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Well, there seems to be a lot of dev info on Discord that did not make it onto the forums. Not that I've been asking about CommNet for months without getting any answers. Such is life for second hand forum citizens.. you're either on Discord all day or you don't get to talk to the devs. I can only thank providence that Dakota is still engaging with us here. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:17 AM i hear there are some questions about commnet and im here to answer them if they're here Spork Witch — Yesterday at 2:18 AM yeah! I was asking about whether occlusion and vehicle links were implemented at this time. I was told occlusion / LoS is not, but that if there's a commsat in range, you'll bounce off that back to kerbin. Further, is there a distinction between transmit-only and relays? I notice we have all the old commsats, wasn't sure if they ALL function as relays now, or if there's still the same split of RA=relay, others are Tx only. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:23 AM Generally All antennas are relays by default, they can bounce signal back (we didn't like this distinction) Line of sight is not a thing, there is only distance as a concern Connectivity between vessels is a simple matter of ensuring that they both have antennas that have ranges that qre equal or greater to the distance between them. So if 2 satellites are 100 km apart, they both most have antennas of rating 100 km or higher to connect Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:26 AM Commnet and occlusion was extremely forgiving by default settings in KSP1 and we didnt feel there was a significant difference between soft occlusion and no occlusion for EA launch. Lots of the depth people would want requires a set of supporting visual and planning tools that are a fair bit of work to design and build Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:32 AM I think there's a thing I wrote in a devblog of everyone playing KSP with different goals in mind - everyone has a thing they prefer, whether it is building vessels, making comm networks, etc. We can always take player feedback into account in driving plans and make changes at that point. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:33 AM dev hat off, I hate commnet and always turned it off in KSP1 Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:34 AM I mean that goes back to need - a question we always need to answer is that, given all the ways people play the game, should you 'need' to do any particular thing? That could significantly impact what someone else wants to do. It's a fine line Spork Witch — Yesterday at 2:37 AM which is why it was always a toggle, but KSP is also about education. Learning about line of sight communications, and the need to set up satellites in particular orbits is a REAL WORLD learning thing, and also an orbital mechanics one, a core focus of KSP. The easiest way to properly position satellites is to launch them all at once, using resonant orbits. Without this constraint, from occlusion, you remove the one thing in the game that would actually direct someone to learn about these things. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:39 AM Yep, understood Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:35 AM I think I could say with some confidence that increasing commnet complexity has to come with more viz and planning tools Nate Simpson — Yesterday at 2:39 AM A lot of us like all the detailed line of sight/relay features in Commnet and it's definitely a thing we want to revisit, but as always we're having to balance multiple priorities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That being said, here are all the current antennas in the game, for comparison purposes:

I just remembered that this isn't a feature in KSP 2 yet. Any guesses on when this will be added? (probably not for the first couple of patches) Same time as re-entry heating maybe, or that it'll be when science mode is released

Get rid of the distinction between direct and relay antennas. Have only 1 type of antenna and if you want to make a relay then you need to have at least 2 antennas (1 receiving and 1 sending). Also remove the possibility to combine antennas (add more antenna types or gain property / antenna power slider).

We've had a few scenes with bases and space stations but none of them appear to have any impressive comms components. If we're going interplanetary then we should need some pretty large communication infrastructure, we could definitely use some Arecibo-sized comm dishes

