The Overpower of the Vernor Engine

[Souper]

I built a cheap ass ship that used vernor thrusters as the main engines.

And launched it the right time.

And kept going at full speed.

And i found that its solar apoapsis

Stretched all the way to jool.

VERNOR ENGINE OP

No cheats. No mods. No physics bending.

[General Rarity]

I once launched a probe core, LVT-45, solar panels + 1k battery pack, and the longest 1.25m fuel tank into an 100x100km orbit and burned.... got me an escape trajectory out of the solar system. So OP. Totally.

[Souper]

Well was it cheap as hell and require no skill whatsoever?

[General Rarity]

The spacecraft was cheap, yes. But I always make my launch vehicles too overpowered and expensive. So, maybe.

EDIT: It was a failed deorbit burn that went the wrong way.

[cantab]

I've not upgraded yet, but according to the wiki it's a physicsless part. It shares that with the original RCS thrusters, but with so much more power the Vernors are going to be much more practical for use as main engines. The 48-7S taught us how a high engine TWR can make up for a moderate specific impulse, and the Vernor might be the same.

[No one]

The original RCS thrusters worked just as well, the only problem was that you needed so many of them that the game would lag significantly before they became useful. I tried to use them in the 30 second altitude challenge, but my computer couldn't handle it.

[Renegrade]

I've not upgraded yet, but according to the wiki it's a physicsless part. It shares that with the original RCS thrusters, but with so much more power the Vernors are going to be much more practical for use as main engines. The 48-7S taught us how a high engine TWR can make up for a moderate specific impulse, and the Vernor might be the same.

Yeah was just looking at that in game. It IS a physicsless part like the regular RCS quads.

That's kinda scary.

Infinite TWR, 12kn at a time...

[UmbralRaptor]

You can hit Kerbol escape with any craft that has ~7 km/s of ÃŽâ€V. Certainly it's been doable off and on with single stage craft since 0.13. Two stage craft? Every version, and often quite tiny ones.

http://i.imgur.com/ZwJRTR8.png

And launched it the right time.

And kept going at full speed.

And i found that its solar apoapsis

Stretched all the way to jool.

I bet you could get similarly impressive distance with probecore + FL-T400 + 48-7S + a bit of massless power (OX-STAT panels and/or radial batteries). Well, there's the slight issue that you used two stages, so got a high TWR and mass ratio to offset the low Isp.

The good news is that for getting actual payloads into orbit, the Vernor and O-10 aren't particularly overpowered. Though as the thread starter shows, the b0rked TWR allows for some shenanigans.