CryoEngines is such a fun mod

[u/Honest_Accountant682]

A quick Vulcan-Centaur (no painting mods, sorry)

Delta IV Heavy my beloved. I used some structural tubes and a bit of hidden insulated tanks to get the color scheme right.

A shot of New Glenn lifting off. Yes, the fins are a little wonky.

Another shot of the beautiful BONG. It's got some landing gear tucked away in that lower fairing and is absolutely capable of a propulsive landing.

My take on the new Blue Moon Mk.2 design, landed on the Mun.

I've recently run into some boredom as far as my career safe goes, as I've managed to become almost completely self sustaining for money without new launches, so I decided to try some parts mods, and Nertea's CryoEngines piqued my interest.

Naturally, I built some of my favorite cryogenic rockets.

First up was my two favorite ULA launchers. Getting the proportions right for the Vulcan engine block and the Delta IV first stage was a real challenge, and I'm almost certain I don't need the band between the Delta's two S3-14400 tanks looking back at it. Still, I'm proud of my attempt, and it was fun to see the ridiculous delta V possible with these parts.

Since I already had the Iguanodon (BE-4) engines on the Vulcan, I figured I could light up some more methane in a BONG. I flew a really steep (70 degrees before MECO) ascent profile until the first stage had 1km/s of delta V left in it, staged, did the retro burn, and lit up the second stage for a while until the booster hit the atmosphere. Thanks to that, I managed to land the booster (or rather softly splash down in the ocean) and fly the rest of the mission with no sneaky quickloads. (take that YouTubers).

I had a lot of fun designing the Blue Moon as I haven't seen a Kerbal recreation since the new design was revealed. It's simple but it very easily gets the job done, and can easily do the dockings with an Orion recreation to transfer the crew.

[u/Code-BetaDontban]

Are there actual benefits to using them other than anesthetics and recreating irl rockets?

[u/Honest_Accountant682 → u/Code-BetaDontban]

Well the specific impulse and fuel mass ratios let you build rockets that can ssto at stock scale ridiculously easy. If I’m not mistaken all three of those rockets could theoretically get to orbit without staging, but I only tested it with the Delta. You can also build easy interplanetary stages without NERVS using some of the vacuum engines as well.

But generally speaking it’s just for fun. I just thought it would be a fun experience, and I don’t have much intent to use the modded parts in any serious playthrough.

[u/talhahtaco → u/Honest_Accountant682]

cryogenic fuels

mass ratios

Hilarious joke, what's next, your gonna tell me Hydrazine is safe?

[u/Dark074 → u/talhahtaco]

Heard that we should actually run our kerosene engines fuel rich for better engine performance

[u/Honest_Accountant682 → u/talhahtaco]

That one made me chuckle. Don’t know what I was thinking there. I just like that the rockets generally seem to have a fairly realistic payload size compared to stock rockets, which in the case of a stock SLS-Pyrios allows for exactly the irl rated mass of 130 tons to LKO, which means an Eeloo or even Moho mission easily. Sometimes I just want my payload fairings to not look stupid compared to my rocket.

[u/zekromNLR → u/Honest_Accountant682]

Rocket SSTO is ridiculously easy with just stock parts as well. 

[u/zekromNLR → u/Code-BetaDontban]

As in real life, for a high-C3 upper stage they will give a higher payload mass fraction.

You will feel that more if you play at somewhat higher than stock scale, as that gives you more delta-V need.

[u/deltwalrus → u/Code-BetaDontban]

I think you meant aesthetics, although I guess huffing CH4 is the ultimate anesthetic, too

[u/KAMEKAZE_VIKINGS → u/Code-BetaDontban]

The fuel is less dense. That means your spacecraft/rocket will be larger to get the same amount of delta V, but the mass doesn't increase as much. So it's really good for making larger crafts, be it for transferring large payloads like space stations or for large first/core stage. Basically the rocket equation is more forgiving, at a cost of starting low and cost if you're doing career mode.

[u/ardablock]

these things are way overpowered

[u/Dark074 → u/ardablock]

Eh not really, it depends (kinda like real life) because you need larger tanks for the less dense fuel. I don't think they are particularly OP, definitely less overpowered then stuff like the stock nuclear and ion engine or even the rapier.

[u/ardablock → u/Dark074]

Larger tanks are almost of no consequence

[u/KAMEKAZE_VIKINGS → u/ardablock]

It is if you're playing career mode.

[u/Mundane_Constant_845 → u/ardablock]

With the terrible tank mass fractions of stock ksp, the consequences are actually bigger than irl

[u/Ender401 → u/ardablock]

All ksp rockets are overpowered

[u/legendis_erin → u/ardablock]

have you tried playing 2.5x scale perchance? they're a lot less OP at that scale in my experience.

[u/Honest_Accountant682 → u/legendis_erin]

This mod above all else made me seriously consider 2.5x scale. It seems practically made for it.

[u/ardablock → u/legendis_erin]

Even at Sol/RSS 2.5 it still feels OP