Current Release (GitHub) This mod adds long-range antennas using stock assets to facilitate communications networks for planet packs larger than the stock solar system. This allows the player to extend, rather than replace, the stock antenna progression, making long-range relays possible without trivializing inner-system communications. The RA-500 weighs 1.3 tons and has range rating of 500 Gm. It has a 1.25m bottom node and fits in a 5m fairing (i.e. it's a 2x rescaled RA-15.) The RA-2500 weighs 2.6 tons and has a range rating of 2.5 Tm. It has a 2.5m bottom node and fits in a 7.5m fairing (i.e. it's a 2x rescaled RA-100.) The RA-12500 weighs 5.2 tons and has a range rating of 12.5 Tm. It has a 2.5m bottom node and fits in a 10m fairing (i.e. its a 4x rescaled RA-15.) As an incidental benefit, these antennas offer progressively better transmission performance than the stock relay antennas, particularly in terms of ElectricCharge consumed per Mit transmitted. The enormous size of these antennas demands an unconventional approach to deployment. Possibilities include: Off-world manufacturing via mods such as Extraplanetary Launchpads, OSE Workshop, or Ground Construction. Oversized launch vehicles such as AB Launchers (5m), DIRECT (5m & 7.5m), or SpaceY Lifters/SpaceY Expanded (5m, 7.5m, & 10m). To facilitate the simultaneous launch of multiple satellites, this mod adds stock fairings (including interstage trusses) resized to 5m, 7.5m, and 10m diameters. In case none of the above appeal to you, compact deployable versions of all three antennas are provided (via rescaling of the Communotron 88-88 to 0.625m, 0.9375m, and 1.25m.) As the new antennas are substantially more powerful than the stock Deep Space Network, three additional levels of the Tracking Station are provided via the Custom Barn Kit (not included.) These allow the player to choose between launching local relays or simply boosting the DSN. Level 4 of the Tracking Station costs 2,111,000 Funds and boosts the DSN's range rating to 1.25 Tm. Level 5 of the Tracking Station costs 7,916,000 Funds and boosts the DSN's range rating to 6.25 Tm. Level 6 of the Tracking Station costs 29,685,000 Funds and boosts the DSN's range rating to 31.25 Tm. This presents alternatives at several performance points to the excellent JX2 Large Deployable Antenna. These parts are generally cheaper and less massive than the JX2 for their range with the trade-off of being much bulkier and far less visually distinctive. As a bonus, I've included a half-scale version of the RA-2 antenna that has the stats of the HG-5. This alternate handle-free form factor for the HG-5 fits better on compact probe assemblies as small as 0.3125m. Also included for launching miniature relays is a 0.625m fairing; I recommend RLA Stockalike for 0.625m launch vehicles. Installation and Requirements To install, copy the files to your GameData folder. This mod requires ModuleManager (not included.) Custom Barn Kit is required for the extended tracking station progression, but otherwise optional. License CC BY-NC-SA

This tutorial, Setting Up A Commnet System, suggests placing 6 satellites into a 4Gm Kerbolar orbit, 12 into 25Gm and, optionally, 24 into a 50Gm orbit. To do this in a finite amount of time requires launching them all individually at specific time intervals. I've calculated the following: To launch 6 Comm Sats to a 4Gm orbit, launch each with 13.48 day separation. To launch 12 Comm Sats to a 25Gm orbit, launch each with a 59.30 day separation. To launch 24 Comm Sats to a 50Gm orbit (optional), launch each with a 20.69 day separation. The 3 formulae used in this computation are: v = sqrt(G * M / R) p = 2 * PI * R / v / (6 * 3600) dt = 1 / (N * (1 / p1 - 1 / p2)) where: v is orbital speed G is grav:6.67408e-11 M is mass of Kerbol: 1.7565459E28 R is orbital altitude p is orbital period (days) PI is pi dt is launch separation (days) N is number of satellites to occupy an orbital altitude p1 is orbital period of Kerbin (days) p2 is orbital period of the target orbit (days) Note: dt for inner orbits will be negative which merely indicates the satellites will arrive in counter-revolutionary order 1/p is angular speed expressed as radians/day and subtracting the speed of the target frame of reference from the launch frame of reference is the insight that makes this achieve a full orbit with even spacing (your mileage may vary depending on how timely your launches are) I plan once arriving at apoapsis to not worry too much about the orbital parameters or spacing but to have the exact same orbital period for all sats in the orbit. This will keep them locked in their relative positions over a very long duration. If you're more picky about getting exact spacing, this tutorial, https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Ideal_Orbits_for_Communication_Satellites, particularly the treatment of the Law of Cosines, is quite fascinating. It's most relevant to low altitude orbits, e.g. spacing N space stations around a body. [All of the above may have been covered elsewhere but I haven't seen it/didn't find it and I've just had to create all this from scratch; so I hope it's useful to someone else. Please let me know if you find any errors, as I have not executed this yet.]

