Explain the heat shield thing to me, and new ascent issues

[lazaruslong]

I've only had a chance to play a few hours of 1.0 (fresh game fresh install) , but I have yet to experience a situation where the shield is necessary. However, I've so far only used the T1 capsule whith only a parachute attached after staging. When do I need the heatshield in this release?

Also, had anyone else been spinning out when attempting to angle to 45° at around 10-12km? Have rockets had aerodynamics added to then where if I pull too many g's in one direction, and then the thrust fights inertia in another direction, like a car taking to sharp of a turn, then i spin out?

[CalculusWarrior]

Basically, the old "gravity turn" we've all been doing, is not really a gravity turn at all. Straight up, angle to 45°, and burn til apoapsis exits the atmosphere just won't cut it anymore. The reason is that suddenly turning will break the flow of air around your rocket, imparting a much larger drag on the side facing away from the planet, thus flipping you around. If you ever played with FAR pre-1.0, you would have noticed the same effect.

The solution is to use a true gravity turn, a maneuver which, unsurprisingly, uses gravity to turn your spacecraft. Basically, you need to begin pitching over pretty much straight away off the launchpad. Either turn off SAS or set it to 'Prograde'. Then, simply follow the prograde marker, letting it fall towards the horizontal. Your rocket will automatically point towards it. Now, you can control this by throttling your engines. Increase thrust to slow the turn, decrease it to speed it up.

Disclaimer, I am in no means an expert on these turns, and have had much less time than I'd have liked over the past day or two to experiment with the new aero system. As such, take the second paragraph with a grain of salt, as there may be more efficient ways to make this turn. However, I hope this helps!

[eddiew]

I've been angling my rockets a notch over on the launch clamps (as I used to do with FAR). Works well for starting your gravity turn off without risking weird rolling happening I recommend not putting SAS on prograde until you have a few hundred m/s going, else it's easy to turn too fast.

[Foxster]

Seems to be a couple of alternatives to heat shields.

You can deploy your chutes to get some high altitude braking. I've thrown them out in the middle of a flame storm and they survived fine. Fall rate drops off nicely and the flames go away.

You can also deploy air brakes in the same way. As soon as the flames start, hit the brakes and you will slow down and the flames will disappear before they do any harm.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Foxster

[Warzouz]

Seems to be a couple of alternatives to heat shields.

You can deploy your shutes to get some high altitude braking. I've thrown them out in the middle of a flame storm and they survived fine. Fall rate drops off nicely and the flames go away.

You can also deploy air brakes in the same way. As soon as the flames start, hit the brakes and you will slow down and the flames will disappear before they do any harm.

Even with high velocity aerobraking (Jool or Laythe ?)

[Aerindel]

Ascent is the way it should be, real gravity turns are nice.

But re-entry is broken. Its actually easier now than it was before, you can depoy parachutes at any speed or altitude and they will slow you instantly and not break. All the re-entry heating means is that you have to deploy your chute early before you get hot and then wait five minutes to drift down.

[Foxster]

Even with high velocity aerobraking (Jool or Laythe ?)

The air brakes do. Not tried the chutes yet.

[panzer1b]

Even with high velocity aerobraking (Jool or Laythe ?)

i just pulled off jool/laythe braking using NOTHING BUT FLAPS.

Ud be surprised how much drag opening all your flaps puts out. If you arent crazy and dont dip too far, you can get into jool orbit with one try!

Sofar my ONLY issue right now is getting teh dV needed for laythe, as i essentially need 10K from the ions to let me take off from kerbin and laythe (the slow ascent isnt very efficient but works).

[lazaruslong]

Yea, I bet its more realistic ascent, I'll just have to learn again. Thanks all.

[Curveball Anders]

Yea, I bet its more realistic ascent, I'll just have to learn again. Thanks all.

It took a couple of hours, several attempts, crazy experiment, some serious screaming, NSFW (or children) language and banging my head at my desk but finally I managed to adjust.

My current solution is "gentle does it", slamming a craft into the atmosphere (and that pesky sound barrier) and then flip it 45 dregrees simply doesn't work any more (which I can live with, since it never should have worked).