E.B. Farnham wrote:
Yeah it's caught me out due to my tendency towards slightly too safe reentries. Yeah I think it's about 32 or under and you re-enter without a skip. Not 100% sure though. Might do some tests of my own and write it down for future referencing. Would be handy to know.
After testing it out, I don't think it's your altitude that's the problem. Let me relay a story:
I just attempted a direct reentry from the Mun aiming for 30Km. At about 75Km, I charged up my command pod from the batteries on my 2nd to last stage. At around 70Km, I oriented myself retrograde, and separated. All good.
At around 65Km, I noticed much to my alarm, that the stage I had separated from was slowing down faster than my command module, and my alignment had been so perfect (miraculously so...total fluke), that I was slowly heading straight for it.
At around 60Km, we collided. Impact wasn't enough to cause any damage, but sent me spinning end over end. I had to fight like crazy to stabilize the craft, and all the while the flamey death effects were building up around me. All this time, I was burning energy like crazy of course because my reactions wheels were going full blast as I tried to stabilize.
Just around the time I had stabilized into a wobble that was going maybe 30 degrees back and forth over my intended alignment, that 2nd to last stage began blowing up nearby from the heat, so looks like I managed it just in time. Definitely one of my most satisfying landings, and Jeb, Bob, and Bill, all seemed rather ecstatic to walk away from it.
Anyways, long story short: by the time I brought her down I still had 60 out of the 150 energy in my capsule :)
So, given my extreme reaction wheel use, I suspect you're REALLY overworking them man, perhaps with SAS constantly fighting against the pod naturally turning into the direction of travel or whatever. With the command pods, you can pretty much just go dead stick on them entirely and they'll keep the correct orientation due to being so bottom heavy.
So yeah...don't over maneuver and burn your batteries noob :)