Can we have an overheat warning dial/thing?

[_Jay_]

Like a lot of people, I'm getting quite frustrated in the new build with things randomly exploding from heat. I love the new complexity the aerodynamics and heat offer, but the lack of quick ways to track it is quite frustrating. What I'd like to see as a feature is some sort of obvious visual cue that things are about to explode. I'm finding the majority of time piloting is being taken up by just guessing what is about to happen, rather than enjoying actually flying. If something like this already exists and I'm missing it let me know!

I think calling it an explodometer or similar would be fitting for Kerbal

[juanml82]

Yes, I second that. There is the thermal overlay, but it breaks inmersion and it doesn't really tell when something is about blow

[MacroNova]

DRE gave us a popup bar for parts that had reached critical temperature and were getting hotter. It also had a cool boiling sound effect when something was about to explode. Something like this would be perfect. Please don't solve this by putting temperature readouts in the right-click panels of the parts.

[Vorg]

Das found an alt-F12 option during the weekend that made parts glow as they got hot (not talking about the heatmap overlay), but I don't seem to find it now.

[_Jay_]

MacroNova - something like that would be ideal. I don't want to have to fly everywhere with the debug menu showing heatmaps and similar. Some little bar that fills as the parts slowly overheat, even if they don't recover (maybe that's how the heatshields work? I've not tried them yet)

I'll go through some options more soon. Hopefully someone will add a mod that does it if it isn't added in stock. Currently I'm flying with 50% heat, and despite this reentry is still pretty infuriating to work out. Think I've got the hang of ascent at least, good thing the engines are all so powerfull now!

[LordFerret]

The heat shield has an indicator for its rate of ablation (Resources button, top-right of the screen). I'm finding however, that external parts on the rocket (antenna, radial chutes, science experiments, etc) are not protected during reentry ... I'm constantly losing my Communotron 16 antenna, which is ok - I guess. It would be cool if it flared off (sparks and such) instead of exploding ... which I find quite nerve-racking. I'm also finding issues with the Service Bay and 2Hot Thermometer science experiment ... I think the Service Bay should be protecting the internal stowed components from heat.

[Frybert]

One kind of hacky method is to simply use an engine as a heat shield. It'll tell you in the staging how close to max temp its getting.

- - - Updated - - -

Upon testing, using engines for some reason makes the whole thing want to flip head first. Scratch that idea.

[Zinj]

Upon testing, using engines for some reason makes the whole thing want to flip head first. Scratch that idea.

Probly same reason as heat shield physiscs config being 1 insted 0?

[Sonny_Jim]

There's a few threads popping up with the same suggestion, which is basically "Tell me that a part is about to explode". I don't think it needs to be hugely complicated, even just a standard text message saying "Warning: Overheating" or some such would be enough.

[ShadowZone]

I think the "overheat" gauge in the staging UI is fine, but it should be expanded onto other parts as well.

For instance there could be a message displayes "Cockpit overheating" with that gauge beside it.

We very much need something like that.

[THX1138]

I would like an actual alarm sound, preferably of the sort that might be found on the

.

[nholzric]

There's a few threads popping up with the same suggestion, which is basically "Tell me that a part is about to explode". I don't think it needs to be hugely complicated, even just a standard text message saying "Warning: Overheating" or some such would be enough.

I don't think you want text messages. Think about being in reentry. All the sudden a bunch of windows pop up saying "Part X is Overheating", "Part Y is Overheating", etc. Or if the message was in context window of parts you would have to constantly right click through various parts looking for the message. Plus, just an overheating or not overheating information would probably be frustrating, I think we want something more granular to know how far along is it to exploding.

Do you have a more elegant way to display "a standard text message"?

I think the "overheat" gauge in the staging UI is fine, but it should be expanded onto other parts as well.

For instance there could be a message displayes "Cockpit overheating" with that gauge beside it.

We very much need something like that.

I'm sure your not suggesting going back to the time when every part appeared in the staging menu! That's what I first thought you meant, but maybe you mean messages and gauges could appear just somewhere on the screen, not necessarily next to the staging icons where some overheat information is currently displayed.

My idea would be to show a gray outline/shadow of the ship from three cardinal directions (front, left, top) and either overlay a heat map or a warning indicator on the gray outline when a part was overheating. (Don't know the feasibility of coming up with the gray/shadow on the fly but I suspect it could be done) This overheat outline would be in a tab next to the contracts and fuel/resources tabs. ShadowZone's idea could work here too, there'd be an overheat warning tab where messages would appear as parts began to overheat. This would avoid spamming the screen and having to hunt for the warnings.

[chaos_forge]

I like the suggestion of making parts that are about to overhead produce a fizzing sound and start smoking/sparking/spewing flames, just like DRE does. The sound very quickly alerts you to the fact that something is overheating, and the effects show you what is overheating without cluttering the UI. I would be fine with overheat gauges on the staging menu in addition to this.

[Gfurst]

I +1 on this, something easy to see and not obstructive. By the way, there's a lot of heat going in just for flying atmospheric in trans and super sonic speeds. Fairing are easy to explode with that.