Spaceplanes with Deadly Reentry

[dlrk]

How do spaceplanes work with deadly reentry? I see that some fuselages have built-in directional heatshields, but what about wings?

[NathanKell]

The way mirroring works, wings would have to have omnidirectional heatshields IIRC, as otherwise they'd point up on one side of the fuselage and down on the other. Assuming you go for a high-alpha reentry.

[dlrk]

Not sure what you mean by mirroring. Is there a way to add the necessary or heatshields, or do it without them?

Thanks

[dlrk]

More generally Nathan, what do you usually do for DR spaceplanes? I'm contemplating a lifting body, if I can get it to work

[Capt. Hunt]

Not sure what you mean by mirroring. Is there a way to add the necessary or heatshields, or do it without them?

Thanks

since there are no left or right wings in the game, every object that you place by symmetry is flipped around when placed on the opposite side of the spaceframe. That means that if one side was different from the other, say one side had thermal tiles and the other didn't, the wings would not have the same side facing the same way, so a directional heatshield would not work on one wing. What Nathan is suggesting is that if they have heatshields, they would have to be on both sides.

[GavinZac]

since there are no left or right wings in the game, every object that you place by symmetry is flipped around when placed on the opposite side of the spaceframe. That means that if one side was different from the other, say one side had thermal tiles and the other didn't, the wings would not have the same side facing the same way, so a directional heatshield would not work on one wing. What Nathan is suggesting is that if they have heatshields, they would have to be on both sides.

This is only true in the VAB. In the SPH things flip the right way. You can test this by making a space plane with 1 central fuselage and 2 additonal side fuselages. Placing a mirrored cockpit on the side fuselages results in two correctly-placed cockpits.

[NathanKell]

dlrk: Heh, wish I'd had a chance to play this game. :}

For spaceplanes in RSS, your best bet is to up the reflectivity of the heatshields that get added to body parts, and add similar reflectivity-based shields for the wings, just use direction = 0, 0, 0 rather than a set direction.

GavinZac: try a part where there's obviously an up, down, left, and right. Pretty sure it'll get rotated even in mirror mode. Obviously only applies to surface-attach mirroring, stack-attach no mirroring is necessary...

Maybe they've finally fixed it?

[dlrk]

Nathan, thanks. What reflectivity increase would be realistic/reasonable? What about adding ablative shields to structural panels and putting them on the bottom of the wings?

[GavinZac]

GavinZac: try a part where there's obviously an up, down, left, and right. Pretty sure it'll get rotated even in mirror mode. Obviously only applies to surface-attach mirroring, stack-attach no mirroring is necessary...

Maybe they've finally fixed it?

Well, the cockpits have an obvious up and down (and thus, left and right) and are mirrored properly in the SPB in a way that they aren't in the VAB - the VAB puts them opposing each other, for vertical symmetry.

[NathanKell]

GavinZac: uh, try placing landing gear in symmetry. Note that they aren't actually mirrored, just translated (shiny side of wheel is always on the right). KSP "mirroring" is *weird*.