[1.12.*] Deadly Reentry v7.9.0 The Barbie Edition, Aug 5th, 2021

[StevenRS11]

So, I have been playing around with this mod, and keep hearing people talk about 'lifting reentries'. How do I go about actually doing this, because it seems like its a good thing.

And FlowerChild, I am going to go out on a limb and say you are the FlowerChild of BTW fame, correct?

[Ralathon]

So, I have been playing around with this mod, and keep hearing people talk about 'lifting reentries'. How do I go about actually doing this, because it seems like its a good thing.

And FlowerChild, I am going to go out on a limb and say you are the FlowerChild of BTW fame, correct?

To do a lifting reentry you need to have FAR (Stock aerodynamics doesn't allow them)

What you essentially need to do is reenter but keep the heat shield slightly slanted so you produce some upward lift. This ensures that your ship loses altitude a lot slower than a ballistic reentry. Since you lose altitude slower you experience less G forces.

To keep the shield slanted you have 2 options: Shift the CoM of your ship slightly to one side (stick something heavy to one side). This way it'll stabilize itself into a lifting reentry. Or use pod torque and SAS to keep it oriented. The obvious downside of the latter is that it requires charge, so make sure you top your batteries before reentry.

[therealcrow999]

I think it this was because of new texture and it was resized. Even when I use 0.05 there is still a large gap at top where it would connect with pod. I could do some fine tuning and find a better set of numbers to use, if you don't mind. Then test it out.

Edit: sent you a PM

therealcrow: I will check the nodes.

FlowerChild: Doh! I will fix and reup. I actually changed it the day you asked and I agreed, I just never had a chance to fix the other bugs and thus held off on v4.

Edited November 26, 2013 by therealcrow999

[FlowerChild]

And FlowerChild, I am going to go out on a limb and say you are the FlowerChild of BTW fame, correct?

Yup, that's me. I'm also a big KSP fan, and have been working on a career mode rebalance mod for the past little while that requires Deadly Reentry to be installed alongside it.

[jrandom]

Since I haven't moved to RSS yet, but want more realistic reentry effects, should I change my shockwaveExponent to 1.17 as mentioned in this thread, or 1.12 as mentioned in the readme .txt file that comes with the mod?

Should I be changing the shockwaveMultiplier to any specific value?

[NathanKell]

jrandom: Yes. That is the ONLY time you should change shockwaveExponent, and you should first try 1.17. (Also get the heat shield patches from Realism Overhaul--grab only DRE_ShieldsFix.cfg from the RO archive). If you still burn up, try 1.12.

The way it works is that shockwave temperature is by default set to (velocity_magnitude - 275)

Exponent is an exponent to that, and multiplier is a multiplier.

Since LEO oribtal velocity is like ~7.7kps, and LKO is 2.2, you need to scale up; but since Mach 1 doesn't change, a strict multiplier probably won't help. Hence the exponent. 1.17 will give you 7.3, which is close, and 11.7 from Mun (which is a bit high). 1.12 will give you only 4.5kps from LKO.

[Starwaster]

Re: G-force tolerance of parts.

I was playing around with the code a little bit and I've been playing for a couple of weeks with the following in effect.

                    double gTolerance;
                    if (part.Modules != null && part.Modules.Contains("ModuleEngines") && damage < 1)
                        gTolerance = Math.Pow(UnityEngine.Random.Range(11.9f, 12.1f) * part.crashTolerance, 0.5);
                    else if (part.Modules != null && !part.Modules.Contains("KerbalEVA") && damage < 1)
                        gTolerance = Math.Pow(UnityEngine.Random.Range(5.9f, 6.1f) * part.crashTolerance, 0.5) * (25 / (part.mass + part.GetResourceMass()));
                    else
                        gTolerance = Math.Pow(UnityEngine.Random.Range(5.9f, 6.1f) * part.crashTolerance, 0.5);

