Problem with the heatshield ablator during mining

[Herr Rictus Bingo]

Hi everyone !

I've noticed something during a journey mining on Mun, during the mining sequence, my ablator matiere was runing off I could not do anything ...

So I took a screenshot :

Did you know what cause this problem ?

[sal_vager]

Well, mining generates heat and the heat shield reacts directly to heat, so I guess your drills are getting hot and the heat is transferring to the shield.

There's thermal debug info in the Alt+F12 menu that can show heat on different parts, it should show the drills and connected parts getting very hot.

[Snooze]

Your ISRU is overheating which is melting away at your heat shield. Replace those small solar panels with Gigantors. They're excellent radiators.

[Zuroc]

I had a similar problem during my Mun mission. Near as I can tell, the heat generated by the ISRU is burning off your heat shield, which is kinda silly. Apparently heating is getting some tweaks in a coming patch, but until then, don't put your heat shield right against your ISRU and be sure to add some parts like wings to the parts around it to dissipate heat. Also, an engineer is supposed to reduce overheating, but i'm not sure it would help in this case.

[sal_vager]

Turns out solar panels are pretty weak as heat dissipators, wings work better, but it's a bit late in this case.

Best to run only one drill or move to a spot with more ore, as extraction will be easier and generate less heat

[Gaarst]

Both the drills and the converter generate heat, seeing that you have 4 drills and a converter running together at the same time, this generates a LOT of heat.

The ablator is just doing its job: dissipating heat by slowly vanishing to protect your command pod.

Though a shield is quite stupid and does not make the difference between reentry or drilling in terms of heat

[Herr Rictus Bingo]

Okay ! I see now I did not think that heat could be so strong ! Thanks for your help

[csiler2]

I wonder how well the heat-shields would work for countering LV-N heat...

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Not very well. They insulate the heat, so the rest of the rocket stays cool(er), while the section with the LV-N gets REALLY hot REALLY fast.

[csiler2]

Not very well. They insulate the heat, so the rest of the rocket stays cool(er), while the section with the LV-N gets REALLY hot REALLY fast.

Technically ablation shielding uses evaporation for cooling rather than insulation. That's why the heat-shields have a resource.

The shuttle's reentry tiles were insulation. They took heat in and did not transfer it and were only replaced when damaged or missing at the end of a mission. The Apollo capsule's heat-shield was ablative and vaporized as it dealt with the heat of reentry. It was only used once and never intended for reuse.

Just sandwhich an ablative shield between an LV-N and it's fuel source and you can run full-power as long as you have Ablator. I just ran a test and the LV-N will run through ablator at about 0.41 units per second at the launch pad. I wouldn't recommend it though A) because you have to route a fuel line to the LV-N and the heat-shields are heavy and the resource they provide is finite compared to the benefits of using other parts as radiator fins.

I feel like the Devs may want to consider prohibiting the ablator resource from being used when both attach nodes of a heat shield are used. Partially because I don't think ablator is intended for this use, but also because it could cause people to lose ablator on parts that aren't necessarily exposed to the air-stream but have the misfortune of being in contact with parts that are getting pretty warm. That feels a bit broken.

[SanderB]

I don't thnk its very realistic to make it so ablators dont evaporate on heating up.