How to get bulky payloads down to Kerbin or Duna

[Octa]

With all the drag and re-entry heat, i wonder how to get bulky payloads like base parts or rovers (imagine a large rover with a 2,5m outline with a cupola module) to the ground of duna or kerbin without blowing up. It was rather easy before 0.90 :D

Do all have to be occluded by a heat shield? With that rover design i described, the wheels wouldn't be occluded by a 2,5m heat shield, so it'd have to use a 3,75 heat shield then where the rover fits in? Do cargo bays work?

Bonus question: How would i get an empty SLS-tank (the largest one, S3-14400) with wheels to duna? Not that it would make sense, but this is where i can't simply attach a heat shield in front of it anymore.

PS: i had only sent rather small probes to duna until now. Very light, short and streamlined with a 1,25m or 2,5m heat shield. My configuration always has an upper stage with retrograde rockets, drogues and normal chutes. After heat effects disappear, i start the rockets to slow me down to safe chute deployment speed. After the chutes deployed and the fall gets slow enough i jettison the heat shield and use the rockets again just before touchdown, if my vertical speed is to high for a soft landing. After touchdown, i power up again, so the whole thing is _just_ before lifting of again and decouple the upper stage, so it flys off (and with some F5+F9ing, the lander stage doesn't flip around).
I doubt i can adapt this 1:1 for much larger and heavier payloads.

[technion]

Duna's air is thin enough that it doesn't practically matter. My Duna lander is still a FLT-200, with three radially mounted FLT-200's. It cares not for the heat, although drogue chutes are definitely needed.

[Snark]

Heatshields are by far the most effective protection from reentry heat. If your ship geometry makes that impractical, another option is to do a spaceplane-style reentry: put wings on it and reenter nose-up, so that the wings generate enough lift to keep your altitude way up high out of the barbecue zone until you've bled off the worst of the speed.

[genericeventhandler]

[quote name='Snark']Heatshields are by far the most effective protection from reentry heat. If your ship geometry makes that impractical, another option is to do a spaceplane-style reentry: put wings on it and reenter nose-up, so that the wings generate enough lift to keep your altitude way up high out of the barbecue zone until you've bled off the worst of the speed.[/QUOTE]

I put my rovers in a fairing. built like this.

Heatshield >Fairing > stack separator > rover > stack separator> command pod.

On the command pod put parachutes, air-breaks and drag chutes. On the rover just parachutes.

At about 20 Km drop the fairing and deploy the drag chutes when possible. Deploy all chutes with the pod 1.5km opening, rover chutes for 1km opening, after the pod chutes are fully deployed decouple the rover and pray that the separator bit falls off nicely. If all goes well the rover and pod should land within walking distance.

GE.