[1.1] RLA Stockalike 13.4 [25 Apr]

[Kuansenhama]

This parts pack is amazing. (Love the linear areospike). Though I have been having some attachment issues with the nodes on the .625M engines and fuel tanks. It seems like some stuff only wants to attach if I flip the part upside down, and some won't attach at all.

[Streetwind]

If you're thinking about removing one of your electric engines, keep the Umbra and remove the resistojet. It overlaps with the Isp of nuclear rockets, so for diversity, it would be more beneficial to have something with a different value.

How about this for an arcjet? 7.2 Ec/s, 1300s Isp, 2.9 kN thrust. Comes out at an engine rating of 1500 on my spreadsheet.

Also, have you considered moving it down a tech level, into "High-Power Electrics"? It's a bit sad that it doesn't directly lead to the Ion Propulsion node, but it could be a convenient spot to place an engine that could be described by the scientists as "We accidentally hit a tank of monopropellant with a short circuit and it made the fuel explode violently, so here we made you an engine that shocks monopropellant with electricity".

Usually the stock tech tree doesn't allow placing any electric engines before Ion Propulsion, but you're in the unique position to pull it off because you decided the remove the xenon mode and now run exclusively off of a fuel that's already available by the time players get to this node, and the main operating principle is something that's directly reflected in the name of a tech node. It's almost too good an opportunity to pass up, right? That also puts it on the same relative tech level than the Mighty (which offers double the thrust, but only a little over half the Isp), and lets the Dawn be a straight upgrade.

Meanwhile, the resistojet... you know, there's a gap between the Mighty's 750s Isp and the high-end vacuum engines having ~340. Could you imagine placing something in that range? Like, I dunno... 6.9 Ec/s, 586s Isp, 5.4 kN thrust, 0.19t engine mass? It has slightly worse thrust and Isp but weighs less, and matches the arcjet suggestion above in ER. And there's better dedicated tankage in its own form factor. Would players of RLA have a use for such a thing?

Edited July 28, 2015 by Streetwind

[hoojiwana]

More Important: This is incompatible with any and all previous versions of RLA Stockalike and will break saves.

Less Important: Folder changes mean you must delete any previous installs, you will need to delete PartDatabase.cfg in your KSP directory as well. If you didn't have any installs on KSP 1.0.x then ignore this.

I've not changed the electric engines or Mighty nuclear engine following on discussion in the last couple of days since those changes require a lot more consideration. I thought it best to get the things I have done to you guys to play with now rather than later.

Big Changes

• Added a new 0.625m SRB in between the two existing ones, let me know how useful you find it (and the smallest one).
  
• Added a new tiny probe-size linear RCS block and slightly tweaked the balance of those parts (slightly lower mass but slightly lower vISP).
  
• Lots of tweaking to the Cutter to improve its viability on SSTOs, if you're a spaceplane aficionado please give this engine a try!
  
• Gave the 2.5m monoprop aerospike a more defined role of a more powerful vacuum engine (higher mass + thrust over the other 2.5m monoprop engine) for those bigger vehicles that murder your overall TWR. It still lacks a gimbal though so hopefully that balances it out.

What needs testing:

Everything really, but special attention should be paid to:

• SRB balance (finetuning!)
  
• Probe core balance
  
• 0.625m NTR balance
  
• RCS heating
  
• 0.625m LFO engine heat
  
• 1.25m linear aerospike balance

• Added new tiny linear RCS
  
• Added new 0.625m medium length SRB
  
• 
  
• Converted almost all remaining textures to DDS
  
• Fixed 0.625m nosecone heat settings
  
• Improved bulkheadProfiles of both structural frames (thanks Kerbas_ad_astra)
  
• Changed <0.625m monopropellant engine fuel flow mode (thanks Overlocker)
  
• Changed Electrostatic Ion engine fuel flow mode to match the stock ion
  
• Improved Resistojet emissive
  
• Tweaked some flavour names for better sorting in the default editor
  
• 
  
• Decreased 0.625m nosecone mass from 0.01 to 0.007
  
• Increased 0.625m nosecone maxTemp from 2000 to 2200
  
• Decreased existing probe RCS block mass from 0.0125 to 0.012
  
• Decreased existing probe RCS block vacuum ISP from 240 to 230
  
• Increased 0.625m upperstage solid motor thrust from 8 to 8.5
  
• Increased 0.625m upperstage solid motor vacuum ISP from 215 to 235
  
• Increased 0.625m upperstage solid motor capacity from 15 to 20
  
• Increased 0.625m short SRB ASL ISP from 145 to 155
  
• Increased 0.625m short SRB vacuum ISP from 170 to 185
  
• Increased 0.625m long SRB mass from 0.56 to 0.6
  
• Increased 0.625m long SRB thrust from 110 to 120
  
• Increased 0.625m long SRB capacity from 224 to 240
  
• Increased <0.625m LFO engine vacuum ISP from 300 to 310
  
• Decreased 0.625m vacuum (aerospike) engine vacuum ISP from 335 to 330
  
• Decreased 1.25m linear aerospike mass from 1.6 to 1.5
  
• Increased 1.25m linear aerospike thrust from 230 to 245
  
• Decreased 1.25m linear aerospike ASL ISP from 285 to 260
  
• Increased 1.25m linear aerospike vacuum ISP from 315 to 325
  
• Increased 1.25m linear aerospike gimbal range from 0.5 to 1
  
• Increased 2.5m monopropellant aerospike mass from 1.8 to 2.4
  
• Increased 2.5m monopropellant aerospike thrust from 290 to 360
  
• Increased 2.5m monopropellant aerospike vacuum ISP from 335 to 342

• Tech tree placements not updated
  
• No engine has ModuleSurfaceFX added
  
• 0.625m nuclear engine FX is incorrect
  
• Some descriptions missing

This parts pack is amazing. (Love the linear areospike). Though I have been having some attachment issues with the nodes on the .625M engines and fuel tanks. It seems like some stuff only wants to attach if I flip the part upside down, and some won't attach at all.

Is that for the old 12.1 version (from KerbalStuff or maybe CKAN) or the current test versions? That should be fixed on the test version, so give that a try (it is majorly, save-breakingly incompatible with the old version though so beware).

If you're thinking about removing one of your electric engines, keep the Umbra and remove the resistojet. It overlaps with the Isp of nuclear rockets, so for diversity, it would be more beneficial to have something with a different value.

If I was going to get rid of either of them I'd prefer to kill the Arcjet since I just like the Resistojet more. Best case is finding a way to keep both of them around though, but I'm not worried about trimming the fat if need be.

How about this for an arcjet? 7.2 Ec/s, 1300s Isp, 2.9 kN thrust. Comes out at an engine rating of 1500 on my spreadsheet.

Meanwhile, the resistojet... you know, there's a gap between the Mighty's 750s Isp and the high-end vacuum engines having ~340. Could you imagine placing something in that range? Like, I dunno... 6.9 Ec/s, 586s Isp, 5.4 kN thrust, 0.19t engine mass? It has slightly worse thrust and Isp but weighs less, and matches the arcjet suggestion above in ER. And there's better dedicated tankage in its own form factor. Would players of RLA have a use for such a thing?

A ~550-600 vISP version of the resistojet might be pretty neat, there's barely anything in that ISP range. I did really like the idea of having it be the lower power option though, and was considering adding a monopropellant fuel cell of some sort to help provide another power option where you didn't have to cart along a whole other tank for LFO.

Also, have you considered moving it down a tech level, into "High-Power Electrics"? It's a bit sad that it doesn't directly lead to the Ion Propulsion node, but it could be a convenient spot to place an engine that could be described by the scientists as "We accidentally hit a tank of monopropellant with a short circuit and it made the fuel explode violently, so here we made you an engine that shocks monopropellant with electricity".

