Fuel leaking induced by collision damage

[lajoswinkler]

Remember when MIR got hit by Progress spacecraft?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Mir_collision_damage_STS086-720-091.JPG (large file)

Module Spektr started leaking air, so it was abandoned and sealed from the rest of the station.

We don't have pressurization issues in KSP (not yet, maybe one day, when living modules and the whole concept of "stuff to breathe" are implemented), but we could have issues with the fuel.

Most of us agree LOX boiloff would be troublesome. I'm not even sure why are we able to transfer fuel and oxidizer separately, but ok.)

It would be troublesome because it would force us to do complicated stuff and would render lots of manned missions to far places useless.

However, leaking when pounded by, let's say a spacecraft that's trying to dock but failed and instead it hit a fuel tank, that would be interesting. It would force the player to be more careful, but it would happen only if damage occurs, and that's easy to avoid. More damage, more leaking, more action.

Imagine if one of the several radially hooked tanks on your lander was leaking (both, for the sake of simplicity) fuels. By the time you reach the destination, it would be empty. But you can't land with an unbalanced craft, so you transfer the fuel. But it still leaks! Am I the only one who sees a great potential for action here?

What do you think?

[TimMartland]

I really like this idea, because it would add an extra layer of realism that would make the game more intresting despite it being only a small feature. However, how would this be accomplished graphically?

[goldenpeach]

Good idea.

A good thing would be that the fuel leak produce some thrust,so if you have one(in exemple,on your lander) it would be more difficult to dock;you should think about what's the safiest:trying to dock the lander or maikng EVAs to go in the mothership?

[Spacemarine658]

However, how would this be accomplished graphically?

by like small dents every time it gets bumped

[lajoswinkler]

Graphical solution is fairly simple. A procedural dent on the tank, or a scratch mark. The leaking itself should look like monpropellant thrust, scaled to the level of damage.

goldenpeach, that's an excellent idea.

What do you think about the starting level of damage? 1 unit per hour or less?

[goldenpeach]

I don't think it should work by a starting damage,the leak should be scaled to the force of the impact:crashing at 5m/s do more damage than crashing at 0.5 m/s.

Also,(we can dream),the leak should be scaled to the surface of contact:crashing a (very solid)needle does less leak than crashing a truss!

[lajoswinkler]

That's what I've meant. The minimal leak. I think 1 unit/h is rather fine. It take around half an hour to orbit Kerbin below 100 km, so you'll lose one unit in two orbits.

[goldenpeach]

Why does it need a minimal leak?

I mean,if you crash VERY slowly with a very tiny end,you won't get a lot of leak(if you get one).

[lajoswinkler]

I'm not sure I understand your question. If there are several levels of leaking, each worse than another, there must be a minimal leak level.

Now, how will the leaks be correlated with the kinetic energy of the impact, and will it include the contact surface (edge bumping into flat surface is worse than two flat surface colliding), I'll leave that to the developers, but there should obviously be a scale of damage, with tank explosion at its end, just like we have now.

I don't think every contact should result in damage and leak. Contacts should result in: no damage (wide freedom of bumping), superficial damage with dents (few levels), leaking damage scale (more than a few levels), explosion.

[lajoswinkler]

Leaking rates could be ordered in a logarithmic scale, base 10.

Therefore: 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 L/h. Maybe even less than 1, if needed.

Big, orange Rockomax Jumbo-64 holds 6,400 L, so at the rate of million litres per hour it would drain in 23 seconds (faster leak should be a candidate for explosion).

Oscar-B holds 12.735 L and it would drain in 12 hours, 44 minutes and 6 seconds at the weakest leak of 1 L/h.

Conditions for an explosion would vary for tanks of different sizes, obviously. If the damage to fuel tank results in leak rate above n L/h, explosion occurs.

The conditions can be calculated for every other tank, so the smaller tanks would explode at lower rates of leaking. Something like if each second the tank loses >5% of its original capacity, it explodes. For Jumbo-64 that's 1,152,000 L/h, which is right above the maximum leak rate I mentioned above.

For Oscar-B, that's 2,292.3 L/h, which is one step above 1000 L/h.

See, it's neat.

Of course, the lethal rate of leak can be tweaked more, to expand the explosion scenarios. With these settings, there are 4 lethal scenarios, and we have 10 bipropellant tanks in KSP at the moment. Granted, some tanks could share each class of lethal scenario...

[Nuke]

if you do it, make it so kerbals can patch leaks.

[lajoswinkler]

Nice one. That yields another idea - enabling patching only for the smallest leaks, like 1 and 10 L/h. Anything worse than that should be unrepairable.

[Javster]

I remember suggesting something like this, where your fuel loss rate depends on your gravity