Kerbal Space Program Engine Tier List

[@coolstuffifound9896]

Vector is absolute class. Unquestionably the most enjoyable engine.

[@sycodeathman]

Puff is solid F tier because nobody ever has any reason to build a monopropellant rocket, ever. The spider and ant engines exist, 0.625 m LFO tanks exist, there's no reason to ever use monopropellant except for RCS.

[@hulksmashnoobsgotit2387]

you dont even need monopropellant for rcs because you can add any engines to the rcs action groups

[@eliasalejandro2292]

@@hulksmashnoobsgotit2387 guess I will add some mammoths for docking

[@pqddachu]

@@eliasalejandro2292 average stratzenblitz rocket

[@Francois424]

I use them for low-tech Minmus rover... if I have that unlocked by then. In fact most engine (non-solid boosters) in Steve's D-Tier are used in at least one of my rover designs for science gathering... They do get superseded relatively quickly for late-game stuff as well. But being able to stick an engine on the sides of a rover with one part without it looking weird is good aesthetic, not to mention lower parts count (which should be fixed in KSP2, hopefully).

[@petermmm42]

No but the puff is good for landing rovers

[@Empiro3]

The Terrier should really be in a tier of its own. It's just that good. I'm a big fan of the Skipper. It's solidly in B-tier for me in (hard) career mode. I use it all the time for 2.5m launches. If you group it up with some Thumpers, you get plenty of TWR at launch, and once you drop the SRBs, enough thrust to sustain most of the way to orbit. I use it much more than the Twin Boar and the Mainsail. I think the Mainsail is actually D-tier for me because it doesn't have a place. I either need a lot of extra thrust (in which case I go all the way up to a Twin Boar), or I don't (in which case the Skipper + Thumper combo works well). I actually get a lot of use out of the Ant and Spider engines. They're perfect for micro-sats. I use those a lot more than the Twitch, which I've really never found a good use for.

[@pikazilla6405]

I genuinely don’t understand why the skipper even exists because its twr is so much worse than the mainsail and it has largely the same specific impulse, it’s just objectively less efficient which kinda just kills it because efficiency is the only reason you would want to use a lower thrust engine

[@pyrosorus9880]

i think it's to provide an earlier game high thrust engine because mainsaill takes a while to unlock and is expensive@@pikazilla6405

[@bigmoose7]

Normally I use the mainsail for lifter rockets that are bringing stuff up to space stations if I need a bit more thrust just to save on money but not much else apart from that

[@bigmoose7]

@@pikazilla6405It costs way less though

[@Aldrasio]

Dart is a solid B tier. Great TWR and ISP. I use it for landers all the time whenever they're too heavy for the Terrier. It's a niche use case, which keeps it from being A, but I love that little needle.

[@Spacewalker1870]

Also panther engine is basically a rapier engine, but like instead of being part jet engine and part rocket engine its part weezly and part whiplash, but with higher static thrust than whiplash and greater manuverability

[@valmine7507]

thats whats called an afterburner, except you dont need oxidizer for them, you basically inject fuel on the air coming out of the engine and it makes that i think

[@Spacewalker1870]

@@valmine7507 yea, ik, its like another mode of operation, where it basically has two different efficiency/thrust modes, which can be useful depending on what u need

[@delfinenteddyson9865]

I actually really like the thud for small diameter rockets, as you can stack quite alot of them at the bottom and have more trust than a single small diameter engine

[@thamas_420]

I usually use the rhino as a second stage to circularise around kerbin and do most of an escape burn to bumb up the delta v

[@petersmythe6462]

