Now-defunct-thread-that-should-not-appear-in-google-search.

[Shania_L]

1. Shows and hides the green highlighted "current comunications route".

2. Shows and hides the maximum dish angle for every active dish.

3. Cycles through 4 options, off, omni connections only, dish connections only and everything

4. Opens a dialogue box allowing you to adjust the target of your current crafts dishes (or selected craft in the tracking station)

In this pic the white lines are omni connectioins, the yellow are dish, I have the dish spread display option turned off.

[metaphor]

1. Shows and hides the green highlighted "current comunications route".

2. Shows and hides the maximum dish angle for every active dish.

3. Cycles through 4 options, off, omni connections only, dish connections only and everything

4. Opens a dialogue box allowing you to adjust the target of your current crafts dishes (or selected craft in the tracking station)

In this pic the white lines are omni connectioins, the yellow are dish, I have the dish spread display option turned off.

I see now, thanks!

[Klingon Admiral]

My network as I built it in 0.23 career mode.

Prior to this network almost all missions were manned.

The list is sorted chronologically (in order of launch).

4 CommSats around Kerbin@1067km altitude delivered by a single manned rocket that detached them one by one.

- Reflectron DP-10

- Communotron 16

- Comms DTS-M1 x2 (Mun & Minmus)

How do these satellites keep contact with each other? A circular orbit of 1067km height is a circle with a radius of 1667 kilometres, making it's circumference 10,468.76 kilometres, or 2,617.19 km between each satellite in an evenly spaced constellation. This distance is larger than the 2,500 kilometres the Communutron 16 covers.

[NoMrBond]

How do these satellites keep contact with each other? A circular orbit of 1067km height is a circle with a radius of 1667 kilometres, making it's circumference 10,468.76 kilometres, or 2,617.19 km between each satellite in an evenly spaced constellation. This distance is larger than the 2,500 kilometres the Communutron 16 covers.

Probably Communitron 32's

[SirCB85]

How do these satellites keep contact with each other? A circular orbit of 1067km height is a circle with a radius of 1667 kilometres, making it's circumference 10,468.76 kilometres, or 2,617.19 km between each satellite in an evenly spaced constellation. This distance is larger than the 2,500 kilometres the Communutron 16 covers.

Actually you don´t get the distance between the 4 satellites by dividing the circumference by 4. Instead you have to look at the satellites as they are the 4 corners of a square with Kerbin in the middle. So the distance from one sattelite to the next is the squareroot of 1067km squared times 2. Which gives us roughly 1,509km.

[Klingon Admiral]

Damnit, indeed. I'm stupid, again.

But your equation is wrong as well. You forget to take the diameter of Kerbin into account, increasing the radius of the sqare to 1667 kilometres. A square constructed from 4 properly chosen points of the circumference of this circle has a diagonal of 1.667*2=3.334 kilometres. As the diagonal of a square is the squareroot of 2 times the length of it's sides. This results in a distance of 2,358 kilometres, which is still well within range of the Communutrons, but still far larges than your number.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Klingon Admiral

[kalizec]

Indeed, the maximum altitude at which 4 Communotron 16's can keep contact with each other is:

sqrt( 2500^2 / 2 ) - 600 = 1167km

The nice thing about 1067km is that it gives a nice Orbital Period of 2 hours.

[NJC2]

I'm new at RT, and I finally, after many failed attempts due to brain farts, I have a working relay satellite system in orbit. I'm in career mode with only the communotron 16 and the two short range dishes (50Mm and 90Mm) unlocked right now. I put three satellites in 700km orbits. They use the Stayputnik core with a communorton 16 and the 90Mm dish, plenty of battery power for night and solar panels to recharge in the day. At 700km, they are just high enough for the dishes to maintain LOS and the communotron 16's are in range of one another and at least one is in contact with the KSC. The dishes are targeted at the active vessel.

I'm also using Deadly Reentry, FAR and Procedural Fairings. Last night I tried to send an unmanned probe around the Mun, but it lost communication beyond 3km, the range of the built in probe core antenna. I had a Communotron 16 on the craft inside the fairing set to start active. It turns out the Communotron antenna was snapping off shortly after launch even though it should be shielded by the fairing. I don't know if it's a bug with RT2 or the other mods, but shouldn't the fairing be shielding the antenna? There also wasn't any indication that it broke off. The flight status (F3) showed no events. I only realized that it was breaking off when I noticed I was losing control at exactly 3km. I had to put on the short range 500km antenna on and deactivate the communotron during launch.

