KSP 1.0 introduces re-entry heating, as well as a selection of heat shields.

While SDHI will continue to distribute its own (better designed :P) heat shield and retain support for the Deadly Reentry add-on, it would be wise to include the new ModuleAblator, and if DR is installed, disable it.

Forum user and part-time dev RoverDude also made a note regarding the heat-driven darkening of the ablative heat shields:

Beale:
Quick question, can I toggle the darkening effect caused by ModuleAblator? (Or apply an ablation mask?)

RoverDude:
Short answer - yes. There are some ranges for the scorching in the config file. charMax and charMin are the fields you want, both are 0 to 1

I would guess (try this) setting the range from 0.0 - 0.0 would work for what you want

Tentatively implemented in efcec42, and user feedback in KSP 1.0.2 suggests that re-entry heating is consuming the stock Ablator resource.

TODO:

• Fine tune ModuleAblator to give SDHI heat shield superior performance over stock
• Check that heat shield does not darken after re-entry
• Fix DRE MM patch to only apply if DRE is installed

Forum user johnsonwax did some experiments in-game, and found that by increasing ModuleAblator's pyrolysisLossFactor parameter from 10000 to 15000, the heat shield would wick away more heat energy per unit of Ablator, effectively reducing Ablator consumption.

The heat shield CFG has been updated accordingly.