Ok. Here's an idea for comparing liftoff engines The 2000 m/s cost efficiency test. Test conditions: 1. Single stage. 2. Starting sea level TWR of 1.5. 3. First 800 m/s is sea level ISP, next 1200 is vacuum. 4. Hypothetical stretchy tanks will be used that always cost $1/LFO when filled and have a mass ratio of 8 fuel per dry mass. Ok, let's go. Vector: Total vehicle mass: 61507 kg Low altitude fuel burn: 15310 kg High altitude fuel burn: 14871 kg Total fuel mass 30181 kg Tank mass: 3773 kg Fuel and tank cost: $6036 Total stage cost: $24036 Stage Dry mass: 7773 kg Burnout mass: 31326 kg Payload mass: 23553 kg Cost/payload: $1.02/kg Reliant Total vehicle mass: 13947 kg Low altitude fuel burn: 3695 kg High altitude fuel burn: 3344 kg Total fuel mass 7039 kg Tank mass: 880 kg Fuel and tank cost: $1408 Total stage cost: $2508 Stage Dry mass: 2130 kg Burnout mass: 6908 kg Payload mass: 4722 kg Cost/payload: $0.53/kg. Cost per payload with small inline SAS in liftoff stage: $0.67/kg. Hmmm... D tier vector? 🤣

[@ultimatesteve9647]

I haven't the time to respond to all of your comments but it is quite obvious that you value cost a lot more than I do. I generally play sandbox, and when I do play career I almost never run into cost issues. I'm curious as to what scenario someone would value cost that much in, but hey you do you, there's no wrong way to play this game. I will stand by my placement of the vector until death though.

[@maxi4251]

It is a bad idea to not reuse vector

[@bigmoose7]

@@ultimatesteve9647On hard I’ve taken tourists to the moon and minmus hundreds and hundreds of times by now, making the rocket as cheap as possible stops those easy money missions from becoming a grind fest but you can still slowly earn money using fantastic craft.

[@MrTomyCJ]

I love the Kickback, I use it for my forbidding 2.5m moon rocket, and to very cheaply launch smallsats into Kerbin orbit, as an almost-ssto: just put a fairing on top, with a mini liquid stage, and done!

[@bigmoose7]

Agree with the list but the poodle should really be higher that thing carried half of my career mode

[@matthewhovda5989]

Poodle not being A is absolute insanity

[@lochlancrandall2922]

Real

[@olivergeorge7891]

A similar video ranking the dlc engines would be cool, as for other things to rank, I can’t think of much else, besides command pods and/or probe cores. Also, I very much agree with your placement of the terrier in the A rank, as it’s only really outperformed, in my opinion, by the wolfhound dlc engine. Great video all around!

[@CountArtha]

The Cheetah is marginally better than the terrier in ISP and TWR, but its large nozzle makes it less versatile. I think the best DLC engine is the Bobcat, because once I unlock it I can never find a reason use anything else as a first stage in career mode.

[@nzredwolf4048]

The rhino engine is good for orbital insertion of very very large payloads

[@Spacewalker1870]

panther in my opinion is same tier with rapier, as panthers have highest static thrust of any engine, and dual mode gives them dual use. Also, it can be pretty useful for like general exploration craft, like you can use the high thrust mode for takeoff (meaning you need less engine mass) and then toggle it to cruise mode for exploring other places

[@withoutstickers]

Personally I’m a fan of the rhino as an expendable second stage for larger rockets

[@lb2791]

Also I'm not convinced the Rapier is a mediocre jet engine. It't slightly heavier than the whiplash and needs a bit longer to get up to top performance but it will burn higher up in the atmo and go faster. Even if you don't use rocket mode Rapiers are better for spaceplanes than Whiplashes.

[@CountArtha]

If you have the "Making History" DLC, the only engines you will ever need are the Bobcat, the Cheetah, the Terrier, and the Spark.

[@Jonassoe]

Wat Wolfhound? NERVA? Vector/Mammoth? Dawn? All of these engines seem pretty useful to me. I'd hate trying to make, for instance, an Eve landing and return mission with your selection. Regardless, what engine you need depends entirely on what kind of craft you want to make. Almost every engine could have some application where it's clearly a better choice than any other engine.

