linuxgurugamer Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 (edited) user @Li0n has left the scene and asked that I take this mod over. Original thread here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/171900-dro Antenna-Helper New Dependencies Click Through Blocker ToolbarController Ever wonder what all the antennas you put on your craft, because they look so cool, actually do ? How far can you go with them ? How many science you'll be able to send back when you get there ? It's easy ! Just multiply the power of your strongest antenna with the result of the division of the sum of all your antenna's power by the power of the strongest antenna raised by their average weighted combinability exponent. This will give you the antenna power of your spacecraft, now calculate the root square of this number multiplied by the DSN power, it will give you your maximum range. So simple. OR You could use Antenna Helper to do all that, and more, for you. Ok, but what does it do ? It will show you the antenna capability of your active vessel in flight, in the editor and of all vessels in the tracking station. In flight ? Click the Antenna Helper icon on the toolbar : And you should see something close to that : The top line, in bold, show the signal strength of the whole CommNet path between your vessel and the DSN. Each button beneath it is a link in this path. Clicking on the Potential Relays button will expand the window to show all the in-flight relays : You can click on every link to display some info about both vessel (or DSN) and about the link it-self : Now take a look at : The Map-View A big circle has appeared ! Centered on the vessel or DSN your directly connected to (the first link of the main window), it helps visualize the range and signal decay of your active connection. While your ship is in the green circle its signal strength will be clamped between 100 and 75%, in the yellow circle between 75 and 50%, in the orange circle between 50 and 25%, in the red circle between 25 and 0%. And if you're outside the red circle you don't have any connection. With this new window (show it-self only in the map-view) : You can choose between different sources to show your potential range and signal strength : You mentioned the editor ? Yep. That's nice to see "on live" where you can go with your space probe but it's even better to know before launch how far you can travel. In the VAB (or SPH) click the Antenna Helper icon on the app launcher : It brings this window : Lots of info here, let's go through them from top to bottom : Selected type : which antennas are taking into account to compute the vessel antenna power. Direct (by default) will use all antennas, Relay will use only the antenna with relay capability. Current target : the range of your ship's antenna is determined by the antenna power of its target, which can be the DSN or a relay. By default the selected target is the DSN. You can change the target by clicking on Pick A Target. (more about it below) Status : a quick explanation about which antenna on your craft will actually be used in flight. Power : the antenna power of your vessel. Max Range : the maximum distance between your vessel and the target after which you'll lose the connection. Depend on the power of your vessel and the power of the target. Max Distance At 100% : the distance between your vessel and the target after which your signal strength will start to decay. Color bar : it works with the Max Distance At 100% and the Max Range distance. The number aligned with the black bars separating the colors indicate the distance at which the signal decay. Example from the pic above : between 2 050 205 945m and 51 662 800 363m, your signal strength will vary from 100% to 75%. So the target is important ? Of course, one antenna on its own don't do anything. It must be connected to another antenna, can't compute maximum range or signal strength with only one antenna. Two type of target : the DSN (Deep Space Network) : it's the (very) big antenna on Kerbin. It has three levels with different power, you upgrade from one to another by upgrading the Tracking Station. relay(s) : those are vessels you build yourself, two condition need to be meet : having at least one antenna with relay capability and setting the vessel type to "Relay". You can simulate all those connection directly from the editor : Click the Pick A Target button : From here you can select a different DSN level, your current level is in bold and is selected by default. For simulating against in-flight relay hit the In-Flight Ships button : In this window you should see one button per flying vessel with its name and its antenna relay power, important distinction, when your connection is going through a relay only the relay antenna of this relay will be used. Sound obvious but... So if your building a relay make sure your selected type, in the main window, is set to RELAY. Speaking of building relays, you may want to simulate the antenna range of a relay before you launch it. To do so you need to add your ship/relay to the Antenna Helper Editor Ship List. Just open your vessel in the editor and click on Add Ship to the Target List in the main window. After which you can click on Editor Ships in the Pick A Target window : It works the same way as the in-flight relay list, the number between parenthesis is still the antenna relay power. But what all those numbers really mean ? They are, mostly, just distance. At a solar system scale. So big distance, like space-travel distance (we're playing a space program game, are we not ?). Anyway, to help figuring out what does numbers represent you'll find this window, by clicking on Signal Strength / Distance in the main window : In it you'll see what signal strength to expect for a distance equal to the minimum and maximum distance between the home body (Kerbin), its moon(s) and all the others planet on the solar system. Keep in mind that those distance are approximate, specially for celestial body with an highly inclined orbit. You can check the distance used by hovering your mouse on the celestial body name. In the same window you can