Toggleable Heat Shields

[X52]

Hi,

I know reentry heating is not in the game yet, so this is a low priority thing, but I think it would be really nice to be able to enable heat shields for most parts.

 

Basic Idea:

A part switch for wings, tanks, landing legs, plane command pots, cargo bays, etc., wich can switch between no heat shield, a heat shield on the bottom side or a heat shield all around the part.

 

This could be shown on the parts using a texture change.

Additionally it should effect weight. An ablator slider would also be nice.

 

Why this would be cool:

This feature would make building of space planes and starships like reentry vehicle less tedious without the need of adding a lot of parts to your craft.

 

Afterthoughts:

This could be further extendable with a selector for different kind of heat shields with different advantages and disadvantages that could be acquired at different stages in the tech tree. But I digress 

[Heretic391]

+ This, maybe heat shields for wings like the space shuttle. 

[darthgently]

I would throw in here that an engineer + repair kits should be able to replenish ablator

[caipi]

This feature plus procedural tanks and procedural wings with fuel and the part count of a rocket would/could (probably) drop by a factor of 5! I love the idea of toggleable heat shields on parts (not all parts, of course). I'm surprised I haven't seen a mod for this for KSP1 yet. (Though I haven't looked for over a year...)

[Lowi_Sace]

On 2/27/2023 at 9:05 AM, X52 said:

A part switch for wings, tanks, landing legs, plane command pots, cargo bays, etc., wich can switch between no heat shield, a heat shield on the bottom side or a heat shield all around the part.

 

This could be shown on the parts using a texture change.

Additionally it should effect weight. An ablator slider would also be nice.

agree 100%. The texture is already there for some wings and mk2 and 3 parts. But heat shield should be an optional slider. Would probably be easy to implemement considering we already have an paint option

 

1 hour ago, caipi said:

This feature plus procedural tanks and procedural wings with fuel and the part count of a rocket would/could (probably) drop by a factor of 5! I love the idea of toggleable heat shields on parts (not all parts, of course). I'm surprised I haven't seen a mod for this for KSP1 yet. (Though I haven't looked for over a year...)

true, could really add a lot in terms of gameplay and part count (better performance). They already will be adding procedural radiators and structural parts. I think having more procedural parts would be very great. 

My take on procedural parts that should be included: Procedural feul tanks, solid rocked boosters, engine nozzles (a lot of engine options with just a view engines), solar panels (for colonies very nice) and maybe some procedural colony habitat buildings (gravity rings, domes etc) for making very big and dope colonies without losing to much performance

[s_gamer101]

On 2/27/2023 at 9:05 AM, X52 said:

An ablator slider would also be nice.

I think non-ablative heat shields like the one used on the space shuttle would certainly be more realistic and well-fitting for that purpose. In fact, ablative heat shields are really unfitting for anything that is reusable, because in real life, you cannot just refill ablative heat shields as far as I know, because the "ablator" is more or less the heat shield itself.

 

But I agree with the rest that you said.

21 hours ago, darthgently said:

I would throw in here that an engineer + repair kits should be able to replenish ablator

I strongly disagree. Wikipedia says the following about ablative heat shields:

Quote

An ablative heat shield consists of a layer of plastic resin, the outer surface of which is heated to a gas, which then carries the heat away by convection.

Obviously it would be necessary to add a new layer of plastic resin to the entire heat shield. How an engineer is supposed to do that on an EVA using nothing but some tools available on a spacecraft is already questionable. And also, to add the plastic resin, you'd have to bring plastic resin in the first palce. And to restore a completely depleted heat shield, you'd have to bring almost the entire heat shield's mass worth of plastic resin. And then you could just as well bring another heat shield.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, s_gamer101 said:

I think non-ablative heat shields like the one used on the space shuttle would certainly be more realistic and well-fitting for that purpose. In fact, ablative heat shields are really unfitting for anything that is reusable, because in real life, you cannot just refill ablative heat shields as far as I know, because the "ablator" is more or less the heat shield itself.

