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How to make Re-entry more deadly?


Desperado34

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Im very much looking forward to the next patch. <keeping fingers crossed about reentry heating>

Playing KSP in current state (no matter of DRE/stock/increased heat settings) it just feels like cheating to be able to return crew from pretty much anything :(

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Why is just lowering the threshold for things blowing up not an option? Everything else seems to break physics in some sort of way. But what if we just say that Kerbals are pretty bad engineers and that their stuff stuff blows up when it gets to some threshold that is lower than the current threshold?

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Eh, that was super easy to ignore. One just chose to not open chutes until doing so was reasonable. What troubles this thread is how a change other than the parachute fix neutered the ability of the atmosphere to melt an unprotected command pod.

I never had an issue with command pods melting in 1.0 I had issues with command pods flipping out but that was easily self fixed with some config editing 1.0's reentry wasn't any harder or "realistic" then 1.0.2.

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I never had an issue with command pods melting in 1.0 I had issues with command pods flipping out but that was easily self fixed with some config editing 1.0's reentry wasn't any harder or "realistic" then 1.0.2.

Was that with or without a heat shield? Judging from the flipping issue, I'm guessing it was with. How much ablator did you go through on a descent? Without, you may've had a harder time. In 1.0.2 hardly any is used, and even an unprotected pod barely gets warm.

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Was that with or without a heat shield? Judging from the flipping issue, I'm guessing it was with. How much ablator did you go through on a descent? Without, you may've had a harder time. In 1.0.2 hardly any is used, and even an unprotected pod barely gets warm.

It doesn't matter, I did several experiments mentioned above, I think. I had a 20km periapsis, and hit between 11 and 12 km/s.The heat shield burned off almost instantly, but the pod (mk1-2) was still almost 9000 m/s, now with no heat shield. Landed just fine.

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It doesn't matter, I did several experiments mentioned above, I think. I had a 20km periapsis, and hit between 11 and 12 km/s.The heat shield burned off almost instantly, but the pod (mk1-2) was still almost 9000 m/s, now with no heat shield. Landed just fine.

Wow, was that 1.0 or or 1.0.2? Here's my incomplete data on 1.0.2:

Re-entry mk1 tests:

76km x 20km : max temp under 500k

76km x -400m: max temp under 411k

160km x 20km: max temp 430k

950km x 20km: max temp 464k

1000km x 20.2km: max temp 470k

950.6km x 1.8km: max temp 472k

Mun to 0km: SOON

Re-entry mk2 tests:

100km x 20km: max temp 434.4k

1000km x 20km: max temp 228.0k

996km x -495km: max temp 457.8k

Minmus to Kerbin tests: SOON

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've also gotten good results with 120% heat settings and just by applying a blanket modifier to the thermal mass of all parts to make it a fraction of what it is in stock with the following module manager config:


// assign all parts that don't have an explicit thermal mass modifier, a default value of 1
@PART[*]:HAS[~thermalMassModifier[]]:Final
{
thermalMassModifier = 1.0
}

// set all thermal mass modifiers to a fraction of their value
@PART[*]:Final
{
@thermalMassModifier *= 0.1
}

This essentially causes parts to heat up much faster than they would normally, which makes all but the gentlest reentries difficult to survive without a heat shield.

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Well, there's DRE.

Im using DRE and even on 120% its still far from deadly. A mk2 pod without heatshield can survive re-entry from the mun without any form of aerobreaking.

I've also gotten good results with 120% heat settings and just by applying a blanket modifier to the thermal mass of all parts to make it a fraction of what it is in stock with the following module manager config:


// assign all parts that don't have an explicit thermal mass modifier, a default value of 1
@PART
[*]:HAS[~thermalMassModifier[]]:Final
{
thermalMassModifier = 1.0
}

// set all thermal mass modifiers to a fraction of their value
@PART
[*]:Final
{
@thermalMassModifier *= 0.1
}

This essentially causes parts to heat up much faster than they would normally, which makes all but the gentlest reentries difficult to survive without a heat shield.

