1.0.3, where is it?

[Goddess Bhavani]

Stock aero is about as unforgiving as a puppy. Almost anything with wings will fly, 15G+ maneuvers can be casually accomplished in ships that aren't remotely built for it, and you can land by power-diving at the runway then pulling up hard 20m off the deck.

I also realized as deadly as new stock re-entry could be, I have found an easy way to 'pull the emergency brake' and decelerate very rapidly in the stratosphere by using SAS to pitch to ridiculous angles of attack and holding it there. Good way to escape from the atmospheric frying pan of re-entry

Anyways back on topic - where is 1.03?

It will be ready when it's ready and fully tested to purrrfection! No point rushing Squad otherwise there will be more rushed implementations and fixes that cause more yarn to come undone and it isn't the cat's fault.

So be patient, crash more kerbals

[Mister Dilsby]

Whatever the original intent was, (and really, do we need to start arguing about "framer's intent"? Way too many electrons spent on THAT sort of thing already ) I love the "fun-sized" nature of KSP. It's easy to forget, since we are always looking at things from a Kerbal's POV, that EVERYTHING is smaller in KSP:

Jeb barely comes up to Buzz's knee, and that's with the helmet on!

[Murph]

Sure that makes sense, Squad going through all that trouble to create reentry heat that is consequential only in the most extreme of circumstances than can be created only by trying very hard. Do you really think that is how it will be, can you cite any reference for that, or are are you just being contrarian?

We'll see soon enough how much of a factor reentry heat will actually be.

The current heat is basically about right for the speeds involved. You are calling for heat that vastly exceeds realism for the speeds. Remember that it's m*v*v, so half the starting velocity is actually a quarter of the energy to dissipate, i.e. it's perfectly correct and appropriate for heat to be less of a problem.

I don't need to cite a reference, but I can: The 1.0.2 release is a fairly clear statement of Squad's intent. I really do think that what we have today is very likely at least a close approximation to Squad's intended level of heat. Can you cite anything at all, anywhere, even the slightest hint, that they intend for re-entry heat to be a major problem for re-entry from Mun & Minimus? I don't believe that any such statement exists from them.

There are circumstances in today's 1.0.2 game which will cause you severe problems with heat, namely coming in from certain solar orbits. Also, re-entry in space planes without actively taking steps to increase drag dramatically and scrub speed off. Also, spaceplane ascent if your vertical rate is too slow once you've got mach 3+ speeds going on. Also, losing attitude control of a capsule with other parts below it and ending up facing prograde.

I think that we have got exactly what they intended to deliver, that it should not be changed significantly; and that it would be a huge game-breaking mistake to change it to be significantly harder, very likely causing significant harm to KSP's long term success. I do not believe that they ever intended the consequences to be a severe problem for re-entry from Kerbin orbit.

- - - Updated - - -

I also realized as deadly as new stock re-entry could be, I have found an easy way to 'pull the emergency brake' and decelerate very rapidly in the stratosphere by using SAS to pitch to ridiculous angles of attack and holding it there. Good way to escape from the atmospheric frying pan of re-entry

Up to about 45° AoA, it's not so ridiculous. That's how NASA's Shuttle did it, combined with long high AoA S-turns.

[rkman]

Stock aero is about as unforgiving as a puppy.

A whole lot less forgiving than pre-1.0 aero.

You are calling for heat that vastly exceeds realism for the speeds.

I am calling for "game".

I do not believe that they ever intended the consequences to be a severe problem for re-entry from Kerbin orbit.

Neither do i. But there can be heating that is consequential even for a Mun return without it being a severe problem; that is why they gave us heat shields.

It has consequences for mission design, not consequences that make the game impossibly hard.

Edited May 28, 2015 by rkman

[pincushionman]

…EVERYTHING is smaller in KSP:

http://spaceflightonline.net/images/kerbal_spacecraft_scale.png

Jeb barely comes up to Buzz's knee, and that's with the helmet on!

Not to derail the discussion over this (but it will anyway), but that's scaled down TOO much. The 3-kerb pod is the 2.5m version, and a 1m-ish Kerbal should be half the height of the real 1.8m astronaut. Is that a picture with the old pod?

[stibbons]

a 1m-ish Kerbal should be half the height of the real 1.8m astronaut.

The wiki gives Kerbal's height as around 75cm. That's about hip level for my 175cm height.

Is that a picture with the old pod?

Yeah, that's the original Mk1 pod, which as I understand was the same size as the new Mk1 - 1.25m diameter.

[problemecium]

Yes, Kerbals enjoyed a roughly 2x size boost somewhere around 0.15 or some such when EVAs were added. One can observe that the current 3-Kerbal pod is twice the diameter of the old command pod, while the current Size 1 pod only holds one Kerbal.

If you spawn a 1-meter cube using Whack-a-Kerbal (or just launch any old part that's about a meter tall), you can compare it to a Kerbal's height - they're a bit under a meter tall now, or roughly the size of a Hobbit.

[eddiew]

...or roughly the size of a Hobbit.

Does that make this the Herbal Space Program?

[BFalcon]

Does that make this the Herbal Space Program?

Well, they're green... Snotling Space Program??