The end result is smaller parts tend to be more resistant. Scaled at around 25t. Less than 25t is getting a bonus, 25t even is treated the same as before and over 25t is penalized. It may still need tweaking and it's probably not scientifically accurate (or if it turns out to be then it's coincidence...). Crew pods that don't burn up have come down in one piece even if the crew is a thin green and red paste on the aft bulkhead. Rockets on ascent I've found that I don't throttle back have crumpled. (which is in fact how I noticed that MJ was not respecting acceleration throttle limits for certain KWR engines)

Also, question time... I sent a probe to RSS Duna and it came in pretty fast and yet I noticed the heat shield didn't get hot enough to burn even 1 point of heat shielding. In fact it wasn't even warm enough to cook an egg. (well of course it was warm enough to cook an egg but very slowly....)

[drtedastro]

What kind of egg?

[bigbadben]

Been messing around with the mod, really enjoyed it.

I upgraded to v4, and now there are no flame effects. Tried redownloading/reinstalling, starting new game, but the flames won't show up, only the wind effects when I get lower. When I remove the mod, the flames are back. A possible problem might be that I used the custom.cfg from v4, and deleted the one from v3 accidentaly. Would that cause it? I was just checking here to see if anyone knew some code voodoo, before I reinstall ksp and see if that works.

[Zander]

Hey Nathan glad to see you are still working on this. I think the gforce damage is occuring far too early. I have critical parts exploding at 6g which is nothing compared to what rocket parts are built to withstand.

What was the setting you tweak to turn down the gforce damage to parts? I think to be the most realistic, deployed objects like solar panels and extended antenna would be destroyed at 5 g but only if they are deployed. Everything else should not take damage until 20 g at the least.

edit:

I tried changing "multiplier" from its default 25 to 1 and got parts taking damage near 20g which is more realistic. The problem is each time i start a launch it resets back to 25.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Zander

[Starwaster]

Did you save?

Or try editing it directly in the cfg?

[DasBananenbrot]

Been messing around with the mod, really enjoyed it.

I upgraded to v4, and now there are no flame effects. Tried redownloading/reinstalling, starting new game, but the flames won't show up, only the wind effects when I get lower. When I remove the mod, the flames are back. A possible problem might be that I used the custom.cfg from v4, and deleted the one from v3 accidentaly. Would that cause it? I was just checking here to see if anyone knew some code voodoo, before I reinstall ksp and see if that works.

experiencing this too

[sirklick]

Been messing around with the mod, really enjoyed it.

I upgraded to v4, and now there are no flame effects. Tried redownloading/reinstalling, starting new game, but the flames won't show up, only the wind effects when I get lower. When I remove the mod, the flames are back. A possible problem might be that I used the custom.cfg from v4, and deleted the one from v3 accidentaly. Would that cause it? I was just checking here to see if anyone knew some code voodoo, before I reinstall ksp and see if that works.

Me as well. I have not upgraded to v4 with my Real Solar System save yet, but stock version does seem to break reentry effects. Happy to provide logs when I get home if you wish.

[NathanKell]

Yup, I see what I did. Sorry!

When I fixed the custom.cfg for FlowerChild, I included mine in the archive rather than reverting it to stock values. Oops.

Here's the fix: go to KSP/GameData/DeadlyReentry and delete custom.cfg

I have fixed the DRECv4 zip, too.

[diomedea]

...

Here's the fix: go to KSP/GameData/DeadlyReentry and delete custom.cfg

...

I feel a bit confused. Going by the instructions from the first post, weren't we supposed to keep the custom.cfg from a previous install?

Really we should instead delete custom.cfg altogether?

[NathanKell]

Yes, I included custom.cfg in the actual DRE archive, which has now been fixed. However, if you installed DRE v4, you need to delete that file (unless you're playing RSS, for which the reentry shader velocities are fine).