Thanks, I'll try the config and see what it does. Guess I am one of those few players that tries to make this game as hard as possible :)

Edit: I cant seem to get the code to work. How do I use it?

Edited by Desperado34
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Edit: I cant seem to get the code to work. How do I use it?

Download ModuleManager (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55219), drop the code I posted to a .cfg file in your GameData directory, and there you go :)

Thanks, I'll try the config and see what it does. Guess I am one of those few players that tries to make this game as hard as possible :)

Well, you're definitely not alone in that. My mod tends to cater to such players (those that play career anyways), and there's quite a few of us that prefer to play that way.

The above adjustment I posted, is actually straight out of it. Not sure if it will solve your mk1-2 woes alone as I made a bunch of other adjustments to it as well, but I suspect it will do the trick.

Edited by FlowerChild
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Some other weird occurance: when I launch a high TWR rocket the fuel tanks will explode around 5km@400m/s. Compared to the effort I have to go through to BBQ a capsule this seems odd.

I think that's because the capsule has a higher heat resistance.

EDIT: No ninjas, but I just wanted to say that re-entry without heat shield is even easier, because just 1.25 meter command pod and .625 meter chute wants to stay retrograde. However, add a 1.25 heat shield below the craft, and it gets all out of whack.

Edited by RAINCRAFTER
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I think that's because the capsule has a higher heat resistance.

Yeah, the capsule has a max temperature of around 2400 Kelvin, while the rest of the parts tend to max out at or under 2000. That's something else that's easy to change through a MM patch though:


@PART[Mark1-2Pod]
{
@maxTemp = 2000 // 2400 stock
}

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After playing a lot with 1.0 psychics.cfg numbers in 1.02, I really feel it is perfectly balanced. It's not so easy that simply deploying chutes keeps you from dying, but a shallow re entry works just as well. I recently added the trajectories mod and have found reentry to be fun challenging and at the same time very simplistic. I don't know what the devs will do in 1.03, but I'm sticking with 1.0 physics values regardless.

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Ive been trying out your configs and it is still impossible to kill the pod for some reason. I even upped the aero thermal production setting from 3.650 to 5.000 (making every rocket with a TWR over 2.0 go boom on ascend) and lowered pod maxtemp to 1200.

In the ModuleManager configcache file I see the Thermalmassmodifier is altered correctly . Maxtemp however gives 'maxTemp = 1523.15' with the 1200 setting. Something wrong?

Is any of you able to destroy a MK1-2 pod on re-entry (crashing doesnt count)? If so, please tell me how you do it and what settings you use. Having immortal command pods kinds ruins it for me atm :(

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The thing is that Im not even using heat shields :/

When doing a 500kmx30km re-entry the pod should desintegrate, even with a heatshield. Right now I get to only 90% heat (with DRE, 120% heat, maximum aero heat generation and the thermal mass scripts from last page) and land perfectly fine.

HeatControl doesnt help unfortunately, it seems to be a mod to cool down crafts that use nukes, generators and solar panels.

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FWIW......

I keep seeing people complaining that stock reentry isn't "deadly enough". There's also a group that claims that stock fairings are "useless", which is at the bottom line closely related to the reentry heat question. To all these people, I offer a caveat:

Don't base your opinions of stock reentry heat and fairing effectiveness solely on operations within Kerbin's SOI. Before you go making things more difficult for yourself at Kerbin, first see how things work for you when you hit a substantial atmosphere at interplanetary transfer speeds. Do aerocaptures at Eve, Jool, Laythe, and returning to Kerbin from other planets. Because in such cases you hit the air going WAY faster than when coming back from Mun or Minmus, you get significantly more heating. Even with stock reentry heat at default settings, atmospheric passes at interplanetary speeds are potentially quite deadly. You are often faced with the choice either of making only shallow passes and doing fairly large burns to capture, or burning off parts of your ship. Delicate science and communications parts on probes don't stand a chance unless still covered by a fairing you've kept intact all the way there. That's plenty bad enough as-is. So if you tweak things so that you have similar challenges just returning from LKO, you run a definite risk of denying yourself the ability to aerocapture during interplanetary flights. Just so you know.....

