Why is the atmosphere at altitude so thick?

[Alphasus]

The atmosphere at altitude is so much thicker and my planes are slower. Is this intended?

[Foxster]

The atmosphere at altitude is so much thicker and my planes are slower. Is this intended?

Seems to be a "feature" that was introduced without information on the release note. Maybe to fix the previous problem with aerobraking at other worlds but which didn't fix that and messed things up in general.

[Pthigrivi]

There have been some adjustments to the aero and thermo models, yes. I couldn't speak to the reasons, (I suspect it has to do with balancing for re-entry, which I actually quite like). Some highly specialized spaceplanes will have to be redesigned, but I've found most often it's just required adjusting my ascent profile, building up more speed lower and raising the nose later.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

From testing, the true height of the atmo was raised as well. Previously, the atmo would become extremely near vacuum at 50km. Now it's only near vacuum above 60km. The thickness for me was the same, it's just the height shifted where each altitude was in order of thickness

[Gasofidas]

This is in the changelog for 1.0.5:

Drag coefficient changes based on the same factors as turbulent convection (a Pseudo-Reynolds number). This means higher drag high up in the atmosphere, and slightly lower drag when going very fast very low.

[BoilingOil]

"Aerodynamic improvements" - the thing that sticks in my craw is, that whether or not the changes actually *are* improvements, is a matter for debate. They may be *intended* as improvements, but for now they are merely untested *changes*.

But that's just me nagging!

[jwbrase]

There have been some adjustments to the aero and thermo models, yes. I couldn't speak to the reasons, (I suspect it has to do with balancing for re-entry, which I actually quite like). Some highly specialized spaceplanes will have to be redesigned, but I've found most often it's just required adjusting my ascent profile, building up more speed lower and raising the nose later.

Actually I do most of my acceleration higher now: I used to go from my climb to altitude into a fairly flat acceleration run, now I spend a good portion of the acceleration run at 10 degrees pitch or so, and do a much less aggressive pitch-up in transitioning from the acceleration run to my climb to orbit.

[RocketPropelledGiraffe]

From testing, the true height of the atmo was raised as well. Previously, the atmo would become extremely near vacuum at 50km. Now it's only near vacuum above 60km. The thickness for me was the same, it's just the height shifted where each altitude was in order of thickness

Well, the other day I measured the pressure in-game while ascending and did not find a difference to 1.0.4 - but I stopped at around 45 km altitude because everything seemed identical this far.

Anyway, it seems to me the atmospheric model is still the same, but the speed-dependency of drag has been increased. Thats why I get a lot of flaming effects while launching my rockets and going at relatively high speed between 35-50 km up, and at the same time the reentry almost doesn't decelerate the pod enough to open the chutes when falling down the last 10 km, making drogue chutes a very nice addition to any capsule.

I actually like the change, I can easily adjust my launch profile to be a little steeper and I really think it makes drogue chutes more useful, which is a good thing.

The beginning of career is a bit dangerous though, drogue chutes are located deep down in the tech tree...

[technion]

and slightly lower drag when going very fast very low

I've noticed it's much more difficult to slow down to a safe speed for parachutes, and I've found myself opening them at <4km. It's going to be interesting trying to directly insert from Eeloo like I used to.