What are the new heat shields for?

[leocrumb]

I would assume they are for protecting stuff during reentry. But if you put anything under the command module it just flips. What is the point if you cant move the center of mass to prevent flipping? Maybe I'm missing something.

Edited April 29, 2015 by leocrumb

[Blu_C]

The way heat shields are handled atm is less than ideal. I expect there will be a patch coming out shortly (a week or two at most) to deal with issues players have uncovered that the beta team missed.

For the moment you can try doing things like attaching air breaks to the capsule to give it drag which will slow it down before getting to deep into the atmosphere (making heat shields less necessary or irrelevant) and applying aerodynamic forces which will help keep it properly oriented.

[Capt. Hunt]

there's a minor bug in the way the game sees the mass of the heatshields, hence the flipping. There's already a mod that fixes it.

I have noticed though that atleast with my LKO flights since the update there doesn't appear to be any heating effect. No change on the thermometer gauge and no change to the amount of ablater on the shield.

[leocrumb]

At least Im not going mad I didn't know there were air brakes, what tech? Or if you have a link to the fix mod?

[Claw]

You can find one such mod in my sig. (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97285-0-25-Stock-Bug-Fix-Modules)

Cheers,

-Claw

[Grover]

You can fix it yourself by going to the parts .cfg file and changing the PhysicsSignificance line to 0.

Once the aero model considers the mass of the heatshield (which on real pods is damn heavy) any sensible pod configuration will be stable with the heatshield going first, protecting your delicates nicely

[JimTheDog]

I don't know that it's really a bug, since it lets you pilot your capsule down. The offset angles the capsule enough to produce lift by itself, rather than requiring you to turn it around. It's... pretty curious. I hope they add 'tilty' heatshields, like the present ones, and 'not-tilty' heatshields that act more like the old deadly re-entry ones, because it's a neat feature... it's just really hard to wrap your head around.