Engine Limiters?

[zekes]

Hey, Just wondering if anyone knows, when you set a thrust limiter on an engine, does it make that the max amount of thrust, or does it scale thrust up by that percent? I mean, it would make a lot more sense to make the throttle percentage proportional, especially if you're trying to balance thrust. If it's just a fixed cutoff #, it's useless to balance uncentered engines.

Edited October 30, 2014 by zekes

[shand]

the former. it proportionally lessens the thrust of the engine. set it to 50% and your 120kN engine gives out 60kN at 100% thrust.

its also useful to do inflight to allow you to use a high thrust engine for a precise adjustments or landing in low gravity.

[zekes]

the former. it proportionally lessens the thrust of the engine. set it to 50% and your 120kN engine gives out 60kN at 100% thrust.

okay, so if I had a 120kN engine, and I set it to 50% limiter, if i have 50% throttle on, will that give me 30kN or 60kN?

[sal_vager]

It would give you 30kn

[zekes]

It would give you 30kn

okay, so it is scaled the whole way through thank you so much

It shouldn't be called a thrust limiter then, no?

[GusTurbo]

What else would you call it?

[sal_vager]

It's true it does not just limit throttle travel, it actually cuts the maximum power of the engine and the throttle scales with the change, I can't think of another name for it though

[zekes]

It's true it does not just limit throttle travel, it actually cuts the maximum power of the engine and the throttle scales with the change, I can't think of another name for it though

yeah, thrust scaler would be a more acurate term.

[Master Tao]

It is a percentage, but that's between minThrust and maxThrust. For stock engines, it doesn't matter since they all have minThrust = 0. For some modded parts (especially KWR), an engine with maxThrust = 100, minThrust = 50, and throttle limiter = 50%, the actual thrust at full throttle will be 75 kN.

And yes, thrust scaler makes a lot more sense.

[tsotha]

Thrust multiplier?

[daskraut]

Thrust multiplier?

that would be more boosters

[magnemoe]

the former. it proportionally lessens the thrust of the engine. set it to 50% and your 120kN engine gives out 60kN at 100% thrust.

its also useful to do inflight to allow you to use a high thrust engine for a precise adjustments or landing in low gravity.

Then landing empty stages with parachute assist its smart to reduce trust to avoid parachute fail then you start to move upward.

Mechjeb has this problem too.

Another use is to limit overheat, can also be used on individual engines, if center engine in a cluster heat more than the other reducing its trust to 90% often let you run on full trust for the others.

[tsotha]

that would be more boosters

A multiplier can be less than one. But we could call it a divider instead, if that's more obvious.