How to exploit intake air flow logic for profit

[Stratzenblitz75]

Greetings all!

Are you tired of having your space planes flat spin out of control because of a jet engine flame-out? Are you tired of wrestling for control of your space planes because of asymmetric thrust? Well fear no more! With this simple trick, you can avoid all* of these problems and enjoy a smooth, symmetrical thrust flight to space. Your space planes will perform better too!

The trick is simple:

Step 1: First build your space plane WITHOUT any jet engines or air intakes.

Step 2: Place 1 jet engine WITHOUT symmetry, then place however many intakes you want

Step 3: Repeat steps 1-2 until you have desired amount of jet engines.

Its that simple.

Please note that once you place all your jet engines/air intakes, You cannot move the engine or the part its attached to as this will reset the jet engine-intake(s) pattern we've set up.

It gets more complicated if you want to make an engine sub assembly that you can use on your future space planes:

This Imgur album will guide you through the process of constructing a sub assembly.

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This trick also has a beneficial side effect. Check out this test I've performed:

This craft was built using the trick from above:

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This craft wasn't:

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As you can see, the first craft performed much better than the second craft despite the fact they both used the same flight profile, same number of engines, same number of intakes and the same payload.

I hope this helps you make better, more powerful and easier to use space planes/SSTOs!

Edited September 3, 2014 by Stratzenblitz75
*Most of

[caipi]

Awesome.

Did you try if this is only caused by the jet engines or by the intakes? Or is it caused by either one? Might it be enough to simply place jet engines separately?

[Oznerol256]

Awesome.

Did you try if this is only caused by the jet engines or by the intakes? Or is it caused by either one? Might it be enough to simply place jet engines separately?

It is based on the order in which the parts are added to the craft. See here for explaination: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64362-Fuel-Flow-Rules-%280-24-2%29