Would you like reducing the thrust of the new engines?

[phoenix_ca]

The new parts made this possible.

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/jltsiren/ksp/eve_ship_7.jpeg

I'm not complaining.

Clearly, this is cheating. And you should feel bad for using such OP engines to cheat with. Or something.

Perfectly reasoned argument is perfectly reasoned!

[SofusRud]

I would like to present this SSTO for your consideration

[Red Iron Crown]

The new parts made this possible.

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/jltsiren/ksp/eve_ship_7.jpeg

I'm not complaining.

That is impressively massive. How much does it weigh? Have you got a mission report thread going?

[Jouni]

That is impressively massive. How much does it weigh? Have you got a mission report thread going?

Landing mass was almost 1600 tonnes, while takeoff weight was something like 1570 tonnes. The mission took something like three weeks of real time to finish, and the report is spread over the "What did you do in KSP today?" thread:

• Concept
  
• After launch
  
• Deorbiting test
  
• Refueling
  
• Crew transfer
  
• Landing tests
  
• Landing
  
• Takeoff
  

[Muzza]

Yes, the thrust value is realistic. But all the planets and the Sun are not, so it is unbalanced.

[Laie]

Well, I only really came into KSP *after* the introduction of these engines, and in my eyes, the Skipper & Mainsail are the outliers. I avoid them like the plague.

[Azimech]

Funny ... I can still find good use for the Mansail and Skipper. I don't care how the balance of the parts is right now or will be, if it fits my need, I'll use them.

[Hary R]

I personally don't think the OPness of the new engine come from the thrust, but the ISP. The LFB from ARM have 360s in space for 2000 kn of thrust. The skipper which is supposed to be used as a space stage have only 350s for 600 thrust.

I don't mind their power, they are supposed to lift very heavy payload but being more efficient than the "original" heavy engine... that's a no...

[Azimech]

Yeah agreed. If you look at real world examples ... 265 - 310 vac would be better.

[Guest]

The fact that new engines are overpowered is mathematically certain, and for good reasons:

1)First of all, have you ever seen a big class E asteroid?

2)They're designed to feet the career gameplay, where the act of unlocking new parts must worth the effort in money and science points, in a future career KSP also new and better version of the same part could be put in the tech tree (like an lv-t30 mk2 for example). It's a matter of career gameplay, not thought for sandbox.

3)For a KSP expert the are no limit of weight to put into orbit in a single launch, it's only a matter of asparagus, orange tanks, mainsail and how many part can your CPU load before crash, the only limit it's our self-imposed rules (in my actual sandbox i'm building a space station, i've reached 80 tons of station in 10 launches even though I could do it in one launch only with new parts or with asparagus and old ones).

PS Sorry for my bad english, but it's not my language.

[RedPine]

Relax, guys, .24 will balance things out.... with part costs! If inherently better engines are proportionally more expensive... then they will only be used for missions that actually require them, such as moving class E asteroids.

[NERVAfan]

Well, I only really came into KSP *after* the introduction of these engines, and in my eyes, the Skipper & Mainsail are the outliers. I avoid them like the plague.

That's pretty accurate. Just because the Poodle, Skipper and Mainsail line are older doesn't inherently mean they are the better balance point.

Compared to the 1.25m engines ... the Mainsail at least has good TWR, but the Skipper has slightly worse TWR than the LV-T30 and 20 sec less ISP both atmospheric and vacuum.... yeah, it has thrust vectoring, but that doens't mean much as command pod torque means you don't really need thrust vectoring on smaller rockets, so its lack on the LV-T30 doesn't hurt that much for many applications (I find myself hardly ever using LV-T45s). And the Poodle is just plain worse than a group of LV-909s.

I think it could help to increase the mass of the Advanced Engine and 4xKS-25 cluster (I think that'd be better than reducing the thrust) but the Skipper/Mainsail Isps should go up ... I'd suggest 320/370 (like the LV-T30/T45) or 280/380 (like the Advanced Engine) for the Skipper, and 300/350 (current Skipper) or 320/360 (4xKS-25) for the Mainsail.

[Comrade Jenkens]

If so many people prefer the thrust / ISP / weight ratios of the new engines, then the older engines should be brought in line with this. I'd prefer it to be the other way around personally though.

[SpaceGremlin]

If so many people prefer the thrust / ISP / weight ratios of the new engines, then the older engines should be brought in line with this.

This sounds like a worse idea than nerfing the new engines to be inline with the old ones. They are meant to be outliers. The devs stated that they are meant to be an award for reaching the end of the tech tree (which they are badly placed for, but easily fixed). They would also make an excellent "money sink" at end game by being very efficient performance wise, but less efficient budget wise. Sure, players could still be frugal with mainsail asparagus lifters, but those SLS engines would always be there, taunting the player to splurge money on them.

