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Hello, this topic has probably already been discussed, but it seemed to me that it is still suspended in the air, because there is no clear confirmation of adding a new type of heat shield The tools available in the game you can not protect every ship from re-entry, because for this you only have heat shields. I've had many instances where my mk1 shuttle would overheat and be very difficult to land from space. I cheated and reduced the heat exposure in the settings . What if players want to create a starship that will enter the atmosphere of mars from the second space speed or other heavy landers that can't use standard heat shields? Why not add the ability to cover aircraft hulls and tanks with heat shields in addition to the standard heat shields to start with. For example it could look like covering a certain surface of the underside of the craft with heat tiles. Definitely need a parameter to control the amount of coverage. For example the angle of 180 degrees is half of full coverage, the angle of 240 degrees is 4/3 of full coverage. Of course this would change the location of the center of mass, shifting it to the heat shield, and increase the weight, significantly. Obviously the surface area of the plane would be larger than that of the capsule. So they could be balanced in terms of gameplay I think this could enter the game as organically as the other procedural parts - wings and radiators. It will be easier to create spaceplanes, shuttles, gliders like esa spacerider or SUSIE , and others, which will increase creative freedom Honestly I think the issue of procedural heat shielding should be approached in a more advanced way, as about an arbitrarily shaped hull protecting the craft at re-entry into the atmosphere. Probably the mechanics of this part would be similar to the fairing mechanics. Just look at the source of inspiration - NASA's Havoc Venus mission UPD: I created a concept for heat protection for different surfaces, like wings and, plane cabins and hulls Here is a conception for heat protection for wings or another hull type details. If you want to apply heat protection for wing, you open heat category in redactor and choose icon, which looks like an abstract plate with specific texture. This icon with plate means a material you cover your detail. In information window it has a description, temperature and other limits, cost on surface unit, density and graphic of square density on square unit from material’s thickness. When material is chosen you click on wing, and lower surface of wing is covered by this material. Clicking on material you open its properties window, where you can change thickness of material on detail. Also I think there can be advanced settings if you want to cover not only bottom, but front of wing or cabin, and make cover as on pictures below Heat wear of material will be individual for each detail of craft which has it (individual wear of protection for every detail). Concerns, that there will be more calculations, I believe are overstated. Temperature overlay (f11) already exists and heat for every detail is calculated individually already. Other argument that wing now doesn’t consist from many details – it is one detail and probably heats as one detail. Less details – less calculations It will not conflict with traditional heat shields, they are details. I suggest a function of covering of detail by thermal protection Another bonus suggestions: Inflatable shields could be also improved by adding new shields with different diameters and adding wear for inflatable shields:) Also it will be cool to see GIGANTIC heat shields for atmosphere breaking like in bbc voyage to the planets or sun dive The heat details must have significant improvements, becuase reentry is important part of game. I like that radiators will be procedural, it is very useful improvement. I would like to see significant developments in thermal protection, it will change game in good way I believe that it will improve of creation of gliders, shuttles, spaceplanes and other non-capsule type crafts

No pictures, sorry. Use your imagination dangit. So forever ago I made a plane that could go 1400 m/s. It was mk2 part size and had 4 ramjet engines. It has to have a heat shield on it because it goes so fast... Later I slapped a mk2 cargo bay in there thinking... "If I could get this into a suborbital flight, then if I just release a small probe with a lot of speratrons then I could get it into orbit." So I did. I got to about 52,000 meters, the majority of the atmosphere gone, and released the probe. Albeit The Evil Kraken attacked the original probe design, so I couldn't get a perfect orbit but it was an amazing achievement. The plane then re-enters near another large landmass... and you can turn the engines back on to control you landing... or crash like I did. Anyways, it only took about 250 units of liquid only fuel to get up there, and then maybe 12 seperatrons to get the probe into orbit. That is pretty cheap in my opinion. Getting the entire plane into orbit is a little tedious and fuel intensive. Finally, the heat shield on the front of my plane is NOT aerodynamic... it would be nice to have aerodynamic ones so you can make a fast plane, and still be protected.