[0.24.x] Stock ReBalance v1.4 | 11/09/14

[AlternNocturn]

Is this compatible with HotRockets, by any chance? An earlier post in this very thread mentioned that HR uses a different engine module than stock. Really looking forward to using this, as I'm too impatient for Squad to get around to balancing everything.

[frizzank]

My only gripe is things are a little too balanced. Once price and budget comes into play you will have a 3rd factor influencing part choice. More advanced engines should have better TWR. I personally think there should be more poor performing engines you have to start out with, and build up to better ones.

A McLaren F1 has a much better TWR than a Corvette. Both are sports cars and if both were engines in the current game you would say the Mclaren is way over powered compared to the Corvette. Once price factors into it, it's not so overpowered.

[NathanKell]

If this runs before HotRockets, yes. You can do that by putting the cfgs in a folder whose name starts with 0, for example.

[m4v]

My only gripe is things are a little too balanced. Once price and budget comes into play you will have a 3rd factor influencing part choice. More advanced engines should have better TWR. I personally think there should be more poor performing engines you have to start out with, and build up to better ones.

Don't use it then, worrying about something that is unknown and not released yet isn't going to get us anywhere.

A McLaren F1 has a much better TWR than a Corvette. Both are sports cars and if both were engines in the current game you would say the Mclaren is way over powered compared to the Corvette. Once price factors into it, it's not so overpowered.

I dunno, this comparison lacks the Isp of each car.

[Rakaydos]

My only gripe is things are a little too balanced. Once price and budget comes into play you will have a 3rd factor influencing part choice. More advanced engines should have better TWR. I personally think there should be more poor performing engines you have to start out with, and build up to better ones.

A McLaren F1 has a much better TWR than a Corvette. Both are sports cars and if both were engines in the current game you would say the Mclaren is way over powered compared to the Corvette. Once price factors into it, it's not so overpowered.

In my opinion, Cost should be a measure of the general scale of a rocket. "I landed on Tylo with a 100k dollar rocket!" should be met with "How did you do it?"

Currently an Orange tank is listed as costing 10500, while the oilbarrel (half an orange tank) is only 2600. This obvously means people are going to spam oilbarrel unless their computers start complaining at them- the orange tank would never be seen. But if the Oilbarrel instead cost, say, 4500, and the Orange tank cost 8000, you would take an orange tank over 2 oilbarrels... unless you didnt actually need all that fuel, in which case you would take the lighter (and individually cheaper) tank.

[Rakaydos]

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Edited April 11, 2014 by stupid_chris
fixed :P

[ayana]

In my opinion, Cost should be a measure of the general scale of a rocket. "I landed on Tylo with a 100k dollar rocket!" should be met with "How did you do it?"

Currently an Orange tank is listed as costing 10500, while the oilbarrel (half an orange tank) is only 2600. This obvously means people are going to spam oilbarrel unless their computers start complaining at them- the orange tank would never be seen. But if the Oilbarrel instead cost, say, 4500, and the Orange tank cost 8000, you would take an orange tank over 2 oilbarrels... unless you didnt actually need all that fuel, in which case you would take the lighter (and individually cheaper) tank.

The costs are just a placeholder. And besides, until we see just how easy or hard it'll be to make that money who knows what would be a challenge? Fuel isn't even supposed to be the expensive part.

[stupid_chris]

If this runs before HotRockets, yes. You can do that by putting the cfgs in a folder whose name starts with 0, for example.

Or by using the new MM 2.0.1 :BEFORE nodes?

My only gripe is things are a little too balanced. Once price and budget comes into play you will have a 3rd factor influencing part choice. More advanced engines should have better TWR. I personally think there should be more poor performing engines you have to start out with, and build up to better ones.

A McLaren F1 has a much better TWR than a Corvette. Both are sports cars and if both were engines in the current game you would say the Mclaren is way over powered compared to the Corvette. Once price factors into it, it's not so overpowered.

And then you end up, as I said, always using the same engines over and over again, and you just killed the creativity of the game.

I want to do the exact opposite.

For now we have absolutely no clue how money will work, so it's going to stay this way. If I jusge I need to do some price balancing once it comes out, I'll see about it then and will take some suggestions, but the part balancing is most likely not going to change.

[ayana]

Reducing the mass of the flat 1.25 to 2.5 meter adapter had a pretty bad side effect. Even just on the pad it can't hold weight. It had nothing to do with the joint nodes, even with both made equally strong it collapses.

It stands out pretty heavily. Going without the adapters results in a rigid structure. Putting the mass up to 0.1 or 0.2 fixed it though.

[stupid_chris]

Reducing the mass of the flat 1.25 to 2.5 meter adapter had a pretty bad side effect. Even just on the pad it can't hold weight. It had nothing to do with the joint nodes, even with both made equally strong it collapses.

http://i.imgur.com/ltaKYDS.png

It stands out pretty heavily. Going without the adapters results in a rigid structure. Putting the mass up to 0.1 or 0.2 fixed it though.

Unity you broken crapbag.

I'll change it in the next release, just ugh :/

[ayana]

The Kraken had so much fun with the RealChutes prank he came back once you started a new project.

[Rakaydos]

Isnt that just mainsail overthrust?

I mean, I'm in the middle of waiting for a planet to come to a good transfer orentation, but I would want to test it before I modified any parts.

[ayana]

Isnt that just mainsail overthrust?