[diomedea]

Well, I had Deadly Reentry v.3 before, my current custom.cfg comes from that (temp exponent modded as per instructions). No RSS. Only did one reentry since updating, didn't notice anything wrong. Though, I had the problem of burning at launch with the first version of DRE v.4, later solved.

[Xemrael]

I can't seem to find the 2.5 meter heatshield in the Structural Tab, anyone have or had the same issue?

EDIT: Never mind, bad installation.

Edited November 29, 2013 by FrancisPT

[kiwiak]

We need heat shield with hole in center - so it can be put on top of the engine.

Engine hole would have its own shield, deployed (right click, cover engine hole) before reentry.

Have you watched bbc space odyssey? Pegasus heat shield disc was like this.

[Zander]

We need heat shield with hole in center - so it can be put on top of the engine.

Engine hole would have its own shield, deployed (right click, cover engine hole) before reentry.

Have you watched bbc space odyssey? Pegasus heat shield disc was like this.

Thats a fictional rocket. you cant actually make a heat shield with a hole in it because theres no way to properly plug it on mission without hypersonic gases pushing their way in. ..

@NathanKell

ive been getting more problems with the gforces. The crew often survives in the (weirdly indestructible) b9 cockpits even if they have a head on supersonic collision with the ground.

but when my gear fails on the runway and the ship starts sliding on its belly. The crew dies ridiculously easily. Im pretty sure it should be the opposite.

And would it be possible to destroy solar panels exposed to more than 2g only if they are deployed? its not really realistic that you can rocket around in space without your solar panels bending and snapping under their own mass from g-forces.

[Uli_Stoiber]

Thats a fictional rocket. you cant actually make a heat shield with a hole in it because theres no way to properly plug it on mission without hypersonic gases pushing their way in.

A hatch was installed into the Gemini 2 capsule and successfully tested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPS_0855

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbital_Laboratory

Also, the Space Shuttle had a landing gear, didn't it?

[kiwiak]

Thats a fictional rocket. you cant actually make a heat shield with a hole in it because theres no way to properly plug it on mission without hypersonic gases pushing their way in. ..

Thats astually not quite true. Soyuz was first planned to have such heat shield, passage to orbital module was supposed to go trought heat shield.

Well they changed that, but it was on of seriously considered options. So its not pure fantasy.

edit: oh i didnt noticed post above me.

[peadar1987]

I'm still having the issue with spacecraft undergoing RUDs when you switch to them. It seems to be that the command module just stops completely, and all associated parts keep moving with their initial velocities, tearing the ship to pieces. The problem seems to clear itself up when I remove the deadly reentry plugin. Any advice on how to fix this?

[nothke]

We need heat shield with hole in center - so it can be put on top of the engine.

Engine hole would have its own shield, deployed (right click, cover engine hole) before reentry.

Have you watched bbc space odyssey? Pegasus heat shield disc was like this.

There is a big problem with stuff attached to the heatshield as they can change the air and plasma flow. Apollo and Orion capsules both have bolts on the heatshield that hold it together with service module until it's decoupled. These bolt "holes" had to go through intensive arc jet testing to see if they would hold of. Same goes for the hatch on gemini and VA-TKS spacecraft. The shuttle landing gear is pretty well sealed with tiles, but still the tiles in the rear of the gear "hatch" always had more damage than the rest.

Obviously, it is possible. now lets go back to KSP:

The problem in KSP is that anything you want to put on top, or in the middle of the doughnut shaped hole shield of the heat shield, would also need to be able to withstand the reentry temperature, and that's basically it. If you engines explode the heat will go inside your spacecraft so.. Fubar. You better ask for someone to make reentry resistant engines instead =)

Edited November 29, 2013 by nothke

[kiwiak]

Oh come on, im sure it coudl be done.

Upon covering engine hole, animation woudl occur, so engine woudl be covered by some barrier. And engine itself woudl be rendered completly heat resistent by game engine. Of course player woudl be unable to fire this engine until barrier is removed.