Detonation after separation.

[Mannaro The Patient]

This can also a nice idea for some addon.

What about add something like a TNT, C4, or something similar? It will be triggered after an event like a separation and after 30-60 secs KABOOOMM!! No more big debris in space. ^^

[JimmyAgent007]

well they say no weapons, so thats kinda getting into that territory. but i know what you mean. however you can clean up debris in the tracking station manually, or just change the system setting for max debris to 0 and then see it all gone.

[Capt Snuggler]

lol! or much much more debris. watch Gravity.

...also I want this.

[tetryds]

IRL, when a launch fails they destroy the rocket using bomb charges to avoid damage on the ground.

That's also why the KSC is at the coast.

Maybe adding small charges to the craft can be a good idea, letting debris fall at kerbing surface could damage your reputation.

That would not be weaponary, but they said that we can use existing parts to make weaponary so it would help a bit, still not encourage it if weak enough.

[coolitic]

I just want a "clear all debris" button really badly.

Charges is a nice idea, but like they said, no weapons. If you want to not let parts hit your space center (as in the future, parts can destroy your buildings), then use parachutes.

[tetryds]

I just want a "clear all debris" button really badly.

Charges is a nice idea, but like they said, no weapons. If you want to not let parts hit your space center (as in the future, parts can destroy your buildings), then use parachutes.

I cannot parachute debris flying straight to the VAB at 500m/s, but I can boom it remotelly.

Cleaning anything from the tracking station should be disabled on career mode.

Since they are even used in real life I don't see a reason other than not making weaponary.

Still, a charge that only destroys itself and the part its attached to wouldn't be weaponary.

[guest91111]

well they say no weapons, so thats kinda getting into that territory.

Fireworks are not really weapons, but they contain explosives and detonate, nevertheless you can use them as weapons.

Dynamite is mostly used for industrial usage, like mining and railroadbuilding

A lot of explosives are actually used outside of war!

[tetryds]

Fireworks are not really weapons, but they contain explosives and detonate, nevertheless you can use them as weapons.

Dynamite is mostly used for industrial usage, like mining and railroadbuilding

A lot of explosives are actually used outside of war!

I would say more explosives have been used on mining than at any war (not counting nukes).

If you think better, a (current tech) rocket is a payload laying above a controlled explosion.

[Capt Snuggler]

Since they are even used in real life I don't see a reason other than not making weaponary.

other than the challenger disaster, when has this been done? (not disputing, just asking)

if you have boosters falling back to KSC and you detonate them you more likely just going to rain more debris on the buildings and ground crew. also detonating things in orbit would just make high speed debris fields which is even worse. if its in a decaying orbit wouldn't it just burn up anyway?

like i said before, id like to have this but it will need to be justified to the devs. at the moment the only real reason is "MOAR ESPLOSIONS!"

[tetryds]

other than the challenger disaster, when has this been done? (not disputing, just asking)

if you have boosters falling back to KSC and you detonate them you more likely just going to rain more debris on the buildings and ground crew. also detonating things in orbit would just make high speed debris fields which is even worse. if its in a decaying orbit wouldn't it just burn up anyway?

like i said before, id like to have this but it will need to be justified to the devs. at the moment the only real reason is "MOAR ESPLOSIONS!"

IRL, a big empty booster will have a lot less air friction than a lot of small debris.

Also, it prevents the rocket body from leaving the safe zone.

In KSP they would cause a POOF, and there wouldn't be any debris at all.

[peadar1987]

If you're fed up with debris, you can set the "max persistent debris" to 0 in the settings you access from the main menu.

[Seret]

The self-destruct charges you get in real rockets are a linear cutting charge. Think of a long, very thin strip of explosive embedded in rubber, that slices the thing apart when it goes off. They're intended for range safety, to destroy the vehicle if it's heading outside the limits of its safe trajectory. They're not there to prevent debris, they're just there to make sure the debris comes down somewhere safe.

[Greenspan]

I admit it would kinda be fun as an abort mode, hit backspace the sepatrons pull away your kerbals then as the RSO hit backspace again to terminate the flight.

[NoMrBond]

Could you simply combine dtobi's Smart Parts with TaranisElsu's TAC Self Destruct Modules?

Set a timed trigger via the dtobi part to trigger the self destruct module part X seconds after decoupling

[Edit] The TAC parts can actually be put on the staging by themselves with a timer now

Edited January 31, 2014 by NoMrBond

[Dunbaratu]

Exploding rocket parts does not reduce the debris problem. That's why they don't do it in real life. A thousand little parts is far worse of a problem than one big part.

If you're fed up with debris, you can set the "max persistent debris" to 0 in the settings you access from the main menu.

But that has other effects that make it a bad idea. You usually want to allow at least a little debris, otherwise bits of your craft you didn't meant to delete end up being deleted as "debris". I.e. leave a fuel tank in orbit expecting to re-dock with it later. Except that since it was 'debris' it's gone. Or a bit of your craft breaks off landing back on Kerbin, and first you recover science from the main part of the craft, and can't recover the science on the broken off part because it was debris and it's gone the moment you recover the main part (and thus leave focus from the area).

Edited January 31, 2014 by vexx32
Merged posts. Please try not to double-post.

[peadar1987]

Exploding rocket parts does not reduce the debris problem. That's why they don't do it in real life. A thousand little parts is far worse of a problem than one big part.

But that has other effects that make it a bad idea. You usually want to allow at least a little debris, otherwise bits of your craft you didn't meant to delete end up being deleted as "debris". I.e. leave a fuel tank in orbit expecting to re-dock with it later. Except that since it was 'debris' it's gone. Or a bit of your craft breaks off landing back on Kerbin, and first you recover science from the main part of the craft, and can't recover the science on the broken off part because it was debris and it's gone the moment you recover the main part (and thus leave focus from the area).

Yep, but you'd get the same problems with a "remove all debris" button, surely? I usually just have it set to a pretty low number for performance, but it gives me a good few flights before things are deleted if I find I need them later on (unless something goes very explodey, and leaves me with 100+ debris fragments)

[Ralathon]

Or you could just stage before your periapsis gets above 15 km and use your orbital stage for the last few m/s

[Dunbaratu]

Yep, but you'd get the same problems with a "remove all debris" button, surely?

No you wouldn't.

The button would delete debris only when the user is done with the mission and goes in to the tracking center and uses the button. If the user needs that debris around for a while and not delete it until the mission is over, that's an option the user has.

Setting zero debris deletes debris instantaneously the moment it gets more than 2.5 km away from the camera, or as soon as the user escapes out to a menu screen.

The button would allow the user the time to, say, use the "recover" option on several pieces of the craft first before then going and deleting debris, or leaving that tank in orbit, waiting for the re-ascent and rendezvous first.

I set debris to zero for performance concerns once (to see if that was the cause, it wasn't) and then immediately set it up to 25 just to avoid these problems I encountered at zero debris.