DRE and FAR: What settings for DRE would you suggest?

[soulsource]

Hi everyone!

I've just started a new career save in 0.25 with a bunch of mods, including DRE and FAR, but with the stock Kerbol system. Nevertheless, with the default settings, DRE isn't nearly as deadly as one might expect from the name, at least in combination with FAR. On Kerbin one can even reenter without heat shields, since pointing an engine prograde and using it to decelerate slightly in critical situations gets the ship down in one piece as well...

Not surprising, this is a little bit too easy for me, so I've now started to play around with the settings for shockwave exponent and shockwave multiplyer. I've of course copied over the heat shield configurations from Realism Overhaul (including the heat shield included in the M1k Pod, which is in a different file than the rest of the heat shields). I've found out that with the suggested exponent of 1.12 the 250 units of ablative heat shield included in the Mk1 Pod or the 1.25m heat shield are just barely enough to survive reentry. Actually, the heat shield already gets consumed completely even if only the Mk1 pod with a parachute is reentering. Now, since I'm using FAR, additional parts behind the heat shield do not contribute much to drag, but of course they contribute to the mass, leading to lower deceleration, or put in different words, the ship stays at high velocity for a longer time and tends to have higher velocity at lower altitudes, making a reentry with only one heat shield and more than just an Mk1 pod, well, deadly... A possible workaround is to stack heat shields and letting them burn up one after the other, yet I would prefer a single heat shield solution.

So, this leads to my question: What values for shockwave exponent and multiplyer would you suggest to use / are you using in combination with FAR? With or without RO heatshields?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[NathanKell]

Start lowering density exponent (and afx density exponent to match) and increasing shockwave exponent until things feel too hard.

[Taki117]

i saw the perfect post addressing your issue in the DRE thread. the long and short of it is this: Ablative shielding is not a life bar! ablative material will keep your shield cool during the hotest part of reentry and it is perfectly ok to run out. If you run out of ablative shielding the pod will start heating up, but as long as it doesn't reach max temperature it will not explode.