Hi everyone, I've picked up KSP again recently and am trying to build a comm network local to Kerbin. For context: I'm playing on pretty hard settings, and I only have a ground comm station at the KSC itself, not anywhere else on the planet. This pretty much means that I need a comm network local to Kerbin itself. I'm at the point in the tech tree where I only have the 5M relay antennas. For various reasons it would be really nice to be able to launch and control probes around Kerbin (and due to settings I don't have probe control unless I have a comm-link). In case it's relevant I'm using the Kerbal Engineer plugin (automatic suicide burn and Δv calculations FTW!) and the latest KSP available for download. My plan was a three-relay-sat constellation at 2.15Mm altitude (so a 2.75Mm orbital radius). Since the three comsats will form a equilateral triangle, that means by the law of sines the side length between any two comsats will be 2.75Mm * sin(3π/2) / sin(π/6) = 4.76Mm. This was based on the understanding that since the 5M relay antennas have a comm rating of 5M, that means the maximum distance two relays can talk with each other is √(5e6 * 5e6) = 5Mm. Since 4.76Mm < 5Mm, they should be in (low-signal-strength) contact with each other. However, I've placed two of the three relay sats (launching 2 at a time, for redundancy) and despite being almost exactly 4.76Mm apart from each other, there's no comm link. They can both talk with the ground station just fine, but not with each other --- the "network" and "vessel link" views don't show a link, nor can I control the one with an occluded link to the KSC. What am I misunderstanding? Thanks! - ethereal

Introduced in 1.2, the CommNet feature made communications-satellite constellations relevant in the base game. A relatively easy way to provide pretty good communications coverage is a three-satellite constellation in an equatorial orbit. However, such a constellation does not provide full coverage over the entire surface of a celestial body. But a four-satellite constellation, if placed in a tetrahedral configuration, does! With that in mind: I've compiled a list of orbital parameters for this kind of tetrahedral constellation for every celestial body in the Kerbol system. Legend INC. Inclination ECC. Eccentricity SMA. Semi-Major Axis LAN. Longitude of the Ascending Node LPE. Longitude of Periapsis (a.k.a. Argument of Periapsis) MNA. Mean Anomaly at Epoch EPH. Epoch Moho Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1812500m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1812500m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1812500m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1812500m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Eve Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 5075000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 5075000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 5075000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 5075000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Gilly Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 94250m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 94250m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 94250m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 94250m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Kerbin Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Mun Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1450000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1450000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1450000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1450000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Minmus Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 435000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 435000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 435000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 435000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Duna Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2080000m* LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2080000m* LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2080000m* LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2080000m* LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 * Note: The correct semi-major axis of 2320000 metres causes satellites to eventually be pulled away by Ike's gravity. The listed SMA corresponds to the highest stable orbit I could find. Ike Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 942500m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 942500m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 942500m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 942500m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Dres Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1000500m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1000500m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1000500m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1000500m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Jool Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 43500000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 43500000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 43500000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 43500000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Laythe Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2909000m* LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2909000m* LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2909000m* LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2909000m* LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 * Note: As pointed out by boccelounge: given these orbital parameters, the correct SMA of 3625000 metres is outside of Laythe's sphere of influence. The listed SMA is the closest possible value that is still within Laythe's sphere of influence. Vall Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2175000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2175000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2175000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 2175000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Tylo Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 4350000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Bop Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 471250m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 471250m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 471250m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 471250m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Pol Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 319000m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 319000m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 319000m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 319000m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 Eeloo Satellite 1 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1522500m LAN. 0° LPE. 270° MNA. 0 EPH. 0 Satellite 2 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1522500m LAN. 90° LPE. 90° MNA. -1.57078 EPH. 0 Satellite 3 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1522500m LAN. 180° LPE. 270° MNA. 3.14159 EPH. 0 Satellite 4 INC. 33° ECC. 0.28 SMA. 1522500m LAN. 270° LPE. 90° MNA. 1.57078 EPH. 0 The information in this post is based on John Draim's paper, Three- and Four-Satellite Continuous-Coverage Constellations, and an excellent thread by maltesh. The maths are all his; I only did the number-crunching and table-setting.

I've been using CommNet for a while, and love it. I have just managed to find myself in a particular situation I want answers to in my science game. In it, I'm still waiting for transfer windows thanks to kerbal alarm clock, so I'm sticking to Kerbin system-based operations. My rather primitive and outdated relay system contains two relay sats, exactly the same including layout, with four of the antennas directly superior to the Communitron 16, except they're pointing opposite directions. This is obviously because they're supposed to be on opposite sides of Kerbin(And yes I do have newer antennas.) Anayway, I did not align the orbits perfectly so they shifted very close to each other, so any vessel can hit up both at once. In Map view, I noticed one of my ships had a very strong(green) connection to probe A but a weak(red) connection to probe B. They have since moved on but I still want to know: Is the weak connection because the antennas were pointing away from the target? Does signal strength relate to the angle of an antenna relative to the connection direction? Thanks in advance. --GKSP

I know I'm not the only one having trouble giving orders to my distant probes. I can't increase relay size with tweakscale either.