NJC2

Version 2.4.4 causes my KSP to crash. The only texture I have installed is a skybox, which is in TGA format. If I remove the skybox textures it stops crashing. Reinstalling 2.4.3 it works fine, even with the skybox textures installed. EDIT: I converted the textures to DDS format and it seems to be working now. Is there any particular DDS compression that works best for KSP? I'm using GIMP with the DDS plugin, which has several options: I tried the first three options and the file sizes were identical and I didn't notice any difference in quality, so I just went with BC3 / DXT5 since it was the last one I tried.

Why don't you two collaborate on a single mod handling re-entry and aerodynamics and call it DR. FAR.

I haven't tried this, but it is something that KSP has needed. Are you familiar with Mod Organizer? It's a mod manager for games like Fallout (3 and New Vegas), Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim). The mods are physically installed outside of the game directory in the Mod Organizer's directory. It acts as a launcher for the game and creates a virtual file system so the game only sees what mods you chose to enable. Doing it that way would solve the limitations listed above, but you have to exit the game to enable/disable mods.

Can you re-zip it as a standard zip and not the Mac OSX zip that includes the unnecessary __MACOSX directory?

I have a science station in orbit around the Mun. I have a rover/lander that goes down, gets samples and returns to dock with the station, so I can clean the experiments and go back for more. Also docked to the station is the ship that brought the crew and a rescue lander in case I crash the rover and need to rescue the Kerbal. Each ship has its own antenna(s). The station itself has a DTS-M1 and Communitron 16, the rescue lander has a Communitron 16, the crew ship has a DTS-M1 and the rover has a Communitron 16. A screen shot might help see the setup. Also there are various unmanned probes scattered on the surface with DTS-M1 dishes. After I had returned the rover and docked to the station. When I transmitted some stuff to Kerbin, I didn't see the DTS-M1 fold out and the message said it was relaying through one of the probes on the surface. I just thought that was a bit odd since Kerbin was directly overhead and earlier before I sent the rover down I did some EVA reports and transmitted them and it used the DTS-M1 on the crew ship to transmit those.

I didn't try the new version on .23.5. I decided to just stick with .23.5 with everything the way it is until all the mods I'm using get updated to .24. I have a few things I want to finish in my current career before starting over in .24 too. When there are multiple antennas on, how does the mod chose which one to use? Tonight I finished up my Mun rover mission, and it returned to the orbital science station. The station itself has a Communitron 16 and a DTS-M1, the transfer ship has a DTS-M1, the rover has a Communitron 16, and there is an emergency rescue lander with another Communitron 16. After the rover docked with the station, I transmitted some science back to Kerbin, and for some odd reason it used one of the Communitron 16's and relayed it through a probe on the surface. I'm assuming it used a Communitron because I could see both dishes and neither one animated. Kerbin was directly overhead, so why didn't it just use one of the DTS-M1 dishes to transmit directly back to Kerbin? Earlier when I docked the rover after shipping it from Kerbin, when I transmitted some science back and it used the DTS-M1 on the crew ship.

I just saw the news of .24 release! Will the new version of this mod work in .23.5? I'm going to keep playing the old version until all of my mods get updated and I finish current missions? If nobody replies by the time I get home and play (in just a little bit) I guess I'll find out and edit my post.

I kind of figured terrain couldn't be accounted for with LOS, which is why I was OK with it relaying while I was ~20km from it. A 5% grace doesn't seem like much until you look at it on the map. I'm even farther away now, nearly to the Norther Basin, ~110km away. It looks like I'm almost halfway around the Mun and can still relay through that probe. Can I make another suggestion? Can you give Kerbals a short range transmitter (1km or so) so they can relay EVA reports through their ship/lander/rover that they are standing next to? It seems odd that they have to get back in the ship/lander/rover to transmit EVA reports taken from outside.

