Boosters overheating - is this new in 0.24?

[asb3pe]

So I was just doing my first few contracts, got a decoupler and added one booster surrounded by four more in symmetry. When I launched, the 5 boosters got to 100% overheat fairly quickly, and the outside ring of four boosters made a bang and disappeared. The fifth booster kept pushing me upward. Is this new behavior in 0.24, or am I just a forgetful person and nothing changed from 0.23?

Edited July 17, 2014 by asb3pe

[Pecan]

Hmmm, the only way I've been able to get things to overheat to destruction in 0.23(.5) was just low-temp-tolerance probe and booster. Overheating itself has been there but I haven't seen it get so bad for a long time, no.

Oh good, that'll add to the fun :-)

[asb3pe]

Well there's a wiki page for it http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Overheating

But it says you can basically ignore overheating... LOL Gonna be a lot of wiki changes coming!

"As of version 0.23.5, overheat only really matters if the overheat bar reaches 100%. If the bar fills up, the engine explodes; if it doesn't fill up, there's no problem.

In practice, this means that overheating can often be entirely ignored. Fuel supply is frequently exhausted long before it reaches 100%, or the burn is completed and the engine shutdown again."

[Master Tao]

It's called

.

[asb3pe]

It's called

.

So it seems I just wasn't using these boosters in my previous games. As Scott's video shows, this overheating is clearly not new in 0.24. Thanks!

[AlexanderB]

The solution could be to add some other part to the booster, like a winglet or fin. It has to do with the way the game models heat, if you connect a hot part to a cold part, it doesn't overheat as quickly, if you add a hot part (booster) directly to another hot part (booster), it'll heat up quite rapidly.

Heat for some reason also involves distance to COM of a part, thats why mainsail + orange tank overheats, the orange tank is too tall and the game doesn't register it cooling down the mainsail. If you use a smaller tank to attach a mainsail to, its fine..

[dryer_lint]

From what I have seen, this usually only happens in the beginnings of a new career save (when people put a ton of SRBs next to each other). I think once you start switching to liquid fuel it gets better.

[Murph]

Well there's a wiki page for it http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Overheating

But it says you can basically ignore overheating... LOL Gonna be a lot of wiki changes coming!

"As of version 0.23.5, overheat only really matters if the overheat bar reaches 100%. If the bar fills up, the engine explodes; if it doesn't fill up, there's no problem.

In practice, this means that overheating can often be entirely ignored. Fuel supply is frequently exhausted long before it reaches 100%, or the burn is completed and the engine shutdown again."

No it doesn't say that you can completely ignore it, only that it can often be ignored (if it doesn't reach 100%). In your original post, you said that your boosters hit 100% overheat and exploded  that's entirely consistent with what the wiki page says. As far as I can see, the overheat behaviour in 0.24 is still the same in terms of 100% is bad, and anything less than 100% is not a problem. I don't believe that there's anything inaccurate on the overheating page, or anything that really needs to be added to clarify it â€â€"If the bar fills up, the engine explodes; if it doesn't fill up, there's no problem." seems quite clear and accurate to me.

It's possible that 0.24 may have made some craft which previously didn't hit 100% overheat get to 100% and explode, and vice-versa. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that a simple 5-domino pattern of boosters was always risky for overheating in previous versions, depending on what else was attached to them.

[SRV Ron]

Overheating and exploding has always been an issue for the trash can boosters mounted to the side. The cure is to just tweak their power output down a bit.