Usually the stock tech tree doesn't allow placing any electric engines before Ion Propulsion, but you're in the unique position to pull it off because you decided the remove the xenon mode and now run exclusively off of a fuel that's already available by the time players get to this node, and the main operating principle is something that's directly reflected in the name of a tech node. It's almost too good an opportunity to pass up, right? That also puts it on the same relative tech level than the Mighty (which offers double the thrust, but only a little over half the Isp), and lets the Dawn be a straight upgrade.

I've not done any tech tree placements whatsover yet since I'm concentrating on getting everythings gameplay purpose and balance locked down before placing parts according to that balance. But yeah the electrothermal engines will be placed earlier in the tree, probably in that node you mentioned. Fun fact, first time I wrote this reply it was much longer until I realised it was just another way of saying what you said.

Edited August 18, 2015 by hoojiwana

[MaverickSawyer]

Is that for the old 12.1 version (from KerbalStuff or maybe CKAN) or the current test versions? That should be fixed on the test version, so give that a try (it is majorly, save-breakingly incompatible with the old version though so beware).

Had that, too, with the Test Version 2. V1 did NOT have that issue, though. Quite odd... Oh, well. TV3 being installed now, so we'll see how it goes.

[Streetwind]

A ~550-600 vISP version of the resistojet might be pretty neat, there's barely anything in that ISP range. I did really like the idea of having it be the lower power option though, and was considering adding a monopropellant fuel cell of some sort to help provide another power option where you didn't have to cart along a whole other tank for LFO.

Okay then... how about:

Dawn: 8,74 Ec/s, 4200s, 2 kN, 0.25t, TWR 0.57, Ion Propulsion (t7), engine rating ~2350

Sunrise: ~8.1 Ec/s, 5800s, 1.2 kN, 0.20t, TWR 0.41, Ion Propulsion (t7), engine rating ~2350

Umbra: ~7,5 Ec/s, 1350s, 4.0 kN, 0.22t, TWR 1.30, High-Power Electrics (t6), engine rating ~1750

Eclipse: ~4.5 Ec/s, 570s, 6.6 kN, 0.16t, TWR 3.11, High-Power Electrics (t6), engine rating ~1750

Mighty: 0.0 Ec/s, 750s, 6.0 kN, 0.32t, TWR 1.91, Nuclear Propulsion (t6), engine rating N/A

Cirrus: 0.0 Ec/s, 335s, 4.5 kN, 0.04t, TWR 11.47, Precision Engineering (t5), engine rating N/A

Ratings and TWRs given with stock power production, ca. 80 Ec/s/ton. Dawn, Mighty and Cirrus for reference.

I think I'm pretty pleased with those numbers, they cover a large number of bases.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Streetwind

[ArcFurnace]

Okay then... how about:

Dawn: 8,74 Ec/s, 4200s, 2 kN, 0.25t, TWR 0.57, Ion Propulsion (t7), engine rating ~2350

Sunrise: ~8.1 Ec/s, 5800s, 1.2 kN, 0.20t, TWR 0.41, Ion Propulsion (t7), engine rating ~2350

Umbra: ~7,5 Ec/s, 1350s, 4.0 kN, 0.22t, TWR 1.30, High-Power Electrics (t6), engine rating ~1750

Eclipse: ~4.5 Ec/s, 570s, 6.6 kN, 0.16t, TWR 3.11, High-Power Electrics (t6), engine rating ~1750

Mighty: 0.0 Ec/s, 750s, 6.0 kN, 0.32t, TWR 1.91, Nuclear Propulsion (t6), engine rating N/A

Cirrus: 0.0 Ec/s, 335s, 4.5 kN, 0.04t, TWR 11.47, Precision Engineering (t5), engine rating N/A

Ratings and TWRs given with stock power production, ca. 80 Ec/s/ton. Dawn, Mighty and Cirrus for reference.

I think I'm pretty pleased with those numbers, they cover a large number of bases.

That's looking pretty good. I would also add a comparison with the O-10 "Puff", which is 0.0 Ec/s, 250s, 20 kN, 0.09t, TWR 22.65, Precision Propulsion (t5). Clearly the high-TWR, low-ISP option for monopropellant.

[TicTacToe!]

"Aerospikes are vacuum-optimised you say?! Hold my beer, Bill!"

It's great to be able to make a cute little plane!

[hoojiwana]

Stock LFO fuel cell and a new MP fuel cell, right now they have basically identical stats with the only difference being the resource they draw from. I've not made the big one yet, it's going to look different since I don't like the way the stock big cell visually looks like 6 small ones, has the output of 12 and mass of about 5 of them. And there is such a thing as hydrazine fuel cells, so this isn't too crazy!

Had that, too, with the Test Version 2. V1 did NOT have that issue, though. Quite odd... Oh, well. TV3 being installed now, so we'll see how it goes.

That's fairly disconcerting. What parts specifically were/are giving this issue (if it's still present in TV3)?

Okay then... how about:

Dawn: 8,74 Ec/s, 4200s, 2 kN, 0.25t, TWR 0.57, Ion Propulsion (t7), engine rating ~2350

Sunrise: ~8.1 Ec/s, 5800s, 1.2 kN, 0.20t, TWR 0.41, Ion Propulsion (t7), engine rating ~2350

Umbra: ~7,5 Ec/s, 1350s, 4.0 kN, 0.22t, TWR 1.30, High-Power Electrics (t6), engine rating ~1750

Eclipse: ~4.5 Ec/s, 570s, 6.6 kN, 0.16t, TWR 3.11, High-Power Electrics (t6), engine rating ~1750

Mighty: 0.0 Ec/s, 750s, 6.0 kN, 0.32t, TWR 1.91, Nuclear Propulsion (t6), engine rating N/A

Cirrus: 0.0 Ec/s, 335s, 4.5 kN, 0.04t, TWR 11.47, Precision Engineering (t5), engine rating N/A

Ratings and TWRs given with stock power production, ca. 80 Ec/s/ton. Dawn, Mighty and Cirrus for reference.

I think I'm pretty pleased with those numbers, they cover a large number of bases.

That's looking pretty good. I would also add a comparison with the O-10 "Puff", which is 0.0 Ec/s, 250s, 20 kN, 0.09t, TWR 22.65, Precision Propulsion (t5). Clearly the high-TWR, low-ISP option for monopropellant.

Cool, I'll give those numbers a go. Thanks so much Streetwind!

"Aerospikes are vacuum-optimised you say?! Hold my beer, Bill!"

http://i.imgur.com/wtay5X2.png

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

http://i.imgur.com/yUAC6CI.png

It's great to be able to make a cute little plane!

Nice little plane! I didn't really consider how useful the Caravel would be at sea level with its fairly high ASL ISP (250), but it seems like even with only 4 and a bit thrust you still found a way. What do you think of the particle FX on it? Too big?

[MaverickSawyer]

That's fairly disconcerting. What parts specifically were/are giving this issue (if it's still present in TV3)?

That was the first thing I checked. Clean bill of health across the board this time. However, if you're still interested, it was the liquid fueled 0.625m engines that were giving me grief.

[TicTacToe!]

Nice little plane! I didn't really consider how useful the Caravel would be at sea level with its fairly high ASL ISP (250), but it seems like even with only 4 and a bit thrust you still found a way. What do you think of the particle FX on it? Too big?

It's all about the lift Get a cruising speed of about 80m/s. The effect looks good to me, you could go a jot smaller if you like, but only a tad.

MP fuel cell looking great by the way!

EDIT: The Caravel's stats are well found I think, that plane's really the heaviest you can go with one Caravel as far as plane-making is concerned. I tried to make an Me-163 Komet lookalike and even with the tiniest plane I could make a 1.25m cross section is just too heavy without clustering the engine. Kudos!

