Changing part destruction behavior regarding fluid impacts

[BigNose]

I just had a quick idea to improve the way parts interact with water and other fluids in the game somewhat:

Currently the only thing which decides part destruction on fluid impact is total speed compared to the impact tolerance of the part. If speed is higher -> Part destroyed.

Without overcomplicating this, how about changing this in the following way:

The deciding factor for part destruction should be vertical speed compared to impact tolerance, not the total speed.

That way, a steep crash into water would still be deadly, while gently touching down with much greater horizontal speed (like a plane) would become viable, without having to use rediculously high impact tolerance parts to simulate floats.

While I'm not sure how much work a change like this would require, the benefits are immediatly obvious: Building stock seaplanes/boats would become a viable option, and the whole interaction with fluids, while still crude, would become much less ankward.

What do you guys think?

[masiboss]

Thats just a great idea

[technicalfool]

I would suggest factoring horizontal speed into things somehow, otherwise a gentle 2,000m/s landing on water is possible. Seems like a decent way of fudging the numbers though.

[BigNose]

I would suggest factoring horizontal speed into things somehow, otherwise a gentle 2,000m/s landing on water is possible. Seems like a decent way of fudging the numbers though.

Good thought there, capping horizontal speed is necessary. Maybe like 20 times impact velocity or something? Some form of factor to impact velocity would be ok I think. If you wanted to get into it a bit more, the factor could be dependent on the vertical speed, to the faster you touch down (vertically), the less horizontal speed you can have.

[Kegereneku]

With such a system I expect a lot of spaceplane prototype surviving a failed launch and falling into water at the end of the runway.

I'm not really interested in boat, but more clemency toward emergency plane landing would be appreciable. Also there IS a few real spaceplane proposal who relied on waterlanding.

[BigNose]

Turns out the great ferram4 already came to the rescue: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/105094-0-90-Better-Buoyancy-v1-0-Simple-Water-Fixes-12-27-14