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Is there a table for how far the beam wavelengths can travel? I'm trying to figure out if I should use long IR or near IR for my Jool network. I've got an antimatter reactor with collectors in orbit around Jool with a network of IR mirrors orbiting each body. Also, is there any benefit to using a diode laser generator vs a free electron laser?

Thanks for the answer. As far as the relays go, can you relay multiple sources of power with one ship? For example, say I have a ship with an IR mirror, a UV mirror, and a microwave relay on board. Can the IR mirrors relay to an IR receiver on ship A while a UV mirror relays to a UV receiver to ship B, etc, at the same time?

Do you mean that it will reach Kerbin from the sun but won't go farther on its own? But I could build relays that would get it the rest of the way to Jool?

You need to click activate receiver on one mirror and then press link for relay. On the other mirror you click activate relay. Activate relay won't show up on the 2nd mirror until you activate the receiver on the first. Make sure the only active receivers you have on the whole ship are the mirrors you want to use. If you're doing infrared make sure the UV mirrors are all turned off, also make sure that none of your solar panels have receivers activated.

If I put a solar power station in low solar orbit and then beam it out as ultraviolet using the lowest possible wavelength and the 36t FELA, how far can I expect the power to go? The transmitter has a data range of 400TM, does that apply to beamed power as well? If it won't go that far then would using relays help? I guess what I'm asking is how the range works. Is it similar to data transmission in that the range 'resets' every time it hits a relay or does it continue to degrade in efficiency the whole way? I also want to know how the relays work with multiple transmission sources. Can one relay satellite relay power from multiple sources at once if they're all on the same wavelength? I'm trying to figure out if it's feasible to build a bunch of these stations and then relay that power all over the system or if I'd be better off constructing power stations around Jool and the OPM gas giants individually. Antimatter seems like a good bet since you can harvest quite a bit while you're out there...but several parts seem to encourage these kinds of low solar orbit power stations and I can't see what the point would be if you can't effectively beam it out past Dres.

Thanks for the reply, that helps a lot. I've fiddled around a bit and I think that the beam generators types (diode laser, gyrotron, etc) don't effect anything other than what wavelengths you can create. I'm also thinking it'd be a lot easier to build a power station around Jool and use that to relay power to the moons rather than beaming it all from Kerbin since it's hard to tell how far my beams can go and what happens when they arrive. I have a few more questions now, though. Is it possible to beam thermal power directly or does it always need to be converted to electricity first? And about the relays, if you use one of the mirrors do you need any other parts on the ship other than a probe core, battery, etc?

I had a problem a page or two back where my engines attached to a thermal receiver wouldn't use any fuel. I was doing the tests in sandbox mode but when I tried in my career save, it worked fine. No idea what difference that could make, though. Anyway, I have some more beam power questions. How do you tell what the benefits and disadvantages of using different beam generator types and wavelengths are? My understanding is that beams start out high efficiency and short range at microwave wavelengths and continually get longer range and less efficient as you move toward ultraviolet. I think atmospheric absorption follows (mostly) the same curve. In that case, where do diode lasers and gyrotrons factor in? I'm assuming that microwave, infrared, and ultraviolet generators fit neatly into the above spectrum. I'm also not entirely clear on the relationship between range and efficiency, or how you can figure out what the range is in the first place. If you have an ultraviolet generator with an efficiency of 10% does that mean that you start out with 10% of your total power regardless of range and steadily decrease as you get further away, or that your beam is at 10% efficiency once you hit max range? When you exceed your max range, does the beam start to lose efficiency faster or stop working entirely? So, my questions are, what's the difference between a diode laser and a gyrotron beam and regular microwave or ultraviolet beam generator? Why would I want to use one over the other? What's the point, for example, of using a diode laser to produce a near infrared or visible red as opposed to using a free electron laser to produce the same beam? How do I tell how far my beams go based on the wavelength numbers? To be a bit more practical, which beam type would I want to use on a solar power station in low orbit over the sun to hook it up with my other relays? What beam type would I use for power stations in LKO for interplanetary burns, or stations on the ground for launching, or larger orbital stations to send power out to Jool?

For some reason my microwave power launch engine won't use any fuel. It used to work fine, I'm not sure if it only started after a recent update though since I rarely use them. I've got it pruned down to the bare minimum just for testing purposes. I've got a probe core, a fuel tank, a Mk1 thermal receiver, and then either a thermal ramjet or a thermal launch nozzle in that exact order. I've made sure that my engine and fuel tank use the same fuel. I've tried just about every reasonable fuel I can use in every combination of fuel and engine. I'm sure that my receiver is getting power, if I replace the engine with a generator it works just fine. Also if I replace the thermal receiver with a reactor then the engine gets its fuel works just fine. I've tried using other thermal receivers as well just in case but none of them work. If I right click on the engine, I see that it's getting power but no fuel. The fuel won't drain out of the tank even if I run a fuel line directly from the tank to the engine. I've also tried using all of the different KSPI tanks in addition to the stock tanks. Any ideas?