Edited July 31, 2015 by TicTacToe!

[Streetwind]

I'm poking at some of the other parts in test release 3... blargh, why are the stats on stock monoprop tanks so poorly chosen? It's super hard to give monoprop engines interesting stats...

[hoojiwana]

More Important: This is incompatible with any and all previous versions of RLA Stockalike and will break saves.

Less Important: Folder changes mean you must delete any previous installs, you will need to delete PartDatabase.cfg in your KSP directory as well. If you didn't have any installs on KSP 1.0.x then ignore this.

Big Changes

• Removed the 0.625m upper stage solid motor, it was never worth using compared to other options
  
• Added a small monopropellant fuel cell, same stats as the stock small one except it consumes the same mass of monopropellant instead of LFO
  
• Completely changed the monopropellant electric engine balance
  
• Assigned everything to the 1.0.x tech nodes
  
• Went through the particle FX, gave all engines the launch smoke module and gave the Caravel and Mighty their own unique FX

What needs testing:

Everything really, but special attention should be paid to:

• Monopropellant electric engine balance
  
• Probe core balance
  
• 0.625m NTR balance
  
• RCS heating
  
• 0.625m LFO engine heat
  
• 1.25m linear aerospike balance

• Removed 0.625m upperstage solid motor
  
• Added small monopropellant fuel cell
  
• 
  
• Changed lfo_small_ntr folder to lf_small_ntr
  
• Placed all parts in the tech tree
  
• Fixed incorrect texture on the construction frames
  
• Fixed minor positioning error on grey IKOTET probe
  
• Fixed maximum_drag entry in fuel tanks configs
  
• 
  
• Removed "tinyred" particle FX
  
• Removed "xenonsmall" particle FX
  
• Added "ntrsmall" particle FX
  
• Added "bleredtiny" particle FX
  
• Removed "xenon particle" texture
  
• Tweaked "rocketparticle" texture
  
• Tweaked "blueredsmall" particle FX spawn location
  
• Tweaked 1.25m linear aerospike thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked 0.625m high thrust engine thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked 0.625m vacuum (aerospike) engine thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• 0.625m vacuum (aerospike) engine now uses "blueredtiny" particle FX
  
• 0.625m nuclear engine now uses "ntrsmall" particle FX
  
• ModuleSurfaceFX (aka launch smoke) added to all applicable engines
  
• 
  
• Removed 0.625m vacuum (aerospike) engine alternator
  
• Increased 0.625m monopropellant engine gimbal range from 1 to 2.5
  
• Increased small radial monopropellant engine gimbal range from 1 to 2.5
  
• Increased Electrostatic Ion thrust from 1 to 1.2
  
• Decreased Electrostatic Ion EC/s from 8.74 to 8.1
  
• Decreased Arcjet mass from 0.23 to 0.22
  
• Increased Arcjet thrust from 1.4 to 4
  
• Increased Arcjet vacuum ISP from 1050 to 1350
  
• Decreased Arcjet ASL ISP from 150 to 100
  
• Decreased Arcjet EC/s from 8.74 to 7.5
  
• Decreased Resistojet mass form 0.21 to 0.16
  
• Increased Resistojet thrust from 3.5 to 6.6
  
• Decreased Resistojet vacuum ISP from 875 to 570
  
• Decreased Resistojet ASL ISP from 250 to 100
  
• Decreased Resistojet EC/s from 8.74 to 4.5

• Aerospike ISP curves not aerospikeified
  
• Tiny radial torque wheel flavour name is incorrect
  
• Many descriptions missing or incorrect

That was the first thing I checked. Clean bill of health across the board this time. However, if you're still interested, it was the liquid fueled 0.625m engines that were giving me grief.

Nice thanks!

It's all about the lift Get a cruising speed of about 80m/s. The effect looks good to me, you could go a jot smaller if you like, but only a tad.

EDIT: The Caravel's stats are well found I think, that plane's really the heaviest you can go with one Caravel as far as plane-making is concerned. I tried to make an Me-163 Komet lookalike and even with the tiniest plane I could make a 1.25m cross section is just too heavy without clustering the engine. Kudos!

Good to know. I have gone and removed its alternator though, and it still need a proper aerospike ISP curve, but that the basic stats are about right is great.

I'm poking at some of the other parts in test release 3... blargh, why are the stats on stock monoprop tanks so poorly chosen? It's super hard to give monoprop engines interesting stats...

Well they were all originally just used for RCS, and even now there's only one small engine that uses them for anything else. That's why I went with the very simplistic balance scheme of less mass, less thrust, vaguely the same ISP as vacuum LFO engines. Works out nicely in career especially since MP is expensive. The new resistojet is a bit of a bother though, in real use the resource usage is only a bit lower than the Cirrus (~0.30 to ~0.34), and to get that you have to slap on a lot of extra mass in both the engine and power generation. So the dV increase turns out to be fairly minor unless you go into crazy mass ratio territory and quite possibly even completely cancelled out when using the fuel cells to power it. I'm pretty sure the craft in the pic above would've been better off using a Cirrus because of the "small" monoprop tank.

Arcjet seems fine.

Edited August 18, 2015 by hoojiwana

[ArcFurnace]

You could turn the resistojet into a high-ISP RCS port. Sadly linear only since multi-nozzle bipropellant RCS doesn't work in stock, but the current model only has one nozzle anyway.

You might have to shrink it a bit, of course.

EDIT: Found an issue, the mass ratio of the FS-L 0.625m LFO tanks is off. The stock fuel tanks have all been normalized to have a mass ratio of 9 (8 tons fuel:1 ton tank). The FS-L tanks have a mass ratio of 81 (80 tons fuel:1 ton tank) - e.g. the FS-L50 carries 1.2 tons of fuel with a tank mass of 0.015 tons, compared to the FL-T200 that carries 1 ton of fuel with a tank mass of 0.125 tons. I think you misplaced a decimal point somewhere. I checked the rest of the tanks to be sure, and they all look fine (identical or close to stock). The FS-L10T is a smidge low, but I think you knew that (and the stock toroidal tank is also lower than the others).

Edited August 1, 2015 by ArcFurnace

[Streetwind]

Well they were all originally just used for RCS, and even now there's only one small engine that uses them for anything else. That's why I went with the very simplistic balance scheme of less mass, less thrust, vaguely the same ISP as vacuum LFO engines. Works out nicely in career especially since MP is expensive. The new resistojet is a bit of a bother though, in real use the resource usage is only a bit lower than the Cirrus (~0.30 to ~0.34), and to get that you have to slap on a lot of extra mass in both the engine and power generation. So the dV increase turns out to be fairly minor unless you go into crazy mass ratio territory and quite possibly even completely cancelled out when using the fuel cells to power it. I'm pretty sure the craft in the pic above would've been better off using a Cirrus because of the "small" monoprop tank.

I was referring more to the simultaneously absurd and inconsistent density of monopropellant in tanks, where at size 0 and size 1 the tanks contain the same reaction mass as LFO tanks twice their size, and then at size 2 suddenly contain less reaction mass than a smaller LFO tank.

Exhibit 1: Monoprop, Liquid Fuel

Exhibit 2: Monoprop, Liquid Fuel

Remember my silly "9 spacecraft in 1" design from the .90 era? All of those spacecraft used monopropellant engines, because the extremely small form factor you can achieve. If you give monoprop engines stats that make them equal to LFO engines, then the same vessel with monoprop engines will always be strictly "better" (because smaller). Except for 2.5m, where it all breaks down, because stock KSP couldn't be consistent if its life dependend on it or something

At the same time, check out the KER stats of the vessels above. Exhibit 2 is fairly well valanced, while exhibit 1 clearly has the monoprop engine with an overall advantage (doubled TWR for just 90 funds and 53 kg extra) in addition to the smaller size. The Cirrus really is extremely good. Probably too good. I know you designed these to be vacuum engines, but I think their Isp is too high across the board. No stock monopropellant engine (RCS or not) has anywhere near 300s, while most of yours are significantly above. I'm gonna toy a bit with Test 4 and see what happens if I bump Isp down a bit. And what else can be done to keep them relevant... stock has less "holes" in its lineup nowadays.