I mean, I'm in the middle of waiting for a planet to come to a good transfer orentation, but I would want to test it before I modified any parts.

The flat 2 meter battery has causes magnitudes less compression. And if you put the node there with no adapters there's basically none. I tested it, raising the mass reduces the effect.

[Rakaydos]

Well, I just zeroed in on a 250 ton to low orbit launcher. Took my Dres-pollo launcher with a bit more fuel in the upper stge to increase the payload, and threw on Mk55s to the booster stages to raise the TWR. Ended up circularized with only a few hundred m/s in the booster.

[m4v]

Reducing the mass of the flat 1.25 to 2.5 meter adapter had a pretty bad side effect. Even just on the pad it can't hold weight. It had nothing to do with the joint nodes, even with both made equally strong it collapses.

http://i.imgur.com/ltaKYDS.png

It stands out pretty heavily. Going without the adapters results in a rigid structure. Putting the mass up to 0.1 or 0.2 fixed it though.

Is probably because the physics simulation gets all messed up if you connect parts with high mass ratios, one reason why Squad doesn't do procedural parts. The adapter has 0.01 and the hub 1.5 so there's a mass ratio of 150:1, that's not good.

Maybe is best to not change the mass of adaptors, since they are likely to be connected with big and small parts at the same time.

Edited April 12, 2014 by m4v

[TMS]

On that note, does this MM file adjust the 2.5m SAS units joints as well?

Historically, they've always been really poor and prone to failure. I can see the ARM update improved the strength of them, but they still seem prone to excessive movement to me.

[ayana]

On that note, does this MM file adjust the 2.5m SAS units joints as well?

Historically, they've always been really poor and prone to failure. I can see the ARM update improved the strength of them, but they still seem prone to excessive movement to me.

As far as I remember, the node sizes for the SAS are already set correctly in the stock configuration. I had no problem putting an entire jumbo tank above one.

[TMS]

The node sizes on the 2.5m SAS are tiny compared to other 2.5m parts - always have been. It looks like it uses the 1.25m node.

I was under the impression that node size was relevant for joint connections. Or that's what I was led to believe by the discussion that preceded ferram's comment.

Can module manager correct this?

[stupid_chris]

As far as I remember, the node sizes for the SAS are already set correctly in the stock configuration. I had no problem putting an entire jumbo tank above one.

Nah it was using size one nodes

The node sizes on the 2.5m SAS are tiny compared to other 2.5m parts - always have been. It looks like it uses the 1.25m node.

I was under the impression that node size was relevant for joint connections. Or that's what I was led to believe by the discussion that preceded ferram's comment.

Can module manager correct this?

Yes it ha been correected by ModuleManager. It was irrelevant before, but now it does impact joint performance. The nodes are now size two, as they should be.

[Azimech]

I like the specs.

But what about the landing gear? 0.5t is too much. If you build a plane that has a mass of 3t, adding 1,5t just for 3 retractable wheels is ridiculous. For large, heavy planes adding more wheels should be the answer so maybe reducing the max. load would work, if possible.

But maybe Squad should come up with new designs. Something like a gear with a longer leg that raises inside a 1.25m cylinder, and a larger version with two wheels per axle inside a 2,5m cylinder. A principle a bit like the radial docking port. The current design with the external pod is quite ugly and far from the RL aerodynamic doctrine.

[TMS]

Landing gear is massless in-flight, and only affects flight dynamics in the SPH/VAB.

One of the many peculiarities of KSP.

Yes it ha been correected by ModuleManager. It was irrelevant before, but now it does impact joint performance. The nodes are now size two, as they should be.

Sounds good. Will download and install. Thanks for confirming.

[stupid_chris]

I like the specs.

But what about the landing gear? 0.5t is too much. If you build a plane that has a mass of 3t, adding 1,5t just for 3 retractable wheels is ridiculous. For large, heavy planes adding more wheels should be the answer so maybe reducing the max. load would work, if possible.

But maybe Squad should come up with new designs. Something like a gear with a longer leg that raises inside a 1.25m cylinder, and a larger version with two wheels per axle inside a 2,5m cylinder. A principle a bit like the radial docking port. The current design with the external pod is quite ugly and far from the RL aerodynamic doctrine.

As TMS said, the landing gear is actually massless in flight, so I've also zeroed it's actual mass in the VAB.

[Rakaydos]

I would like to see the Ant engine be given a space ISP of 600, with TWR changed to match the curve. This fits it between the LVN and the revised Poodle, while it's anemic thrust remains the same. Not as efficent as an Ion engine, but without the power requirements.

[TurielD]

Very cool! I'd wanted to do something similar since I learned to edit part files, but this is a far better, more systematic way than I had thought of!

I happen to use KW, and noticed the Vestra is absolutely amazing. I'd changed it 400 -> 395 ISP and 0.6 -> 0.9 tonnes. By the look of the graphs you posted that puts it on the 'very good' side of the curve, but not quite absurd anymore. Pretty cool to see that visually, I wouldn't have thought of plotting it.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Chris, this might be outside the scope of this mod, but I've found issues with the solar panels. The larger (and higher tech level) panels actually generate less power per m2 of area.

If we took the power values for the 4 medium sized panels and used that to set the OX-STAT and Giganator they would have the following values:

OX-SAT

chargeRate = 0.4

Gigantor

chargeRate = 30