I don't think LOS is working right. I have a science station in orbit around the Mun with a manned rover that goes down to the surface to collect science and return to the station. The rover only has a communitron 16 on it, and thought I would need to wait for the science station to pass overhead to relay transmissions back to Kerbin. I happened to land near my first unmanned probe I sent to the Mun. I waited for the station to pass overhead to transmit a crew report, and when I did, it relayed through the old probe instead of the station. They were both in the Northwest Crater. While there wasn't clear LOS between the two, it was close enough that I figured the mod couldn't quite tell. Now the rover has moved on and is over 100km away and there definitely is no LOS between the two, yet it continues to relay through this probe. The view from above: The view rotated to line the two craft up to show there is no way they have LOS:

Back a few pages someone posted a .cfg file that will put the old parts back into the game to allow you to load old craft. I was about to use that, then decided it would be best to convert all of my old craft to the new parts. I created a new sandbox save, moved all of my craft over, edited them and replaced the fairing rings with the new ones. After putting them back in my career save's ships folder I could load them just fine. I did have to edit my persistent.sfs file and remove the PF files from the Tech section because the new parts weren't showing up for me.

I haven't been able played KSP in a while, but I'm now ready to get back to my career game. I only have a couple of probes out there with RT2 dishes on them, and once I recover or get done with them, I will completely remove RT2. I backed up my save directory and here's what I've done: I removed everything except the Parts directory from the RT2 directory. When I load my game, all my saved craft are greyed out saying "Contains locked or invalid parts." I'm using your .cfg file, and the first thing I noticed is the RT2 antennas and dishes are no longer in the VAB. Looking at your config, it is missing the TechRequired field, so I added that in myself. The dishes now show up in the VAB, but my craft are still locked. The debug console doesn't show any reason. I noticed that KSP auto-created a directory called saves_backup that automatically backed up my profile, and has a log file in it. According to the log it seems RT2 inserts modules into all of the antennas and probe cores and the launch clamps called "ModuleRTAntenna" and "ModuleSPUPassive." I restored RT2, deleted the .cfg files that modify the parts, loaded the game, quit and it auto-removed those modules from my craft, but I still can't load any of my saved craft. The debug console shows no reason and the ksp.log file doesn't say why either. I copied one of the craft files that I can't load to a sandbox save and loaded it. It's all stock parts, I see nothing on it that would cause it to not let me load it in my career save. Am I doing things the hard way? Is there an easier way to remove RT2 and install this mod so I can load my saved craft? Never mind. I updated all of my other mods at the same time, and it turned out to be Procedural Fairings causing the problem with not being able to load saved craft. I reverted to the old version of PF while I sorted outt RT2 and this mod. Now I have to figure out what's up with PF.

My idea of having a limited range for Kerbin is so that a ship out past this distance can't transmit back to Kerbin without longer range relay satellites in orbit to receive and relay it to the ground.

Thanks, I figured that out on my own though. I left the probe LOS requirement on for my test just to see if it needed LOS back to the KSC or the planet itself. I agree with most of what you've said. It is unreasonable to assume that there would only be one radio transmitter on Kerbin, and I remember there being some discussion about that on the RT2 forum. Early in my career mode I considered building an aircraft with the early dishes and flying them around and landing them at various spots on Kerbin to act as ground transmitters, but it just ended up being easier to launch a few satellites in orbit as a relay network. What if you made Kerbin only have a limited communication range? Maybe just long enough to do missions to the Mun, so early in career mode users don't need to setup satellite relays until it's time to venture out past the Mun. At the least, perhaps put it in a config file we can edit to suit our taste?

