No shielding for spaceplanes?

[Yukon0009]

The latest Squacast stated that there were no dedicates heat shield parts.

Might be fine for single capsules, but how about spaceplanes? With the new aero update they wouldn't fly with.....well...whatever Squad gives us to block heat sticking out the bottom.

And landers? Slapping a command pod (I do hope they come heat shielded) on the bottom would be heavy and impratical.

I apologize if this has in fact already been answered and there is a thread for it.

[Sandworm]

I suspect that you won't need shielding for anything coming back from low orbit, regardless of angle. Anything with a hint of re-usability, including all aero parts, will probably be nearly indestructible on reentry.

[r4pt0r]

I suspect that you won't need shielding for anything coming back from low orbit, regardless of angle. Anything with a hint of re-usability, including all aero parts, will probably be nearly indestructible on reentry.

right, but say I have a small unmanned probe arriving at laythe, what can I slap on the bottom of that?

[Aragosnat]

Likely something big and expendable?But, yeah. Would be intresting to see what we can make or get to fit the bill.

[Alshain]

Your going to have to turn to mods. It's not the only sensible thing they are omitting. Plane builders are going to require mods for Flaps and Spoilers, it makes no sense not to have them with realistic aerodynamics, but guess what?

[jlo96]

I think what Max was saying in KSPTV was that for the moment, no exterior heat shielding parts are being added.

That doesn't necessarily mean that fuselages won't have heatshielding on the bottom. But officially, that's just IMO.

Edited April 11, 2015 by jlo96

[Tw1]

I'd like to see them make a tweakble which allows you to add heat shielding, and the heat shield texture to the bottom of parts. That would save a lot on partcount.

[jlo96]

{sensible suggestion} Plane builders are going to require mods for Flaps and Spoilers

Isn't it possible to turn the stock control surfaces into flaps by disabling control axises?

[Destroyer713]

As long as it's possible to re-enter with a Spaceplane and wind up somewhere near KSP in one piece without too much difficulty, I'll be happy.

[Alshain]

Isn't it possible to turn the stock control surfaces into flaps by disabling control axises?

No. That would turn them into a wing.

[jlo96]

No.

Sorry, two of the three, not all. Wouldn't it work, assuming you can assign enable/disable [yaw pitch roll] to an action group?

- - - Updated - - -

I'd like to see them make a tweakble which allows you to add heat shielding, and the heat shield texture to the bottom of parts. That would save a lot on partcount.

from this thread

before they were made stock Porkjet was working on a tweakable heat tiles option. squad did not want to include this in the stock wings but now that re-entry heat is coming maybe we will get the tweakable too?

Just speculation, but relevant.

[CalculusWarrior]

Max hinted that there may be a heat intensity difficulty slider during the cast, as well as mentioned that one could repurpose fairings into heat shields. Neither has been officially confirmed, so take them with a grain of salt.

[Majorjim!]

I think what Max was saying in KSPTV was that for the moment, no exterior heat shielding parts are being added.

That doesn't necessarily mean that fuselages won't have heatshielding on the bottom. But officially, that's just IMO.

So they release the game with a mechanic that destroys your craft on entry and gives no method of protecting your craft from it? W T F..

[tseitsei]

So they release the game with a mechanic that destroys your craft on entry and gives no method of protecting your craft from it? W T F..

You have a method. It is called shallower re-entry angle and otherwise manuevering your descent (S-turns are nice...). What's the point of adding re-entry heat if you are just going to add some OP heatshield parts that you just slap at the bottom of your ship and do the same easy mode re-entry at 90 degrees re-entry angle again.

Re-entry SHOULD be hard and heat SHOULD destroy your ship if you enter with interplanetary speeds and/or wrong angle. I'm sure that if there are no heatshields as seperate parts the heat tolerances of "normal" parts will be scaled accordingly to make re-entry possible but not as brainless and idiotically easy as it currently is...

Other option is to add a heatshield parts but make them weak enough for re-entry to still be challenging and not just something like "LOL Im re-entering at 6km/s but I have a heatshield so it's not a problem :D"

IMO heatshields should be done like this:

All parts have a slider that increases their heat tolerance (to a certain upper limit of course) but increasing heat tolerance would also increase the parts weight and price also. /Kind of how FAR deals wing strength/mass thing)

[Karriz]

I'm a bit worried how interplanetary re-entries on Eve and Laythe will work without heatshield. Should we attach some stuctural panels and adapter parts to the bottom so that they take the damage?

[tseitsei]

I'm a bit worried how interplanetary re-entries on Eve and Laythe will work without heatshield. Should we attach some stuctural panels and adapter parts to the bottom so that they take the damage?

You shouldn't re-entry from interplanetary speeds. Except for aerobrake from upper parts of the atmosphere.

You should gradually lower your speed while coming too fast. Let's say you come to eve from kerbin with periapsis speed of 4km/s. You should do an aerobrake in the upper parts of the atmosphere to kill you speed as much as possible without going too low and blowing up. But you will (probably) still need engine powered retrograde burn to capture to highly elliptical orbit (because you can't dip low enough to atmosphere to lose enough speed without blowing up) with ap at the edge of eves SOI and pe in the upper atmosphere of eve. After that you can gradually aerobrake from upper atmosphere each orbit to lower your apoapsis until you are at low eve orbit and then you are ready to do your final re-entry at reasonable speed

[Majorjim!]

You have a method. It is called shallower re-entry angle and otherwise manuevering your descent (S-turns are nice...). What's the point of adding re-entry heat if you are just going to add some OP heatshield parts that you just slap at the bottom of your ship and do the same easy mode re-entry at 90 degrees re-entry angle again.

