Here is proof for debate, is there heating bug or not. There is:

[Jeq]

This video shows vessel which doesn't have engines behind heatshields:

Chech what happens for same vesel with heatshield covered engines:

Play both videos same time, check altitude and match videos so you can see results at same height.

What you see is Thermal protected vessel explodes faster, first its Mainsail II engine is destroyed, tank behind it is destroyed. Unprotected vessel that middle tank is saved from heat.

Next protected vector engines explodes before unprotected.

If both of these vessels didn't have thermal cover above their engine mounts, those engine mounts would explode right when you enter atmosphere:

 

Edited January 5 by Jeq

[Jeq]

On my opinion re-entry heating system is on state that developers should give public warning for anyone trying to do that with bigger vessels. This can easily lead to frustation when people doesn't aknowledge there is serious bug behind every failure.

[Mikki]

You may have definetly found some kind of bug here, and it is very hard to tell what is going on here in your trial. Trying to land a craft as yours is legit in my opinion, and the heat system may be unfinished in some or the other way, or simply unbalanced at this stage of development.

Maybe we all be forced to rethink our approach to land such massive objects in the future. Or other means of protection will be added, like functional expandable heatshields in other shapes as we know of in stock game... The lack of robotics does not help either in such a situation.

I am worried nonetheless, but the heat system is due to change as the devs stated, so we have to come around it until something changes.

Thank you for the research on this issue, there are few people engaging in such bugs in this depth.

[Jeq]

7 minutes ago, Mikki said:

You may have definetly found some kind of bug here, and it is very hard to tell what is going on here in your trial. Trying to land a craft as yours is legit in my opinion, and the heat system may be unfinished in some or the other way, or simply unbalanced at this stage of development.

Maybe we all be forced to rethink our approach to land such massive objects in the future. Or other means of protection will be added, like functional expandable heatshields in other shapes as we know of in stock game... The lack of robotics does not help either in such a situation.

I am worried nonetheless, but the heat system is due to change as the devs stated, so we have to come around it until something changes.

Thank you for the research on this issue, there are few people engaging in such bugs in this depth.

I am sure they will tune it perfect.

[Kerbart]

It's tempting to call anything you don[t like a bug, but that doesn't make it a bug. Bugs (and I'm sure I'll get flak for my definition) are where the software isn't behaving as it was intended. For instance the root part heating up like crazy inside a fairing, that's clearly a bug.

But this... that looks much more like the result of a decision that was made and doesn't work out. Should it work out? Remember, "it worked like that in KSP1” is not the most convincing response because the heat model in KSP1 wasn’t perfect either. I'm not saying this is fine; it probably needs fixing.

But "heating is not working in a way players expect it to work" is an entirely different discussion than "a bug with heating causes x to happen”

[Jeq]

3 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

It's tempting to call anything you don[t like a bug, but that doesn't make it a bug. Bugs (and I'm sure I'll get flak for my definition) are where the software isn't behaving as it was intended. For instance the root part heating up like crazy inside a fairing, that's clearly a bug.

But this... that looks much more like the result of a decision that was made and doesn't work out. Should it work out? Remember, "it worked like that in KSP1” is not the most convincing response because the heat model in KSP1 wasn’t perfect either. I'm not saying this is fine; it probably needs fixing.

But "heating is not working in a way players expect it to work" is an entirely different discussion than "a bug with heating causes x to happen”

Did you compare those videos? If you add heatshields it shouldn't explode faster or even at equal speed.  But i don't know everything about universe, i have been wrong couple times. I actually were not believing it was a bug before, i thought it was immersive and did think i just have to figure a way to do things. But to figure a way to do things, system which you have to figure out must have logic, if logic doesn't exists then figuring it out isn't worth of time, just like lot of people.

Edited January 5 by Jeq

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Jeq said:

Did you compare those videos?

Not really. The first video has the helpful caption of "watch what happens" so after looking at it for two minutes in which nothing happens I kinda gave up. Here's a tip: if you expect people to take 10 minutes to listen to you story, make it worth for them. Tell them what the bug is. "This video shows how it takes two minutes for things to explode without a heatshield", "this video shows it takes only 30 seconds with a heatshield" and so on.

[Jeq]

56 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Not really. The first video has the helpful caption of "watch what happens" so after looking at it for two minutes in which nothing happens I kinda gave up. Here's a tip: if you expect people to take 10 minutes to listen to you story, make it worth for them. Tell them what the bug is. "This video shows how it takes two minutes for things to explode without a heatshield", "this video shows it takes only 30 seconds with a heatshield" and so on.

Pro tip: you can move youtube videos forward fast with keyboard arrows. And i think i describted situations very well for normal people under those videos and after, if you did read anything else than title.

Edited January 5 by Jeq

[Wheehaw Kerman]

I’m pretty sure there are some bugs lurking there - last night I did an Eve probe lander consisting of a fairing aeroshell behind a heatshield, dropped it on an entry trajectory, and watched it not only pick up speed throughout the descent but also not heat up at all.  It would have made a nice crater.

Keeping the deorbit stage on until I hit atmo and saw flames and then decoupling it resulted in normal re-entry.  So maybe there’s something about the heat shields that means the atmospheres don’t notice them?