Also interesting to see that the monoprop options always match price or get minimally more expensive than their LFO counterparts. This is despite monoprop engines themselves being cheaper... the cost is primarily coming from the large amount of fuel stuffed into those tiny tanks.

RE: the Puffin... a lot of why it wasn't competitive came down to the fact that it simply didn't offer enough dV to make it worth paying the price for another decoupler. Even tiny probes often got less than 200m/s for me whenever I tried to use the Puffin. The SMAC actually suffers from a similar problem. Both of these upper stage motors have significantly worse dry mass/fuel mass rations, and significantly worse part cost/fuel cost ratios... and their TWR is very high. In other words, they carry too little fuel for their thrust, mass, and price.

If the Puffin's dry cost went down from 38 to 30 and if it carried 0.25t of fuel instead of 0.15t, for instance, its TWR would drop from 3.94 to 2.71, its total cost would stay the same, its dry/fuel ratio would improve from 0.47 to 0.28, and its cost/fuelcost ratio would improve from 3.17 to 1.50. That looks much closer to the stock options and would significantly boost its dV. That might help make it relevant. The SMAC could perhaps use similar tweaks.

The Boostertrons meanwhile struggle to compete with the Hammer. The stock option has higher TWR, less thrust loss at liftoff, higher overall Isp, a better mass ratio, and better price/performance. Considering the Hammer unlocks in the very first node players research in career mode, that pretty much makes the Boostertrons a subpar option regardless of where they are placed in the tech tree. I mean sure, they're the only solid option in size 0, so that's a niche of sorts, but they're no good as strap-on boosters for 1.25m stacks.

And while I'm at it, some preliminary comments towards Test 4:

- The placement of the Spinnaker breaks stock career mode progression, offering a gimbal before the Swivel comes in. I'd start a node later with the whole size 0 liquid fuel progression. Maybe even with the entire size 0 progression. While I suppose the Boostertron I doesn't hurt where it's placed, it doesn't really have a use there. Basic Rocketry is generally unlocked without launching a vessel (because of the World First contract that pays you 10 science for a crew report from the pad without launching), and the player's actual first launch will be done with a single Flea or Hammer (or a multistage vehicle combining the two to get over 18km into the flying high zone). Which generally yields enough science to unlock the next tier already, since you already have both goo canisters and materials bays (which also unlock before the first launch) to take along for that flight.

- The "Protective Rocket Nosecone Mk1" should probably come a node later as well, together with the other nosecones. Of course, there's also the stock size 0 nosecone there. Which is actually pretty good, all in all. Do you even need to ship your own nosecone anymore? Might be worth saving the RAM and axing this one.

- Similarly: your TR-1V stack decoupler is a carbon copy of stock's TR-2V in every respect. I can see why you'd want a size 0 decoupler much earlier, what with your size 0 parts coming much earlier than stock's, but wouldn't it be better to just MM-config the stock decoupler to a lower tech node instead of adding a redundant part?

- Same goes for your carbon copy of the stock linear RCS port. Especially since you have a third linear RCS port in the RM-50 Micro, and it even comes in the same node. I'm not sure I'd ever use either of those parts, honestly; I never used any linear RCS in my entire KSP career since 2013. Others might differ, of course, but all the same... if you want a linear RCS in that node, why not move the stock one? Also, at the point that node is researched, you don't have any RCS tanks - those unlock only one tier later, both inline and radial. So the only thing that has RCS is manned cockpits. Which have no use for a probe sized linear RCS, and very limited use for linear RCS in general. You might want to use the monopropellant for orbital maneuvering (docking ports don't unlock until the next tier), but the linear ports have big troubles being oriented in the required direction on the slanted cockpit surfaces. The round linear ports barely work out if you mount them near the nose and point them forward with the rotation tool; the blocky RM-50 however just never looks good regardless of how you mount and rotate it. Recommendation: move the RM-50 into the same node with all the other RCS thrusters. Axe your own linear port. And if you really must, move the stock linear port one node down.

...Ugh, I think I should probably submit this post sometime before I need to start including chapter titles and a table of contents More later.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Streetwind

[hoojiwana]

EDIT: Found an issue, the mass ratio of the FS-L 0.625m LFO tanks is off. I think you misplaced a decimal point somewhere.

Yep that's exactly what it was! That tank should be 0.15 but it was 0.015. Thanks for checking them all!

I was referring more to the simultaneously absurd and inconsistent density of monopropellant in tanks, where at size 0 and size 1 the tanks contain the same reaction mass as LFO tanks twice their size, and then at size 2 suddenly contain less reaction mass than a smaller LFO tank.

Exhibit 1: Monoprop, Liquid Fuel

Exhibit 2: Monoprop, Liquid Fuel

At the same time, check out the KER stats of the vessels above. Exhibit 2 is fairly well valanced, while exhibit 1 clearly has the monoprop engine with an overall advantage (doubled TWR for just 90 funds and 53 kg extra) in addition to the smaller size. The Cirrus really is extremely good. Probably too good. I know you designed these to be vacuum engines, but I think their Isp is too high across the board. No stock monopropellant engine (RCS or not) has anywhere near 300s, while most of yours are significantly above. I'm gonna toy a bit with Test 4 and see what happens if I bump Isp down a bit. And what else can be done to keep them relevant... stock has less "holes" in its lineup nowadays.

I'll go over the monoprop engines again, don't want to drastically change their balance scheme but they can clearly do with some tweaking. I did a bit of balancing a fair while ago, I think what I did was reduce all the masses a bit, and tweaked the ISP (since all the stock engines changed) but didn't look too closely at the results. And as for fuel tank density, check out the Oscar-B.

Also interesting to see that the monoprop options always match price or get minimally more expensive than their LFO counterparts. This is despite monoprop engines themselves being cheaper... the cost is primarily coming from the large amount of fuel stuffed into those tiny tanks.

Yep that was deliberate.

RE: the Puffin... a lot of why it wasn't competitive came down to the fact that it simply didn't offer enough dV to make it worth paying the price for another decoupler. Even tiny probes often got less than 200m/s for me whenever I tried to use the Puffin. The SMAC actually suffers from a similar problem. Both of these upper stage motors have significantly worse dry mass/fuel mass rations, and significantly worse part cost/fuel cost ratios... and their TWR is very high. In other words, they carry too little fuel for their thrust, mass, and price.

If the Puffin's dry cost went down from 38 to 30 and if it carried 0.25t of fuel instead of 0.15t, for instance, its TWR would drop from 3.94 to 2.71, its total cost would stay the same, its dry/fuel ratio would improve from 0.47 to 0.28, and its cost/fuelcost ratio would improve from 3.17 to 1.50. That looks much closer to the stock options and would significantly boost its dV. That might help make it relevant. The SMAC could perhaps use similar tweaks.

The Puffin I never saw anyone actually use, at all, ever. Cutting it since it wasn't useful in that size range is no big deal really, and so far no one seems to mind. I'm not terribly surprised since having to account for a solid-rocket burn later in a launch doesn't seem like something many players would enjoy doing. The SMAC does suffer the same problem but at least it doesn't have to compete with quite so many engines. I'll go over it again, particularly the dry cost/mass and how much it contains, not exactly anything in stock KSP I can use as a guideline for those anyway.

