overheating engines - beginner question

[montgolfier]

OK, I'm an absolute noob.

Just built my first couple of rockets and keep getting engine overheating.

Using the jumbo fuel tank and mainsail engine. Looking at the stats all the engines have similar heat characteristics, so I was stuck. Had a look at some tutorials and by chance I saw a comment that the mainsail overheats when used with the jumbo fuel tank - but no reason given.

Is this a glitch or is there a reason? If a reason then please share!

thanks

M

Edited July 15, 2013 by montgolfier

[Skorpychan]

The jumbo fuel tank is insulated, and the mainsail is the single most powerful engine, so it overheats due to lack of conduction.

Just throttle down when it gets to 50% overheat, and let it settle.

[jwenting]

or put any grey 2.5m tank (I usually use the medium one, then place more of them on top to increase my dV until my TWR is at about 1.5 or even 1.3) on the bottom of the big orange tank, and the mainsail on that. It acts as a buffer, helps a lot to slow down or prevent overheating.

[NoMrBond]

It's not really insulated, it's just that the way heat dissipation is currently calculated has to do with the length (or rather, distance to node I think) of what the engines are attached too, so if you put a thin/short 'pancake' tank (like the X200-8) between the mainsail and the orange-jumbotank your heating problems will be greatly reduced.

[montgolfier]

excellent!

thanks very much.