Now to my main problem, which I can't think of a workaround for. The probe did a slingshot around the Mun, grabbed science and came back on a free return trajectory. I had two of each science equipment on board, one to save and collect if reentry was successful and one to transmit before reentry just so the mission wouldn't be a total failure if the craft burned up during reentry. I was afraid the communotron would snap off during reentry, so I used the tweakable system so the parachutes opened at a lower altitude just in case DR killed them if they opened up in the upper atmosphere like they do by default. I staged the parachutes before reentry, but didn't lower the landing struts because with FAR I thought it might cause the craft to flip around so the heat shield was facing the wrong way or DR might cause them to burn up being deployed. I just hoped the communotron would hold up through the reentry so I could deploy the landing struts, but it didn't. The craft touched down and fell over, but luckily it didn't break up.

For probes returning to Kerbin, I can always try to reenter near the KSC so the short range 500km antenna is in range which will allow me to deploy the landing struts, but what about sending probes to land on planets with atmospheres? Since you have to retract all of the communications equipment for reentry, how to you deploy landing struts after reentry and re-deploy the antennas once it lands?

I played with the flight computer, but unless I'm overlooking it, I don't see the ability to send anything other than maneuver commands. It would be nice to be able to send other commands like retract the comm dish, wait 1m and deploy the landing gear, wait 2m activate science equipment, wait 5m and re-deploy comm dish. As it is now, I don't see any way to send a lander probe to a planet with an atmosphere without first setting up a bunch of relay satellites around the planet, and putting them low enough for the short range 500km omni antenna to connect to it since it is the only antenna capable of operating while moving through an atmosphere.

Also, regarding the flight computer, it would be nice to be able to queue up commands before transmitting them to the craft rather than sending them one at a time to be stored in the queue.

[kalizec]

snip

So far the only solution I've found to this problem is using the Reflectron DP-10 or one of the fixed dishes.

They can withstand moderate reentry. Just keep them behind a heatshield and they'll function fine.

Edited January 19, 2014 by kalizec

[Mecripp]

If you guys want to keep your antenna from breaking off you can edit the part or make a cfg file to take out MAXQ= .

[metaphor]

I've been able to control some probe cores even when out of range of any relay satellite or mission control. It might be due to having MechJeb on them. Is there a bug where a probe with Mechjeb is always controllable?

[Mecripp]

I've been able to control some probe cores even when out of range of any relay satellite or mission control. It might be due to having MechJeb on them. Is there a bug where a probe with Mechjeb is always controllable?

no not that, I have seen.

[NoMrBond]

If you have a probe core not covered by the included module manager configs (from a mod), I guess it would retain the original probe behavior?

[Peppe]

I'm new at RT, and I finally, after many failed attempts due to brain farts, I have a working relay satellite system in orbit. I'm in career mode with only the communotron 16 and the two short range dishes (50Mm and 90Mm) unlocked right now. I put three satellites in 700km orbits. They use the Stayputnik core with a communorton 16 and the 90Mm dish, plenty of battery power for night and solar panels to recharge in the day. At 700km, they are just high enough for the dishes to maintain LOS and the communotron 16's are in range of one another and at least one is in contact with the KSC. The dishes are targeted at the active vessel.

I'm also using Deadly Reentry, FAR and Procedural Fairings. Last night I tried to send an unmanned probe around the Mun, but it lost communication beyond 3km, the range of the built in probe core antenna. I had a Communotron 16 on the craft inside the fairing set to start active. It turns out the Communotron antenna was snapping off shortly after launch even though it should be shielded by the fairing. I don't know if it's a bug with RT2 or the other mods, but shouldn't the fairing be shielding the antenna? There also wasn't any indication that it broke off. The flight status (F3) showed no events. I only realized that it was breaking off when I noticed I was losing control at exactly 3km. I had to put on the short range 500km antenna on and deactivate the communotron during launch.

Now to my main problem, which I can't think of a workaround for. The probe did a slingshot around the Mun, grabbed science and came back on a free return trajectory. I had two of each science equipment on board, one to save and collect if reentry was successful and one to transmit before reentry just so the mission wouldn't be a total failure if the craft burned up during reentry. I was afraid the communotron would snap off during reentry, so I used the tweakable system so the parachutes opened at a lower altitude just in case DR killed them if they opened up in the upper atmosphere like they do by default. I staged the parachutes before reentry, but didn't lower the landing struts because with FAR I thought it might cause the craft to flip around so the heat shield was facing the wrong way or DR might cause them to burn up being deployed. I just hoped the communotron would hold up through the reentry so I could deploy the landing struts, but it didn't. The craft touched down and fell over, but luckily it didn't break up.

For probes returning to Kerbin, I can always try to reenter near the KSC so the short range 500km antenna is in range which will allow me to deploy the landing struts, but what about sending probes to land on planets with atmospheres? Since you have to retract all of the communications equipment for reentry, how to you deploy landing struts after reentry and re-deploy the antennas once it lands?