The Boostertrons meanwhile struggle to compete with the Hammer. The stock option has higher TWR, less thrust loss at liftoff, higher overall Isp, a better mass ratio, and better price/performance. Considering the Hammer unlocks in the very first node players research in career mode, that pretty much makes the Boostertrons a subpar option regardless of where they are placed in the tech tree. I mean sure, they're the only solid option in size 0, so that's a niche of sorts, but they're no good as strap-on boosters for 1.25m stacks.

Yeah I went in a bit of a different direction with those three compared to the way the stock SRBs scale. The longer one is quite possibly the only viable one since it's thrust has scaled up linearly with the amount of fuel it has, rather than the way the 1.25m boosters do. The point of all the boosters really is to provide a bonus big of thrust at the start of a launch for cheap, and the Boostertron III I feel does that pretty well. The Spinnaker on a fuel tank is an awful lot more efficient, but it only has 37-40 thrust, that's about the same as the short Boostertron, and the long one has 3 times that for a lot less cost.

I agree their ISPs can do with touching up, and if the short one isn't useful it's no problem to cut it.

The placement of the Spinnaker breaks stock career mode progression, offering a gimbal before the Swivel comes in. I'd start a node later with the whole size 0 liquid fuel progression. Maybe even with the entire size 0 progression. While I suppose the Boostertron I doesn't hurt where it's placed, it doesn't really have a use there. Basic Rocketry is generally unlocked without launching a vessel (because of the World First contract that pays you 10 science for a crew report from the pad without launching), and the player's actual first launch will be done with a single Flea or Hammer (or a multistage vehicle combining the two to get over 18km into the flying high zone). Which generally yields enough science to unlock the next tier already, since you already have both goo canisters and materials bays (which also unlock before the first launch) to take along for that flight.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing when I put it in there, but went ahead and did it anyway to see if anyone else thought the same.

The "Protective Rocket Nosecone Mk1" should probably come a node later as well, together with the other nosecones. Of course, there's also the stock size 0 nosecone there. Which is actually pretty good, all in all. Do you even need to ship your own nosecone anymore? Might be worth saving the RAM and axing this one.

I originally left that part in because I just didn't know where the stock one was. Turns out its way earlier than I expected it to be (since I find it's easier to expect stock to make no sense) but I slapped it in early in the tree to go with the small SRBs and Spinnaker, but if I'm re/moving them it can safely be chucked out. Not much of a RAM saving on that since it has always shared a texture with the 1.25->0.625 multi-adapters.

Similarly: your TR-1V stack decoupler is a carbon copy of stock's TR-2V in every respect. I can see why you'd want a size 0 decoupler much earlier, what with your size 0 parts coming much earlier than stock's, but wouldn't it be better to just MM-config the stock decoupler to a lower tech node instead of adding a redundant part?

I don't want to mess with the stock parts at all, and that decoupler has very little overhead anyway since it's just using bits of textures from other parts. I think I used the 0.625m radial stack extender (does anyone use these?) texture for it.

Same goes for your carbon copy of the stock linear RCS port. Especially since you have a third linear RCS port in the RM-50 Micro, and it even comes in the same node. Others might differ, of course, but all the same... if you want a linear RCS in that node, why not move the stock one? Also, at the point that node is researched, you don't have any RCS tanks - those unlock only one tier later, both inline and radial. So the only thing that has RCS is manned cockpits. Recommendation: move the RM-50 into the same node with all the other RCS thrusters. Axe your own linear port. And if you really must, move the stock linear port one node down.

The stock linear RCS is actually different now! It has 2 thrust, not the same mass as a 4-way block, and higher crash tolerance and maximum temperature. Mine is almost exactly 1/4 of the stock one since it's just a single nozzle version of it, so the difference between the two I think is actually viable now (it sure wasn't before 1.0). The micro one I'll move later in the tree with the other micro blocks.

...Ugh, I think I should probably submit this post sometime before I need to start including chapter titles and a table of contents More later.

I look forward to Volume 3 of The Chronicles of Streetwind: A Book of Spreadsheets!

Edited August 1, 2015 by hoojiwana

[Streetwind]

Some more analysis...

- FS-L50 Fuel Tank: Typo in the config. Weight is 0.015, should be 0.15. (Right now it has ten times better fuel mass ratio than all other tanks.)

- "Capsulated" radial monoprop tank: Too expensive by far. Recommend halving the cost. (That still leaves it the most expensive per fuel content but not by a large margin.)

- FL-R50 monoprop tank: Too cheap. Recommend adding 250 to cost. (Moves it in line with the other tanks.)

- OX-9 panel: Too cheap. Recommend adding 250 to cost. (It can't have that much output for its area unless the cells are higher quality.)

- Engine balance: Reduce Cirrus (EDIT: and Stratus of course) vac Isp by 5. Increase Eclipse vac Isp by 5. Decrease Eclipse weight by 0.01. The other monoprop engines are roughly okay where they are.

With the above stats, I ran some numbers regarding whether or not it's worth using the Eclipse vs. the other two:

Performed with a mass simulator weighing 353 kg and costing 1735 funds by itself. Eclipse powered by 1x OX-9 (already price-adjusted). Umbra powered by 1x OX-9 and 2x OX-4. Tanks are FL-10R stock size 0 monoprop tanks.

At first glance: yes, it is much cheaper not to use the Eclipse. But that's not the point. High performance engines are never price competitive. You choose them to get performance the other engines don't give you.

For example, imagine you know you need roughly 4850 m/s dV to accomplish a mission. All three engines can accomplish this. But with a Cirrus, you need to mount 10 tanks. With an Eclipse, you need to mount only 3 tanks. With the Umbra you need to mount only a single one. This example "equivalence point" has been marked green above. So, how much room does your launch vehicle have? Making a huge fairing costs money and adds mass. Also that stack of 10 tanks is going to be wobbly as all heck. And maybe you're physically constrained by other things, such as the length of the cargo hold of your SSTO spaceplane, and literally cannot mount 10 tanks. Suddenly only the electric engines give you what you need and the Cirrus ceases to be an option. You pay the markup because that's the one thing that can get your mission done.

Similarly, you'll notice how all of the engines run into serious diminishing returns at 8-10 tanks. This is normal; every engine has a dV limit (derived from the fuel/mass fraction of its tankage) that it can never pass, even with the entire observable universe's mass in fuel. And the more you approach this figure, the less each additional tank gives you. For the Cirrus at 330 Isp, that limit is roughly 6009 m/s. You will never reach that; in fact, due to the mass of the engine and its payload, you will never even get near 6000. The Eclipse meanwhile smiles as it almost hits 6200 m/s with just 5 small tanks. In this case, the Eclipse literally is the cheaper option of the two, because even a hundred million funds thrown at the Cirrus will ever match that dV. With 4 tanks and at 5609 m/s, the prices are already very close; the Eclipse costs 7035 with that, while the Cirrus takes 21 tanks (!) and costs 6035 to do 5608 m/s. Just 1000 funds difference. And now consider a 4.5 kN thrust Cirrus pushing 21 tanks versus a 6.6 kN Eclipse pushing 4 tanks. Which one is going to be more comfortable to fly? And is that comfort going to be worth those 1000 funds for you?

You can play the same game with the Eclipse and the Umbra; the Eclipse will never pass 10470 m/s dV even with all the fuel in the world, but the Umbra can roughly match that with just 3 small tanks.

And this discussion isn't just something that affects RLA, by the way. People have discussed this in stock KSP for forever. "Why should I pay for a LV-N if a LV-909 gives similar dV at much less cost?" (This was especially relevant pre-1.0, where they even used the same fuelmix and the LV-909 had even higher Isp.) The answer is: you shouldn't, because this is clearly an application that doesn't need a LV-N. But keep adding fuel tanks to that ship, and very quickly the LV-N massively outpaces the LV-909 in dV. And make your mission more complicated and more demanding, and there will come a point where a LV-909 either simply cannot give you that dV, or takes so much fuel to do it that a LV-N is literally the cheaper and/or more comfortable option.

