What is the more realistic setting for reentry heat ?

[Braker]

100% or 120% ?

If 100% is the realistic value, why 120% can be selected ?

And when we say "100%", is 100% of what ? Of realism ? Of difficulty ?

I think that the reentry heat settings should be the sames for all. The devs' should be set an unique resalistic value and do a checkable box to activate or desactivate the reentry heat effects...

Are you agree my point of view ?

Thanks for answers and kind regards. Have a nice day !

Edited September 11, 2015 by Braker

[Chaos_Klaus]

If reentry heat would work realistically, you would not see any reentry effects on kerbin. Kerbin is 10x smaller than earth while its atmosphere has the same thickness. That means you have lots of time to slow down during ascent.

So 100% is just some amout of heat that squad agreed upon to be reasonable for gameplay. It works well for Kerbin but interplanetary aerobraking got really hard. I'm looking foward to the new thermal changes that Nathan Kell is doing for 1.1. It was in the last devnotes.

[Braker]

Ok, so to reasure me, Squad recognized this lack of perfection about reentry heat and work actually to make a new reentry heat system ? I hope that this one will be pine point realistic and universal for all players (not adjustable with this slider).

Edited September 10, 2015 by goldenpeach

[The_Rocketeer]

I think adjustable difficulty settings are fair enough. Back in alpha there were no re-entry effects at all. Before release, the DRE mod was what you did if you wanted it, but I guess for a lot of people it was an extra level of challenge that didn't really add much fun so they didn't bother. When re-entry heating became stock, it was a little annoying to not be able to just make an encounter anymore in order to get somewhere - now you have to plan some manoeuvres at the landing end. On balance, I've gotten used to it and now I wouldn't change it, but if Squad choose to change things again I'll probably just go thru the process of getting over my petty annoyances again.

[EdusacconBR]

i can reenter with an entire station with 100% heating

[NathanKell]

So could Skylab. Didn't end well.

[Braker]

i can reenter with an entire station with 100% heating

It's a joke isn't it ?

[Red Iron Crown]

Ok, so to reasure me, Squad recognized this lack of perfection about reentry heat and work actually to make a new reentry heat system ? I hope that this one will be pine point realistic and universal for all players (not adjustable with this slider).

Realistic would be less fun/interesting in this case, because there would basically be no danger from reentry. Kerbin and its surrounding solar system are so small that it is fairly difficult to get up to speeds that would be dangerous in real life. For example: A sensible return from Jool to Kerbin yields a bit over 4km/s on encountering Kerbin's atmosphere; contrast this to low Earth orbit reentry speeds at about 7.5km/s. I suppose one might argue that increasing the size of the stock system and dialing down reentry heat to realistic levels, but that has a bunch of other side effects, like breaking spaceplanes completely and ruining all the community created references.

I don't quite understand your objection to the slider. You say in the OP that you are fine with having players be able to turn reentry heat on or off entirely, why not let them pick some value in between if they like?

[Braker]

Realistic would be less fun/interesting in this case, because there would basically be no danger from reentry. Kerbin and its surrounding solar system are so small that it is fairly difficult to get up to speeds that would be dangerous in real life. For example: A sensible return from Jool to Kerbin yields a bit over 4km/s on encountering Kerbin's atmosphere; contrast this to low Earth orbit reentry speeds at about 7.5km/s. I suppose one might argue that increasing the size of the stock system and dialing down reentry heat to realistic levels, but that has a bunch of other side effects, like breaking spaceplanes completely and ruining all the community created references.

I don't quite understand your objection to the slider. You say in the OP that you are fine with having players be able to turn reentry heat on or off entirely, why not let them pick some value in between if they like?

I understand your point of view, i have underevaluated the devs' work for the balance. But for you, what can be improved in the next update ?

Edited September 10, 2015 by Braker

[tater]

Realistic would be less fun/interesting in this case, because there would basically be no danger from reentry. Kerbin and its surrounding solar system are so small that it is fairly difficult to get up to speeds that would be dangerous in real life. For example: A sensible return from Jool to Kerbin yields a bit over 4km/s on encountering Kerbin's atmosphere; contrast this to low Earth orbit reentry speeds at about 7.5km/s. I suppose one might argue that increasing the size of the stock system and dialing down reentry heat to realistic levels, but that has a bunch of other side effects, like breaking spaceplanes completely and ruining all the community created references.

I don't quite understand your objection to the slider. You say in the OP that you are fine with having players be able to turn reentry heat on or off entirely, why not let them pick some value in between if they like?

Realistic would mean scaling up everything such that the g and atmospheric values for any given world at least make sense, then reentry would be meaningful.

Making everything 10X smaller is fine---as long as their masses, etc are also 10X smaller, with properly scaled everything. Jool would be the only world with a decent atmosphere, basically, lol.

Edited September 11, 2015 by tater

[cantab]

Yeah. The problem is realistically Kerbin re-entries wouldn't cause significant heating. Squad have a few choices:

Implement realistic re-entry heating and accept that it will be a complete non-consideration unless the player does something extreme.

Implement a "fudge factor" so things get hotter at lower speeds. This is what they did.

Reduce temperature limits on parts. I'm not sure if this would even work though, Kerbin re-entry speeds might still be too slow.

Make Kerbin bigger. This has other impacts on gameplay. The big one in my view is a significantly larger planet means a significantly longer launch to orbit. That's something that can't really be balanced out by changing engine performance or tank masses.

[Superfluous J]

The big problem is that "realistic" "fun" "good" and "possible" are not synonyms, but they are all desirable. The devs need to balance realism, enjoyment, and quality but must also work within the confines of what is actually possible to implement in the game.

I actually like the balance they've reached in many places. I don't want to play in a 10x (aka "realistic") system, and not only due to the fact that it seems to stretch the "possible" side of it a bit too thin. I also don't find it fun. I understand that this means that re-entry is going to be wonky on one end or another, at least until they figure out either a different way to do it (which is unlikely at this point I think) or the perfect cocktail of settings that allows you to both aerobrake at Eve without exploding, and have to worry about aerobraking at Kerbin without exploding.

[Red Iron Crown]

I understand your point of view, i have underevaluated the devs' work for the balance. But for you, what can be improved in the next update ?

IMHO the atmosphere gradients of the other planets need some attention. I seem to have an easier time aerobraking at Kerbin from interplanetary speeds than at Eve or Laythe (Jool I haven't bothered with and I've only tried Duna once). Their atmospheres seem to get dangerously thick too quickly, the altitude band between "doesn't shed enough speed" and "burns up in seconds" is a bit narrow.

[Braker]

Ok thank's for replies.

[NathanKell]

Realistic heating only feels like it's ignorable because even fuel tanks can withstand more heat than the X-15 could. If parts melted at more realistic temperatures, heating would be more of an issue. But the same "flimsy" rocket parts have to survive being on spaceplanes etc.

For reference, the X-15's record speeds were ~4000mph, or about Kerbin orbital velocity (when in surface mode, inclination 0 orbit).

[EdusacconBR]

It's a joke isn't it ?

Nope