I played with the flight computer, but unless I'm overlooking it, I don't see the ability to send anything other than maneuver commands. It would be nice to be able to send other commands like retract the comm dish, wait 1m and deploy the landing gear, wait 2m activate science equipment, wait 5m and re-deploy comm dish. As it is now, I don't see any way to send a lander probe to a planet with an atmosphere without first setting up a bunch of relay satellites around the planet, and putting them low enough for the short range 500km omni antenna to connect to it since it is the only antenna capable of operating while moving through an atmosphere.

Also, regarding the flight computer, it would be nice to be able to queue up commands before transmitting them to the craft rather than sending them one at a time to be stored in the queue.

You can do what you want with the existing flight computer.

You can set a custom delay to queue an action group - expand flight computer and set delay in lower righty. Setup reentry, Delay the expand a few minutes, remove custom delay and retract anything that can break.

You can test your craft to find good delays to use or over engineer a safe lander.

[Mecripp]

So far the only solution I've found to this problem is using the Reflectron DP-10 or one of the fixed dishes.

They can withstand moderate reentry. Just keep them behind a heatshield and they'll function fine.

For anyone that don't want there antenna breaking off at launch or reentry here is a cfg file to fix it just put in your RT2 fold.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v85x3heriea639x/RemoteTech_REMOVEMAXQ.cfg

EDIT Looks like antenna and dish won't

Edited January 19, 2014 by Mecripp2

[NJC2]

You can do what you want with the existing flight computer.

You can set a custom delay to queue an action group - expand flight computer and set delay in lower righty. Setup reentry, Delay the expand a few minutes, remove custom delay and retract anything that can break.

You can test your craft to find good delays to use or over engineer a safe lander.

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.

[Peppe]

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.

I have not used KOS - kerbal Operating System, but i believe integration with it is the next layer planned for the flight computer. It would let you script advanced tasks to perform and KOS would perform them with local control. I believe it will work similar to what you are describing... if you play modded minecraft i imagine it would be like programming turtles in computercraft.

If you already have a command group to activate the antenna, then you just set the delay for what you want. Say 5 minutes. Then hit the action group. Then reset your delay to zero and manually deactivate the antenna with the mouse.

Probably doesn't feel logical, but if you have other actions to do during the entry and landing you can start far enough to trigger everything with one master delay. Say we setup a reentry 30 minutes out:

We set a 28 minute delay

Hit action group for parachutes.

Wait/warp x minutes

Hit action group/hotkey for landing gear

wait/warp x minutes

hit hotkey to extend antenna

reset delay and manually retract antenna.

warp to reentry

Since we scheduled things with the same delay the reentry will open our shoots, then say 2 minutes later extend our gear, and then maybe we warped 5 minutes setting this up, so the antenna will extend in another 5 minutes. Basically perform the re-entry commands in space well ahead of your arrival with a delay and then shutdown the antenna.

[AndreyATGB]

Ok so the discussion on the last page about distances was interesting and I have to admit I'm quite stupid for not realizing it earlier. Seeing that works for 4 satellites that form a square which is simple to work with, how can I find the distances required between 5 sats in GEO orbit? Using circumference kind of works, but I'd like to have them at equal distances.

What I want to know is how to find the length of a side in an inscribed pentagon.

Is this correct 3468*sqrt(2-2*cos(360/5))= 4076km? I'll try it later in game, seems a little too much but it might work.

Edited January 19, 2014 by AndreyATGB

[SirCB85]

Seems good to me, although I don´t get your formula, I just confirmed your result using 2*r*cos(54°).

Edited January 19, 2014 by SirCB85

[kalizec]

Ok so the discussion on the last page about distances was interesting and I have to admit I'm quite stupid for not realizing it earlier. Seeing that works for 4 satellites that form a square which is simple to work with, how can I find the distances required between 5 sats in GEO orbit? Using circumference kind of works, but I'd like to have them at equal distances.

What I want to know is how to find the length of a side in an inscribed pentagon.

Is this correct 3468*sqrt(2-2*cos(360/5))= 4076km? I'll try it later in game, seems a little too much but it might work.

The correct formula is:

a = altitude of orbit around

r = radius of body

d = distance between any two adjacent satellites

n = number of equally space satellites

d = 2*sin(180/n)*(a+r)

P.S. It's too early in the morning for my head to be able to perform proper sanity checks on my own math.

[lyndonguitar]

Can anyone help my how is my Space Probe enroute to Duna not working?? perhaps a bug?

