Include Shock Heating in the aerodynamic overhaul

[Capt Snuggler]

Yesterday, I took my jet surveyor aircraft, and swapped the basic jet engine on it, for a turbojet, because I was having trouble reaching 18km altitude for some survey contracts.

The plane, a single engine one, is now fast enough to get the flame visual effects on it. It now does in the order of 1.1km/sec sustainable at high altitude, and up to 1.9km/sec in a shallow descent from the highest altitude I reached with it, which was 45km.

No mods of consequence installed. Mark 1 cockpits.

With shock heating and re-entry heat being a thing, would that aeroplane still be able to do that ? with that single engine, and with Mk 1. parts ?

well assuming its a vaguely pointy craft and its compatible with the upcoming aero-update. the real question is how long it could sustain it before parts start overheating and breaking?

[Majorjim!]

BOOO HISS!! AWAY! AWAY WITH YOU! BE GONE!

"It will limit craft design." - I completely disagree with this. it just means that the "SS Waktomatron" will need heat shields installed if you want to do a direct steep decent. a design challenge, yes, but not the end of the world.

Yes maybe some current designs will not survive the update, but as I've said before. you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.

"no stock farings." ALSO "majorjim", if that is your real name

Stock fairings doesn't mean procedural fairings. I don't believe stock fairings wouldn't limit designs ether. just another tool in the tool box.

Loool!!

Yes tis my real name!

I don't mind craft being broken in the name of progress. I have come to terms with that now.

My opinion is a logical one, based on what Squad have said so far and what they appear to want for KSP. if you read Squads new post on the aero update they do mention fairings, but in the context of existing parts. That is very telling indeed.

I don't mind if they introduce heat, in fact I will be happy about it.

I just can't see it happening.

[Capt Snuggler]

Loool!!

I don't mind if they introduce heat, in fact I will be happy about it.

I just can't see it happening.

well then that makes discussions like this even more important. Squad are well aware of the reentry heat debate and I believe more discussion and debate will ultimately lead to a reasonable compromise.

I understand your concern Jim but, stay positive. even more reason to keep the debate (demand) alive.

*edit: the voice of a man with a reputation that rivals Jebediah's is all the more important...

Edited January 15, 2015 by Capt Snuggler

[lajoswinkler]

Some people mention planes and the ablative damage. Why not using the same parts and having an option to upgrade them for reentry? Right click, "prepare for reentry" - bam! - you now have less money available. You've bought the property. I think it's a great idea for career mode.

Buying upgrades can be extended for pressure. For example if you want to go to Eve, right click, "prepare for high pressure", bam! - you lose some funds.

[Majorjim!]

well then that makes discussions like this even more important. Squad are well aware of the reentry heat debate and I believe more discussion and debate will ultimately lead to a reasonable compromise.

I understand your concern Jim but, stay positive. even more reason to keep the debate (demand) alive.

Debate away good sir!

I was just giving my opinion as I have a 'gut' feeling about this.

"He's been acting squirly all day, it's that damn nose of his".

[asmi]

I think you guys are expecting too much from Squad at this point - remember they've got only 2 or 3 developers who actually write code, and aero overhaul will eat up a lot of time and involve fair amount of head scratching and brainstorming (if you don't believe me - ask Ferram - and he's EXPERT in this area while Squad devs are not). I'd say if they will get aero more-or-less working as they want it to for the next update - it will be good enough.

[prophet_01]

I would expect reentry to require a significant amount of testing, but not necessarily a lot of coding. Aero seems to be a lot more complicated. But it's not important to me if when reentry mechanics get released.

anyway, I think my comment earlyer was missunderstod. I'm not saying that people won't get that things get hot on reentry or that they are stupid. Reentry is hardly noticed if you just go to orbit and it only starts to rly matter once you return from the mun. Performing your first mun landing already requires you to learn and practice a number of new techniques and it's usually the point when people either start to get rly sucked into the game or quit entirely.

5 people I know started playing ksp within the last year. Two of them are still playing and another two lost interest after struggeling to do a mun mission. The last one never had interest in deep soace exploration, build a number of spaceplanes and never went beyond LKO (rather strange case). Anyway, what I want to explain is that the hardest part of the learn courve is at the exact same time when reentry mechanics would strike aswell.

Don't get me wrong, I like DRE and would like to have it in stock. But I don't want it to kick in at this point

as I expect it to make the game less accessable. I would like reentry to be an optional feature. Although most new people expect it to be a thing due to the reentry effects, they may still struggle to get the right altitude and course. If they master everything from the start, nobody would stop them from turnimg the reentry option on.

KSP is known to be one of the most challenging games in public (outside of this forum!). This is a good thing, because the devs managed to hit the game/simulation balance pretty much perfectly imo. Orbiter for example did not do this (of course it never intended to do so), but ksp is that popular and amazes that many people for a good reason.

Long story short: I would like to have reentry, but definetly without sn increased learning courve

Edited January 16, 2015 by prophet_01

[Capt Snuggler]

Don't get me wrong, I like DRE and would like to have it in stock. But I don't want it to kick in at this point

well if the Mk1 Command pod had built in heat shielding on the bottom and a bit on the sides. you could make it extremely durable and able to withstand the heat of a mun return. the down side is its only a 1 man pod.

