Squadcast Summary (2015-01-31) - The 'Wait For It..' Edition

[Alshain]

Resizing Kerbin without resizing the entire solar system would be ... silly. The Mun is already incredibly close to Kerbin. An experiment you should try: Get RSS and make a config with, say, a 2x Kerbin (complete with unrealistic 9.8m/s^2 gravity), and reduce its spin to a 12 hour day, without resizing anything else. Look at how big Kerbin is and how close the Mun is.

Resizing only Kerbin is a bad solution.

More silly than nerfing engines to keep 1 planet consistent while leaving interplanetary travel the same?

[Guest]

More silly than nerfing engines to keep 1 planet consistent while leaving interplanetary travel the same?

Yes. LKO would look stupid and GSO would be, I think, around the Mun's orbit, or at least subject to influence by the Mun's SOI. Nerfing engines is a perfectly reasonable alternative to this. Just say that Kerbals use Aniline/IWFNA for fuel.

[montyben101]

I think the problem is that squad are unsure if KSP is a game or a simulator and are trying to compensate by making it both.

[Technical Ben]

A change to atmospheric only engine isp etc would work. It would allow for the reduction in the DV without changing things like interplanetary travel, DV in space etc. Would that not be the best idea? (As mentioned countless times before, the fuel flow instead of ISP scaling with atmosphere thing makes things off right now. So fixing that might also help?)

[Guest]

I think the problem is that squad are unsure if KSP is a game or a simulator and are trying to compensate by making it both.

If I may ... No, Squad is firm in their belief that KSP is a game; otherwise we would have had an early commitment to such realism as properly working isp, aerodynamics that work correctly, jet engines that weren't ridiculously overpowered, a properly-sized solar system with realistic densities, etc...

The problem is that Squad had a previous baseline that offered a certain amount of difficulty and they want to retain that same amount of difficulty after a, literally, game-changing feature was added. In other words, they are balancing a game.

[Jouni]

Why does everyone think they need the same dV to Orbit? It requires too much as it is, you have build giant asparagus monstrosities to get even medium to small payloads to orbit instead of sleek looking rockets. That's one of the great things about NEAR and FAR is your rockets look like rockets.

4.5 km/s to orbit is too little for my taste. With the current stock parts, I'd prefer 5-6 km/s. I played with the 6.4x Kerbol System for a while, but the delta-v requirements were a bit too high, when I started doing interplanetary missions.

The good thing about NEAR/FAR is that it encourages you to build rockets that look like rockets. The bad thing about them with stock planets is that your payloads look like giant tumors on top of the rocket. The payload fractions of real rockets are typically 2-4%, not 20-40%.

[Alshain]

The good thing about NEAR/FAR is that it encourages you to build rockets that look like rockets. The bad thing about them with stock planets is that your payloads look like giant tumors on top of the rocket. The payload fractions of real rockets are typically 2-4%, not 20-40%.

That is simply not true. You can build rockets like that but that is the result of limited sized parts and payloads being built wide, not FAR or the planets or the payload fraction. I can build a 2-4% payload fraction and still have the giant tumor effect easily.

[Guest]

A change to atmospheric only engine isp etc would work. It would allow for the reduction in the DV without changing things like interplanetary travel, DV in space etc. Would that not be the best idea? (As mentioned countless times before, the fuel flow instead of ISP scaling with atmosphere thing makes things off right now. So fixing that might also help?)

From experience with stock + FAR + KIDS, this isn't the best way to handle it because it makes rockets "feel wrong" once you've left the lower atmosphere. Your TWR increases massively once you're out of the thick so you have to "pull a KSP" and tilt way over to avoid increasing your apoapsis at a fantastic rate. Even then, throttling back is a must. if you don't correct isp you still end up in roughly the same situation because you've expelled so much reaction mass by the time you're out of the thick that you must do the same thing. Sure, it works, but I don't think it results in better gameplay.

[Jouni]

That is simply not true. You can build rockets like that but that is the result of limited sized parts and payloads being built wide, not FAR or the planets or the payload fraction. I can build a 2-4% payload fraction and still have the giant tumor effect easily.

The same happens with narrow payloads as well. The payload just becomes ridiculously tall.

In this case, the payload is a 220-tonne transfer stage: two S3-14400 fuel tanks, 8 nuclear engines, and a few other parts.

[Brotoro]

The same happens with narrow payloads as well. The payload just becomes ridiculously tall.

In this case, the payload is a 220-tonne transfer stage: two S3-14400 fuel tanks, 8 nuclear engines, and a few other parts.

I like it.

What is the diameter of that fairing?

Edited February 2, 2015 by Brotoro

[Renegrade]

A change to atmospheric only engine isp etc would work. It would allow for the reduction in the DV without changing things like interplanetary travel, DV in space etc. Would that not be the best idea? (As mentioned countless times before, the fuel flow instead of ISP scaling with atmosphere thing makes things off right now. So fixing that might also help?)

Atmospheric stats are next to meaningless. Past 1700m on Kerbin, the LV-N has the highest Isp of any rocket (ie non-jet, non-ion) engine. Engines are pretty much 80% towards their vacuum rated specific impulse by the time they reach 8km (for example, a T30 is 320-370, and it's 320+(0.8*(370-320)) = 360 at that point).

Fixing the fuel flow/thrust issue would help with that a tiny bit, but not a full km/sec.

The good thing about NEAR/FAR is that it encourages you to build rockets that look like rockets.

Encourages, yes...

This thing is a terrifying travesty of non-aeroness and it only took about 4k to orbit if I recall correctly. It's not as heavy as it looks though; the tanks are empty