Add propeller parts

[deft robin]

Propellers are a very important part of exploring on atmospheric bodies, and are very much absent from KSP2. These being added would make many more different types of missions possible (planes, helicopters, Submarines, etc.).

Specific I’d suggest adding ‘prefabricated’ propeller engines, instead of having separate motor and blade parts like in KSP1 because 1) This would be substantial easier to add and not involve adding robotic parts, and 2) It’s easier for players and less janky.

This would be something especially good to be done in Redux because I suspect doing this would require adding a lot of custom code infeasible for a simple part mod, since this isn’t something that could be accurately done with the existing part types. Some KSP1 part mods add something like this, and they require odd workaround like an “Intake Atmosphere” resource and I don’t believe they produce torque as they should.

Ideally these parts should:

1. Work on their own without other parts such as intakes.
2. Take into account air density, motor speed, airspeed, blade pitch, and amount of blades when calculating thrust with some degree of realism (doesn’t have to be perfect).
3. Have variants (or different modes) that can use either Electric charge, LqdMethane (in oxygenated atmosphere), or MethalOx for thrust. (Unsure if a Methalox propeller would be more efficient than a rocket or not)
4. Come in different sizes and styles
5. Create torque on the vessel
6. Maybe have some degree of customizability with amount or size of blades

[polar garnet]

Procedural Props ?

Like the wings.

[hexed wedge]

on 5), do you really want that? the realism is fun for like 5 minutes, but after that it becomes really annoying to balance them out, at least from my experience with them in KSP1

and it'd also require the implementation of a new Center of Torque indicator in the VAB so players actually have a way of managing it

[modest matrix]

i would do tourqe on chopper blades so you would need to use control rotors, but not on plane props

that would just be annoying

actually the main reason i dont use em in KSP 1

[hexed wedge]

it'd be a bit weird if some props had them but others didnt imo

hard to explain that to the player

[modest matrix]

not really, chopper props are way bigger and need to be way stronger as they produce all the lift, plane props dont need to be nearly as strong

so they wouldnt produce nearly as much tourqe

[hexed wedge]

fair, but it still wouldnt be negligible

[modest matrix]

it would be closer to negligible

[hexed wedge]

i personally feel like torque is something that can be sacrificed in favor of player experience (and i'm usually very pro-realism, ask @stable basalt lol)

[modest matrix]

id say to sacrifice a little realizm for playability

[modest matrix]

except with chopper rotors

[deft robin]

Torque on plane props is less significant because they have wings for roll stability

[hexed wedge]

eh, not sure it would really add that much. and where do you decide the cutoff between torque and no torque? would ingenuity-style propellors need torque, since those are technically helicopter rotors?

[deft robin]

Props not producing torque would be perfectly fine imo though

[modest matrix]

it would add a lot

if control rotors werent there on choppers it would spin out of control due to all the tourqe

either add choppers with torque or dont at all

plane prop tourqe is negligible in most cases

[deft robin]

The conservation of angular momentum is already broken all over the place in ksp, so it’s not the biggest deal (rotation stopping on warp, reaction wheels not having saturation)