The bottomline is: high-Isp engines need high-dV missions to be worthwhile. This is somewhat unfortunate, because stock KSP's tiny solar system doesn't have much room for high dV missions. A lot of people run interplanetary missions on Skippers because when you only need 3000 m/s dV to go to Jool, why bother with slow and expensive nukes? But then someone plans a Grand Tour, or accepts a contract to redirect a class E asteroid, and suddenly it makes sense. Or somebody installs a system resize mod like KScale2 and suddenly things cost a lot more. So there are definitely niches for high Isp engines. Just don't ask them to compete on price with chemical engines in low dV missions - they never will

Edited August 2, 2015 by Streetwind

[Starbuckminsterfullerton]

Congrats on the latest build Hooj! Been away for awhile, this was cool to come back to. Streetwind, it's good to see you continuing to serve the balance gods, I think it's invaluable to have one mind weighing the stats of several mods. I haven't had a chance to check, how do the changes Hoojiwana has made to the electric engines stack up to the NFP balance config you made?

Edit: just found the picture of the monoprop fuel cell, and it is incredibly stockalike, really nice job.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Starbuckminsterfullerton

[Streetwind]

Well, you can't really compare the two. The RLA electric engines work differently now, and are statted for different purposes.

Also, stop praising me, I probably messed up analyzing costs of SRBs and tanks. >_< EDIT: phew, I just messed up one part, not all of them.

More thoughts for hoojiwana:

- Your inline and radial monoprop engines of each size are currently identical. How do you feel about the way stock does it, having the inline variant offer better vacuum and overall performance but having the radial variants offer high atmospheric Isp and big gimbals for use as vernier thrusters?

- Stock tank progression is "smallest to biggest", because at the start of the game with an un-upgraded VAB, part count is an issue. So researching a bigger tank is actually a significant plus, even if the paper stats are identical. Consider if that's worth doing for your 0.625m LFO tanks (excluding the FS-L10T).

- With the FL-R15 and FL-R50 coming "a node early", they should probably have a noticably higher unlock cost for the privilege. You can see that kind of thing all over the stock tree - parts that come later than related parts but don't have a real performance advantage generally cost less to unlock, and parts that are ahead of the curve cost significantly more. I'd say add 3000 to each of them at least. That creates a choice for the player - and makes the smaller stock tanks coming later look slightly less redundant.

- Similarly, your 0.625m tanks have too little in the way of unlock costs. Yes, they are small parts... but you're positioning them as a viable alternative for rocket building, and not just as gimmicky satellite parts. Their per-part cost takes care of being smaller, their unlock costs should mirror their usefulness at the time of unlocking. The stock size 0 tanks are relatively expensive unlocks despite coming very late.

Linear Aerospike:

Comes in the same node as the stock toroidal aerospike, so the main comparison will be towards that. But the three "standard" 1.25m LFO engines are also relevant, because the aerospikes can also replace them, and they constrain the bounds of Isp that the 'spikes can achieve.

The rule of the thumb for aerospike Isp is: "Slightly worse at launch than a launch optimized engine. Slightly worse in vacuum than a vacuum optimized engine. But both in the same engine." Unfortunately stock doesn't quite stick to that, opting to give theirs a higher sea level Isp than the relevant sea level engine (the Reliant). Oh well, we'll chalk that up to technology advancement. After all, the toroidal aerospike is an absolute premium product. Man, look at that pricetag.

With the stats as they are right now, the linear aerospike is mainly a straight upgrade of the LV-T45 for launching rockets. A gimbaled engine with a little bit more liftoff thrust, more top-end thrust, and a little bit more vacuum Isp for essentially the same price and a bit lower sea level Isp. It'll work fantastic when paired with Reliant side-boosters with fuel crossfeed... if you are still launching 1.25m rockets at that point in the game, that is.

But for spaceplanes, the toroidal aerospike is superior in every way. It has a high vacuum Isp for use high up in the atmosphere after the jet engines carried it there; with how aerodynamic planes are, it doesn't really need a gimbal; and it has a very low weight for its performance, which is a desirable quality for something that's essentially dead weight for the first half of the flight. And it doesn't matter much that it's fairly expensive because it will be recovered when the spaceplane returns.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Streetwind

[hoojiwana]

Some more analysis...

- FS-L50 Fuel Tank: Typo in the config. Weight is 0.015, should be 0.15. (Right now it has ten times better fuel mass ratio than all other tanks.)

- "Capsulated" radial monoprop tank: Too expensive by far. Recommend halving the cost. (That still leaves it the most expensive per fuel content but not by a large margin.)

- FL-R50 monoprop tank: Too cheap. Recommend adding 250 to cost. (Moves it in line with the other tanks.)

- OX-9 panel: Too cheap. Recommend adding 250 to cost. (It can't have that much output for its area unless the cells are higher quality.)

- Engine balance: Reduce Cirrus (EDIT: and Stratus of course) vac Isp by 5. Increase Eclipse vac Isp by 5. Decrease Eclipse weight by 0.01. The other monoprop engines are roughly okay where they are.

All done, and ArcFurnace beat you to the FS-L50 typo.

Congrats on the latest build Hooj! Been away for awhile, this was cool to come back to.

Edit: just found the picture of the monoprop fuel cell, and it is incredibly stockalike, really nice job.

Thanks! I've tweaked it a little bit (changed the text alignment) so it looks even better now. I have reconsidered doing a larger MP fuel cell "array" since I really dislike the way the stock LFO cell array scales compared to the small one.

Your inline and radial monoprop engines of each size are currently identical. How do you feel about the way stock does it, having the inline variant offer better vacuum and overall performance but having the radial variants offer high atmospheric Isp and big gimbals for use as vernier thrusters?

I don't think verniers are all that useful considering there's only two LFO engines with no gimbal, one of which is way earlier in the tree and you've unlocked other options by the time you get the verniers, and the other is a spaceplane optimised engine where other control authority tends to be more useful. I've never liked the way stock basically makes all the radial engines redundant out of fear of making inline engines redundant, so I just made mine the same. If people want to use an inline engine radially, they will find a way to do so, and if they want to use a radial engine "inline" they will find a way to do that too. No point trying to prevent them doing that.

Stock tank progression is "smallest to biggest", because at the start of the game with an un-upgraded VAB, part count is an issue. So researching a bigger tank is actually a significant plus, even if the paper stats are identical. Consider if that's worth doing for your 0.625m LFO tanks (excluding the FS-L10T).

I've bumped most of those parts up a node now, they still start from middle sized though. I despise the part count limitation and the way the fuel tanks are used with it, it just needlessly punishes the player by making them waste time and effort in the VAB, shows off the stupid wobbly nature of rockets built that way, and conflicts with the mass and size limitations. Having more fine control over how much capacity you have is a better method I feel.

With the FL-R15 and FL-R50 coming "a node early", they should probably have a noticably higher unlock cost for the privilege. You can see that kind of thing all over the stock tree - parts that come later than related parts but don't have a real performance advantage generally cost less to unlock, and parts that are ahead of the curve cost significantly more. I'd say add 3000 to each of them at least. That creates a choice for the player - and makes the smaller stock tanks coming later look slightly less redundant.

Increased the EntryCost on those two, though not quite by how much you suggested. I had difficulty placing the MP tanks+engines due to how late the stock ones show up (and all in one node too) so had to nudge the longer tanks down early to match with the MP engines themselves, and I've said before that I want to avoid moving stock parts around.

Similarly, your 0.625m tanks have too little in the way of unlock costs. Yes, they are small parts... but you're positioning them as a viable alternative for rocket building, and not just as gimmicky satellite parts. Their per-part cost takes care of being smaller, their unlock costs should mirror their usefulness at the time of unlocking. The stock size 0 tanks are relatively expensive unlocks despite coming very late.

