Preferred CommNet Difficulty

[Rokmonkey]

I'm curious if anyone else is:

a) Using CommNet

b) If so, what difficulty settings are you using?

I've cranked down the DSN to a 0.20 multiplier.  I've tried turning off the other DSN sites on Kerbin, but my relay network didn't help (will have to investigate further as to why)

Since I'm one to spend most of my time in the Kerbin system, when I got out to Duna and still had signal strength I was amazed, it made things like the Remote Probe Control useless.  I thought I would have needed more of a network like I did when I tried remote tech ages ago.

Any suggestions on the difficulty settings to make it closer to Remote Tech?

[regex]

I'm using it like I use RT2, all DSN stations with 100% occlusion at normal range modifier. That seems to be the most "realistic" option to me.

Edited October 19, 2016 by regex

[monstah]

Like @regex above, but with 95% for atmospheric bodies.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

100% occlusion, no DSN. I want to explore what I can do with the bare minimum first.

[Foxster]

Turned off. Don't see the point of it. 

[FullMetalMachinist]

I'm using it with 100% occlusion, and the DSN modifier bumped up to 20, and vessel antenna modifier taken down to .1

IMO it's silly, bordering on ridiculous, to have to use relays to boost the range because of distance from Kerbin, especially considering KSP's tiny solar system. Relays should only be needed for communication with things that are occluded by a planet/moon. 

[Draco T stand-up guy]

Signal for Control

Plasma blackout

Range modifier at 0.65

All ground stations active

 

There are blackspots in LKO

4 hours ago, Rokmonkey said:

I've tried turning off the other DSN sites on Kerbin, but my relay network didn't help (will have to investigate further as to why)

If you were using the early relay it's because it's range isn't great.

[JohnnyPanzer]

Signal for control - because I figure probes would have some basic pre-programing.

Plasma blackout - for added realism.

Occlusion at 100% for atmo and 105% for vacuum - to account for some terrain.

DSN signal at 150% and vessel signal at 50% - because I want occlusion to be the main issue, not range.

Ground stations turned off - for the extra challange and simply because I enjoy setting up extra ground stations my self.

[Blaarkies]

16 minutes ago, JohnnyPanzer said:

Signal for control - because I figure probes would have some basic pre-programing.

Plasma blackout - for added realism.

Occlusion at 100% for atmo and 105% for vacuum - to account for some terrain.

DSN signal at 150% and vessel signal at 50% - because I want occlusion to be the main issue, not range.

Ground stations turned off - for the extra challange and simply because I enjoy setting up extra ground stations my self.

105% Occlusion...does that mean a relay sat at sea-level will longer have any connection?

Like on Minmus flats, the altitude is 0m.
Minmus has a radius of 60 000m. 105% occlusion should make a sphere extending up to 3 000m altitude on Minmus.
Anything below 3 000m will "hit" this occlusion, no matter the direction(except other craft within physics range maybe?)

I like these settings, but do you still get signal down at the 0m altitude flats?

[JohnnyPanzer]

19 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

105% Occlusion...does that mean a relay sat at sea-level will longer have any connection?

Like on Minmus flats, the altitude is 0m.
Minmus has a radius of 60 000m. 105% occlusion should make a sphere extending up to 3 000m altitude on Minmus.
Anything below 3 000m will "hit" this occlusion, no matter the direction(except other craft within physics range maybe?)

I like these settings, but do you still get signal down at the 0m altitude flats?

Good question! I changed that setting last night because I was sick of seeing sats trace a signal through large chunks of terrain at 100% occlusion, but I never actually checked the results before going to bed. I just assumed that the planet/moon diameter and the imaginary occlusion diameter would use any probe trying to trace a signal as the "pivot point" of the two circles.

I'll report back.

[Blaarkies]

1 minute ago, JohnnyPanzer said:

Good question! I changed that setting last night because I was sick of seeing sats trace a signal through large chunks of terrain at 100% occlusion, but I never actually checked the results before going to bed. I just assumed that the planet/moon diameter and the imaginary occlusion diameter would use any probe trying to trace a signal as the "pivot point" of the two circles.

I'll report back.

I am really intrigued about it now. I set my Atmospheric occlusion to 99%, to kind of simulate the effect that microwave transmissions can reflect against the atmosphere...and mostly because i am building a ground network to the north pole, this would require 10+ relay probes placed on mountains like the beacons of Gondor. 99% should make it so that i need about 5 probes

[Wolf Baginski]

The topic is really confusing to me. It's a big change, and I am not sure the Wiki is adequate on the new features. In the past, the documentation has been good. It feels a little too fragmented now, but we have great detail on calculating a possible range without getting a good feel for the distances

 There may be a page somewhere in the Wiki that give things such as closest approach distances, but I didn't see a link to it from the page which gives antenna ranges. It makes it a little hard to get that feel for the distances. When I look at the map, what is a Giga-meter? And now there's the stuff in this thread. Squad, I think, are slipping a little on organising the info.

