So I'm trying to set up an IR power network around kerbin, and I'm having some issues.
I've got a sea-based 3.75m laser putting out a 9GW signal, which should have a spot size of <10m out to about 3 million km. That part works fine - things directly receiving power from the station behave as expected. The problem arises when I try to use pivoted IR mirror relays. I've tried various setups, but I currently have 4 mirrors evenly spaced around kerbin at about 500km, and I'm having two major problems:
1. The spot sizes don't make any sense. All the mirror rockets have mk1 receivers on them, so I can see what kind of power they're actually receiving. Again, the relay directly above the power station works fine, and shows a spot size of 1-2m, and the expected 9(ish) GJ of thermal power. But when I jump over to one of the adjacent relays, which should have a total travel distance of less than a million km, the first spot size listed (I assume that's the active one) is 40+ meters, and the received power is only about 200 MJ (as I'd expect, given that spot size).
2. If I jump over to the relay on the far side of the planet (so two relays away from the ground station), the first spot size has increased a bit more to about 50m, and the receiver says its not even connected to the network (and, indeed, receives no power).
Soooo... is this a bug? Or is there something about mirror relays I'm not understanding?