New rockets in 23.5

[juanml82]

So, we know have three new liquid fuel engines and one more rocket. What seems to be the consensus on them?

Based on what little I've played yet, it looks like

The KR-L2 (the big one with only one nozzle) is better that the Skippers and Mainsails. It's hard to use in a lander as landing legs radially attached to a fuel tank on top won't pass the engine.

The S3 KS-25x4 overheats quickly, has more thrust than the KR-L2 but looks like it's less efficient. Is it better as a first stage due the higher thrust meaning it will get through the thicker parts of the atmosphere faster? It can be used as a lander engine because landing legs can be radially attached to it. But, you can't put anything below it, so the lander would have to be upside down and the legs don't graphically attach properly, so they look silly. Also less efficiency means the Poodle is still better for airless moons?

I'm not exactly sure KR-1x2 is useful. Seems worse than the 25x4 and unless I'm missing something, the only advantage is a very slight reduction in part count. Maybe if, for some reason, someone wants to avoid using the new extra large parts?

The new SRB seem cool. In an asparagus configuration the first pair of engines might exhaust their fuel before the rockets do.

Also, is there a mod that can show their deltaV? mechjeb and KER don't seem to work properly with these new engines.

So, am I right in these appreciations or do you guys have better ideas?

[NoMrBond]

If you're using KER, grab the updated Padishar .dll's for it, they work well with 23.5 (there was even an update today for parts with the physics significance flag I think)

The engines seem fine, if quite a bit out of line with traditional 'stock' balances. It would be nice to have some guidance saying here is the performance 'baseline', and it can increase X much/way per tech level, which I guess might happen at some point since that wasn't possible before the techTree came in, so parts can be balanced against their tech level, and eventually cost as well.

The twin+tank and quad are great lifters, like ultra-skipper sort of things, lift any misshapen space walrus skyward with a minimum number of parts

The single chamber 2LA has excellent vISP (380), if you can get it up there, great for shunting great big things about in space with low part counts and reasonable efficiency

Always prefered LRB strapons to SRB strapons myself, but with tweakables you can put something pretty light on top with the thrust down and have a single lifting part almost sending stuff to orbit with maybe a few fins on it. Some 2.5m SRB's to go with the 3.75m engines would also be grand. Or some bigger decouplers to go with those 3.75m tanks.

[Edit] I mean radial decouplers, they look impossibly tiny against the 3.75m tanks and don't provide much stand-off given the part scale

Edited April 11, 2014 by NoMrBond

[Redwizard000]

The new engines are pretty sweet, but they seem to be kind of OP. I lifted an entire space station into orbit with very little effort, I didn't even need to asparagus stage it. I built an ultra heavy fuel tanker with little effort. I bet cost will probably balance them at some point.

[SRV Ron]

A pancake tank under the S3 KS-25x4 takes care of overheating although I have yet to have one get hot enough to explode.

Recommend braces when mounting the big tanks, SRB, etc... radically.

The new SRB is great for a low cost LADEE mission or one Kerbal orbiter even to Mun and back.

[pauix]

The new SRB is great for a low cost LADEE mission or one Kerbal orbiter even to Mun and back.

Indeed. The new SRB is a great help for an early career mission to the Mün, and with proper tweaking 2/3 of them can take a ship designed to land on Minmus into a suborbital trajectory pretty fast.

It's nice being able to get to the Mün and back without having to farm science from KSC, the launchpad and the runway first.

[UmbralRaptor]

So, we know have three new liquid fuel engines and one more rocket. What seems to be the consensus on them?

They greatly outperform existing engines, to the point that you should be using them for any 15+ tonne payload. (IOW: use an LFB and 2 orange tanks, rather than 3 Skippers with orange tanks and fuel crossfeed. And don't bother with the Mainsail.) None of the engines are geared up for landing, though I suppose you can attempt that. The size 3 tanks are slightly worse than their size 2 counterparts (mass ratios of 8.2 instead of 9), which means that sticking an S3-7200 on a Skipper or S3-14400 on a Mainsail is pointless. The KS-25x2 has a slightly higher effective TWR than the quad version, and can more easily use the size 2 tanks. It also acts as a drop-in replacement for any mainsails. The KS-25s clones and KR-2L have a breakeven Isp at 1/3 atm (~5.5 km).

[Red Iron Crown]

Aside from balance issues, I really, really wish we'd been given individual engines and adaptors instead of premade clusters. Feels like an SLS model kit rather than general purpose parts for rocket building.

[UmbralRaptor]

Aside from balance issues, I really, really wish we'd been given individual engines and adaptors instead of premade clusters. Feels like an SLS model kit rather than general purpose parts for rocket building.

I can't argue with that. Also, the balance issues make it even more of an SLS model kit.

On the upside, THE KLAW is really nifty, and as best I can tell, the LES and new SRB don't overly conflict with existing parts.

[cantab]

The KR-2L is superior to the Mainsail in all respects but size. It's better than the /Skipper/ in many reasonable designs.

The other new liquid engines do have the drawback that they can't have stuff below them, at least not without horrible kludges.

[Pecan]

If you would like to look there are already about 10 threads about the new parts