A temperature gauge and some kind audio alarm would indicate to the player the capsule is getting hot. the pod could tumble around and see that the temp gauge increases more slowly when pointing shield first. unshielded parts would over heat, damage and eventually burn away. the capsule and kerbal inside will be fine so long as it descends shield first. (This is the natural orientation anyway, so this would be mostly hands free for the player)

As the game progresses more heat shields would be unlocked. wing and fuselage sections and could add or remove heat tiles by tweakable option. (porkjet was already implementing this when SP+ was made stock)

players would know if they want a reentry capable craft they would need heat shields.

4 sizes of circular shields, plus all the wing sections having a heat tile tweakable option PLUS some kind of stock fairings having a heat tile tweakable option too. that's ALLOT of options for building reentry vehicles!

nose cones and cargo bays are going to offer drag shielding of some kind in the new aero system. I cant see why the drag shielding/fairing code could not be adapted to incorporate heat at extreme speed.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Capt Snuggler

[CaptRobau]

I like shock heating, but I'm not feeling all of DREs features. Ablative heating adds complexity for little gain and would make it hard to make vehicles that are supposed to do multiple atmospheric reentries without adding a lot of extra parts. I'm also not a fan of special heatshield parts, at least not for stock. That limits what you can do or if it doesn't means adding a lot of additional parts to the game. Most parts should be pretty heat resistant and only if you come in far too fast, will stuff begin to burn up.

[Jouni]

I like shock heating, but I'm not feeling all of DREs features. Ablative heating adds complexity for little gain and would make it hard to make vehicles that are supposed to do multiple atmospheric reentries without adding a lot of extra parts. I'm also not a fan of special heatshield parts, at least not for stock. That limits what you can do or if it doesn't means adding a lot of additional parts to the game. Most parts should be pretty heat resistant and only if you come in far too fast, will stuff begin to burn up.

Reentry damage is necessary for fixing the silly recovery mechanism in career mode.

Currently the recovery percentages are ridiculously high. To make disposable rockets economically viable (assuming that rocket prices will actually matter in some future version), the percentages should be much lower, at least in early and mid-game. But if we just lower the recovery percentages, people would start refueling and reusing their launch vehicles, instead of recovering them. To avoid this, we need a way to force people to recover their reusable craft once in a while for refitting. Reentry damage would be a sensible way to implement this.

[lajoswinkler]

I like shock heating, but I'm not feeling all of DREs features. Ablative heating adds complexity for little gain and would make it hard to make vehicles that are supposed to do multiple atmospheric reentries without adding a lot of extra parts. I'm also not a fan of special heatshield parts, at least not for stock. That limits what you can do or if it doesn't means adding a lot of additional parts to the game. Most parts should be pretty heat resistant and only if you come in far too fast, will stuff begin to burn up.

What kind of vehicles require such thing? Aren't you now overcomplicating things? As I've describer earlier, Deadly Reentry is not difficult even on hard mode. There is absolutely nothing I can see that would make players' lives miserable. I really tested this mod to its extremes and it gave nothing but additional positive gaming experience to me.

[Whirligig Girl]

I wonder how hard having Jebediah's Spray-On Heatshield available as a late-tech option for spraypainting the bottom of a spaceplane black to increase mass and heat tolerance.

[klgraham1013]

I think you guys are expecting too much from Squad at this point - remember they've got only 2 or 3 developers who actually write code, and aero overhaul will eat up a lot of time and involve fair amount of head scratching and brainstorming (if you don't believe me - ask Ferram - and he's EXPERT in this area while Squad devs are not). I'd say if they will get aero more-or-less working as they want it to for the next update - it will be good enough.

Yes, and Ferram did it in his free time, for no money, while working another job for 40 hours a week. Sorry if I except more from people who are getting paid for said work and don't also have a second job on top of that. Ferram also has said he would help if they asked him to.

[Kegereneku]

As far I understood from him Ferram didn't do it alone and he is only working on his code for year, not an entire game including the code source upon which FAR is built, a game that must be kept structured, coherent, optimized.

I'm not excusing them because you don't need to excuse good work... but I am excusing them not finding the time to do it earlier and I still expect a lot from the aero rework.

[lajoswinkler]

I wonder how hard having Jebediah's Spray-On Heatshield available as a late-tech option for spraypainting the bottom of a spaceplane black to increase mass and heat tolerance.

It's what I've been suggesting for a long time. Upgrading parts, so you don't need two times more junk in your menu. I think it would work great, but I wouldn't put it late in the tech-tree. You'd need it almost immediately.

[Louella]

well assuming its a vaguely pointy craft and its compatible with the upcoming aero-update. the real question is how long it could sustain it before parts start overheating and breaking?

A simple engine swap from a basic jet to a turbojet turns this aeroplane that reaches 18km altitude and max of 400m/s or so:

Into an aeroplane that does this:

The massive increase in performance took me by surprise. I wouldn't have expected such a difference, and if there was aerodynamic heating and/or other shock effects, I expect it would have exploded, and the pilot killed.