Bumped the first two you get up a bit, and since their tech nodes all got bumped up as well this should work out nicely.

Linear Aerospike:

Comes in the same node as the stock toroidal aerospike, so the main comparison will be towards that. But the three "standard" 1.25m LFO engines are also relevant, because the aerospikes can also replace them, and they constrain the bounds of Isp that the 'spikes can achieve.

But for spaceplanes, the toroidal aerospike is superior in every way. It has a high vacuum Isp for use high up in the atmosphere after the jet engines carried it there; with how aerodynamic planes are, it doesn't really need a gimbal; and it has a very low weight for its performance, which is a desirable quality for something that's essentially dead weight for the first half of the flight. And it doesn't matter much that it's fairly expensive because it will be recovered when the spaceplane returns.

I really don't like the way the stock aerospike makes other stock parts redundant, which is partly why the Cutter may not seem quite as good despite it's placement in the tree, though I still went along with the stock scheme but the margin is an awful lot smaller. On spaceplanes that would use 1.25m parts, they're not going to have many nodes available to stick engines on, you would use the less efficient Cutter where you need more thrust on those few nodes. I'm no spaceplane expert though so I can't say where the sweet spot is, which is why that part needs more testing before I'm happy with it.

[FiiZzioN]

- Same goes for your carbon copy of the stock linear RCS port. Especially since you have a third linear RCS port in the RM-50 Micro, and it even comes in the same node. I'm not sure I'd ever use either of those parts, honestly; I never used any linear RCS in my entire KSP career since 2013. Others might differ, of course, but all the same... if you want a linear RCS in that node, why not move the stock one? Also, at the point that node is researched, you don't have any RCS tanks - those unlock only one tier later, both inline and radial. So the only thing that has RCS is manned cockpits. Which have no use for a probe sized linear RCS, and very limited use for linear RCS in general. You might want to use the monopropellant for orbital maneuvering (docking ports don't unlock until the next tier), but the linear ports have big troubles being oriented in the required direction on the slanted cockpit surfaces. The round linear ports barely work out if you mount them near the nose and point them forward with the rotation tool; the blocky RM-50 however just never looks good regardless of how you mount and rotate it. Recommendation: move the RM-50 into the same node with all the other RCS thrusters. Axe your own linear port. And if you really must, move the stock linear port one node down.

I, personally, love the RCS added with this pack. When used with ven's revamp it adds more options with very little impact to ram. Well, that's my experience at least...

I guess you could put me in a group that seems to be seldom seen / unique here. I use enough mods that when I load I'm at either 2.5Gb's - 2.7Gb's depending on if I'm in the mood to relaunch KSP more often. What I mean by the group comment is, if my general observation is correct, most people use 1 - 10 mod packs and use stock for everyone else. There seems to be a lot less people having installs like I do. My gamedata folder has over 150 files, that's just files, not the parts though, but I hope you see what I'm getting at.

I guess you could summarize this post by saying that, yes, some parts overlap, but some people do like that. Overall, it just depends on the person in the end if they like less parts to fiddle with, or more.

[Streetwind]

I guess you could put me in a group that seems to be seldom seen / unique here. I use enough mods that when I load I'm at either 2.5Gb's - 2.7Gb's depending on if I'm in the mood to relaunch KSP more often. What I mean by the group comment is, if my general observation is correct, most people use 1 - 10 mod packs and use stock for everyone else. There seems to be a lot less people having installs like I do. My gamedata folder has over 150 files, that's just files, not the parts though, but I hope you see what I'm getting at.

Oh my sweet summer child... the only reason I don't push my install past 3.0 GB at startup is because there's a memory leak in stock 1.0.4 and I can't even play for an hour anymore without having to quit and restart the client I have easily enough stuff I could add to give 64bit a run for its money. If only it would work properly.

I really don't like the way the stock aerospike makes other stock parts redundant, which is partly why the Cutter may not seem quite as good despite it's placement in the tree, though I still went along with the stock scheme but the margin is an awful lot smaller. On spaceplanes that would use 1.25m parts, they're not going to have many nodes available to stick engines on, you would use the less efficient Cutter where you need more thrust on those few nodes. I'm no spaceplane expert though so I can't say where the sweet spot is, which is why that part needs more testing before I'm happy with it.

I can see where you're coming from, though I don't see how the toroidal 'spike makes other parts redundant... for starters, it is much too expensive to be regularly staged away. Then, it has too little liftoff thrust to compete with the Reliant as a booster rocket despite the higher on-paper TWR, because that only applies in a near-vacuum. It can't replace the Swivel as a center engine because it has no gimbal. It can't replace the Terrier as an all-purpose vacuum engine because while it's almost as good, it's still only "almost". It's awesome as a heavy 1.25m upper stage, an application for which no other engine exists, which is why spaceplanes love it. It can be a heavy vacuum lander engine, doing in one engine what you previously needed three Terriers for - but for small landers the Terrier is still better, and on a heavy lander the Poodle is a viable alternative. It's the very definition of a niche-filler.

But if you leave the linear aerospike as it is now, then that one will actually render a stock part redundant, namely the Swivel as a rocket center stage control engine. The linear aerospike has more lifoff thrust (196 vs. 168.8), more top-end thrust (245 vs. 200), and more top-end Isp (325 vs 320) for the same cost and the same weight, while also providing that crucial thrust vectoring. Its sea level Isp is a bit on the low side (260 vs 270), but the higher liftoff thrust lets it carry a small extra fuel tank while still maintaining higher TWR. And if you pair it with Reliants and crossfeed, that disadvantage is mitigated even more efficiently.

(If you wanted to avoid replacing the Swivel, you need to remove the gimbal. That will render the linear aerospike essentially useless for rockets, since its TWR and sea level Isp are too low to compete with the Reliant as a launch booster, an application in which the higher top-end numbers never come to bear. But as mentioned before, spaceplanes have ample atmospheric control authority and a naturally flip-proof shape, they don't need thrust vectoring rockets. So it will remain useful there. Maybe bump the thrust to 250 to compensate for the loss of the gimbal.)

EDIT: Better idea. Increase the price to around 4000, much like the toroidal spike. Then people can use the linear spike as a Swivel replacement if they really want to pay triple for a small boost. It also stops the toroidal aerospike becoming sidelined because of its high price.

Of course, all 1.25m rocket parts are soundly rendered redundant by 2.5m rockets nowadays... I'd post another snippet from the spreadsheet but I'm at work The Twin Boar is the worst offender though. TWR > 31, cheaper per kN than the Swivel, same Isp profile as the Reliant, and it has a gimbal. You basically never need to use anything else once you unlock that, unless you need something absurdly large lifted or just want to quickly hop a single Kerbal into LKO lategame for some obscure reason.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Streetwind

[Sandworm]

Displace all the stock parts you want. I can only bring myself to use stock engines once I've found some decent textures anyway. (The less said about the 2.5 decoupler the better.) Memory isn't an issue for the linux crowd. And those sheep with memory issues can always selectively delete displaced parts. Stockalike is an aesthetic. It doesn't require respect for stock items that don't measure up.

[Starbuckminsterfullerton]

Oh my sweet summer child... there's a memory leak in stock 1.0.4

lol

And there is? That explains so much. I thought they fixed "press f10 to toggle memory leak", but there must be a new one. Was the same thing present in 1.0.3?

And I agree with Sandworm, I don't really like the stock parts; except for a few in the 1.25m range (909, FLT-800...) most of them look really... unprofessional. It's one of the things that drove me to learn Unity and start making my own parts.

Have you ever looked at the mainsail's nozzle up close? What is that, a trumpet? And the poodle is just a ball with pipes, and don't get me started on the oil-drum fuel tanks.

