N-1 steered by differential thrust, meaning every engine points directly backwards and losing one on the rim means you have to turn off another on the opposite

N-1 steered by differential thrust, meaning every engine points directly backwards and losing one on the rim means you have to turn off another on the opposite side to compensate, and now you've lost all the margin there is in the design and quite a lot of control authority too. All SpaceX rockets steer by gimbaling engines, meaning you lose one on the rim and you just adjust the thrust vectors to compensate.