Heat in 1.02 (and reentry)

[Eliijahh]

In 1.0 if I entered Kerbin atmosphere at some crazy angle, the heatshield would just be eaten a lot, and protect my craft. If I couldn't make the rocket aerodynamic, the craft would flip and burn from the behind while reentering.

Now in 1.02 the craft never burns. Like, never. I've reentered from a steep orbit Minmus-Kerbin, at 3k m/s, and nothing, the heat shield stayed at 200. Also I enjoyed the fact that in 1.02 the atmosphere wouldn't completely stop your craft descending. Now it goes to 100 m/s at a couple thousand metres, and stays like that. In 1.0 if you went too fast for reentry, if the craft didn't burn up, then it would horribly crash at crazy speeds (if you consider the invincible parachute a bug, I mean)

What do you think about that? Also do you know whether it was more realistic for reentry to slow so much, like in 1.02 (compared to real life reentry)? I've read a lot of complaints about the atmosphere for the rocket to go to space, but little feedback for the rocket to reentry. I'd like to know your opinions (for realism sake and also because I've been unlucky and I didn't play a lot of 1.0 before the 1.02 patch)

[Hyomoto]

They are clearly playing around with the heat mechanics as they seem to have adjusted greatly between 1.0 and 1.0.2. I have questions as well on this topic. Previously you are correct, coming in too fast was a recipe for disaster, but now it works more like FAR does where you are slowed down the deeper into the atmosphere you go. Because of this, heating doesn't seem to be as big of a deal as it was before because heat is pretty generous in general.

As an alternate though, I love flying planes. Now I have issues where my planes overheat just from the friction of flying through the atmosphere for long periods of time. It might be a byproduct of using physics warp, I haven't tested that out, but now I have questions about cooling. Once I land the craft, you'd think sitting it idle for a while would be enough to cool it a bit but that isn't what seems to happen.

So I go back to my original sentence, it seems the heat mechanics are more in-development than finished mostly because feedback about them is very limited. The overheat bars only show up once they hit 50% so it's hard to see how they are heating/cooling based on the world around them.

[LameLefty]

You must have messed with settings in the Debug menu or config files - return from an 100km orbital mission (targeting a 30km periapsis) took the ablator down to about 185. Ablation in the Real Worldâ„¢ isn't just a function of temperature. It's a function of how long the heat shield is exposed to elevated temperatures. So a steep, fast reentry will pull many more G's, might (or might not) have a higher peak temperature, but will have a much shorter length of time of exposure to peak heat.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

I've not got 1.02 yet because the patcher is broken but if this is true it's quite disappointing. I like the fact that a objects could punch straight down through the atmosphere - like stuff does in real life. Also if stuff slows down too high up then that makes heat shields pointless.

I don't think there's much wrong with 1.00 areodynamics - the invincible parachutes, massless heat sheilds and uber-explodey tailcones were there own issues and shouldn't have been dealt with with such sweeping changes.

I really hoped I'd seen the last of the soup-o-sphere.

[Alias72]

The problem squad is having with heat is a response to the smaller kerbal system. They need a heating mechanic that will fry unprotected capsules but allow planes to blast at mach 3. They haven't hit the sweetspot yet.

[Crusher8000]

Now my parachutes all burn up even if they are protected by a heatshield, I've placed 3 heatshields in a curve over my mk I pod to protect the parachutes but they still burn up if I come from the mun so I've resorted to putting them in the utility tank.

[Rfmeijboom]

To me the reentry heat is way to weak as well.

I play with reentry heating at 120%, but still I could land my mun lander without parachute, just burn to get periapsis at 30km, hit the atmosphere with 3km/s and let the atmosphere slow me down.

I only had to use my engines for the last 200m/s to do a powered landing, no parts overheated . . .

And even with different entry angles it is way to easy to make craft survive reentry without really trying.

For me the reentry heating should be made in such a way that from a 100x100 km orbit, lowering your periapsis to about 30km should already require a heat shield to survive.

[DJK]

Some tweaks i did to make re-entry more challenging: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118775-Tweaks-for-a-challenging-re-entry-effect

For me the reentry heating should be made in such a way that from a 100x100 km orbit, lowering your periapsis to about 30km should already require a heat shield to survive.

With those tweaks, you can still re-enter from 100x30 orbit, but barely.. the effect can be increased as needed.

Edited May 2, 2015 by DJK

[AbhChallenger]

Another reason why 1.1 needs much much more testing.

[Drowning Fish]

I've been deliberately trying just to get a basic pod with no heat shield to explode from reentry and haven't been able to, even at 120% heating.

[shaun3000]

Changing the whole aerodynamic model seems like a huge change to me. But Squad went from the old model in 0.90 to *BOOM* final release, 1.0, oh and we completely revamped a major part of the game with no beta testing. I’m sure it’s fine. What the heck? They had a three year development period and then to make a massive change like that and call it done? Wow.