It hasn't been quite a month since I asked if this mod required LOS for transmission and craft control, and I checked back today to see LOS has now been implemented. Nice! I like Remote Tech, but I would like to maintain control of my unmanned craft because the way I see it, I am the ships computer and I'm carrying out pre-programmed commands that don't need constant communication with the KSC to carry out. I do like that it gave antennas limited range and requires LOS to transmit data back to KSC since it gives a real reason to set up satellite relay networks. I have a few questions before I switch over from Remote Tech. I disabled Remote Tech by moving it out of the GameData directory, then created a test sandbox game and sent an unmanned probe around the Mun with just a communitron 16 on it. It seems like the craft only needs LOS or a connection back to the planet Kerbin. Would it be possible to require it to have a connection to the KSC rather than the planet itself? This way we still need to put up satellites to relay the signal around the planet to the KSC. Since I already have a career mode in progress with Remote Tech and don't want to start over, will this mod work with Remote Tech or its antennas? Since I already have satellites and probes out there with Remote Tech dishes, would disabling the Remote Tech .dll be enough or do I need to edit configs for the antennas? How about adding a button on the right click menu for an antenna (or a button in the map screen/toolbar) to display connection information? When turned on it can calculate and draw lines to any antennas in range and in line of sight. You could use two colors like Remote Tech does, one to indicate which satellites it can talk to, and another color to indicate the current relay path back to the KSC.

Something weird is happening with FAR. I haven't flown any aircraft in three or more versions of FAR. Today I decide to build a new aircraft to go collect the last bits of science left on Kerbin. I ran though several designs and no matter how much tweaking I always got the same result when testing the aircraft. When I stall it, it settles flat, slightly rear down and just falls down in this attitude no matter how far forward the CG is of the center of lift. It acts almost as if it's in a vacuum or very thin air. I can get a little roll and yaw out of it, but it pitch control seems almost non existent. I loaded up an earlier aircraft that flew fine the last time I used it. I remember it being very stable, nearly impossible to stall, and if I did stall it, it just pitched back down and recovered on its own. Now it too behaves as above after stalling. Another odd thing is happening too. If I fly to the upper atmosphere (>18,000m) and then descend back, it seems to act as if it's still flying in the thin upper atmosphere. It's very sensitive and twitchy up there. I take off, fly at 45° nose up until I hit 18k altitude. When I ease the stick forward (I'm using an Xbox 360 controller to fly) to level out, it goes out of control. Every time, with several different designs, it yaws to the right, then rolls over and flies belly first into the direction of flight. After bleeding off speed and descending back to the lower atmosphere it is nearly impossible to recover. A few times I managed to recover control, but it still seems to fly as if it's in the thin upper atmosphere after I descend back to the lower atmosphere. I did a test by flying to the upper atmosphere in a gentler approach. I flew at 45° until above 10,000m, then at 15° until hitting about 20k. I then cut the throttle and let it pitch down on its own. By the time it had nosed over and descended below 18k it was going over 500m/s, and I was barely able to pull it up to level off. I managed to get it leveled off at about 4000m altitude and it had slowed to 200m/s by then. Pulling full up elevator at this altitude and speed barely did anything. I loaded the same aircraft, took off and flew up to 4000m, then pulled full up elevator at 200m/s and it rips its wings off.

I quickly browsed through all the posts, so forgive me if I missed this. Does this mod take into account line of sight when transmitting? If not, have you thought about adding that? I started using Remote Tech 2 in .23 when I started a career mode because I like that it gives you a reason to launch communication satellites, and having to have LOS means setting up networks of satellites to get coverage. I like to control my spacecraft though, so I don't like the signal delay (which thankfully can be turned off) and not being able to control unmanned craft when losing LOS. The way I see it, I'm the spacecraft's computer, and I still work when out of contact. However I should still lose control if I go out of range because without contact you can't send it commands. I know that doesn't make sense to not lose control when out of contact due to LOS but not out of range, but think of it like this: If a spacecraft is going to pass behind a planet and you need to make a burn to get in orbit, you would transmit a command for it to perform that burn before losing contact, but if your craft goes out of range, you can no longer send it commands. If this mod requires LOS between antennas, this would be an ideal Remote Tech 2 replacement for me.

Is there an alternate download link? The dropbox link on the main post gives an error saying downloads for the account have been disabled due to too much traffic .

