Difference between revisions of "Talk:Engine"

Latest revision as of 13:50, 3 March 2015

Engines, Motors, and Reactions

I described on the reaction engine's talk page how we need to rework our terminology because Wikipedia defines jet engines as a kind of reaction engine. KSP doesn't even use the term “reaction engine” anywhere, but it's a catch for rocket engines, SRBs, jet engines, RCS, and really anything that burns chemical fuel.

That led to questions about this article.

Currently, the Engine article lists rover wheels as a type of engine. It's technically correct, but awkward; KSP doesn't list them in the "Engines" parts tab. They're non-reaction engine "engines", but by the same logic the torque in SAS modules and command pods is an engine; you can flip-walk things across terrain!

I don't know what the best approach to this one is. There's a clear in-game meaning to "Engine" as things under the "Engine" parts tab. But I've seen a phantom force driven water speeder by Danny4682, infini-gliders, and a flying contraption made of symmetrically placed landing legs pushing against a slightly-too-close metal panel.

Do we want the Parts focused meaning or the "engine/motor" meaning Wikipedia uses in a broader context? --Brendan (talk) 21:04, 2 March 2015 (CST)

Not a real answer, but before I forget it. I just saw through the logs and noticed that you changed [[rover wheel]]s into [[Parts#…|rover wheels]]. I think it's more sensible to have the first link, even if it just redirects. This minimizes broken links to sections (when the header gets changed) as only the redirect needs to be fixed. Also all links about rover wheels are working as soon as someone writes an actual article about them. I know that Wikipedia handles it differently but it would also require in the link text that it links to a section. — xZise [talk] 05:44, 3 March 2015 (CST).

Okay there is no rover wheels article and thus this doesn't apply to this case here. — xZise [talk] 07:50, 3 March 2015 (CST)

We should check how the pages use Engine. E.g. SAS#Effect is meaning any reaction engine and not rover wheels. So interesting would be what links to engine but doesn't mean rover wheels? I'd then suggest to make it a disambiguation page and have it list something like a tree:

• Reaction engine
  • Rocket engine
    • Liquid fuel engine
    • …
  • Ion engine
• Rover wheels

Because my main problem would be what we are doing with it afterwards? Just linking it to reaction wheels? But what about rover wheels? (etc) — xZise [talk] 07:50, 3 March 2015 (CST)