0.24 parts rebalance - or why I'm finally using Skippers

[Norcalplanner]

It seems to me that, lost amongst all the contract discussion, is the fact that a number of parts have finally been rebalanced in 0.24. For example, both the mainsail and the skipper have had their Isp bumped to 320/370, and the skipper lost a ton of mass. The skipper in particular is finally a viable engine, having better stats and connectivity options than the old trick of using a cluster of 3 LVT-30s. The poodle also lost half a ton, and is a bit more viable as well. Some of the KW Rocketry engines now look worse in comparison, simply because they now have some of the lowest Isp figures around.

Has anyone else talked about this much? And has anyone noticed their old rocket designs using mainsails and/or skippers having higher performance?

[Dat_Spacewaffle]

from what I saw, they were buffed so that people would use the 2.5m parts more than the kerbodyne parts

[Commissioner Tadpole]

The poodle also lost half a ton, and is a bit more viable as well.

Finally, now I can use my Poodle-powered ships without others making fun of me.

from what I saw, they were buffed so that people would use the 2.5m parts more than the kerbodyne parts

I'm not sure if I'm still going to use Rockomax more than Kerbodyne, though. Their parts are very unstable to me - they twist and bend easily, making the rocket go out of control unless it has a lot of struts. Kerbodyne's parts don't do that for me.

[CalculusWarrior]

I've always liked the Poodle, even though it has always been too heavy to use in good conscience. Its weight loss definitely sounds like a good idea!

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Don't think it has been discussed yet, no!

I'm liking the changes - another big one being you unlock both the Poodle and Skiper together in Career mode now, so no more of those silly poodle-powered lifters I used to make before I knew how things worked a bit better lol

Skippers make for some pretty decent Lv's... not pretty, but good enough

[Norcalplanner]

I've always liked the Poodle, even though it has always been too heavy to use in good conscience. Its weight loss definitely sounds like a good idea!

Same here. I only used it before when I was worried about part count and/or having decouplers the same diameter as the rest of the rocket, but now it's kinda-sorta-almost decent.

[Norcalplanner]

I'm not sure if I'm still going to use Rockomax more than Kerbodyne, though. Their parts are very unstable to me - they twist and bend easily, making the rocket go out of control unless it has a lot of struts. Kerbodyne's parts don't do that for me.

Is that still the case? I haven't been terribly aware of problems, but maybe I'm just not doing things Kerbally enough.

[Boomerang]

This is very gratifying for me on a personal level because I always felt that the Skipper and Poodle both were too heavy and I'd edited their mass in my .23.5 save to what their masses ended up being in .24 I've always used the hell out of both of them instead of silly clusters.

[Rakaydos]

Did they finally do anything for the Mk 55?

[merendel]

Did they finally do anything for the Mk 55?

nope still prety bleh.

[Norcalplanner]

Did they finally do anything for the Mk 55?

It seems a bit hit and miss - the Mk 55 is still awaiting some desperately needed attention. It also looks like they didn't update the cost for all the parts - I find myself using more of the big S1 SRBs instead of the medium Rockomax BACCs, since the two parts are the same price.

[RocketBlam]

The Mk. 55 is a specialized engine... I use it once in a while, to add some thrust in places where I can't use a more powerful centerline engine.

[Guest]

The Poodle still looks like crap but it is, indeed, a much better engine now. I've used the Skippers before quite a bit and have always thought they were pretty good, but now they're just spectacular. I built a Duna transfer bus out of one and was surprised by the delta-V I got out of the relatively low amount of fuel I was using for the payload.

Not like I'm going to care one whit once all the Real* mods get updated but it's good to see SQUAD is paying attention.

[Akalaël]

I was used to use the Poodle for Apollo-like missions. Usually, I had to put a Rockomax X-200-32 (half an orange one) in order to get to the Mün.

Now, a single X-200-16 (a quarter orange) is enought.

I think the Poodle needs this niche : serving in the Kerbin's SOI, waiting for the player to unlock the LV-N.

I'm quite surprised by this new Poodle, I nearly gives it some... love !

[magnemoe]

I found I use the skipper a lot, skipper + orange tank + 2-4 large SRB, power, some struts for landing legs and its nice for 8-12 ton to LKO. only used the 3.75 meter tanks once and that was primarly to create an fuel depot in LKO.

Will probably need the huge engines next as I will launch the orbital construction facility to minmus.

Poodle is nice for larger landers, tend to use them on kethane miners.

[NikkyD]

Engines are still a big MESS. Im really p'off about the whole "balancing" that is a quick swipe over that cost one dev about 10 minutes of work/thought.

Mainsail is still the best thing, thrust-to-weight AND thrust-to-cost.

Skipper now is a smaller almost-as-efficient engine for smaller missions.

the Rest... JUNK, for small mun missions a 909 with its 390 ISP is still the second best thing after a LVN.

With 370 ISP on skipper/mainsail it makes sense to stabilize k'orbit with them instead of staging.

Staging is even more useless than before.

Considering cost, the cheap boosters cost less than a radial coupler... wtf

If i want to use 2 boosters, i pay less than 1k for them but over 1k for the couplers... how does that make sense ?

Still so many parts are utterly useless because of bad weight ratio. Lander can or pod mk1 is still the best for 99% of all rockets.

Stacking 3 mk1 pods is 10 times better than using one big 3man-cockpit. It looks like crap but... the numbers matter...

I dont play career mode and quite frankly, the tech-lvl when a part becomes unlocked doesnt really matter because once its unlocked its there and once you have the good parts, you dont need the rest.

In sandbox, you can forget about 90% of the parts if you want to build something for challenges and such. The only reason to use the bad parts is for aesthetic reasons...

[RocketBlam]

I disagree. I find myself using most of the parts at one time or another for different missions. I need small, light engines for the top of the rocket and big ones for the bottom. I only find very few of the parts to be relatively useless.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I dislike all the Rockomax engine weight loss. Those monsters are apparently made of aluminum or something, because their great size belies a rather small mass in comparison. I would have much preferred if their thrust were more significantly greater than quad-coupled LV engines. They are twice as tall as LVs, after all.

I think the Poodle should be 4 tons (like Skipper was for a long time) with 400 kN thrust. I think the Mainsail has almost enough thrust, but it's made of aerogel or something. Nobody would have a problem with a weight increase on that thing if it had its thrust bumped a bit. Howabout 2000 kN, and it'll have a mass of 10 tons. That's still a better TWR than the LV-T30. Then the Skipper should have 1000 kN thrust and 6 tons mass. Oh and the Mainsail and Kerbodyne engines should not have thrust vectoring.

I'll take all that high mass and low(ish) efficiency if the things can lift a payload. I just need a reason to spend points on them instead of coupling 4 smaller engines below them--something other than having couplers at the end of the tech tree, or so I can attach another stage underneath.

Edited August 16, 2014 by thereaverofdarkness

[Jouni]

I dislike all the Rockomax engine weight loss. Those monsters are apparently made of aluminum or something, because their great size belies a rather small mass in comparison. I would have much preferred if their thrust were more significantly greater than quad-coupled LV engines. They are twice as tall as LVs, after all.

Real rocket engines actually weight much less than KSP engines. The Skipper is roughly the same size as the J-2 engine, which weights less than 1.5 tonnes and produces around 1000 kN of thrust.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Real rocket engines actually weight much less than KSP engines. The Skipper is roughly the same size as the J-2 engine, which weights less than 1.5 tonnes and produces around 1000 kN of thrust.

Well then maybe the mid-size engines should weigh less. Still, I think the Poodle and Skipper should have more thrust, especially the Poodle.