Re-entry SHOULD be hard and heat SHOULD destroy your ship if you enter with interplanetary speeds and/or wrong angle. I'm sure that if there are no heatshields as seperate parts the heat tolerances of "normal" parts will be scaled accordingly to make re-entry possible but not as brainless and idiotically easy as it currently is...

Other option is to add a heatshield parts but make them weak enough for re-entry to still be challenging and not just something like "LOL Im re-entering at 6km/s but I have a heatshield so it's not a problem :D"

IMO heatshields should be done like this:

All parts have a slider that increases their heat tolerance (to a certain upper limit of course) but increasing heat tolerance would also increase the parts weight and price also. /Kind of how FAR deals wing strength/mass thing)

So what about those Eve ascent landers? Without heatshieds any aero braking is going to destroy the lander..

[tseitsei]

So what about those Eve ascent landers? Without heatshieds any aero braking is going to destroy the lander..

3 options here:

1. heatshields are not a seperate parts and all parts have a certain temperature tolerance after which they will explode.

In this case re-entry heat will obviously be scaled to those temperature tolerance values so that re-entry (and reasonable aerobraking) will be possible without heatshields. And you should also choose to use parts that have high temp tolerance if you are going to land to eve.

I don't really like this solution though and I hope squad comes up with something better...

2. heatshields as seperate parts

In this case re-entry heat should be scaled to be much hotter than in case 1 and would easily destroy all non-heatshielded parts during re-entry (or aerobrake) so you would just have to use heatshields for every re-entry.

Main problem with this is that shielding spaceplanes and different shaped crafts would be difficult because we would have only some heatshield parts in few different shapes and sizes so I don't like this idea either.

3. My favourite idea that I already described higher up: All parts have a slider that you can move up or down to increase/decrease that parts temp/tolerance up to a certain limit. BUT making your parts more temp resistant would also make them heavier and more expensive (Like the wing strength slider in FAR). That way you could essentially shield any shaped and sized ship you want, but it wioll be heavier and more expensive to build

[Majorjim!]

3 options here:

1. heatshields are not a seperate parts and all parts have a certain temperature tolerance after which they will explode.

In this case re-entry heat will obviously be scaled to those temperature tolerance values so that re-entry (and reasonable aerobraking) will be possible without heatshields. And you should also choose to use parts that have high temp tolerance if you are going to land to eve.

I don't really like this solution though and I hope squad comes up with something better...

2. heatshields as seperate parts

In this case re-entry heat should be scaled to be much hotter than in case 1 and would easily destroy all non-heatshielded parts during re-entry (or aerobrake) so you would just have to use heatshields for every re-entry.

Main problem with this is that shielding spaceplanes and different shaped crafts would be difficult because we would have only some heatshield parts in few different shapes and sizes so I don't like this idea either.

3. My favourite idea that I already described higher up: All parts have a slider that you can move up or down to increase/decrease that parts temp/tolerance up to a certain limit. BUT making your parts more temp resistant would also make them heavier and more expensive (Like the wing strength slider in FAR). That way you could essentially shield any shaped and sized ship you want, but it wioll be heavier and more expensive to build

Agreed! Number three sounds like the beat idea to me too.

[Tex_NL]

...

3. My favourite idea that I already described higher up: All parts have a slider that you can move up or down to increase/decrease that parts temp/tolerance up to a certain limit. BUT making your parts more temp resistant would also make them heavier and more expensive (Like the wing strength slider in FAR). That way you could essentially shield any shaped and sized ship you want, but it wioll be heavier and more expensive to build

With this you're venturing into the realm of procedural parts. SQUAD clearly stated on many occasions they do not want procedural parts with infinite possibilities.

The way B9 Aerospace switches between versions of the same part is much better. It retains the modular philosophy but still gives you the option to choose between light and vulnerable or heavy and sturdy without increasing part count.

[Melfice]

I haven't seen the Squadcast, but I would remind you all that you're reacting to a bare minimum of information.

There are no heatshield parts. Was the heat tolerance shown or mentioned? Was the new reentry mechanic discussed in great detail?

Relax.

[klgraham1013]

People trying to defend the lack of heat shields.

I suppose I better go tell NASA to stop using heat shields because they're to OP.

It's bad enough we aren't getting flaps and spoilers.

[rkman]

There is a segment of the KSP community which assumes that whatever feature or content is not implemented at any particular point along the development of the game, will never see the light of day. Has been proven to be incorrect many times over.

[Alshain]

People trying to defend the lack of heat shields.

I suppose I better go tell NASA to stop using heat shields because they're to OP.

It's bad enough we aren't getting flaps and spoilers.

Who said they were overpowered? Or even that they shouldn't be in the game eventually? Just that you don't NEED them right away is all we are saying, so you can live without them or use mods for a while longer. At some point there has to be a cutoff as to what they can cram in a single update, and that decision was made. No flaps, no spoilers, no heatshields. I hope we see them all eventually, but I understand tough choices have to be made.

Also (not really related to the topic), NASA uses heat shields because 1. Earth is not Kerbin and 2. They can't fly in over foreign airspace.

[Melfice]

Another reason for not including heat shields is because for the most part, the heat shields in our own world are not some optional part that can be removed and the vehicle is able to function without.

While it is true, especially in the case of the Space Shuttle, that the heat shield needs to be replaced after reentry it can't just be omitted.

So, having all/certain parts be resistant to reentry heat without extra parts seems logical enough from a semi-realism/gameplay standpoint.

Aside from that... imagine the ....ton of heatshield parts you'd need.

Just for space planes:

Five cockpits, three of which have a unique shape that would definitely need dedicated shields. (3/5)

Fifteen space plane parts of varying length. (18/20)

That's at least 18 bits of shielding needed for all the different sizes and shapes. Unless you suggest flat boards. Which might be an option. Which would reduce it down to... six? But then... flat board are boring.