the tech tree. Not everything has to follow an extremely rigid and arbitrary set of rules about their thrust and Isp to keep things "balanced".

Real life engines has no bearing in this, this is a game and what matters is the gameplay aspect of it.

[maccollo]

By that logic the F-1B engines of the real SLS are overpowered because they produce 15% more thrust than the F-1's on the Saturn V. As technology improves you get better engines. The only thing wrong with the SLS parts is their position on the tech tree. Not everything has to follow an extremely rigid and arbitrary set of rules about their thrust and Isp to keep things "balanced".

This isn't real life, it's a game, and balance is important. That is why the Nerva doesn't have similar TWR as the liquid engines.

Like... You can single stage to Mun and land with the KR-2L. That's just absurd. This engine almost has the stats of a real life engine. It is that good.

Now you might say that it will be balanced with the money system and all that, but that's irrelevant for sandbox. I play sandbox and personally I would prefer it if half the engines weren't useless.

[stupid_chris]

By that logic the F-1B engines of the real SLS are overpowered because they produce 15% more thrust than the F-1's on the Saturn V. As technology improves you get better engines. The only thing wrong with the SLS parts is their position on the tech tree. Not everything has to follow an extremely rigid and arbitrary set of rules about their thrust and Isp to keep things "balanced".

Not only what the others said above, but thrust has absolutely nothing to do here. It's a matter of TWR and ISP mainly.

[Technical Ben]

Can you explain how you can say that, because according to math, they really aren't. I mean look at the graph, it's quite clear how far off the parts are from general tendency :/

It's not really a nerf properly said. Those parts are brand new and they need adjusting. The same happened with the parts in the early stages of the game. It's not a nerf, it's really just an adjusment to values that actually amke some logical sense.

Real life does not care for gameplay balance. Hence the rockets can be "unrealistic" or "unfun to play with", but as there is little goal for a balance in <i>sandbox</i> mode, all comparisons can only be made in Career which is currently not feature complete. As it's not feature complete it may have additional hurdles, costs, variable etc added. So even if they are career unbalanced, it's not the time to change them.

I would have thought the current parts are "end game" or "special purpose" parts that are suppose to replace the "junk (in name and design, not in actual gameplay)" parts that Kerbals make at the beginning.

This isn't real life, it's a game, and balance is important. That is why the Nerva doesn't have similar TWR as the liquid engines.

Like... You can single stage to Mun and land with the KR-2L. That's just absurd. This engine almost has the stats of a real life engine. It is that good.

Now you might say that it will be balanced with the money system and all that, but that's irrelevant for sandbox. I play sandbox and personally I would prefer it if half the engines weren't useless.

Mainsails have weight differences, design differences and size differences. So they are not useless.

[Wahgineer]

All that really needs to be done is to rebalance the tech tree for career. The new stuff is OP by design.

Like AbhChallenger said: the age of the orange tank lifters is over. Now it's time for the newer, bigger, stronger, launchers with less part counts to take their place.

[maccollo]

Mainsails have weight differences, design differences and size differences. So they are not useless.

The KR-2L weighs only half a ton more, has monstrous TWR, and much better ISP.

The mainsail has no purpose other than asthmatics. Basically, it's now the poodle of heavy lifters. It's not questions of when you should use it to get the most out of your rocket. The mainsail is never more efficient.

All that really needs to be done is to rebalance the tech tree for career. The new stuff is OP by design.

Like AbhChallenger said: the age of the orange tank lifters is over. Now it's time for the newer, bigger, stronger, launchers with less part counts to take their place.

Lifting capacity per part count has nothing to do with this. The engines can be balanced and yet be able to lift the same amount to orbit.

[Killerdude8]

I hope they don't nerf them, They've made certain designs that were once an enormous ass pain, now something less of an ass pain, Less parts spent making an Orange Tank orgy, and more Parts spent making the thing I want in Space.

FINALLY, A stock part that allows us to launch awesome things with minimal parts.

[Tiberion]

I hope they don't nerf them, They've made certain designs that were once an enormous ass pain, now something less of an ass pain, Less parts spent making an Orange Tank orgy, and more Parts spent making the thing I want in Space.

FINALLY, A stock part that allows us to launch awesome things with minimal parts.

They can balance them properly without removing their usefulness. People have been using large parts to build rockets since roughly 3 months after the game became public, when the 3.75m parts first appears in two mod packs that originally made up Novapunch. Stock parts, mod parts, they all work the same, its just tweaking numbers in a cfg file to make the consistant. And the new parts.. they aren't.

Being able to launch SLS-style rockets: Good

Being able to launch SLS-style rockets Single-stage to Duna.. not.

[Guest]

The first thing I thought when I started testing the new engines was "wow, it looks like Squad has taken another step towards moving the game away from the veterans and towards rookies." And if you take into account their business model, this should come as no surprise. I suspect this trend will continue. Squad is not making any money off of us grandfathered in players. In order for the veterans to still get a challenge out of the game, the veterans will have to either use mods or modify configs themselves.

[JedTech]

The first thing I thought when I started testing the new engines was "wow, it looks like Squad has taken another step towards moving the game away from the veterans and towards rookies." And if you take into account their business model, this should come as no surprise. I suspect this trend will continue. Squad is not making any money off of us grandfathered in players. In order for the veterans to still get a challenge out of the game, the veterans will have to either use mods or modify configs themselves.

I think you hit that on the money. Best thing veterans can do is support Squad and use mods as you said to provide extra challenge.

[m4v]

I don't believe it, it doesn't take a lot of effort to get a rocket into space, most of the pitfalls rookies encounter are docking, EVAing or getting an encounter/intercept, overpowered rockets doesn't help in any of that.

[AbhChallenger]

The first thing I thought when I started testing the new engines was "wow, it looks like Squad has taken another step towards moving the game away from the veterans and towards rookies." And if you take into account their business model, this should come as no surprise. I suspect this trend will continue. Squad is not making any money off of us grandfathered in players. In order for the veterans to still get a challenge out of the game, the veterans will have to either use mods or modify configs themselves.

And what is wrong with that?

SLS is not the "White Tanooki Suit" of KSP. It will not fly itself into Orbit unless you use MechJeb. In the game mode they will likely be extremely expensive to use to make up for their slightly better stats.

[Jouni]

SLS is not the "White Tanooki Suit" of KSP. It will not fly itself into Orbit unless you use MechJeb. In the game mode they will likely be extremely expensive to use to make up for their slightly better stats.

I don't think they should be that expensive. They should just unlock so late in the game that rookies won't have them outside the sandbox.

If we want the tech tree to mimic what happened in the real world, there could be three generations of rocket engines. (I'm considering only the engines used in launch stages now.)

1. Space race: Budgets are big, payloads are even bigger, and efficiency isn't that important. First there is the LV-T30, then the LV-T45, then the Skipper, and finally the Mainsail. The Mainsail is the ultimate engine: powerful, hungry, and expensive.
   
2. Efficiency first: Payloads become smaller, as the goal is no longer to beat the enemy, but to do something useful in space. We could see cheaper and more efficient replacements for the LV-T30, the LV-T45, and the Skipper.
   
3. Near future: Big payloads become interesting again for some obscure reason. Things are more efficient now than during the space race, with the SLS engines being bigger, cheaper, and more efficient than the Mainsail.
   

[vger]

Would it really be that hard to add a 'difficulty' setting into career mode? With each increase in difficulty adding an extra amount of realism to the game? With that you could satisfy everyone.