Reentry heating too weak?

[Sky_walker]

About balancing the heat tolerance of parts: If only we could improve our parts (in game - with SCI or money) - then they could all start low and you could choose to either make all those you want to bring back more heat-resilient, or simply use the heat-shields.

Rather redundant suggestion, not to mention that it works only in campaign. If your parts are overheating - hide them in a cargo bay, or at least - move them away from hot reentry plasma. I don't like a concept of upgradeable parts.

As for whatever reason we cannot get a dedicated heat shields for planes - an idea with making all non-spaceplane parts less heat-resistant makes sense.

I really liked the idea of the capsule getting squashed like a can when exposed to high g-forces.

Something to put on KSP2.0 list,

Or better not at all. I think you don't realize just high G-forces it'd have to experience to be squashed like that. And it propably wouldn't be possible at all considering the internal structure.

It would be totally awesome, if pressure and heat could do visible stuff to your parts, like if you could watch your capsule start to melt...

Not with unity engine I'm afraid. That would require whole new layer set of calculations and tons of additional details implemented into the game. You seem not to realize just how enormous change it is. Besides - if they'd want to make it realistic - you wouldn't see a thing, cause plasma would glow so bright that all you'd see are falling stars... but that's just nitpicking

Edited May 11, 2015 by Sky_walker

[Mr. Scruffy]

1. Well, the upgradable parts (i took note of you not liking the concept) could work in sandbox-/scimode just as well. Pick your upgrades freely in the former, pay with science for them in later. They would add another dimension to the tech-tree.

2. By saying ´KSP 2.0´ i meant to imply that i dont regard this as feasable at the moment or even in the next couple of years.

3. You seem to be very focused on re-entry effects (rightly so, this is the topic of this thread) but i was thinking in more general terms, here. There probably are certain conditions, under which your windows would start showing creaks (they do not neccessarily need to be of the type of windows we use here on earth) and painted on logos melt away from the surface. I do realize, that this is currently outside the scope of the game and would pose a real technical challange to implement, which, at this time, would simply not be worth even trying. Still i find the idea of seeing stress on your parts appealing and would love to see such sometime in the (distant) future.

[James M]

So this may be an old topic but whatever. I play the game way safe in the sense that I try to take no risks especially when it comes to keeping my kerbals alive. Ever since I bought this game however, I've felt that reentry was honestly way too easy and presented little to no challenge at all to someone with my kind of play style. Sure, I use heat shields but I never bring ablator with me. Don't need it. Ablator weighs a lot, decays too irradically (depending on angles of entry) and the heat resistance of the shield itself is outrageous. If you have the patience to make multiple dips into the atmosphere, it's all but unnecessary. All I'm recommending is some readjusting of the shields themselves. Hopefully this gets considered.