I have all the relay network and proper Long Range Satellite Dishes but It's not working

Here is the pic of my relay network

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3372369252292260550/ED5325344D489CCF5D5E426C1B087F79120AB1E0/

Inner Circle is a space station and some LKO sats

Middle circle is a network of 4 satellites on a 800km orbit = 2.5Mn Omni Antenna and 90Mn SatDish (For Kerbin SOI Missions) so far all Kerbin SOI Missions have worked. (Mun, Minmus)

Long circle is a network of 3 satellites on semi-sync orbit = 5 Mn Omni Antenna and 60Gm SatDish (For Duna and Eve Missions)

RMO is the probe I'm trying to send

I tried to send a Probe to Duna, pictured below, with a 5 Mn Antenna and 60Gm SatDish. and I soon as I pass Mun Orbit it lost connection.

Duna probe is pointed towards Kerbin, All relay sats are pointed towards the active vessel. all has electricity

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3372369252292263331/A1B19ED8A90FB37B9F20DE19C2CD19C120292C55/

EDIT: I checked the part files. found out that the angle of the short range dish was 25 deg. medium range to 0.04, long range to 0.006. is this on purpose?? Where do I point my probe?

EDIT2: http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3372369252293018515/BD55F86A89751D562DA41DE5940B48B36FC32339/

As seen above, When I point my probe to Kerbin, the angle only makes this little cone(the two lines in the middle), so It will only establish contact when a relaysat passes through, which is a small window. I solved it by pointing the probe on one of the three relaysats, so it will only lose connection when the relaysat passes behind Kerbin. But it makes the other two essentially useless for this mission, which could have been useful to have full connection all the way

is this the right thing to do this?

Edited January 19, 2014 by lyndonguitar

[kalizec]

is this the right thing to do this?

Yes. That is, until the probe gets further and further away from Kerbin at which point, pointing at Kerbin will result in a cone that covers Kerbin and almost all satellites up to synchronous orbits.

[AndreyATGB]

The correct formula is:

a = altitude of orbit around

r = radius of body

d = distance between any two adjacent satellites

n = number of equally space satellites

d = 2*sin(180/n)*(a+r)

P.S. It's too early in the morning for my head to be able to perform proper sanity checks on my own math.

This formula is easier but gives the same answer, still 4076 for GEO orbit. Thanks for verifying.

[NJC2]

I have not used KOS - kerbal Operating System, but i believe integration with it is the next layer planned for the flight computer. It would let you script advanced tasks to perform and KOS would perform them with local control. I believe it will work similar to what you are describing... if you play modded minecraft i imagine it would be like programming turtles in computercraft.

If you already have a command group to activate the antenna, then you just set the delay for what you want. Say 5 minutes. Then hit the action group. Then reset your delay to zero and manually deactivate the antenna with the mouse.

Probably doesn't feel logical, but if you have other actions to do during the entry and landing you can start far enough to trigger everything with one master delay. Say we setup a reentry 30 minutes out:

We set a 28 minute delay

Hit action group for parachutes.

Wait/warp x minutes

Hit action group/hotkey for landing gear

wait/warp x minutes

hit hotkey to extend antenna

reset delay and manually retract antenna.

warp to reentry

Since we scheduled things with the same delay the reentry will open our shoots, then say 2 minutes later extend our gear, and then maybe we warped 5 minutes setting this up, so the antenna will extend in another 5 minutes. Basically perform the re-entry commands in space well ahead of your arrival with a delay and then shutdown the antenna.

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.

[Sma]

I have not used KOS - kerbal Operating System, but i believe integration with it is the next layer planned for the flight computer. It would let you script advanced tasks to perform and KOS would perform them with local control. I believe it will work similar to what you are describing... if you play modded minecraft i imagine it would be like programming turtles in computercraft.

If you already have a command group to activate the antenna, then you just set the delay for what you want. Say 5 minutes. Then hit the action group. Then reset your delay to zero and manually deactivate the antenna with the mouse.

Probably doesn't feel logical, but if you have other actions to do during the entry and landing you can start far enough to trigger everything with one master delay. Say we setup a reentry 30 minutes out:

We set a 28 minute delay

Hit action group for parachutes.

Wait/warp x minutes

Hit action group/hotkey for landing gear

wait/warp x minutes

hit hotkey to extend antenna

reset delay and manually retract antenna.

warp to reentry

Since we scheduled things with the same delay the reentry will open our shoots, then say 2 minutes later extend our gear, and then maybe we warped 5 minutes setting this up, so the antenna will extend in another 5 minutes. Basically perform the re-entry commands in space well ahead of your arrival with a delay and then shutdown the antenna.

Yeah, once kOS is working with RT2 (assuming Kevin ever comes back to work on it) it'll be great for this like this. I was using it for launches (and was working on using it to auto deploy kommsats). I was having events go off depending on altitude as opposed to time (not counting ETA:Apoapsis and ETA:Periapsis of course).

IIRC I believe it was going to be setup so that kOS programs that were running wouldn't run off of a signal delay, although when you type in the run command, there would be a delay before the program was run, basically what you already said.