[Frostiken]

Now in 1.02 the craft never burns. Like, never. I've reentered from a steep orbit Minmus-Kerbin, at 3k m/s, and nothing, the heat shield stayed at 200. Also I enjoyed the fact that in 1.02 the atmosphere wouldn't completely stop your craft descending. Now it goes to 100 m/s at a couple thousand metres, and stays like that. In 1.0 if you went too fast for reentry, if the craft didn't burn up, then it would horribly crash at crazy speeds (if you consider the invincible parachute a bug, I mean)

Eh, I didn't like the reentry / atmosphere drag balance in 1.0. I found myself relying way too much on parachutes. The heat shield would approach zero on any reentry from farther out than the Mun, the atmosphere wouldn't slow me enough (still going about 500m/s below ~5k), and more often than not I had to pop the instastop chute.

Now I don't know what the hell you're talking about, because I literally just flew back from the Mun and burned about 60% of my heatshield up, which is a far more reasonable amount. Additionally, the atmosphere aerobraked me down to 300m/s, and I was able to safely, gently deploy a parachute.

And then I died because the 500m parachute opening is way too low for the new chutes.

[exegesis]

Listen, in 1.01/1.02 it's literally impossible to burn up. A HEATSHIELD-LESS capsule dropped straight into the atmosphere at >3km/s won't heat over 500 degrees, AND it slows down to terminal velocity well before the ground.

If squad felt the need to increase drag and lift values, that's fine, but now heating serves no purpose. Not only that, but spaceplanes can now glide at like 20m/s due to the increased lift and drag.

These things really need a re-balance.

[katateochi]

I've not used a single heat shield my career so far. I like trying to do returns where I skip of the atmo and come back down. I thought that was what was allowing me to survive reentry, but then I found that if I messed up and plunged straight down from a Mun return I still survived (sometimes a couple badly placed batteries would go). in 1.0 craft where exploding, in 1.0.2 I've not had any re-entry exploding

[Superluminaut]

In 1.0 if I entered Kerbin atmosphere at some crazy angle, the heatshield would just be eaten a lot, and protect my craft. If I couldn't make the rocket aerodynamic, the craft would flip and burn from the behind while reentering.

Now in 1.02 the craft never burns. Like, never. I've reentered from a steep orbit Minmus-Kerbin, at 3k m/s, and nothing, the heat shield stayed at 200. Also I enjoyed the fact that in 1.02 the atmosphere wouldn't completely stop your craft descending. Now it goes to 100 m/s at a couple thousand metres, and stays like that. In 1.0 if you went too fast for reentry, if the craft didn't burn up, then it would horribly crash at crazy speeds (if you consider the invincible parachute a bug, I mean)

What do you think about that? Also do you know whether it was more realistic for reentry to slow so much, like in 1.02 (compared to real life reentry)? I've read a lot of complaints about the atmosphere for the rocket to go to space, but little feedback for the rocket to reentry. I'd like to know your opinions (for realism sake and also because I've been unlucky and I didn't play a lot of 1.0 before the 1.02 patch)

I think your 1.0 experience may have been a bug.

Nothing ever burnt. The first thing I did in 1.0 was test the shields, and coming in form the edge of kerbin influence burnt away 18 units.

[arkie87]

I think your 1.0 experience may have been a bug.

Nothing ever burnt. The first thing I did in 1.0 was test the shields, and coming in form the edge of kerbin influence burnt away 18 units.

I experienced both things. Sometimes, my craft was fine coming in at 3 km/s to ~36 km. Other times, it would explode at 45 km for no reason. When i used debugger i saw convective fluxes in the 10's of thousands. After 1.0.2, the convective fluxes stay around 5,000... I think there was some sort of bug in 1.0.0...

Anyway, IMHO, I dont think the game would lose it's mass appeal if default aerodynamic heating was set to hard mode and every descent must be perfectly planned (though sliders to let other players make it more difficult are fine).

IMHO, i think the default setting for aerodynamic heating should be something like:

(1) from LKO, you pretty much just cant come straight down, since G forces will destroy craft/kerbal.

(2) from Mun or Minmus, you either need a heat shield and a steep descent (say 20 km) or no heat shield and a shallower descent (say 35 km).

(3) Returning from interplanetary mission, you need a shallow descent (35 km) and a heat shield.

But that's just me.

[Mathman]

I agree fully on this. Game realism does not have to model Earth, but gross actions like high structural loads and high temperatures on hypersonic entry into an atmosphere should. If I tumble on takeoff, things should break up. If I enter the atmosphere too 'hot' I should burn up, shield or no shield. As it is now:cool: I can't even make a moon lander with things sticking out all over burn up or even have parts break off when making a 3000+ m/s re-entry. Sure, easy mode for new people. But realism should be , well, real. Get real folks.

To me the reentry heat is way to weak as well.

I play with reentry heating at 120%, but still I could land my mun lander without parachute, just burn to get periapsis at 30km, hit the atmosphere with 3km/s and let the atmosphere slow me down.

I only had to use my engines for the last 200m/s to do a powered landing, no parts overheated . . .

And even with different entry angles it is way to easy to make craft survive reentry without really trying.

For me the reentry heating should be made in such a way that from a 100x100 km orbit, lowering your periapsis to about 30km should already require a heat shield to survive.

[CaptainKipard]

One point oh point two. Not One point oh two.