To draw an analogy to another open ended game: Simcity (2k, 3k, and 4). Coal power is reliable and cheap, but you're always looking at fancy power plants like fusion or a microwave receiver. They're costlier, and often produce less MWh per dollar than coal, but they take up less space and look very shiny in a city. Which is the correct choice?

Getting even more speculative:

I predict that breaking free of the narrow "balanced" performance range for current engines and allowing for economic balancing would be a good thing for mods. Currently, making a mod that has better performance than stock parts can get disparaged as "being cheaty", and one with worse performance falls into "why bother?" By allowing for a greater range of performance capabilities while allowing for economic incentives/barriers to using certain parts will increase variety greatly. One mod could make bargain parts with terrible part performance and it could still find a place alongside a futuristic part pack that has great part performance.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Coal power is reliable and cheap, but you're always looking at fancy power plants like fusion or a microwave receiver.

Why would a small engine have to be 'low tech' and a large engine have to be 'high tech'?

Things high in the tech tree should be things such as Ion and Nuclear. The 3.75m engines and 1.25m engines are all chemical so one shouldn't be magically better than the other. I just don't get this logic of if its bigger it has to be better?

[allmhuran]

I don't mind 'em.

They're a long way up the tree, so in career mode it means you have to have already "proven yourself". They're convenience rockets that are your reward for making it all the way to the end.

In sandbox, there's something to be said for wanting to "balance" the various rockets so that all parts have some use, since they're all available all the time... otherwise why bother having more than a couple of traditional rocket engines?

But when you think this argument through, it turns out that balancing all the rockets doesn't actually achieve this: If all of traditional the rocket engines effectively work out to be the same and it doesn't matter which one you use since you can just add more of one to be equivalent to another, then why bother having more than a couple of traditional rocket engines?

Balancing the parts is best served by some other mechanism. Like maybe some parts need *specific* science. For example, no LVN's until you get to minmus and discover some new compound (via surface sample) that opens the door to this tech. Or maybe some parts are in limited supply and can only be built if you have enough of some-material-that-can't-be-produced-on-kerbin-but-is-plentiful-on-the-mun. Etc

[SpaceGremlin]

Why would a small engine have to be 'low tech' and a large engine have to be 'high tech'?

Things high in the tech tree should be things such as Ion and Nuclear. The 3.75m engines and 1.25m engines are all chemical so one shouldn't be magically better than the other. I just don't get this logic of if its bigger it has to be better?

The engines that represent newer technology should be better, two of them just happen to be bigger. I don't get how you thought I was making a "bigger is inherently better" argument.

As for for all chemical engines being equal: not all chemical engines are created equal. Besides, LFO in KSP seems to be an abstraction for various fuel mixtures. Surely, the mainsail, LV-909, and LV-N aren't all using the same fuel type? They have wildly different performance capabilities. Yes I know the LV-N is not a "chemical engine", but the propellant you run through it has a huge impact on its ISP. Its performance is closer to pure LH than LH/LOX, so maybe the LFO being run through it is abstracted and doesn't really have oxidizer at all?

[Evenger14]

I have to say no to the decreasing of thrust. As far as sandbox mode goes, if you want to skip to superheavy lifters then go ahead, but for me in career mode the ability to unlock larger and more capable parts is great and adds realism. It only makes sense that on a world where aerospace is funded at 100%, that they make great strides in rocket tech. I only wish we did the same IRL. 175 ton lifters would open the solar system to us so much more..

[Tortoise]

I hope you're kidding. Engines are already underpowered.

Give us stronger engines, we know how to use thrust limiter.

[SofusRud]

I hope you're kidding. Engines are already underpowered.

Give us stronger engines, we know how to use thrust limiter.

I disagree. They'd only be underpowered if the Kerbal universe wasn't scaled (1/10th scale I think) compared to our universe. The scaling means that you have significantly lower delta-v requirements to do stuff, like getting into orbit for example, and necessitates the engines in the game being nerfed compared to real-world engines, simply to preserve gameplay challenge.

Also, that right there is a clear-cut case of an Oberoni fallacy (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Oberoni_Fallacy). It is never the responsibility of the player to compensate for shoddy work on the part of the game designer.

To me it is more about gameplay balance, with the new engines being significantly better in terms of TWR and ISP compared to the older engines. It reflects bad design when an engine has absolutely no advantages over any other engine or when a single engine is better than any other engines for a given purpose. The LFB KR-1x2 is the clearest example of this, the Mainsail is basically only better in the event that you want to either mount something below or put less than a Jumbo above it, both of which are extremely rare cases.

[wasmic]

I don't think thrust should be lowered, but I do think that weight should be increased and Isp should be lowered. Players would still be able to put large things into orbit easier than before ARM, but the old engines would actually regain their usefulness this way.

[FishInferno]

I think that the engines may seem out of plane now, but in future updates it will fall into place. For example, when contracts come out, a company might want you to place a large payload to orbit that would be impractical to do with a smaller launcher. and reducing part counts is always good!