[@theleanmonster3735]

What about the mastodon

[@1mariomaniac]

@@Jonassoe I have the DLCs and let me say that the NERV and Vectors are very much still king. However, the DLC engines are still very versatile. (except for the Kodak)

[@ieatsande9022]

cheetah goes so hard

[@resuly.3006]

The thud engine are really useful. You can put four them around a tank and a reliant at the bottom to get high TWR and more DeltaV

[@sawyerlogon7666]

I agree as for my single stage to orbit rocket 4 worked with a skipper to git to Low kerban orbit

[@1mariomaniac]

It's pretty good for landers too when you want to avoid making them too tall (like on Minmus, or Gilly) so you don't topple over after landing.

[@TeenWithACarrotIDK]

On a jet, it can also really accelerate.

[@lb2791]

I use the rhino quite a lot in my nuclear craft as the stage that performs the burn to leave kerbins SOI. The tradeoff is you need a larger lifter but I don't care about that for most applications - it certainly beats having to make multiple burns just to leave Kerbins SOI. That being said, I usually use more Nervas for my craft than actually needed, just so I have decent thrust.

[@1mariomaniac]

I've used the Rhino a couple times as a second stage in really heavy crafts. It's a pretty good sustainer engine to get you into orbit before you need to use the Nervs.

[@SuprSBG]

Disliking for thud slander

[@birdymartin]

Thud, Mainsail, and Twitch engines are my life blood, every rocket has at least one of them, they are so good I reccomend 100% Twin Boar is also great for medium sized craft, great twr and you can add more fuel to the fuel already added to the engine.

[@ampoulgon8716]

Ion engines + fuel cells are a ridiculously underutilized combo. It gives the wheight-reducing benifits of ion where it counts: the outer solar system, where every gram is crazy expensive! While also not needing to wait for rechargeing, since they produce so much power, saving wheight on batteries. Ya barely need any LqdFuel/Ox either, a doughnut tank or two is enough for most of my craft.

[@Spacewalker1870]

spark, spider and ant engines are really underrated, they are really useful for small probes or minimalist missions

[@theHoIe]

dude i think i needed this, thank youtube for that

[@therandomtransformersanima6236]

Poodle might as well be A teir it is the best for landing large stuff on moons/ planets

[@petterlarsson7257]

5:54 what are you talking about you unlock them at the same time

[@thatonechannel1937]

The reliant engine doesn't deserve to be d-tier, its great for a mid atmospheric side booster early to mid game.

[@MDE_never_dies]

Thud E Tier Skipper B Tier

[@arturcabral9457]

This videos is more necessary then it seems, I just might realize a few things about efficiency

[@neil.3710]

Pretty nice content👌

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

You are heavily underrating the Reliant and just as heavily overrating the Swivel. A Reliant + 4 Standard Canards provide ASL 205 kN of trust for 1.65 t (124.25 kN/t TWR), while a Swivel provides 168 kN of trust for 1.5t (112 kN/t TWR). The Reliant also has a higher ASL ISP than the Swivel - 265s vs 250s. Which considering that both of these engines are first stage engines makes the Reliant strictly superior to the Swivel.

[@Spacewalker1870]

true, but only downside would be like for the upper atmosphere you would have less control, but you could just use rcs or reaction wheels, or also just have rocket staged before reaching that part of atmosphere too

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

@@Spacewalker1870 You should aim to discard your lower stage by between 20-25km height since at that point engines reach essentially vacuum performance.

[@Spacewalker1870]

@@marcustulliuscicero5443 true, but that is not super important as sea level engines still has isp and thrust, a little more than at sea level (well a lot mroe thrust than sea level bc burnt fuel so lower mass but ye) like for example SLS doesnt do this, it has lower stage end up going really high, like 530,000 feet before separating

[@kaczXX]

Mainsail should be in F category

[@kaczXX]

@Carp pros: high thrust cons: heavy, inefficient, expensive

[@kaczXX]

@Carp ISP

[@MrTomyCJ]

@@kaczXX That's a very low isp... carps can barely leave the water!

[@bigmoose7]

@@kaczXXMainsail really isn’t that bad I just throw one on if the other whatever they’re called aren’t cutting it and I don’t want to spend loads of money on the twin boat