NEAR/FAR Difficulty Balancing

[Carsogen]

Hi all, just a quick question:

Does anyone with experience using both NEAR/FAR and Ferram's Isp Difficulty Scaler simultaneously know if they effectively balance each other in terms of difficulty? I'm planning a challenge for the forums and want to include NEAR/FAR users (of which I am one) without un-leveling the playing field too much against stock.

Also what do people think of forcing NEAR/FAR users to use the scaler as opposed to just including a seperate leaderboard?

Thank you very much for any insight you may be able to provide, it's greatly appreciated

Cas.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Carsogen

[Wanderfound]

The Kerbin ISP difficulty scaler is designed to counteract the FAR/NEAR drag reduction, but exactly how much to apply is a matter of personal preference.

Within FAR/NEAR, NEAR is simpler but not easier. FAR has aerodynamic failures, yes, but in all other respects NEAR is actually more difficult to fly in than FAR.

Balancing will also depend upon the nature of the challenge; FAR/NEAR reduces drag, but it also massively nerfs jet engines and requires competent airframe design. Small to medium aircraft design is much easier in stock than in FAR.

With any challenge, requiring people to install mods will massively reduce the pool of participants. A lot of people fly in FAR; relatively few use KIDS. You're probably best off just running separate leaderboards for stock vs FAR.

[Carsogen]

FAR/NEAR reduces drag, but it also massively nerfs jet engines and requires competent airframe design. Small to medium aircraft design is much easier in stock than in FAR.

With any challenge, requiring people to install mods will massively reduce the pool of participants. A lot of people fly in FAR; relatively few use KIDS. You're probably best off just running separate leaderboards for stock vs FAR.

I hadn't thought about the effect on jet engines so thanks for pointing that out

I think you're right and I'll just go with a separate leader board.

Thanks very much for your help.

Cas.

[cantab]

The big thing to consider is does delta-V to orbit even matter much for the challenge? If it's something like "Make a craft that can go to orbit and back three times no refuelling" then it does. If it's something like "Jump the Dres canyon in a car or motorbike" then it really doesn't.

[Kobymaru]

Hello, sorry to hijack the thrad but I have a somewhat fitting question.

A lot of people fly in FAR; relatively few use KIDS.

I am a new FAR user and I installed KIDS. Which settings should I use,

- Far to Stock Universal (all Isp *0.81)

- Far to stock Atmosphere (Atmo Isp * 0.38, Vacuum Isp unchanged)

Mainly, I want to know what other FAR players do and how they handle the Delta V requirements drop.

[cantab]

It depends what you want. "Universal" has the advantage of making atmospheric Isps still sane, but the drawback of penalising vacuum Isps. Space travel will require more fuel than usual.

"Atmosphere" has the advantage of leaving vacuum Isps untouched, but the drawback of making atmospheric Isps insanely poor. Low atmosphere flight, I think whatever engine you use, will require a lot more fuel than usual.

Personally I use my own preset. A 0.85x multiplier for both atmo and vacuum brings the Isps of the liquid engines into the range of real-world hypergolic-fuelled engines. I have thrust scaling set with atmo/vacuum cutoffs of 375 s and 195 kN.

[Kobymaru]

It depends what you want.

What I want is launches to not get too easy, while not paying too much for it. Having all my Spacey-engines nerfed seems not fair, but an Atmospheric of .36 is just way too little.

Personally I use my own preset. A 0.85x multiplier for both atmo and vacuum brings the Isps of the liquid engines into the range of real-world hypergolic-fuelled engines. I have thrust scaling set with atmo/vacuum cutoffs of 375 s and 195 kN.

Is there anything special about those numbers?

[cantab]

The cutoffs are mainly just based on personal opinion. The Isp cutoff makes the KR-2L vacuum rated. The thrust cutoff makes the LV-T45 atmo rated.

You can't get everything this way mind. I think the Skipper should be vacuum rated, but it ends up atmo rated.

[Hodo]

Hi all, just a quick question:

Does anyone with experience using both NEAR/FAR and Ferram's Isp Difficulty Scaler simultaneously know if they effectively balance each other in terms of difficulty? I'm planning a challenge for the forums and want to include NEAR/FAR users (of which I am one) without un-leveling the playing field too much against stock.

Also what do people think of forcing NEAR/FAR users to use the scaler as opposed to just including a seperate leaderboard?

Thank you very much for any insight you may be able to provide, it's greatly appreciated

Cas.

To mirror what Wanderfound said, and to add to it.

It really depends on the type of challenge. If it is something like Fly around Kerbin with a single turbojet engine then NEAR will have a huge advantage over both FAR and Stock users. But If it is something like drive to the north pole only using a Rover, it wont matter what you use.

I personally dont use KIDS anymore I used to, and I loved it, but after the Jet engine nerf in FAR I just didnt see the point for me. I don't use rockets much if at all, and launch almost all of my satellites and interplanetary missions with space plane SSTOs.

[Kobymaru]

Hello, sorry to hijack the thrad but I have a somewhat fitting question.

I am a new FAR user and I installed KIDS. Which settings should I use,

- Far to Stock Universal (all Isp *0.81)

- Far to stock Atmosphere (Atmo Isp * 0.38, Vacuum Isp unchanged)

Mainly, I want to know what other FAR players do and how they handle the Delta V requirements drop.

In order to answer my own question, from another thread

Question for intelligent veterans:

I'm using FAR and KIDS with the stock Kerbol system. I'm aiming for realism, but I'm not a glutton for punishment, either. I have been using the FAR->Stock KSP Universal preset, but I was wondering if the Atmosphere-Only preset would be more "realistic." I'd also like to try out thrust varying with ISP, but I don't know (for a stock Kerbol system) where to adjust the sliders to make it "fit." Does anyone have any advice? Perhaps your own custom settings?

Realistic for the stock system would be way, way less delta V than is required even with FAR, since Kerbin shouldn't be that dense or, even if it is that dense, have that much atmosphere. :]

If you want to stay with the Kerbol system as it is, then for realism (rather than difficulty, which is not the same thing) you should either keep Isps as they are, or maybe decrease them across the board slightly (since 370, let alone 390+, is way too high for [sane] storable propellant; try .85 multipliers for both). The "FAR to stock" thing is if you want engines to be bad, unrealistically, in atmosphere, in order to have to build larger rockets.

Right, I should have said realism-to-scale/difficulty not just realism. If I were to put the multipliers at .81, and then have thrust vary with ISP (with scaling cutoffs at 385isp/200kN), would that scale the difficulty well, or would it totally set things out of balance? I don't know if I need to do things differently to the multipliers if I also have the varying thrust option.

What I forgot temporarily is that while KSP has too-high Isps for most (but not all) its chemical engines, those engines *also* mass about 4x what they should, as do tanks. So it evens out.

If you want realism-to-scale, use RealFuels.

That will make both masses and Isps realistic.

To summarize, I opted for FAR to Stock Universal meaning *.81 for all Isp's.