How to handle asparagus staging in a career mode with budgets

[CaptRobau]

Asparagus staging is a famous KSP staple due to its incredible efficiency (about 5.5 times more efficient than normal staging setups). In career mode the vast difference in efficiency with regular sequential (Saturn V) or parallel staging (Soyuz) has so far not been much of an issue. Since there were no budgets, you could build whatever you wanted. A massive sequential rocket using the 3.75m NASA parts or a smaller more efficient asparagus rocket that both could lift that the same amount of payload were just as effective. But with the introduction of budgets the 3.75m parts will no doubt be quite expensive. If the balance between these types of rockets is not right, the asparagus design will automatically be the only efficient choice. Should there be a balance and if so, how would it be achieved?

I only see three options. Either move the fuel duct up a lot in the tech tree (it only requires 160 science to get too), which would make asparagus staging something OP but only after you've launched quite a lot of rockets. One could also make fuel ducts very expensive and leave the part where it is now. This makes asparagus staging something that's quickly available and allows you to put a lot of fuel/mass into space but not immensely cost-effective. Then there's the combination of the two, i.e. late in the tech tree and not very cheap.

Edited May 24, 2014 by CaptRobau

[Red Iron Crown]

Asparagus is more efficient than onion staging, but not by a tremendous amount, less than 10% in most cases. The player pays a bit in complexity and construction time. I'd really prefer for fuel lines to be reasonably priced, they're useful for much more than asparagus staging and I'd hate to see those other uses made impractical due to cost.

I don't see asparagus staging as necessarily a bad thing that needs to be stopped. Perhaps a better way to keep serial staged rockets competitive economically is to have the Kerbodyne parts priced reasonably.

[rtxoff]

I would rather wait until they release budgets before discussing this matter. Maybe they will get it already balanced at release. They already announced that the initial release was postponed because of such matters.

[allmhuran]

But it's harder to change something after it's been released. Wouldn't it be better to discuss these types of thing while they're in development so that if any good ideas surface there's a chance that the devs might see them and incorporate them into their thinking?

[regex]

I don't see a problem here. Besides, moving to a fairer approximate aerodynamic model / improving the drag model will solve many of these concerns.

[LethalDose]

But it's harder to change something after it's been released. Wouldn't it be better to discuss these types of thing while they're in development so that if any good ideas surface there's a chance that the devs might see them and incorporate them into their thinking?

Technically speaking, the game is in development, so really nothing has been officially released. Hopefully SQUAD will be willing to make balance tweaks after the updates, but any balance tweaks typically end up aggravating some portion of the fan base. They'll have to get over that part.

I don't see a problem here. Besides, moving to a fairer approximate aerodynamic model / improving the drag model will solve many of these concerns.

Agreed.

[Technical Ben]

I don't see a problem here. Besides, moving to a fairer approximate aerodynamic model / improving the drag model will solve many of these concerns.

This. It's quite easy to change such stats. Programmed in, hard code, or mechanical features are hard to change. The cost/tech position or usefulness of a fuel line is usually a stat in a .txt file (thanks to Squad looking forward at modding, hopefully it's benefited them as programmers too. ).

[technicalfool]

I don't think that punishing players for building a better mousetrap (or rocket configuration) is quite the way forward here. Besides, the fuel pipes are far enough up in the tech tree that you've probably already gotten into orbit and possibly landed on Mün or Minmus before you get them.

[Tw1]

The only "unrealistic" thing about asparagus staging is really the overpoweredness of the fuel lines. Asparagus designs will eventually have to cope with an improved aerodynamics model just like all other approaches.

If they want to prevent or limit asparagus staging, a realistic changes would be:

-Modifying the existing pipe to make it something more for planes and small spacecraft- which often make use of them- limiting the fuel pass through rate, adding mass for pumps and electricity demand.

-Adding a much larger, or possibly a few larger, heavier, and more expensive versions that could cope with the demands of larger engines. This/these and the smaller versions ought to be balanced so that spamming of smaller pipes doesn't give a mass or power drain advantage.

[LethalDose]

The only "unrealistic" thing about asparagus staging is really the overpoweredness of the fuel lines. Asparagus designs will eventually have to cope with an improved aerodynamics model just like all other approaches.

If they want to prevent or limit asparagus staging, a realistic changes would be:

-Modifying the existing pipe to make it something more for planes and small spacecraft- which often make use of them- limiting the fuel pass through rate, adding mass for pumps and electricity demand.

-Adding a much larger, or possibly a few larger, heavier, and more expensive versions that could cope with the demands of larger engines. This/these and the smaller versions ought to be balanced so that spamming of smaller pipes doesn't give a mass or power drain advantage.

I really like this idea. Multiple sizes of fuel ducts with different costs and flow rates. I think it would be interesting to see the ducts require electrical energy as well, representing fuel pumps needed to pump fuel from one tank to the other (not sure if that's what was meant by "power drain").

I think ducts should remain viable for rockets though.

[Sirrobert]

Why the hate against asperagus? It's more efficient, so it should be the more efficient thing with budget aswel

But it's harder to change something after it's been released. Wouldn't it be better to discuss these types of thing while they're in development so that if any good ideas surface there's a chance that the devs might see them and incorporate them into their thinking?

Eehm, no. This is an early acces game, that's still being developed. The entire reason we are here, is to test what Squad throws out at us, and provide feedback so that they can ballance it.

So as long as the devs thing they have the ballance pritty decent, we can use our massive numbers to hunt down and find all the problems

[rtxoff]

I am against any measures preventing Asparagus stages. It's quite fun to build them also it's anyway harder to build Asparagus then conventional rockets. They gonna loose efficiency anyway when they introduce better aerodynamics no need to cut them now.

