Is the Orange Tank still your standard "yard stick"?

[jwenting]

it never was. I tailor each mission to the required loads for that mission, whatever they may be.

[Dispatcher]

it never was. I tailor each mission to the required loads for that mission, whatever they may be.

Its easier to do so now when using mods such as KER or MechJeb, since these show relevant numbers such as mass, dV, TWR.

Prior to my use of such mods, it was easy to use a tank "standard" as a reference when optimizing mission specifics. I don't actually calculate dV, etc., since I use the convenient mods.

Everyone has his/ her own approach to this, which is what makes the game fun.

[Red Iron Crown]

I use the FL-T800 as my meter stick. Good for both 2.5m parts (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x) and 1.25m parts (1x, 1/2x, 1/4x, 1/8x). The new 3.75m tanks are throwing off my thinking a bit.

[karolus10]

Maybe I'm bit old fashion but I still respect FL-T400 as basic fuel tank "unit" - most of pre-ARM stack fuel tanks are pretty much up-sized version of it, It has same dry mass fraction and any larger tank fit rounded number of it, If I recall correctly (yet not shure) Orange tank hold inside 32x FL-T400 tank.

Edited April 5, 2014 by karolus10

[Jouni]

When building new ships, I use the FL-T100 as my standard unit. Nice people have named the other fuel tanks in such a way that I can immediatelly tell how many standard units of fuel they contain.

The orange tank was my other standard unit for describing how much fuel a big ship had. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, as we now have bigger tanks available.

[Comrade Jenkens]

For properly measuring the length of my ships I actually use the long I-beam. Its about 3m long.

[PTNLemay]

@ Jenkens

As I said earlier I don't mean length-wise, I mean more in terms of mass and fuel capacity.

The new 14400 is just as long as the orange tank so if it was about length nothing would have changed.

Edited April 5, 2014 by PTNLemay

[Pecan]

We're missing docking-ports for the SLS parts so I'm sticking with orange as the biggest tank that can be docked (without using an adapter). When building though I usually think of capacity ("orange", "1,440", "720", "360", etc.) rather than sizes though.

[TheHengeProphet]

I used to use two orange tanks as my lifting standard. If I can get those (plus their peripherals, which meant each was accompanied by a 2.5m RCS tank) to orbit, full, I can get essentially whatever I'll need to launch to orbit. Now knowing that the mass of the new largest tanks might actually approximate that mass, I may just start using that as my new lifting standard.

However, despite the potential change in lifting standard, I will still remember it in "Orange Tank" values, because that's what sticks...

[Frank_G]

I started playing KSP in version .21 and the orange tank is the main tank of all my 2.5m rockets. And it will keep that place. But i wish there was an 3.75 m orange tank as well, so one could built nice NASA Atlas style replicas.

[sojourner]

So, I finally sat down and played with the new parts today. Without even resorting to asparagus staging, I was able to build a two stage rocket that can lift 638 tons of payload which is 7+ of the big SLS tanks into a 200km orbit. Those new engines are damn powerful. It really seemed to take the challenge out of the game and felt "cheaty". Not much reason to measure by orange tanks anymore.

[Jack Redmen]

With the addition of the larger tanks and engines, the orange tank has moved up the ladder to an "upper stage" tank in terms of my Kerbin launching vehicle. It's still my standard for just about everything else. It's what I have stockpiled at my space station/refueling depot.

[Redshift OTF]

I'll use the new largest tanks as my new "yardstick".

[NecroBones]

As some others have pointed out, the docking ports are still 2.5m and smaller. The new SLS tanks are working great for the new engines, to make heavy lifting boosters. But I'm still seeing the orange tank as the more practical one to move around in orbit, so from a payload perspective, yes, the orange is still my unit of measure.

[zeel]

The orange tank is the standard unit of measure. All tanks bigger are just "two orange tanks" or "one and a half orange tanks" and the gray tank is "half an orange tank".

[Whackjob]

"Excuse me, Sir? I need an extra long LAN cable made."

"How many orange tanks long?"

"That many."

"Free internet at the pizza shop down on the corner? Let me guess, you found where the router is."

"... yes."

[Dispatcher]

The orange tank is the standard unit of measure. All tanks bigger are just "two orange tanks" or "one and a half orange tanks" and the gray tank is "half an orange tank".

More precisely, the largest (14400) tank is 2.25 orange tanks. The 7200 tank is 1.125 orange tanks. The orange tank has 6400 units of fuel/ oxi. The 3600 tank is 0.56 orange tanks. The LFB KR 1x2 tank is the same as the orange tank.

Edit: the Whack is back!

[UmbralRaptor]

Still using "orange" as the standard unit of heavy payloads and rocket design. Not sure why the size 3 tankage is bulkier and proportionally heavier...

[LethalDose]

Still using "orange" as the standard unit of heavy payloads and rocket design. Not sure why the size 3 tankage is bulkier and proportionally heavier...

They're built to support more weight above it? Offset the better rocket performance everyone's complaining about?

[Whackjob]

Edit: the Whack is back!

I'd say about 70% back at the moment. Still having hardware issues with the new machine. Specifically, the bloody USB drives refuse to see mice or headsets. Not a clue why. Used my entire bag of tricks, plus a few other peoples', and so far no luck. So I'm using a lousy PS/2 mouse and keyboard.

[UmbralRaptor]

They're built to support more weight above it? Offset the better rocket performance everyone's complaining about?

Maybe, but you can still attach rockomax tanks to the engines.

[MKI]

The fact even the Dev's referred to the new parts in "Orange Tank" measurements. Yes its still and probably always will be the standard. Even if it only is because of its color

[cantab]

The poorer tankage is rather a nuisance IMHO. It leaves us choosing between using the new tanks for a cleaner appearance and lower part count, or kludging around with the old tanks to squeeze out more delta-V. It also means the equivalence to the old tanks depends slightly on what you're interested in: a 14400 is 2.25 orange tanks in terms of fuel capacity, but 2.278 orange tanks in total mass.

Then again, it seems bad expressed as a mass ratio, 8.2 rather than 9. But when you put it that if you use a 14400 rather than equivalent Rockomax tanks you only need 1 extra ton for storing 72 tons of fuel, it doesn't seem so bad.

[Jouni]

I kind of like the idea that there is a trade-off between the performance and the appearance of a rocket. For maximal performance, you often have to use different engines, different fuel tanks, and different staging than you would naturally choose, making the rocket look worse.

[OgreMagi]

the new tanks seem to make it easier to get larger item into orbit. the MHORE BOOSSTERR with few parts does work. I am using the kethan mod to mine fuel on the mun and ship it using a tanker based on a 3 orange pod configuration so I decided to try a larger version. and with the current program it launches easier without the occasional explosion ( gonna miss that, ).

In one way it makes it easier for a novice player to put a big object into orbit without being creative. Is this bad ? no but not creative. I made several attempts to build a rocket to orbit my Bulk fuel carrier and had to be creative with the struts, staging, rcs ect ect but now the large rockets/fuel pods makes it a lot easier I can orbit very large and heavy payloads with only 4 stages.

In a way it dumbs down the game in my opinion.