Radiators, for the love of god, radiators

[Sonny_Jim]

Whilst I think it's great that they introduced a new game mechanic with heat being a thing we have to worry about, I find it slightly perverse that they didn't give us any parts dedicated to dispersing heat....

Yes I know, bury some wings in there and attach some solar panels, but it's akin to someone telling me to knock a nail in with a shoe because they didn't give me a hammer :-p

Personally, I'm using the debug menu to completely disable heat production until I get some radiators.

[WOODY01]

I think they should add them but there needs to be some sort of trade off. No sense in having a mechanic in the game that the challenge is easily fixed by an addition of a part.

Maybe a trade off , you dump a lot of heat for a noticable TWR loss, maybe increased power consumption? Maybe increase the effectiveness of radiators as you progress in the tech tree? You start out with overheating as a big concern then it lessens as your tech increases.

[TinfoilChef]

I've found this mod to be quite helpful for dealing with heat:

[1.0.2] Heat Management - Heatsink and Radiator parts (0.20)

[Whirligig Girl]

I think they should add them but there needs to be some sort of trade off. No sense in having a mechanic in the game that the challenge is easily fixed by an addition of a part.

Maybe a trade off , you dump a lot of heat for a noticable TWR loss, maybe increased power consumption? Maybe increase the effectiveness of radiators as you progress in the tech tree? You start out with overheating as a big concern then it lessens as your tech increases.

That's like saying "My airplane needs lift, wing parts can be used here. But those are the only parts that do that, so I should only be able to throttle up to 50% or use electricity to pump air past the wings".

Real spacecraft use radiators, just as real spacecraft use rocket engines or solar panels.

In the military the old bromide is that amateurs talk about battle tactics while professionals talk about logistics. In the real of spacecraft design, @AsteroidEnergy said "Amateurs discuss rockets, professionals discuss heat management."

Edited May 2, 2015 by GregroxMun

[Sonny_Jim]

there needs to be some sort of trade off

The trade off is that radiators have mass and cost money. Any extra mass = less dV. As with any game mechanic it will need balancing, but it seems silly to me to have to add wings to a craft that is destined to spend 99.99999% of it's time outside of the atmosphere.

[Tex_NL]

A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S. would make ideal radiators.

And it wouldn't even look weird.

[Pax Kerbana]

Yes yes needing these. I am trying to make one now...