Re-Entry not deadly enough

[Combatsmithen]

I dont think re-entry is deadly enough imo. I just re-entered my spacestation from a 100km orbit at over 2000 meters per second and nothing broke or even got to the red zone.

[worir4]

I think there is a setting to turn up the heating. I think if you open the alt-f12 menu you can change it from one of those tabs.

[Wiseman]

Re-entry at 2km/s is never going to be particularly deadly, unless you go into your config file and turn the heat setting up to 2 or higher. Even then, it's not going to be all that spectacular, because 2km/s is not all that spectacular, in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, while return from LKO doesn't require a heatshield, aerobraking at 10km/s around Jool has become a bit more of a design challenge than it was.

[Reactordrone]

If you can hit 15km doing 2000m/s you're guaranteed to die.

[NFUN]

If you don't think reentry is deadly enough, you might like Deadly Reentry.

[Wheffle]

A low Kerbin orbit 2km/s reentry in an Earth-like atmosphere is downright sluggish. If you pump atmospheric friction up to compensate, then rockets and especially space planes begin exploding on ascent. It's a see-saw the devs struggle with because Kerbin is so tiny and orbital velocity for low Kerbin orbit (or even return trajectories from the Mun and Minmus) are quite small.

[Jasonden]

I dont think re-entry is deadly enough imo. I just re-entered my spacestation from a 100km orbit at over 2000 meters per second and nothing broke or even got to the red zone.

Was just returning from Mun and was the same for me -- until I got to like 13500m at which point everything spontaneously combusted. ...?

[Wallygator]

Now that we have a relatively sane aero model (it's not perfect), we are seeing the fallacy of our lovely but under-scaled Kerbin. The in-game laws of physics can only be stretched so far before even the senseless sense the senselessness.

[ShadowZone]

Have you tried aerocapturing a 300ton cruiser in Jool's atmosphere yet? Or Eve's?

[Reactordrone]

Was just returning from Mun and was the same for me -- until I got to like 13500m at which point everything spontaneously combusted. ...?

The drag model has been changed as well as the heating so you're going to lose less speed in the upper atmosphere and are more likely to hit the wall where you hit denser air at high speed and heating suddenly skyrockets and destroys your ship. Even heat shields won't save you from that as the ablator cannot carry heat away fast enough. A shallow entry and drag producing parts will help get you slowed down fast enough to avoid catastrophic heating.

[Archgeek]

Balanced heat shields for skin temps. A Mk1-2 straight-in reentry to Eve starting at 6.5km/sec surface (more orbital) is just barely survivable (ablator fully depletes), and regular Eve and Kerbin Munar reentries deplete about 1/6 to 1/4 the shield.

Sounds to me like an unshielded pod from Minmus might in trouble now, as well as an unshielded pod from the Mun on a dumb trajectory.

[Mipe]

Again, Kerbin is not Earth.

[Nich]

I call BS

1) who de-orbits a spacestation?

2) lowing PE 50k from 100k would give an orbital speed over 2500 m/s I am not even wasting the energy doing the math.

[Mipe]

1) who de-orbits a spacestation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deorbit_of_Mir

[Wallygator]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deorbit_of_Mir

Yes! and...

http://www.spaceref.com/iss/skylab.deorbit.html

Edited June 25, 2015 by Wallygator

[Mischief]

Once you get good at ksp then doing anything simple with a simple vessel becomes simple. You are building return ships and capsules that are meant to survive return and you know how to adjust your return trajectory to make it successful. That isn't a failing in the game but our expectations.

We are accustomed to games scaling difficulty to match us. You have leveled your ksp skillz to 20, you want launch/recovery on Kerbin to increase to level 20. Doesn't work that way. Kerbin is Kerbin. You learn to launch and land, that's it. Kerbin is home, your start loc and reentry will almost always be easier than launch.

Get away from Kerbin. Go set up a permanent duna or laythe colony. Dres asteroid mining facility. Resource collection for in situ refueling at Moho for a sundiver.

Kerbin is the starting point. It does not need to get harder to match players increasing skill. Mod in difficulty or venture away from home, or both.

[Col_Jessep]

I think the best way to experience some proper re-entry heat is RSS and DRE. Coming back from the Moon at ~11km/s should cook your Kerbals just fine.

[Robje]

A low Kerbin orbit 2km/s reentry in an Earth-like atmosphere is downright sluggish. If you pump atmospheric friction up to compensate, then rockets and especially space planes begin exploding on ascent. It's a see-saw the devs struggle with because Kerbin is so tiny and orbital velocity for low Kerbin orbit (or even return trajectories from the Mun and Minmus) are quite small.

Tthats a good point. Hadn't realised that.

[tater]

A low Kerbin orbit 2km/s reentry in an Earth-like atmosphere is downright sluggish. If you pump atmospheric friction up to compensate, then rockets and especially space planes begin exploding on ascent. It's a see-saw the devs struggle with because Kerbin is so tiny and orbital velocity for low Kerbin orbit (or even return trajectories from the Mun and Minmus) are quite small.

This.

Its the screwy mini solar system. What if kerbin's atmosphere ended closer to 10km? You'd need a shallow reentry to bleed off velocity, but you'd hit thick air very quickly. This is why many of us prefer more realism, as arbitrary tweaks are not required to make things behave as you would expect.

[Joonatan1998]

The heating seems to mostly be balanced for Jool/Eve, and that makes kerbin very easy.

I think they should just allow the slider go higher for players who want more difficulty.