What engine do you guys consider to be over powered and game breaking?

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah so maybe this has a lot to do with playstyle. I rarely have mid-sized payloads like that. I run probes with Ions and for manned missions its usually 6 kerbals with a science lab and extra space for a sense of believability. Thinking about that though I will consider ideas like leaving the lab in orbit and shuttling down with smaller landers... maybe even run the transfer on Ions.

I'd still like a stock 2.5m Nerva and a VASMIR though

... And I do dig this spool-down time as a nerf.

[Jouni]

I have a nomination for the opposite - since the nerf, I've found the Kerbodyne LFB to be useless. Before, it was superior to the Mainsail in terms of Isp, but now I haven't found a reason to use one in place of a Mainsail + Jumbo-64 tank.

The LFB is about raw power. It's quite useful in FAR, because it's the liquid fuel engine with the highest thrust per unit area.

[EdFred]

I have a nomination for the opposite - since the nerf, I've found the Kerbodyne LFB to be useless. Before, it was superior to the Mainsail in terms of Isp, but now I haven't found a reason to use one in place of a Mainsail + Jumbo-64 tank.

The Poodle has a similar problem. I actually saw a mod wherein it was converted to a Size 0 nuclear engine, and I thought that was a really neat idea, so something similar like giving it a higher Isp to make it like a big nuclear engine would be good in my opinion.

It's not about ISP. It's about thrust. Build something heavy enough, and you will use it.

[Renegrade]

Regarding the LFB: Not only is it better thrust/area AND thrust/mass, it's also lower cost than a mainsail+jumbo64 if I recall correctly.

Thinking about that though I will consider ideas like leaving the lab in orbit and shuttling down with smaller landers... maybe even run the transfer on Ions.

That's how I do it. I nuke (or poodle/skipper) a lab out to the destination and conduct multiple landings with the smallest possible lander I can get away with. Sorta Apollo style, but with multiple landings. The lab cleans out the non-reusable science doodads and refuels the lander, and down it goes again.

I find it fun in that I have two different craft to design: the lander, which wants to be as lightweight as possible and to fairly tight specifications, which is designed to work in freefall and on the planetary surface, vs the lab itself which is usually larger with roomy compartments and extra fuel and such, and designed for pure orbital environment.

Sometimes I'll do things like having the lander being exclusively battery powered, and it returning to the base for recharge. My Horrible Nerf encourages that too as it increases the cost of panels tremendously and uses inverse-square law for solar power.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I keep wondering why people think the airbreathing engines are OP then I remember FAR halves the thrust on them.. and they're still pretty OP after that. Though, that's mainly for gameplay reasons, I reckon - 1 engine to get plane up to high speed, another to be a sc/ramjet or similar to really push the edges of atmospheric ability and yet another to get to and work in space.. so, 3 different kinds of engines, all needing to provide sufficient and symmetric thrust.. I, for one, would like spaceplanes to be feasible. I assume people have made them with AJE so I know they're not impossible, but I'd still like that level of realism to be left to mods. High-performance turbojets is an acceptable break from reality for me, personally.

EDIT:

Somebody should make a mod so I can play with the extra challenge. And liquid hydrogen tanks so I can feed the nuke with a proper propellant.

You can always make the Nuke use just LF as a propellant or there's Near Future that includes Liquid Hydrogen tanks and a patch to make the LV-Ns require them. I found that a lot more exciting because it meant that I could use the LV-N fuel to refuel my conventional lander and biome hop that way.. It also removes the nuke as the One Vacuum Engine To Rule Them All as it's no longer feasible to use them to push heavier payloads around so you'll need conventional chemical rockets for that.. yeah, I recommend it. As for long spool down time, that can be achieved with ModuleManager:

@PART[nuclearEngine]:Final
{
    @MODULE[ModuleEngines*]
        {
            %useEngineResponseTime = True
            %engineDecelerationSpeed = 0.21 //same as stock turbojet spool down, with no spool up. Lower number means longer spool down time
        }
}

That should do it, but I haven't tried it. I like this idea and I think a small spool up should happen (as with all rocket engines, I guess) and I, for one, will do something like this for myself. Thanks for the idea!

Edited February 1, 2015 by ObsessedWithKSP

[Renegrade]

I, for one, would like spaceplanes to be feasible. I assume people have made them with AJE so I know they're not impossible, but I'd still like that level of realism to be left to mods. High-performance turbojets is an acceptable break from reality for me, personally.

You can put a basicJet spaceplane into orbit in stock, there's no reason for the jet-based solutions to have to put you 95% of the way into orbit y'know.

@PART[nuclearEngine]:Final
{
    @MODULE[ModuleEngines*]
        {
            %useEngineResponseTime = True
            %engineDecelerationSpeed = 0.21 //same as stock turbojet spool down, with no spool up. Lower number means longer spool down time
        }
}

Sweet!

