Aren't Skippers basically pointless?

[Random Tank]

3 LV-T30's give very nearly the same thrust as 1 Skipper (645kN vs 650kN), with a tiny bit less weight (including a tri-coupler), lower fuel usage per second and all round higher effciency; the only advantage it has is thrust vectoring, which can be overcome by using a reaction wheel (which you were probably going to use anyway...), Thoughts anyone? Am I wrong?

[OmaeWaMouShindeiru]

1. But you're taking 4 parts then instead of 1 part. That can lead to increased lag because physics calculations have to be run on those parts. There are 3 flames coming out instead of 1 flame, so that makes rendering harder ( = more laggy).

2. You use almost the same amount of fuel; each LV-30 uses a small amount, but all 3 combined should nearly match the fuel usage of the Skipper.

3. Reaction wheels =/= substitute for thrust vectoring. In the atmosphere, you will experience a lot of drag and this will make it very difficult to change orientation, especially if you have a giant rocket. Rxn wheels' effects are better if your ship is around the size of 1 Rockomax grey tank, and when you're in space.

IMO, reaction wheels should be supplementary. They should not do the bulk of the work changing the direction of the ship. They should be combined with RCS to do so. Thrust vectoring should do the bulk (and winglets if you include them) of changing directions in the atmosphere.

Also, I'm using the FAR mod (check it out, it's epic) and it really changes up the gameplay mechanics. In some ways it makes things a hell of a lot more difficult, but in other ways it makes things easy. You know how in stock KSP you launch straight up 10km and then tilt immediately to 90 degrees and your rocket somehow stays intact? Do that with FAR mod enabled and you'll get your rocket disassembled into a bazillion pieces. Also, stock KSP has a GARBAGE drag model. Seriously, drag based on MASS? WTF? Anyways, sorry for rambling

[The_Mell]

Given your specs about weight are right, it might be an improvement for initial start stage because of fuel economy.
But 'upper' stages? A 1-3-1 design is a nightmare.
Next conclusion would be that big diameter fuel tanks are obsolete.

PS:
Do the t30s produce electric charge..?
Would be a little bit pointless using torque without power....

[bpivk]

Originally posted by sagir3:

You know how in stock KSP you launch straight up 10km and then tilt immediately to 90 degrees

You never do that. You tilt in small increments no matter what mod you use and I do use the FAR mod (sometimes).

[OmaeWaMouShindeiru]

Originally posted by gxs:

Originally posted by sagir3:

You know how in stock KSP you launch straight up 10km and then tilt immediately to 90 degrees

You never do that. You tilt in small increments no matter what mod you use and I do use the FAR mod (sometimes).

I don't do that either, but, if you DO do it in stock KSP, nothing happens.

[Random Tank]

Originally posted by The_Mell:

PS:
Do the t30s produce electric charge..?
Would be a little bit pointless using torque without power....

Yeah they do, 7 energy per sec per rocket compared to the Skipper's 10 per rocket.

I understand about the extra lag induced by 4 parts instead of 1 (large scale it could be horrible); I was just thinking this because the skipper is a good mid stage engine, but 3 LV-T30's use less fuel per second (3 x 6.15 per sec in vacc) compared to the Skipper (19.85 per sec in vacc) and are more efficent for it!
I'm just tempted to switch to them, as most of my crafts are smallish so lag isn't an issue for me really (im good at docking and have KAS, so I build big craft in space mainly), and I use winglest a lot which are usually enough to turn the ship in atmos. Any other thoughts? I love have disccusions about these sorts of things... :D

[The_Mell]

I always mix t30s and 909 up when it comes to electrity.

If you want to substitute the skipper with a more complex but fuel efficient setup, you might want to try 4 toroidal aerospike rockets...

[Stella Foxxie]

i admit thay dont qite heve enught thrust to be usefull for lanch stages but there great for the transfer

[Carlobergh]

I only use the reaction wheels when I have smaller rockets using the 1.25m parts, they're to weak to turn larger rockets and RCS is thus needed.

As pointed out, the skipper engine reduces part count, if you're doing clusters without using the debug you might need to use either the 4 stack coupler or the cubic strut in order for it to work, so the skipper reduces part count with 3-7 parts. Might not be much but when you have 6 of them in asparagus you all of a sudden have gone from 6 to between 24 and 42 parts.

Also once you're in orbit thrust doesn't matter that much if you're alright doing longer burns or dividing them up burning on several passes.

[dunbaratu]

It will start to matter when money cost is made into a game element. Then one cheap part instead of four will make a big difference.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by The_Mell:

Given your specs about weight are right, it might be an improvement for initial start stage because of fuel economy.
But 'upper' stages? A 1-3-1 design is a nightmare.

This is entirely the reason for using the Skipper. Problem is, most people would rather use asparagus staging for their multi-stage rockets, and I honestly can't blame them.

[Magickmaster]

for me the problem is decoupling. i just dont get triple decoupling(below the 3)to work!!!

[tam1g10]

My most successful interplanetary ship used skippers. They are far more efficient than mainsails and many people play the game without the mods you have as they take up alot of space and remove challenge.

Skippers are great to have in the main game; very effective and resonably powerful

[Thanny]

So it's a year old, but I thought I'd add some correction to this. The LV-T30 is 1.25 tonnes. Three LV-T30 engines plus a TVR-300L adapter is 3.9 tonnes, versus 3.0 tonnes for the Skipper. That means the Skipper has a thrust/weight ratio about 31% higher. Both have the same Isp, so are equally efficient, making TWR the dominating factor (ignoring build issues and vectoring).

Consider some concrete examples. Here are ships with specific starting masses before adding any engines, with a given fuel supply, followed by total mass and resulting total delta V:

Skipper 100t: 7200lf, 103t = 5447m/s
LV-T30 100t: 7200lf, 103.9t = 5339m/s (98.0%)

Skipper 50t: 2880lf, 53t = 3363m/s
LV-T30 50t: 2880lf, 53.9t = 3272m/s (97.3%)

Skipper 30t: 2160lf, 33t = 4720m/s
LV-T30 30t: 2160lf, 33.9t = 4472m/s (94.7%)

So the Skipper is always going to be more efficient overall, due to the higher TWR, with diminishing differences as the total ship mass goes up.

[Random Tank]

While I agree with what you're saying NOW Thanny, this thread was started back in 0.23 KSP, where the Skipper was 4 tons, 650kN of thrust and had an ISP of 300/350... which led to a lot of cases where the LV-T30 (IMHO) was better; it had a lot more flexibility too.

Now it's a different story though, as you say; in most cases, wherever you might want to use 3 or more LV-T30's, it is better to use a Skipper :)

[koimeiji]

I'm the kind of person who can't build something insanely ugly.

A quad-stack of 1.25s does not shroud well on a rocket made of 2.5 pieces. It only works for the bottom stack, and that's better off with mainsails


Though, to be fair, I can't play without KW rocketry in the first place, so everything stock is pretty much pointless.