Things are even worse for RemoteTech users. To do interplanetary flights, you need some sort of dish antenna to maintain communications during the trip, and this antenna has to be exposed on the outside of the ship, not covered in a fairing. It is thus quite likely to get burned off during an aerocapture. Food for thought there, certainly.

Anyway, it seems to me that when Squad made the new stock aero system, they must have looked only at Kerbin and tailored its atmosphere to where they wanted it. Certainly Kerbin's atmosphere needed to be the main focus because every single flight starts in it and most end in it. However, the rules established for Kerbin produce strange, almost certainly unintended, results at other atmospheric planets with different starting conditions (such as how easy it is to fly on Duna now). So my advice is, look before you leap when making reentry changes.

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Even with stock reentry heat at default settings, atmospheric passes at interplanetary speeds are potentially quite deadly. You are often faced with the choice either of making only shallow passes and doing fairly large burns to capture, or burning off parts of your ship. Delicate science and communications parts on probes don't stand a chance unless still covered by a fairing you've kept intact all the way there. That's plenty bad enough as-is. So if you tweak things so that you have similar challenges just returning from LKO, you run a definite risk of denying yourself the ability to aerocapture during interplanetary flights. Just so you know.....

Things are even worse for RemoteTech users. To do interplanetary flights, you need some sort of dish antenna to maintain communications during the trip, and this antenna has to be exposed on the outside of the ship, not covered in a fairing. It is thus quite likely to get burned off during an aerocapture. Food for thought there, certainly.

Yup I am aware of that, but Im one of those lunatics that want the game to be super-hard. I expect my ship to be destroyed if I let it hit a dense atmosphere at interplanetairy speeds.

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Ive been trying out your configs and it is still impossible to kill the pod for some reason. I even upped the aero thermal production setting from 3.650 to 5.000 (making every rocket with a TWR over 2.0 go boom on ascend) and lowered pod maxtemp to 1200.

I'm uncertain what might be going on there. I just checked over the config file for the Mk1-2 to be certain, and there aren't any other heat settings that are modified by it that would explain that behavior. Weighing in at 4 tons, it should also take it a good long while to decelerate from orbital velocities, which should be plenty to cause it to burn up.

You are reentering from orbit right? Not just a straight up and down to space? Unless you're going to rather extreme heights, the latter really shouldn't destroy anything.

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I love KSP and I love more realism. Thats why I played 0.90 with DRE, FAR, Remote Tech, TAC life support and a bunch of other stuff. Returning from orbit used to be something that needed some thought and some proper engineering if you wanted to bring back more then just a capsule. With 1.0 I got excited about the implementation of aero and re-entry into stock.

However now Im playing in 1.0.2 I find it near impossible to BBQ my crew on re-entry. Meaning that all my missions can safely return my crew guaranteed...no fun in that!

Goal: Burn up an MK1-2 capsule on re-entry

Settings: DRE, re-entry heat 120%, Aero heat production maxed at 5.000 (default is something like 3.250)

Attempted re-entry orbit: 500kmx30km no heatshield, 500km 90 degrees straight down no heatshield, 1000kmx5km no heatshield

The capsule survived all re-entry attempts. The crew died from excessive G-forces on the last 2 attempts, but the goal of capsule BBQ still failed.

Does anyone have tips on settings, mods etc to make re-entry more deadly again. Pretty much like how it was in .90?

You set your Pe at thirty and so you saved yourself. As you reenter you came in at a shallow angle as a consequence you were dissipating energy in kerbin thin atmosphere before you hit kerbins dangerous atmosphere below 15000 feet.

