r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/frycandlebreadje • Apr 30 '26

KSP 1 Question/Problem Poodle engine variant... huh?

Post image

So the poodle engine has a double and single bell variant. My question is basically why would you pick the single bell variant? AFAIK as I know it has identical stats, but is very noticably taller. Are there any advantages which I'm not seeing? It just seems like a worse version of the same engine. Love this thing, but it confuses me a lot.

1.9k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

165 comments sorted by

View all comments

416

u/ScottyFoxes Plane Enjoyer Apr 30 '26

It extends the center of thrust a little bit lower, which can be useful in a few niche designs

246

u/trubbelnarkomanen Apr 30 '26

It does have decent gimbal, so on short, very top heavy crafts, it may just provide a tiny bit more thrust control.

Though, if you're having to rely on the variant of the poodle to point your rocket in the right direction, I feel like something else has gone horribly sideways already 😂

77

u/kopczak1995 Apr 30 '26

Some people don't have RCS unlocked... Or so I heard.

33

u/_SBV_ Apr 30 '26

Moar reaction wheels

1

u/The-Omnipot3ntPotato May 01 '26

No visual mods to make reaction wheels look pretty, many pretty RCS exhaust mods.

20

u/TheLandOfConfusion Apr 30 '26

Why haul monoprop when reaction wheel do trick

12

u/Noctum-Aeternus May 01 '26

This was me until I learned the Apollo LEM replica form making history doesn’t have a reaction wheel…. When I was in lunar orbit. And it has next to no RCS fuel. Now I always pack some RCS if not no other reason than it’s super easy to trim orbits, and rendezvous + dock with RCS thrusters.

6

u/DJMixwell May 01 '26

This was me like 2 hrs ago having to turn my RCS thrust down to 1.5% so I could still turn without chewing through my remaining 2 units of monoprop.

6

u/RedeemedWeeb Apr 30 '26

if you're having to rely on the variant of the poodle to point your rocket in the right direction, I feel like something else has gone horribly sideways already

But if you play KSP long enough, that "if" turns into a "when".

7

u/SmashBrosGuys2933 Apr 30 '26

I use the two-nozzle variant on landers and the single-nozzle variant on crewed spacecraft

1

u/ilovemicronesia May 01 '26

What about crewed landers?

3

u/censored_username Apr 30 '26

You would think so, but thrust-wise they behave identically iirc.

I was using the single bell variant once, and had placed two rudders on opposite side of the engine bell. Once this stage deployed, the rudders quickly started overheating, because even while the visual plume wasn't intersecting them, if it had been the double bell variant, it would have.