Here's the other half from my Horrible Nerf

// LV-N Atomic Rocket Motor :: Squad/Parts/Engine/liquidEngineLV-N/liquidEngineLV-N.cfg
@PART[nuclearEngine]
{
	// @mass = 2.25
	@MODULE[ModuleEngines]
	{
		// @maxThrust = 60

		// Make the LiquidFuel ratio 1:1, and remove Oxidizer.
		 @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel]
		{
			@ratio = 1.0
		}
		!PROPELLANT[Oxidizer] {}
	}
}

(I removed a @name = LiquidFuel line, which was almost assuredly unnecessary. It should still work though. The mass and thrust are included in case anybody wants to toy with 'em)

Edited February 2, 2015 by Renegrade

[Captain Vlad]

I assume people have made them with AJE so I know they're not impossible, but I'd still like that level of realism to be left to mods. High-performance turbojets is an acceptable break from reality for me, personally.

Completely agree; I feel my eye twitch anyone starts to talk about nerfing, or even more foolishly, removing them. There are limits to how 'realistic' this game needs to be before certain designs start to be an exercise in frustration and tedium to make, and I feel taking out the high-power turbos is one of them. If the aero revisions make a lesser-powered version have less of a negative impact, cool. If they don't, then reducing their effectiveness is an idea that needs discarded.

[NecroBones]

nuclear engines could have some spooling for make it impractical for lander use without getting into simulating the deadly radiation.

That would certainly make them more interesting to use.

The nuke shouldn't have a significant "spool-up" time, but it should have a significant "spool-down" time. The reason being because when you slam in the control rods (well...rotate the control drums in a Nerva design) you need to continue to run propellant through the reactor core as it cools down.

This wouldn't be a terrible burden, since you just need to watch the delta-V remaining on your maneuver node and cut off the engine early. But it would make it impractical to use the nuke as a lander engine.

That would be very cool, actually. I don't have a problem with the LVN as it stands, but a spool-down time would serve double-duty as adding some realism, and adding some challenge to using the engine effectively. It would discourage its use as a lander engine, while still making it highly capable for interplanetary use. I like it!

But I wouldn't touch the mass, ISP, or thrust, as those seem fine to me. The added cost in funds and mass makes up for the efficiency.

I would be in favor of a larger variant of it being added, to help on part count, and 2.5m stacking without doing all sorts of multi-decoupler tricks or mounting them outboard, etc. I added something like that in MRS, and preserved the stock balance by giving it exactly 4x the mass, thrust, and cost of the stock LVN (basically a quad-nuke, just in one part).

[cantab]

I think the jet engines will get changed in 1.0. At the moment they need good TWR to push planes through the soup, but that means they can also lift rockets extremely effectively. When the new aero gives less drag the jets can have less TWR and still perform as well in planes, but they won't do the slightly silly jet-rocket thing so well.

[Naten]

Jets. Even with FAR.

[Laie]

[re: LV-N]Again I'm not saying there needs to be a nerf. Im saying there needs to be competitors.

nuclear engines could have some spooling for make it impractical for lander use without getting into simulating the deadly radiation.

Spooling is great. Other than that, how about just making it a whole lot bigger? Like, 2.5m and 10t? This would create a niche where ions no longer work, and nukes not yet. TWR could actually improve a fair bit as far as I'm concerned.

[problemecium]

I think the only reason people consider turbojets OP is that people intake spam. If you restrict yourself to only a few intakes per engine, and don't have 785 wings all over your plane, there's plenty of challenge to be had.

[GoSlash27]

I think the only reason people consider turbojets OP is that people intake spam. If you restrict yourself to only a few intakes per engine, and don't have 785 wings all over your plane, there's plenty of challenge to be had.

Not true. I don't intake-spam and run 1.0 wing lift coefficient per tonne of aircraft. The turbojet is still so buffed that it obviates all other engines.

There's simply no call for a turbojet that achieves orbital velocity. It breaks the game and it's totally unrealistic.

Best,

-Slashy

[Kerbin Dallas Multipass]

Spooling is great. Other than that, how about just making it a whole lot bigger? Like, 2.5m and 10t? This would create a niche where ions no longer work, and nukes not yet. TWR could actually improve a fair bit as far as I'm concerned.

Yea. Totally agree.

It should be a design decision to use that sort of propulsion, and the downside should not just be low thrust and slightly higher weight. It should be big and heavy and clumsy to make up for its outstanding ISP. Then we can increase its thrust to futuristic levels and all be happy XD

[GreeningGalaxy]

I think most things about the LV-N are fine, except for what it burns. It really should burn a totally different propellant (hydrogen) with appropriate density, meaning that you'd need far bigger tanks for the same propellant mass. If anything's OP about the LV-N now, it's just that you can fit too much propellant in the tanks. Its mass is already quite high, and its geometry makes using it on landers already pretty tricky, so I don't think it needs anything changed there, but I would like to see hydrogen propellant for it.