If you want to toast your kerbal you can do this. Fly to an altitude between mun and minmus orbit, take all the energy out of you spacecraft relative to kerbin, confirm this by MechJeb Pe is negative or in the Map view mode that your orbit intercepts Kerbin's surface on the nearside of kerbin instead of the far-side (IOW the average of the intercepts are on the opposite side as the Pe). Finally, to have your Orient express moment (as if a person needs to be stabbed by 12 people to die), burn prograde with all remaining fuel at 200km alt. (1000 DV should do it, closer is better if you have a high TWR setup), after completing the burn activate all your parachutes, finally around 15km alt send your kerbal on an EVA.

-------

I tried a Minmus Mun average orbit reentry at about a 70 pitch on 70k, it did not even overheat the 1.1 or 1.2 pods. They landed with a velocity of around 8.5 and still survived.

I then increase the angle to 90 pitch and entry speed to 24000 m/s (about the speed of an asteroid hitting earth from Pluto). At 20 k the first part overheated, within a fraction of a second all parts overheated inculding the F3 engine that I had moments provious decouple from the craft. All part angles are nose up.

This is consistent with past experience because I have burned up parts on one occasion previous, though I think it was because the chute overheated. Don't remember perfectly. So . . . . . .

Edited by PB666
Edits for accuracy
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I love KSP and I love more realism. Thats why I played 0.90 with DRE, FAR, Remote Tech, TAC life support and a bunch of other stuff. Returning from orbit used to be something that needed some thought and some proper engineering if you wanted to bring back more then just a capsule. With 1.0 I got excited about the implementation of aero and re-entry into stock.

However now Im playing in 1.0.2 I find it near impossible to BBQ my crew on re-entry. Meaning that all my missions can safely return my crew guaranteed...no fun in that!

Goal: Burn up an MK1-2 capsule on re-entry

Settings: DRE, re-entry heat 120%, Aero heat production maxed at 5.000 (default is something like 3.250)

Attempted re-entry orbit: 500kmx30km no heatshield, 500km 90 degrees straight down no heatshield, 1000kmx5km no heatshield

The capsule survived all re-entry attempts. The crew died from excessive G-forces on the last 2 attempts, but the goal of capsule BBQ still failed.

Does anyone have tips on settings, mods etc to make re-entry more deadly again. Pretty much like how it was in .90?

OK, then I have the recipe for deadly versus not deadly.

-Take a ship and place a tank and thruster that can produce 7g forces*mass.

-Alt-F12, unlimited fuel.

-Shoot strait up to 800km altitude

-Turn bearing -059 degrees.

-Full throttle the engine until speed hits 7800 m/s

-bear 0 or -180 to achieve a pe of 24,400 (quickly)

-turn prograde quickly and decouple the main engine

-wait until main engine is clear and turn retrograde you should be ~ 150km altitude, seconds away from a brilliant reentry (if you can see it through all the bump)

-hold on tight its going to be an epic ride.

-the ship should lose apo over the next 1/4 orbit or so until the pe- drops to below -100.

That is the survival limit approximately 8015 m/s at 60km alt heading for 24,400 (throughout the remainder of the flight the pe will fall slowly then rapidly on second visible re-entry)

The ship will immediately burst into a reentry.

At around 29km the ships acceleratometer will exceed Gmax (15g)

At 24km the ship will bottom out.

Around 29km all the heat guages will be near maximum

The ship will reach a maximum at 55km

and have a rather uneventful ride back to kerbin.

Any angle to Kerbin more steep at that velocity is deadly

I had a chute and capsule survive reentry at a strait in trajectory at about the same speed, but no chute and capsule combination.

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I just thought to throw it out there… My following tanker, after refuelling a larger ship in 190 km orbit, returned into the atmosphere engines first. It exploded due to heat (or maybe it hit a goose).

Screen-Shot-2015-06-14-at-12.44.23-PM.png

This loss has severely crippled my career, I was expecting to recover 300,000 Kash from it.

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I just thought to throw it out there… My following tanker, after refuelling a larger ship in 190 km orbit, returned into the atmosphere engines first. It exploded due to heat (or maybe it hit a goose).

The heavier something is, the longer it takes to decelerate (assuming equal drag), and thus the more heat it accumulates during the reentry process. So yeah, it makes sense that something like you pictured would burn up, even with stock settings.

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