I made a backup of my career mode save and played around in it for about an hour and didn't notice any issues with the mods I have installed (I'm only listing the ones not already mentioned as working on the first post): Deadly Reentry Continued Ferram Aerospace Research TAC Fuel Balancer Editor Extensions Vessel Orbital Information Display (VOID) Remote Tech 2 is listed as not working, but I didn't have any problems with it.

What isn't working? I made a backup and loaded my save. I'm still early in career mode with only 3 satellites in orbit with dishes for Mun and Minmus missions. I have a few unmanned probes on the Mun and a couple out orbiting. Everything seems to be working fine, the probes lose connection when it loses LOS of Kerbin, and even the flight computer worked. Like I said, I'm early in the tech tree, so I only have communication parts that can get me to Mun and Minmus.

To be realistic, there's a lot more to take into account than dish/antenna size. The biggest factor in the distance a signal would travel and be received would be the power of the transmitter, next would be the frequency. The size of the antenna needs to be matched for the frequency it's transmitting/receiving. A dish will focus that transmission for longer range. An omnidirectional antenna would be capable of receiving a signal from a powerful enough transmitter using the right antenna/dish. There's so much to factor in that it would be an entire simulation in itself that it would probably not be possible to do in KSP without bogging down the whole game, beside not being fun having to micro managing every bit of it. Some simplification needs to be done for playability, and there needs to be some way of recovering from an accidental targeting or forgetting to aim your craft's dish at a different relay satellite before going out of range, besides save game editing of course.

I think you should be able to re-target dishes if the craft has a backup omnidirectional antenna. Realistically, an omnidirectional antenna would be capable of receiving a transmission, so the Kontrollers at KSC should be able to send dish re-targeting instructions to such a craft if the dish loses connection or is accidentally pointed at the wrong thing.

While I'm here, does anyone else find that their spacecraft start to pitch/yaw/roll when it goes out of radio contact and/or after using the flight computer? Before passing around the backside of Minmus last night the probe had SAS on and was stable. I didn't notice if it started happening when it lost radio contact or after the flight computer triggered the action groups. I didn't use the flight computer to make any maneuvers, but after it triggered the action group for the science equipment was when I noticed SAS was off and it was slowly pitching around.