[Rusty6899]

The way I look at it, asparagus staging improves thrust rather than fuel efficiency (assuming you measure fuel efficiency as delta-v/tonne of fuel).

If you take away the fuel lines and simply have the radially mounted engines firing two at a time, you have the same delta-V but a much lower thrust. For this reason, asparagus staging (in my experience) only pays off for launch stages, after that your TWR is relatively unimportant. In having an asparagus stage whilst in orbit could be detrimental, as your previous stages would have had to lift up to 7x more mass into orbit.

I think budgets (and a better aerodynamic model... and the improved launch engines) should put an end to asparagus staging. They aren't used in real life for technical and economic reasons, so it's probably fair that those reasons should also affect your ability to use them effectively in KSP.

[Ferroflame]

I really like this idea. Multiple sizes of fuel ducts with different costs and flow rates. I think it would be interesting to see the ducts require electrical energy as well, representing fuel pumps needed to pump fuel from one tank to the other (not sure if that's what was meant by "power drain").

I think ducts should remain viable for rockets though.

This is a pretty sweet idea, I'm behind it. It adds some balance and variety. I really like the idea of varying levels of fuel flow.

[Sirrobert]

The way I look at it, asparagus staging improves thrust rather than fuel efficiency (assuming you measure fuel efficiency as delta-v/tonne of fuel).

If you take away the fuel lines and simply have the radially mounted engines firing two at a time, you have the same delta-V but a much lower thrust. For this reason, asparagus staging (in my experience) only pays off for launch stages, after that your TWR is relatively unimportant. In having an asparagus stage whilst in orbit could be detrimental, as your previous stages would have had to lift up to 7x more mass into orbit.

I think budgets (and a better aerodynamic model... and the improved launch engines) should put an end to asparagus staging. They aren't used in real life for technical and economic reasons, so it's probably fair that those reasons should also affect your ability to use them effectively in KSP.

Have you ever even made asperagus launchers? It's exactly the other way around

Take out the fuel lines and you still have the same amount of rockets. So same amount of thrust. By adding fuel lines, you get more deltaV out of the same amount of fuel. So more deltaV/ton of fuel

[ImaSpaceJunk]

I think the cheaper fuel lines should be prone to leaks and hiccups.

[RedPine]

Fuel lines are pretty useful... I could see some interesting gameplay mechanics out of having 2 to 3 fuel line types.

Another cost of asparagus staging is struts. Asparagus rockets are much less sturdy, and cost more struts. The price and weight of struts will be a really big deal, in fact entire mods / gameplay challenges for .24 will no doubt involve making struts expensive. Having 2 to 3 strut types could also have interesting gameplay implications.

[Sirrobert]

I think the cheaper fuel lines should be prone to leaks and hiccups.

There will be no random failures. So no

Fuel lines are pretty useful... I could see some interesting gameplay mechanics out of having 2 to 3 fuel line types.

Another cost of asparagus staging is struts. Asparagus rockets are much less sturdy, and cost more struts. The price and weight of struts will be a really big deal, in fact entire mods / gameplay challenges for .24 will no doubt involve making struts expensive. Having 2 to 3 strut types could also have interesting gameplay implications.

Struts don't have mass in flight.

And since struts are pritty essential for alot of things, I don't think they should be made that expencive. They are basicly rope

[Ruinsage]

Maybe putting a limit on how much fuel one tank can give/receive, and making stacked tanks count as a single tank (so that a single engine can only receive so much extra fuel at a time). This would mean that asparagus would still be useful with smaller rockets, but less useful with lifting stages, making it better to use parallel staging with boosters.

[CaptRobau]

I really like this idea. Multiple sizes of fuel ducts with different costs and flow rates. I think it would be interesting to see the ducts require electrical energy as well, representing fuel pumps needed to pump fuel from one tank to the other (not sure if that's what was meant by "power drain").

I think ducts should remain viable for rockets though.

Ducts requiring electrical power wouldn't add much, because there are alternators providing ElectricalCharge in every engine that you'd use for almost any situation with a fuel duct (aircraft and onion/asparagus launch stages).

[wasmic]

I don't see a problem. Asparagus usually doesn't give you more than ~100 to 200 m/s extra. 5.5 times more efficient is a HUGE overstatement. However, a limit on fuel flow rate would be quite nice, especially if it could be tweaked down if you only want a little flow.

[Tw1]

Ducts requiring electrical power wouldn't add much, because there are alternators providing ElectricalCharge in every engine that you'd use for almost any situation with a fuel duct (aircraft and onion/asparagus launch stages).

This is very true. But, it would contribute to the realism. I have no expertise on fuel pumps, but I don't imagine they are low energy demand. They could put it fairly high to provide extra challenge when it comes to more complex designs.

One thing that complicates things, if we need to connect large pipes, pumps and power to move fuel, how does the ALt click thing fit in? Could we continue to ignore the fact that fuel seems to move magically, or should it need power, and be slowed down a lot? (Note that time warp speeds up fuel transfer.)

Another issue- the recently made more parts similar to the strut, not counted by the physics engine, and I, for one, welcome the potential to spam my space station with external clutter without it lagging to insanity. Making the fuel pipe another thing with its own physics to calculate would add a bit to lag..

I'd still like to see it though. At present, the little yellow pipes makes kerbal rocket design a little more disconnected from real life rocket design.

[Red Iron Crown]

Fuel pumps in rocket engines are generally turbopumps, powered by the energetic exhaust gases of the rocket rather than electricity.

[Jouni]

Maybe we could have two kinds of fuel lines in the game. Intra-stage fuel lines would be massless and cheap, because they really just override the default fuel routing rules within a stage. Interstage fuel lines, crossing decouplers or docking ports, would be heavier and more expensive, as they add new functionality to the rocket.