[Spaceships] Is This Legal?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'm not exactly sure what you're doing, but it sounds like you're working too hard.

Yep, I most certainly was. I see how to do it now (sum up the actual fuel that's going to be burned, not all of it from the start), and feel rather foolish for not thinking of it myself. Thanks for the help!

Oh, and in my first post I noted I was using chemical rockets, hence the rather low dV. It works out to 1.89 mps with the drop tank on, then another 1.08 on its own fuel, for a grand total of 2.97 mps - which isn't terribly far off from my initial 2.88 estimate.

For the OP, if you want this drop tank to be recoverable, it will need a control station (not necessarily full-sized) and pilot or AI to run it and the winged feature. Another option would be a soft-landing system - and as the tank is only ~1/10th its initial mass you could get away with an -2 SM system for that part.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Spaceships already assumes that fuel tanks are weightless, so drop tanks are totally useless.

Not totally, no.

Empty fuel tanks are weightless for delta-V purposes, but acceleration treats them as if they're full. And they also continue to increase your SM, reducing the efficiency of armor, lowering your handling, and making you a bigger target.

Drop tanks are less efficient for pure delta-V than just cramming your actual ship into a tiny clump of sub-sized systems and building toward that 1.0 fuel-to-mass ratio, but if you're picky about the performance of the vessel that you deliver at the other end they have some points in their favor.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not totally, no.

Empty fuel tanks are weightless for delta-V purposes, but acceleration treats them as if they're full.

Only because it's less math that way.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Drop tanks are less efficient for pure delta-V than just cramming your actual ship into a tiny clump of sub-sized systems and building toward that 1.0 fuel-to-mass ratio, but if you're picky about the performance of the vessel that you deliver at the other end they have some points in their favor.

The proper way to do drop tanks is via stages (and since the OP was talking about jets, what you'd probably do is just design the bottom stage with jets).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Only because it's less math that way.

Sure, but if you're going to massively houserule Spaceships, while I generally approve, I can't comment on the unspecified particulars of those houserules.

Originally Posted by Anthony

The proper way to do drop tanks is via stages (and since the OP was talking about jets, what you'd probably do is just design the bottom stage with jets).

There's nothing improper about doing drop tanks as discussed.

Stages require you to discard your main engine with the lower stage. They also require the discarded portion to be at least twice the size of the non-discarded portion.

There was dispute up-thread about the soundness of discarding a lower stage and having the lower stage continue to fly around and eventually land itself. (And if it was allowable at all, question about what the requirements were.) I was against it.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...

There was dispute up-thread about the soundness of discarding a lower stage and having the lower stage continue to fly around and eventually land itself. (And if it was allowable at all, question about what the requirements were.) I was against it.

Does it really matter if the "campaign" description perfectly matches how it's created in the Spaceships' system?

[MatthewVilter]

Finally submitted that erratum BTW.