I tried this last night, and as I feared it was a mad scramble to get commands sent and retract the antenna before reentry. I sent a probe to Minmus, nearly identical to the one I sent to the Mun a few days ago. I setup the intercept so my orbit would swing out past Minmus and "side swipe" it on the way back by having my Pe be on the side. After making my final adjustment, I put my Pe at 15km, and it looked like I would be facing Kerbin and still have radio contact as I passed by. I had the science equipment set on action groups and queued them up to go off around the time I would reach Pe just to be safe. It's a good thing I did because I didn't have LOS to Kerbin when I made the flyby, and the flight computer triggered the science equipment just in time. Now it was time for reentry. I try to play somewhat realistic, for example I send unmanned probes to places before sending Kerbals. Although I quicksave often, I don't load the save if I crash a craft or make a mistake. I made an exception last night since I was experimenting with RT's flight computer for this reentry. The approach back to Kerbin had me coming in steep and fast. My first attempt was a complete disaster. I setup my Pe at 40k to aerobreak and burned the last of my fuel to help slow down. After that maneuver I was left with the Pe ~37k and I don't remember the Ap, but it was still pretty far out. I wasn't sure if it would reenter on the next pass if it would take another another trip or more around Kerbin to reenter, but it did reenter on the next pass. Once I saw reentry was going to happen, I wasn't sure what delay to use, so I waited for the Pe to drop below the surface and went for half the time to Pe. It was quite a shallow reentry, and the delay was 5 minutes. I set the delay, hit the action group key to activate the omni antenna, then the gear key. I closed the flight computer and was about to retract the antenna when realized I didn't drop the rocket stage for reentry. I pressed space and nothing happened. I mashed it a few more times, nothing. I thought I lost the antenna already, but it was still there showing a I was connected, so I tried to go ahead and retract it, and nope it wasn't going in. I then realized what was wrong. I didn't zero out the delay before closing the flight computer window, so it had put the several stage key presses in the queue and retract antenna command. I opened the flight computer, zeroed out the delay and tried to delete the extra commands and then drop the rocket stage, but it was too late, the antenna burned off just as I got the flight computer window up. Something on the bottom stage that I didn't drop exploded, broke off, hit a landing strut, destroyed the strut which caused the craft to wobble so the heat shield wasn't absorbing all of the reentry heat and the whole thing exploded. I reloaded and tried again. It took two more tries to get a successful reentry. By successful I mean one where the the antenna activated and gear deployed, and it was close. Once I make the deorbit burn and reentry begins, there's not much time to figure out the delay and get everything queued up on the fly. I already activated the parachute stage and had set them to deploy at a pressure that had them coming out at about 8000m, so that was one less thing to worry about. I was still having to figure out the delay, plug it in, queue an antenna activation and gear deployment, then zero out the delay, detach the rocket stage and retract the antenna. I had the antenna set come out first, then waited a bit and set the gear to deploy. I hoped the antenna would deploy first and I could cancel the flight computer queue and manually takeover, but I queued it in the flight computer to be safe in case the antenna deployed too soon and snapped off. The delay was almost too long though, and the antenna didn't deploy until a few seconds from touchdown. I had just enough time to manually lower the landing struts before it touched down. This particular probe doesn't need the landing struts and is capable of reentering and safely landing without control as long as I stage the parachutes before retracting the antenna or losing it, as it already landed successfully (although without the struts deployed) when I sent it to the Mun. I'm using this as practice for when the time comes to send probes to land on other planets with atmospheres. Enhancements to the flight computer would be nice and help in this situation, but FAR compatibility would have prevented the antenna from snapping to begin with because aerodynamically it was in a position where it would have been shielded from the oncoming air and heat.

I prefer to control the craft as much as possible. I like RT for realism of having to have satellites to relay the signal in order to control the craft, and I don't mind having to use the flight computer to give it commands to perform when out of radio contact, since I'm the one giving it commands. Setting up a reentry with the current flight computer will take more time than I might have. Once I make my de-orbit burn I won't have 30 minutes to queue up commands. I may have at most a couple of minutes, and I'll be rushing to set the delay, send command 1, 2, 3, etc. and adjusting the delay between each command to account for the time passed since I last send a command. If I make a mistake, I'm screwed. It would be nice to be able to set it all up 30 minutes out by setting up a sequence of commands queued up but not sent to the craft yet. Then once I get ready for reentry, I can transmit the queue and shut down the antennas.

So I was overlooking that. I was looking for a button on the flight computer's interface to send other commands, I didn't realize that once you set the delay it applied to action groups and other commands. That means you have to setup action groups to activate or toggle the dish/antenna. I've been setting up one just to activate the omni antenna because it's sometimes hard to find and deploy manually with the mouse and I don't want to forget to do it before getting too far away from the KSC. I've been setting it to only activate so I don't accidentally press it again and turn off the antenna losing control of the craft. I just tried to do it without action groups and don't think it can be done. In order to queue up an activate, the antenna or dish has to be deactivated first, because when you right click on it, the only option is deactivate. This brings me back to my other feature request, to be able to set up the command queue before sending it. The way it works now, when I send a command, it goes into the queue immediately and begins counting down the delay set. If I need to set multiple commands to go off in a specific order at specific times, I'd like to set all of that up with the timings, be able to double check it, then transmit the command queue to the craft. It can be done now, but once the first command is set, you're racing the clock to get the rest of them plugged in, and constantly having to adjust the delay time to account for the time already counted down. If you make a mistake, you have to cancel everything and start over.