NERV heat

[Nich]

Was the heat generated by the NERV drastically reduced?  I recently did my first transfer to Duna in 1.2 with a NERV powered cruiser and the NERVs did not even get over 800 degrees with an 8 minute burn.  I have quite a few mods but I suspect Interstellar may be reducing the heat produced.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Was this actually ever an issue? I assumed the accounts we have seen of NERV overheating were fringe cases due to external factors. The only time I've seen one even get warm enough to see a heat bar was on re-entry. Even pad tests with a full Mk1 fuel can don't get 'em toasty. 

 

Yes, anecdotal. 

[GluttonyReaper]

 

43 minutes ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Was this actually ever an issue? I assumed the accounts we have seen of NERV overheating were fringe cases due to external factors. The only time I've seen one even get warm enough to see a heat bar was on re-entry. Even pad tests with a full Mk1 fuel can don't get 'em toasty. 

 

Yes, anecdotal. 

It used to be an issue back in the early 1.0 versions, partially because they produced more heat, and partially because we didn't have radiators. Was pretty fun, you essentially had to make sure they were near some kind of heatsink, or manage thrust and burn time pretty carefully . It's not really a big deal nowadays, though. That said, pad tests aren't really the best way of testing heat production - you'd still be in an atmosphere, which carries a lot of the heat away through convection, which I'm told KSP actually models.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

2 hours ago, GluttonyReaper said:

 

It used to be an issue back in the early 1.0 versions, partially because they produced more heat, and partially because we didn't have radiators. Was pretty fun, you essentially had to make sure they were near some kind of heatsink, or manage thrust and burn time pretty carefully . It's not really a big deal nowadays, though. That said, pad tests aren't really the best way of testing heat production - you'd still be in an atmosphere, which carries a lot of the heat away through convection, which I'm told KSP actually models.

Ah. Disregard my ramblings, then. I was out of the country for some time, so I skipped straight from "beta than ever" to 1.1.3. Or some combination of numbers like that   

[Benji13]

I'd actually prefer it if all the engines made more heat. Would make it a bit harder and would validate my decision to install NF Thermal (or whatever it's called now). I might even make an MM patch and post it on here for others if they want (unless it's already been done). 

[Stargate525]

I've only ever managed to get them to glow when I cluster them in big arrays of 5-10. the one or two parts leading to the rest of the ship can't wick the heat away quite quickly enough.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Stargate525

[AeroGav]

Only time I ever blew something up was in 1.05.   I'd built a Jool craft with a stack of mk1 liquid fuel fuselages,  a mk1 lander can behind that, and a NERV attached directly to the lander can's rear node.    If you ran the engine long enough, heat soak from the NERV would cause the mk1 can to explode. Putting something, anything (service bay, fuel tank, inline clamp-o-tron) between the lander can and the NERV stops this happening.

For this reason I've stopped attaching NERVs directly to the cockpit of mk1 spaceplanes, even though from a weight & balance point of view you want the thing as far forward as possible.     I   do get a heat bar on the NERV at the end of the burn to orbit, because it takes 7 minutes to accelerate from jet engine to orbital velocity on nerv power alone, and the fact you're scorching through the upper atmosphere all this time probably doesn't help.

 

[suicidejunkie]

I performed a 40 minute LV-N burn ejecting from Minmus to Dres a little while ago, and the LV-Ns were well within the lower end of the overheat bar.

However 5 minutes after the burn ended, the heat was still spreading through the ship and it exploded a lander can that was a couple fuel tanks and a gyro away.

The LV-Ns probably can't explode themselves, but they can certainly destroy less resilient parts nearby.