futrtrubl

There is the official KSP bug tracker. http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/projects/ksp/issues

Install the latest dev build. Was this your first launch using ascent guidance with that craft? Remember you have to launch once to the target altitude (fully, circularize and everything) then revert and then launch to rendezvous. Otherwise MJ has no idea when to launch. Did you change the turn start speed? Otherwise it is turning when it reaches the set speed and that is well before your set altitude. It turns on the first condition it reaches, altitude or speed. 8km is pretty late to be turning in the new aero and it's probably set that way for auto only as a safeguard since you should hit a proper turn speed well before that. The proper time to start a turn is dependent mostly on TWR so speed is a better generic indicator of when to turn than altitude for unknown craft.

From the first post;

Hopefully your user would know if his pod/probe faced the main axis. Maybe not ;']

You could ask them to select the pod/probe that faces the direction of travel I guess.

A greater fraction of heat is dumped into the air instead of the craft at steep angles, this is why heatsink type shields (early mercury tests, "passively cooled" on wikipedia) are better there. At shallow angles a larger fraction is absorbed but more is reradiated, this is why radiative heatshields (Shuttle tiles, "thermal soak" on wikipedia) are better there. Ablative heatshields tend to be a bit more tolerant either way but tend to favor steeper.

Not quite. Yes the game now keeps fuel consumption the same instead of thrust as ISP changes, but fuel consumption is still defined by ISP and thrust. It calculates it from 0atm ISP and maxThrust. If you look at what you are trying to change, every stock LFO engine is 0.9:1.1 so that obviously doesn't affect fuel consumption.

There is an unofficial 64bit community thing going around. Not something I would think any addon maker would want to have to support.

Changing the ratio doesn't affect that. It only affects the ratio of the propellants used and 1:1 is the same ratio as 2:2. The only things that affect fuel consumption rate are ISP and thrust. If you want to reduce fuel consumption at the same thrust (ie increase efficiency) you need to increase ISP.

What are you trying to do with that?

Then you have 3 options. a. Don't build 200 ton craft. b. Disable reentry heating. c. Build your 200 ton craft in such a way that it can survive reentry heating. Which is difficult and requires a lot of drag and shielding.

It's obviously an embarrassing medical condition caused by eating too many root vegetables.

That is incorrect. As I said, peak heat does increase, but total absorbed heat decreases. This is why reentry corridors are narrow, too shallow and you cook, too steep and you squish. BRB, getting sources. Edit: ok http://www.slideshare.net/IngesAerospace/space-vehicle-design-6-atmospheric-entry-10879586 page 299, second paragraph after definition of units and onwards. Figure 6.11 on page 307 shows this very well.

For aerobraking the density should be low enough that the rate of convective transfer should be low enough and the amount of time in the atmosphere low enough that it should be ok. Only way to be sure is to test it. - - - Updated - - - Ahh, makes sense. Was just worried some heat might be double counted.

Good try ;'] 3/5 ain't bad. Edit: Doh!

45 degree entry is really steep. So that seems about right. Remember that the steeper the entry the lower total heat (peak heat may be higher but the time spent heating is more important), but the higher g forces become.

Wait, a parachute has internal heat generation... that seems very wrong.

I have to agree, trying to use the low res slope map is an exercise in frustration with everywhere being flat except the cliff edged borders between low res pixels.

Did you enable the StockPlus fixes?

Is it well shielded from the air stream? If it is then it is probably conduction moving heat into it from another part. Bring up the heat debug and see where the heat is coming from.

Pipes aren't that stiff. Add some struts to hold them. That wobbly behavior is something I would expect in real life in that situation.

There are two things you are trying to limit when reentering, g forces and heating. To limit g force you come in at a shallow angle so you do most of your slowing high up so when you hit the thicker atmosphere you are going slower and so have less drag and thus less g forces. Conversely to limit the amount of heating you want to come in steeply. This makes peak heating higher, but it actually reduces the amount of heat absorbed by the craft as the heating is for a MUCH shorter period of time. So it comes down to a balance of how much heat and how much gs you can take. That's why with real life reentries there is a very narrow window of survivable reentry. Too shallow and they cook, too steep and they squish. KSP has much lower orbital speeds so it's a lot more forgiving with the survivable reentry angles. PS. This means that if you have probes that don't care too much about gs or aero stress a steep angle can save quite a bit in shielding.

Couldn't you have it select a vessel that has the part PotatoRoid?

The problem is FAR nicely provides a method to just ask it for the data and it provides it. Stock does not. Even worse we can't see the stock code and how it actually does it like we can with FAR so the best you can do is guess and see how well that matches what you see in the game.

Also want to add that many real life probes discard their heatshield as soon as it isn't needed not just for the weight savings but also to avoid heat conduction issues like this. At least I seem to remember reading that somewhere though of course I have long since forgotten the source.