check the signal strength to expect at any given distance, write it in the input box at the bottom of the window and click the Math ! button. Still don't get a clear representation of what those space-travel distance mean ? Save your ship in the Antenna Helper Editor Ship List, click the Add Ship to the Target List button in the main window. Quit the editor and open up the Tracking Station. Tracking Station ? Yummy ! Yes it's good. Fire Antenna Helper : From there if you select a vessel in the Tracking Station list you'll see its range circles just like in flight. You can check the range for the active connection, the DSN connection and for all relay in flight by selecting it in the GUI. To check the range of a vessel saved in the Editor click the Editor Ship List button. Now you can see the range and the signal strength of your future vessel for the different connection type. The number between parenthesis is the total antenna power of your vessel, as opposed to the Ship List in the Editor that show the relay power. Sounds awesome but I don't want/need X feature ? In the Advanced Settings menu you'll find a tab for Antenna Helper. Here you can disable the mod per scene, choose to use Blizzy/LinuxGuruGamer toolbar instead of stock, and, set the refreshing speed for the flight UI, in case it slow your game. About the mod Download: https://spacedock.info/mod/1730/Antenna Helper?ga=+3102+'kerbal+space+program'> Source Code: https://github.com/linuxgurugamer/Antenna-Helper License: MIT Previous KSP version : Last release for KSP 1.5.1 Last release for KSP 1.4.3 Last release for KSP 1.4.2 Last release for KSP 1.4.0 Last release for KSP 1.3.1 It is localized in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German and French. It should be compatible with every mods, except RemoteTech and Kerbalism Credits The idea for an in-game calculator is from this thread by @Tyko. Thanks to @Poodmund for his google doc's calculator, and for the help he provide to this mod, and to the KSP wiki; Thanks to @Skalou for his help with the math Thanks to @wile1411 for his bugs reports and suggestions. Thanks to @Wyzard for his several bug fixes Thanks to the translators : Japanese version : @EBOSHI, @COLOT and @anarog_1 Simplified Chinese : @CN_Warren Spanish : @fitiales Russian : @AlexALX German : @woeller Antenna Helper icon/logo made by myself with assets from FlatIcon by Freepik. Edited September 5, 2021 by linuxgurugamer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberKerb Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 Despite having a monster-size workload LGG, you still managed to fit another mod into the stable.. Thanks for picking this up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jognt Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 Nice! I think you doubletapped V while pasting though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffreyCor Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 Very happy to see this picked up to continue and in such capable hands at at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddavis425 Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 Thanks for updating this, I don't know how you manage to take care of so many mods Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted September 17, 2019 Author Share Posted September 17, 2019 Minor update, 1.0.6.2 Fixed nullref when going into editor with no vessels around I was testing another mod under development and started getting nullrefs in the editor. Turned out this was an edge case, and could be ignored, but always better to have these things fixed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Li0n Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 Big thanks to you @linuxgurugamer The formatting of the OP is screwed tho, the read-me appear twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1978 Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 This mod makes kerbal construction time build planer in game not show up on screen. And thank you for keeping all the mods going top bloke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightiesboi Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 (edited) 10 hours ago, john1978 said: This mod makes kerbal construction time build planer in game not show up on screen. And thank you for keeping all the mods going top bloke. No, it doesn't. Or at least it doesn't in my game. If it is doing it in yours, you might want to provide links to your logs. But I literally just exited after 8 hours of KSP goodness and my KCT build planner was fine. And yes, LGG is amazing for maintaining and developing so many mods. Edited September 18, 2019 by eightiesboi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Mortimer Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 > It should be compatible with every mods, except RemoteTech and Kerbalism Actually I can't think of a reason why this should be incompatible with Kerbalism. This might be old info: Kerbalism once had a signal implementation similar to the stock CommNet, I guess that didn't work with AntennaHelper. However, signal has been dropped for a couple of releases now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superfluous J Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 @Li0n, thank you very much for this mod. @linuxgurugamer, thank you very much for keeping it going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Li0n Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 23 hours ago, Sir Mortimer said: > It should be compatible with every mods, except RemoteTech and Kerbalism Actually I can't think of a reason why this should be incompatible with Kerbalism. This might be old info: Kerbalism once had a signal implementation similar to the stock CommNet, I guess that didn't work with AntennaHelper. However, signal has been dropped for a couple of releases now. Not really my concern anymore but for clarification : I personally never used Kerbalism, the incompatibility was reported to me on the forum. Best thing to do is you give it a try and report here how it goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einarr Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 (edited) I've noted that this does not properly detect some antennae. Usually modded ones. In particular, I've got Restock and Plus and the formerly stock antennae are not detected by this mod. Going to be looking through the config files of antennae it does detect and compare them to the configs of ones it doesn't to see if I can spot an obvious issue. I do have far more than just Restock (and Plus) in my modset, but none of them should interfere...in theory... Edit: Should have noted that I was noting the issue in the VAB and further testing showed that it was not detecting any antenna I added to a craft until after leaving the VAB and returning...odd...might just be a setting somewhere I need to tweak... Edit 2: Although...some of these parts still aren't showing up in the Antenna Parts list when selecting a target... Edited October 4, 2019 by Einarr Should have done more testing first... <facedesk> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Problemless Mods Wanter Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 I got my CKAN compatibility set way down to 1.4.1 But I can only see the original (1.0.6) from Li0n, for this lovely mod in CKAN. The only antenna related things showing up from linuxgurugamer are the range patchers. I try to import downloaded mod from https://github.com/linuxgurugamer/Antenna-Helper/releases version 1.0.6.2 into CKAN but it installs the original one... Is this ok or should I just install manually? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacke Posted October 19, 2019 Share Posted October 19, 2019 2 hours ago, Problemless Mods Wanter said: I got my CKAN compatibility set way down to 1.4.1 For running KSP 1.8.x, that's probably too generous. The Unity change is making .dll recoding and recompiling mandatory for most mods. You will have to vet each pre-1.8 mod and the combination and there's a high likelihood it'll break some way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted November 6, 2019 Author Share Posted November 6, 2019 new release, 1.0.7 Updated for KSP 1.8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted December 16, 2019 Author Share Posted December 16, 2019 New release, 1.0.7.1 Fixed Unity exceptions caused by invalid access ot uninitialized var KSPUtil.ApplicationRootPath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmborg Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 (edited) Hello @linuxgurugamer congratulation for another very useful mod I have been using it But I think that there is a problem with the scale of the antennas because after scale this antenna to 400% the results are the same of the original size. What do you think? Thanks in advance for your time looking at this. Edited January 16, 2020 by pmborg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted January 17, 2020 Author Share Posted January 17, 2020 2 hours ago, pmborg said: Hello @linuxgurugamer congratulation for another very useful mod I have been using it But I think that there is a problem with the scale of the antennas because after scale this antenna to 400% the results are the same of the original size. What do you think? Thanks in advance for your time looking at this. How did you scale it? You need to change the config for the antenna stats, not just the size Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmborg Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 9 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said: How did you scale it? You need to change the config for the antenna stats, not just the size By hand normally I like use this site: http://www.satsig.net/seticalc.htm We can scale the antennas here, once was done using java script is easy to check the calculations/extrapolations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted January 17, 2020 Author Share Posted January 17, 2020 2 hours ago, pmborg said: By hand normally I like use this site: http://www.satsig.net/seticalc.htm We can scale the antennas here, once was done using java script is easy to check the calculations/extrapolations. Please provide the modified config Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmborg Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 @linuxgurugamer "How did you scale it? You need to change the config for the antenna stats, not just the size" I thought that tweakscale from @Lisias was doing that "automatically" to all antennas by default, actually in pass there are several issues about the re-scaled antennas are a bit overpower... maybe I am missing some important detail about this re-scale issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxgurugamer Posted January 18, 2020 Author Share Posted January 18, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, pmborg said: @linuxgurugamer "How did you scale it? You need to change the config for the antenna stats, not just the size" I thought that tweakscale from @Lisias was doing that "automatically" to all antennas by default, actually in pass there are several issues about the re-scaled antennas are a bit overpower... maybe I am missing some important detail about this re-scale issue. You would have to ask @Lisias how it scales the antenna power, or if it even does Edited January 18, 2020 by linuxgurugamer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zer0Kerbal Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 1 hour ago, linuxgurugamer said: or if it even does I don't think TweakScale does. It was something I was looking at in game... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmborg Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 (edited) 46 minutes ago, zer0Kerbal said: I don't think TweakScale does. It was something I was looking at in game... There are some threads talking about antenna scaling like this for example: I am collecting info about this, but yes @linuxgurugamer now I understand that is nothing wrong with your mod The problem seams to be in dish.cfg files in general. Thx! Edited January 18, 2020 by pmborg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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