 

But I agree with the rest that you said.

I strongly disagree. Wikipedia says the following about ablative heat shields:

Obviously it would be necessary to add a new layer of plastic resin to the entire heat shield. How an engineer is supposed to do that on an EVA using nothing but some tools available on a spacecraft is already questionable. And also, to add the plastic resin, you'd have to bring plastic resin in the first palce. And to restore a completely depleted heat shield, you'd have to bring almost the entire heat shield's mass worth of plastic resin. And then you could just as well bring another heat shield.

Yeah, I guess  more like replacing non-ablative tiles after a few re-entries would fit a repair action better.  Repair kits would represent spare tiles.

As for the ablator slider, I thought he meant in editor, not in flight

As for tools available, I think once things get rolling, craft like Starship will have compact shops in them like large ocean going vessels have today where many ad hoc repairs and stop gap solutions can be fabricated (a step up from Apollo 13 scrambling)

Edited April 26, 2023 by darthgently

[s_gamer101]

29 minutes ago, darthgently said:

As for the ablator slider, I thought he meant in editor, not in flight

Yes, but my point there was that the toggleable heat shields shouldn't be ablative heat shields. That you shouldn't be able to refill ablative heat shields in my opinion mid-flight was an entirely different point

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, s_gamer101 said:

Yes, but my point there was that the toggleable heat shields shouldn't be ablative heat shields. That you shouldn't be able to refill ablative heat shields in my opinion mid-flight was an entirely different point

 Aside from "refilling" in-flight, why shouldn't an integrated ablative surface with a slider for amt of ablator be an option in the *editor* as long as mass and cost was adjusted accordingly? Not sure I'm seeing your point.

[s_gamer101]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

why shouldn't an integrated ablative surface with a slider for amt of ablator be an option in the *editor* as long as mass and cost was adjusted accordingly? Not sure I'm seeing your point.

You didn't get my point there. My point is: The heat shield should be non-ablative and therefore not even have ablator at all. But if it does have ablator, yes, then a slider would be nice.

[caipi]

Aren't you then describing a mere heat resistance value? KSP1 used to have those values. Every part had it. Not sure about KSP2 since there's currently no heat system in place, is there?* Different parts had different heat tolerances/resistances. The purpose of a heat shield was purposely designed as an ablative surface, similar to real life heat shields on space shuttles Apollo, Mars Pathfinder, etc.

Or what would be the point or difference of your suggestion of non-ablative heat shields compared to existing heat tolerance values already in the parts - and then added (again?) to parts? Basically a way to increase the permanent heat tolerance by use special coating? I am not criticizing. I'm just trying to understand what you are suggesting.

/edit: keep in mind, even the heat shields in KSP1 had a normal heat tolerance (3,000?) and once the ablator was gone, they could overheat as well. Are you suggesting to be able to increase a parts heat tolerance to let's say 6000 via a slider (e.g. "applying a special coating" as real life explanation/justification)?

*I cannot check anymore since I refunded my game. ;-)

Edited April 26, 2023 by caipi
see /edit

[s_gamer101]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:16 PM, caipi said:

Or what would be the point or difference of your suggestion of non-ablative heat shields compared to existing heat tolerance values already in the parts - and then added (again?) to parts?

The difference from "heat shield is enabled" to "heat shield is disabled" would be:

• Visual heat shield plates appear on the part (the texture changes)
• The mass is slightly increased to simulate their weight
• The heat tolerance is greatly increased. I suggest to give it the heat tolerance of a 10 meter heat shield

On 4/26/2023 at 10:16 PM, caipi said:

Are you suggesting to be able to increase a parts heat tolerance to let's say 6000 via a slider (e.g. "applying a special coating" as real life explanation/justification)?

Yes, basically. But the mass should increase with it. And the texture should change as well