I agree that turbojets need some nerfing, though. they really are quite powerful, and being able to go to orbit with them is a little strange.

Edited February 2, 2015 by GreeningGalaxy

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah there was some interesting discussion about realism and Nervas running on LF rather than LF/O not too long ago. I've never fully contemplated the balance implications of that. Depending on how Turbos's get nerfed there will be some gameplay to just skipping oxidizer and doing pure liquid fueled interplanetary missions, but that kind of works counter to what I've been hoping about mixing up the LV-N dominance in general. I'd still strongly advocate for a beefy electric xemon VASMIR. People are really missing the boat on solar sailers and currently the biggest nerf on that strategy is effing lag and part-count because we have no large xenon tanks... but whatever. I have faith that will be solved at some point.

[tater]

Throttling is something that can be looked at for all engines, frankly (not just spool up/down). RO does this, obviously, but it is a simple way to balance various engines (even finite restarts are a possibility).

[problemecium]

Oh yeah, I forgot about low altitudes. On second thought I agree - turbojets are OP.

That said, the way I see it Kerbin has an awfully thin atmosphere, in terms of how far it is from the ground to space (not how soupy it is). Thus it's very easy to get to altitudes on Kerbin that in Earth's atmosphere would correspond to stratospheric flight, and given the bonuses to top speed up there, one has little reason not to fit high-altitude jets and exploit the kerb out of it.

Perhaps the aerodynamic update will provide a buff to low-altitude flight and give a clearer zone in which regular jets outshine turbojets.

[tater]

Ions are fubar unless they come up with a solution for constant thrust trajectories. Vasmir shares that issue. Stuck with the situation now, ions could have spool up/down such that they are not useful as lander engines.

[Frozen_Heart]

Completely agree; I feel my eye twitch anyone starts to talk about nerfing, or even more foolishly, removing them. There are limits to how 'realistic' this game needs to be before certain designs start to be an exercise in frustration and tedium to make, and I feel taking out the high-power turbos is one of them. If the aero revisions make a lesser-powered version have less of a negative impact, cool. If they don't, then reducing their effectiveness is an idea that needs discarded.

I've noticed that people complain when something makes the game easier as its not 'realistic'. However I've also noticed the same people complain if making something more realistic would make the game easier...

It seems that they aren't looking for realism, just trying to make the game harder.

[Jouni]

I think the only reason people consider turbojets OP is that people intake spam. If you restrict yourself to only a few intakes per engine, and don't have 785 wings all over your plane, there's plenty of challenge to be had.

Intake spam the least of the problems. Due to the fuel usage bug, the turbojet uses 16x less fuel than it should, leading to the effective Isp peaking at 40000s. Its TWR is comparable to that of rocket engines, while real turbojets are at least 10x weaker. (There are also some lesser issues, such as the fact that the turbojet is useful from 0 m/s to over 2000 m/s, while real turbojets haven't been used past 1000 m/s. I'm willing to ignore them for gameplay reasons.)

Give me an LV-T30 with 2150 kN of thrust and 5120/5920 s of Isp, and I won't complain about the turbojet anymore. KSP will then become a silly arcade game, but it's already like that with jet engines.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Jouni

[KerbMav]

I would be in favor of a larger variant of it being added, to help on part count, and 2.5m stacking without doing all sorts of multi-decoupler tricks or mounting them outboard, etc. I added something like that in MRS, and preserved the stock balance by giving it exactly 4x the mass, thrust, and cost of the stock LVN (basically a quad-nuke, just in one part).

I might just pluck it out of your mod!

(Not enough RAM for everything else and stuff.)

[eddiew]

Nukes. They're so efficient that you don't consider anything else for your interplanetary burns, unless you haven't researched them yet. But it's not that we can't go to Jool without them, it's just that they're so good at the job

[GoSlash27]

I've noticed that people complain when something makes the game easier as its not 'realistic'. However I've also noticed the same people complain if making something more realistic would make the game easier...

It seems that they aren't looking for realism, just trying to make the game harder.

I don't recall anybody complaining about realistic parts making the game easier. I also haven't gotten the impression that people just want to make the game more difficult.

The idea is balance, not difficulty. There are some parts that are so bad they never get used. There are other parts that are so powerful that nothing else ever gets used. There's no fun to be had in all these shiny rocket parts if you only use a few of them.

Best,

-Slashy

[Toastedbuns]

Probably nukes. I massively, and I say MASSIVELY overbuilt my first interplanetary mothership TO .... with something around 900 parts and 8000 tons and I still (albeit at 5 fps) made it to the Joolian system and back (although I did have to abandon my tylo and laythe landers) because of how ....ing easy it is to correct your mistakes with the amount of delta V those things give you.

Not saying we should nerf them of course, we NEED nukes to get past Duna effectively with big payload.