- Unloaded Ships Don't Aerobrake -

[Bug_]

If a ship's orbit just barely dips under the outer shell of the atmosphere of a planet, and the other say, 95% of the orbit is in space, then you can return to the space center without having your ship destroyed. AND this allows for you to abuse this mechanic. You can choose which cycles of your orbit experience aerobraking, and which don't, by either loading your ship or watching it from the tracking station.

I think the fix for this should be that if your ship's orbit dips into the atmosphere at any point in it's orbit, it should have to be destroyed in order to return to the space center.

Anyone else notice this/share the same opinion on the fix?

Edited May 4, 2015 by Supernovy

[magico13]

It's been this way since basically the beginning. Ships won't be removed until they reach 0.01 atmospheric pressure or higher (might be a bit different in 1.0 now), the limits of which are on the KSP wiki. In some ways it makes sense since the acceleration they would feel is generally pretty low. But I also would be fine with extending that range to 1.5 times or so, since at 25km on Kerbin you will definitely see some serious aerobraking.

[Supernovy]

The no-aerobraking-when-unfocussed thing is intended, as is the altitude/pressure at which the game deletes craft.

Atmospheric physics range is 22.5km in stock, now, however.

[John FX]

I'd be happy with an increase in the delete height myself, I reckon 30km would be fair.

[Bug_]

The acceleration they feel can actually cause some significant changes in the orbit. I noticed that my ship lost about 400 000 m from its apoapsis when it was loaded, and lost nothing when it wasn't loaded. I think to balance it, you should get that warning dialog when you try to leave your ship and return to the space station that you get when your ship is under acceleration, even if your ship is not under acceleration but its orbit goes into an atmosphere.

[WinkAllKerb'']

The no-aerobraking-when-unfocussed thing is intended, as is the altitude/pressure at which the game deletes craft.

Atmospheric physics range is 22.5km in stock, now, however.

If i could be oki for "very far" unloaded/unfocused vessels, it's really kinda annoying during launch and landing with multiple decoupling on a single vessel.

but: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118777-Master-Thread-Parachutes#3

I'd be happy with an increase in the delete height myself, I reckon 30km would be fair.

So i' be happy with even more range that could feet all planet "regular" launch & landing scenarios or a "precalculation approximation workaround specially for launch and landing phase (some kind special script for decouplage under low orbit ?)" workaround.

Edited May 8, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''
typo