The tracking station level does make a difference, and I have put a couple of relays in Molniya/Tundra orbits. Also, v1.2 seems better able to handle memory and keep these extra satellites in use without performance problems.

[The Aziz]

..I have no idea what is going on in this thread. I mean, these words sound like dark magic.

Could anyone tell me what should I change to get desired effect? I want to make relays actually useful, because now I have >50% signal even at Jool. Next thing, surface bases still have connection even when I can't see Kerbin from their position, and they connect directly to Kerbin, just as the ground didn't matter, at least for certain degree, that's weird as well.

[Chaia]

The occlusion factor means basicly how far the network connection between two vessels can slip into a planet for simulation over-the-horizon sending methods etc.

Setting it to 1 means, that you need line of sight between two vessels for connection. As example for kerbin: Set it to 1 and the connection line has to be outside of the atmosphere. Any lower and the connection may slip into the atmosphere. Same for air-less bodies, except the line may slip into hard rock.

 

I play without any DSN, just the KSP. All the modifiers to 1, occlusion too. With my relay pentagon around kerbin, I always have connection, as long as my vessel is close enough, until I upgrade my relay system

[KerikBalm]

16 hours ago, Foxster said:

Turned off. Don't see the point of it. 

Well, for a practical bonus? If you play career, having a strong signal strength boosts science transmission returns. Previously transmitting a temp experiment gave a max of 50% yield relative to recovery. Now if you have 100% signal strength it is 70% (I rarely have red connections with my netwrok, but I assume connected but at 1% signal strength would be a 50% return).

But I find it fun to set up these relay networks and plan out how I'm going to set up relays around more distant bodies. I play with partial control so my probes can still align to pre-set maneuver nodes, and I can still fire engines (I wish there were a way that they'd fire engines automatically for the given maneuver dV, and shutoff when there's that green checkmark by the maneuver as the dV remaining gets really close to 0).

That setting makes it not difficult to do an orbital insertion burn on the far side of a body.

Maybe the novelty will wear off.

[ShawnPhillips]

I have it at the default settings for now, Though I have yet to leave Kerbin SOI in my new 1.2 save so I haven't had a need for a ComSat network yet. As my game continues I will adjust the setting to my liking. I would like to eventually put at least 1 Relay satellite in orbit above every planet.

[The Aziz]

^^^

This exactly. Hopefully settings recommended above will do that.

[klesh]

Default Range

No DSN

Plasma Blackout

Occlusion 100%

No signal - no control:  I may end up switching this to partial control; still playing around.

[Rokmonkey]

18 hours ago, Draco T stand-up guy said:

If you were using the early relay it's because it's range isn't great.

 

You were 100% accurate on that one.

 

All these settings I'm reading are great.  I had no idea about the Occlusion settings, I've tweaked those now and my networks work, it's great.

I'm liking the range limitation for probes, I have USI Life Support and don't have the uber relays unlocked yet, so my mission to Duna requires a mothership to remote control probes to land and report, as well as all the other Sats in the SOI.  It's making for a very cool mission.

[Kerbonaut257]

I just turned of commnet and decided to keep using Remote Tech... I don't like change

[flatbear]

signal for control and only ksc groundstation.  rest is stock though

[panzer1b]

I actually play with commnet disabled on all but my relatively peaceful exploration save.  the reason is that i view probe cores as the equivalent of AI which is capable of making decisions on its own with no connection to meatbag central.  That and the fact that most of my saves are combat related in some way or another, and with that, the stock game doesnt support allowing different comm systems for different teams so to speak.  Id really love to do stuff akin to droid control ships in my combat games, but until someone makes a mod that allows you to have separate comms systems tied to different factions, ill just stick to the way the game was back before science mode even existed.  I like the concept of it, but it just doesnt fit with my fairly unorthodox playstyle (that and i can basically legitimize everything in the old KSP since i never viewed it as a real life sim but a sci-fi game with fairly plausible physics and limitations)...

[Blaarkies]

10 hours ago, klesh said:

Default Range

No DSN

Plasma Blackout

Occlusion 100%

No signal - no control:  I may end up switching this to partial control; still playing around.

No DSN? How does that work and how do you get any signal from the KSC then?

[klesh]

Just now, Blaarkies said:

No DSN? How does that work and how do you get any signal from the KSC then?

 

For clarity, I meant no additional dishes beyond the ones at KSC.

[Jestersage]

Just now, Blaarkies said:

No DSN? How does that work and how do you get any signal from the KSC then?

Relay Sat... I am assuming "No DSN" just means no extra ground station.

remember, the reason why TDRS and TianLian was developed is precisly due to possibility (or reality for China) that they have no allied nations for ground station.