So yeah, replace all you want. You can always make them cost-balanced high-performance versions!

Edit:

I have reconsidered doing a larger MP fuel cell "array" since I really dislike the way the stock LFO cell array scales compared to the small one.

I don't think there are as many applications for a large MP array anyway. While the big stock one gets a lot of use powering ISRU's and the like, I imagine an MP cell will get used on craft that are already using monoprop for propulsion, like satellites and small rovers. I don't think there will be many vessels large enough to merit a large array that still run on monoprop.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Starbuckminsterfullerton

[Streetwind]

lol

And there is? That explains so much. I thought they fixed "press f10 to toggle memory leak", but there must be a new one. Was the same thing present in 1.0.3?

I don't know, I didn't play 1.0 apart from NF dev test test runs until 1.0.4, was waiting for mods. And this time it's related to scene changes, some memory seems to stick around everytime you see a loading screen. VAB and SPH and switching between flight mode and space center seem to be the main culprits for me.

[hoojiwana]

More Important: This is incompatible with any and all previous versions of RLA Stockalike and will break saves.

Less Important: Folder changes mean you must delete any previous installs, you will need to delete PartDatabase.cfg in your KSP directory as well. If you didn't have any installs on KSP 1.0.x then ignore this.

Big Changes

Removed the 0.625m nosecone since it was redundant

Tweaked the tech tree placement of many parts, particularly the early LFO engines and tanks

Did a full pass on all flavour text descriptions, updating old ones and writing new ones for the new parts. Hopefully they make sense!

Adjusted the ISP curves of all aerospikes and solid rockets

Lots of fiddly adjustments in general

I also added a little bit of info on what (if anything) the engines were based on, commented out in their configs

What needs testing:

Everything really, but special attention should be paid to:

• 1.25m linear aerospike balance

• Removed 0.625m nosecone
  
• 
  
• Reorganised early tech tree placements
  
• Fixed 0.625m extra long fuel tank dry mass
  
• Tweaked existing flavour descriptions
  
• Added new flavour descriptions for those parts who didn't have one
  
• 
  
• Updated emissive animation on the following engines: 1.25m solid upper, <0.625m MP, Resistojet, Arcjet, <0.625m LFO, 0.625m high thrust, 0.625m aerospike, 0.625m nuclear, 0.625m SRBs
  
• Removed "tinysrb" particle FX
  
• Added "ionfx" particle FX
  
• Tweaked "smallSRB" particle FX spawn location
  
• Tweaked "MPvac" particle FX spawn location
  
• Tweaked "MPmed" particle FX spawn location
  
• Tweaked "MPsmall" particle FX spawn location
  
• Tweaked 1.25m solid upper stage thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked all 0.625m SRBs thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked 2.5m monopropellant engine thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked 1.25m monopropellant engine thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked 0.625m monopropellant engine thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked small radial monopropellant engine thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked resistojet thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Tweaked arcjet thrustVectorTransformName location
  
• Electrostatic ion now uses "ionfx" particle FX
  
• 
  
• Tweaked EntryCost of many parts
  
• Tweaked all 0.625m SRBs ISP curves
  
• Tweaked 1.25m solid upper ISP curve
  
• Tweaked 1.25m linear aerospike ISP curve
  
• Tweaked 0.625m aerospike ISP curve
  
• Tweaked 2.5m MP aerospike ISP curve
  
• Decreased Tiny radial monopropellant tank cost from 100 to 50
  
• Increased 0.625m long monopropellant tank cost from 390 to 400
  
• Increased 1.25m long monopropellant tank cost from 950 to 1200
  
• Decreased 1.25m solid upper stage mass from 0.4 to 0.25
  
• Increased 1.25m solid upper stage ASL ISP from 110 to 135
  
• Increased 1.25m solid upper stage capacity from 90 to 120
  
• Decreased 1.25m solid upper stage cost from 220 to 180
  
• Increased all 0.625m SRB ASL ISP from 155 to 166
  
• Decreased 0.625m aerospike engine gimbal range from 2 to 1.5
  
• Decreased 0.625m aerospike engine crash tolerance from 7 to 4
  
• Decreased 1.25m linear aerospike gimbal range from 1 to 0.3
  
• Increased 1.25m linear aerospike cost from 1250 to 3650
  
• Decreased resistojet mass from 0.16 to 0.15
  
• Increased resistojet vacuum ISP from 570 to 575
  
• Decreased 0.625m monopropellant engine vacuum ISP from 335 to 330
  
• Decreased small radial monopropellant engine vacuum ISP from 335 to 330
  
• Decreased 2.5m monopropellant aerospike mass from 2.4 to 2.1
  
• Increased 2.5m monpropellant aerospike cost from 1150 to 1950
  
• Increased medium solar panel cost from 1000 to 1250
  
• Increased tiny radial reaction wheel EC draw from 0.05 to 0.06

Nothing

Sorry I've been absent the last few days!

I guess you could summarize this post by saying that, yes, some parts overlap, but some people do like that. Overall, it just depends on the person in the end if they like less parts to fiddle with, or more.

I try to avoid having parts overlap with stock too much, the exception being where stock does something that strongly contradicts what I'm doing, such as the 0.625m LFO parts tech tree placements and the stock 0.625m decoupler. I don't want to touch a thing that stock does since that just creates compatibility issues between mods that might expect a part to be in a certain place for balance reasons, stuff like that. The savvy mod user probably knows how to prune things they don't want to see or have taking up memory anyway so it's not a super huge concern.

I can see where you're coming from, though I don't see how the toroidal 'spike makes other parts redundant... for starters, it is much too expensive to be regularly staged away. ... It's the very definition of a niche-filler.

I was mistaken on that, too used to looking at things from a sandbox perspective.

If you wanted to avoid replacing the Swivel, you need to remove the gimbal.

EDIT: Better idea. Increase the price to around 4000, much like the toroidal spike. Then people can use the linear spike as a Swivel replacement if they really want to pay triple for a small boost. It also stops the toroidal aerospike becoming sidelined because of its high price.

I've decreased the gimbal range but not removed it entirely, 0.3 isn't exactly a lot though. And the cost I thought was already a lot higher than it was, but I hadn't actually copied across the value from The Spreadsheet to the actual config file. Oops!

Displace all the stock parts you want. I can only bring myself to use stock engines once I've found some decent textures anyway. (The less said about the 2.5 decoupler the better.) Memory isn't an issue for the linux crowd. And those sheep with memory issues can always selectively delete displaced parts. Stockalike is an aesthetic. It doesn't require respect for stock items that don't measure up.

And I agree with Sandworm, I don't really like the stock parts; except for a few in the 1.25m range (909, FLT-800...) most of them look really... unprofessional. It's one of the things that drove me to learn Unity and start making my own parts.

Have you ever looked at the mainsail's nozzle up close? What is that, a trumpet? And the poodle is just a ball with pipes, and don't get me started on the oil-drum fuel tanks.

You guys shouldn't be giving me more ideas for things to do, I have too many of my own already!

I don't think there are as many applications for a large MP array anyway. While the big stock one gets a lot of use powering ISRU's and the like, I imagine an MP cell will get used on craft that are already using monoprop for propulsion, like satellites and small rovers. I don't think there will be many vessels large enough to merit a large array that still run on monoprop.

When I've got 2.5m monopropellant engines and fuel tanks, running ISRU vessels on only MP is entirely viable. The Cormorant is especially good since it has enough thrust to get some big vessels off of the surfaces of most of the moons and planet. I think it may even be able to get something small off the surface of Eve now that I've given it an adjusted ISP curve for >1 atmospheres of pressure, though the lack of gimbal and low drag may present an aerodynamics problem.

Edited August 18, 2015 by hoojiwana