NathanKell

You can't ballpark between a 2-unit 0.1m x 0.1m tank and a 200 ton, hundreds-of-thousands-of-units, 5m x 30m tank. :]

Krakenfour: hypersonic and newtonian convection were modified to provide realish values (example: it's known that flux per m^2 peaked at ~800kW for Mercury during reentry, and the shock temperatures are known at interface and at q"max).

Wings in KSP are modeled as fully symmetric, and thus for them to make lift they need positive AoA (if that were not so, you'd run into OP's problem of wings needing to be attached only one way). However, they are modeled as wings, and thus have a lift curve rather different from a flat plate.

Anywhere you like. It's just an MM patch.

Yep, it's answer one. Compare your vertical velocity at interface in an orbital reentry and a suborbital reentry.

NERVA 2 was about 7.45, NERVA Alpha about 2.86, NERVA Gama 3.4, and RD-0410 was 1.8 (all via astronautix). TL4 or TL5 corresponds to the mid-late 70s NERVA. TL3 is mid-60s tech. Since RF engines generally include extra mass for the thrust frame, the engine-only TWR will be something like 10 to 15% higher, so correcting for that the TL4 TWR is about 2.2 and the TL5 TWR is about 2.7, a bit low for US engines but high for Soviet.

Mod Note: Just a note that any issues CKAN users encounter should be posted in the FAR via CKAN Thread not here, and that mods will be moving any such posts made here.

Ah, but that just means the LV-N is playing by the same rules as the other engines. See, in stock KSP, the regular liquid engines have about 1/4 to 1/6 the TWR that real ones do. However, the LV-N has about its real TWR (maybe 2/3 now that the mass is 3t). So if it plays by the same rules as regular KSP engines, it masses a lot. tl;dr LV-N is OP compared to regular engines, RF makes it play by the same rules.

Updated OP.

DRE isn't compatible with 1.0.4; you shouldn't even be using it if you have 1.0.4 rather than 1.0.2. If you're using 1.0.2, carry on.

Thanks! I did this basically headless--my net was out, so I had to upload the release with my phone. Evidently it got screwed up. I'll release a proper repack shortly, thanks ckfinite for the meantime fix.

Awesome! Please stop by #RO on espernet and we'll get you set up. Thanks so much!

Or turn down some of the physics settings. Indeed, I'd suggest bundling an MM patch to reduce some convective settings--here's how RO changes things if you want to see an example. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KSP-RO/RealismOverhaul/master/GameData/RealismOverhaul/RO_Physics.cfg

It's GPL, and thus anyone can maintain it.

1.1 is going to use Unity 5.0 per dev notes, so that's safe. rbray, pingopete, great to see the updates. This truly makes RSS, it just doesn't feel Earthlike without it. :]

Geschosskopf: I can't speak for Squad, but I certainly for myself prefer making similar changes to what you describe, and it's something I suggest we both, err, suggest, for 1.1. Adding curves like this would be very possible for Deadly Reentry (although that's Starwaster's baby rather than mine), but it wouldn't do what you want about lower-pressure upper atmospheres. For that you'd need to change the celestial body curves, which is a fairly trivial piece of code to load and apply new curves. Part of what's going on here is that the heat transfer coefficient for convection is rho^0.5, which "matters" more in Jool's very-not-dense upper atmosphere than it does in the comparatively denser Kerbin upper atmosphere (i.e. at rho ~= 1e-7 that's a density coefficient for convection of 3e-4 but drag still uses 1e-7). Not sure about Laythe though.

I can't speak to the actual question, but I can say: AFAIK there's no reason to use booleans, since you don't need a solid mesh for KSP, just a mesh. Booleans are expensive in polies because they keep meshes solid (no open edges, convex hull, whatever term you want).

You can color screenmessages too.

The parachutes now default to opening at 1000m, but old saved craft from 1.0.2 and below won't get that change retrofitted to them, you have to do it yourself.

It's highly recommended (says so in the OP! ) to use Realism Overhaul when you use RSS. Realism Overhaul, amongst other things, corrects the physics to be more or less real-life regarding thermo. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to use RO, you can use just the physics patch: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KSP-RO/RealismOverhaul/master/GameData/RealismOverhaul/RO_Physics.cfg (change FOR[RealismOverhaul] to, say, FOR[ROPhysics] though) KSP is set up to provide near-Earth-reentry temperatures for Kerbin reentry. If you reenter on Earth with those settings, you'll get shock temperatures in the, what, 20,000K range?

Deleting the file and letting KSP regenerate it is NOT sufficient. You need to either get the clean file from a store download of KSP, or delete it and verify local cache (steam). The settings in the 1.0.4 file are not the defaults that KSP generates.

FAR via CKAN This thread is for all support questions relating to FAR for those users who have installed it via CKAN. If you have installed FAR through CKAN, post here, not the regular FAR thread. Note: moderators will move support requests posted in the FAR thread into this thread if they are from CKAN users.

No, that's the turboramjet (aka "turbojet" in KSP .90). Though the RAPIER operates as a turboramjet in air-breathing mode too. Probably the switch to krakensbane=on at 750m/s?

Geschosskopf, thanks for this topic. Just as a note, I think you're right on the money with the issue being that heating is optimized for Kerbin. However, I don't think it has to be an either-or situation, or a "use funky numbers because ~Kerbal~" situation. In fact, in real life a gas giant's atmosphere produces rather less shock heating than Earth's, and that can (and IMO should) be modeled in KSP. A long time ago in the DRE thread ferram calculated shock temperature vs. velocity curves for various atmosphere types, and I think KSP's heating system would be well served by varying shock temperature (or transfer coefficient) by atmosphere type.

It will make reentry heating more easily survival in most cases, since higher drag means you slow faster which means you suffer less total heat load and lower peak rate (since you'll be going slower when you hit q"max). Probably won't affect capsules much, since they're already in the >.9 area of the Cd curve, but spaceplanes will get noticeably easier especially coming in nose first.