And the turbojet is still an air breathing engine, for atmospheric use. It's for an aeroplane, not a spaceplane.

You do not expect to have to deal with re-entry heat, for an aeroplane, because you don't expect to go into space at all, so requiring heat shielding is not really intuitive.

[Capt Snuggler]

And the turbojet is still an air breathing engine, for atmospheric use. It's for an aeroplane, not a spaceplane.

You do not expect to have to deal with re-entry heat, for an aeroplane, because you don't expect to go into space at all, so requiring heat shielding is not really intuitive.

there are flames on the leading edge of your craft. flames = heat. that's pretty intuitive.

also an over temp alarm would tell you that your leading edge parts are approaching their maximum temperature... so you heed the warning and throttle back.

temp gauge in the red, audio alarm, sweating kerbal, flames on the leading edges of craft... thats plenty of warning.

*edit* also the jets are in desperate need of balancing.

*edit edit* all engines will likely get balanced after the aero update.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Capt Snuggler

[Renegrade]

I'm not sure reentry effects are justified at the speeds that exist in stock-sized KSP. At mach 6-7, heating issues can be addressed with heat-resistant construction instead of massive ablative heat shields and blunt-shaped capsules.

Now if we want to pretend that we're re-entering at 6.4x+ RSS scale speeds, then sure, Apollo-style it is. If we don't want to pretend such things, then the flame-y effects have got to go.

That being said, the heat transfer system needs a massive overhaul (the "distances between part CoMs" bit is idiotic, counter-intuitive, un-fun, unrealistic, and counter-gameplay-oriented when all you have to do is insert a small tank between engine and stack to completely negate any disadvantages to hot engines), regardless of what path is taken.

*edit* also the jets are in desperate need of balancing.

What? A Turbo-SC/RAMjet with 40,000 effective specific impulse that can run in the next best thing to a hard vacuum isn't balanced??

Say it ain't so!

[NERVAfan]

That kind of speed is still pretty dangerous to unprotected objects...

Oh, certainly, but the protection needed is a lot less extreme.

Make the MK1 command pod have a built in ablative heat shield as well if you like. then your first few flights will be more forgiving.

IMO both 'space capsule' command pods should have heat shields built in, but not lander cans - as implied by the "won't survive atmospheric entry" text on one of the lander can descriptions.

The spaceplane parts, IMO, should be able to survive hypersonic flight, but would have trouble with a steep reentry.

[Capt Snuggler]

IMO both 'space capsule' command pods should have heat shields built in, but not lander cans - as implied by the "won't survive atmospheric entry" text on one of the lander can descriptions.

disagree sorry. the MK1-2 has a little hatch on the bottom. I imagine this pod is designed to have the option to climb through in to a larger ship (on top of a hitchhiker or lab). A 2.5m heat shield should have to be attached to the bottom to make it re-entry capable.

maybe 5 star engineer kerbals could patch up ablative heat shields just like repacking chutes (a bit of a stretch I know).

OR make it so all heat shields are a 100% reusable, zero maintenance fixture. a space plane with the heat tiles tweakable checked during construction can be used over and over. no problem.

maybe space plane heat tiles could have less heat tolerance than heavy circular inline heat shields. so space planes would be LKO return only, where as heavy circular inline heat shields could be capable of much faster, high orbit (mun) returns.

This would better define roles for space planes vs pods but still allowing for unconventional complex designs.

players should use tiled wing segments and circular shields to protect any kind of complex craft they like.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Capt Snuggler

[rkman]

You do not expect to have to deal with re-entry heat, for an aeroplane, because you don't expect to go into space at all, so requiring heat shielding is not really intuitive.

there are flames on the leading edge of your craft. flames = heat. that's pretty intuitive.

I think the point is that perhaps jet planes should not be able to go so fast that they get to deal with reentry-like levels of heat.

Even a simple plane can reach orbital velocity and establish what amounts to a sizable orbit, by going around the planet multiple times (without any sort of rocket engine). Periapsis can never get above the atmosphere on jet power alone, though it can get to like 50km and Ap can get up to 100km+ where a small amount of rcs could make it a proper orbit.

We'll see whether that sort of airplane performance is intended or whether it is a temporary result of lack of game balance.

A single basic plane design sets speed record, altitude record and duration/distance record all in one mission - arguably because plane parts (jet engines) are over powered.

It might be more interesting to require more differentiation in plane designs depending on the purpose (other than playload size).

[tater]

I agree the mk1-2 needs a heat shield part since it has a hatch.

[Louella]

I think the point is that perhaps jet planes should not be able to go so fast that they get to deal with reentry-like levels of heat.

Probably. I mean, my aeroplane, did 400 m/s or so with the basic jet engine.

Turbojet has 50% more thrust, but goes 400% faster ? to speeds close to orbit velocity ? On an air breathing engine ? with one intake ?

[Capt Snuggler]

We'll see whether that sort of xxxxx is intended or whether it is a temporary result of lack of game balance.

wise words. This sentence could be applied to almost any aspect of KSP so far.