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Thanks everyone for the input! So, to summarise, antennae do stack, probably in real life and certainly in KSP. I think what I have been doing that has made it feel odd to me is turning off the extra ground stations. This has made me look at relays around Kerbin, which would therefore need to match DSN power in order to work. Since it appears that there were several ground sites even as far back as late 50's, I won't feel too bad turning them back on! I had thought I was making the game harder, but actually I was making the game unrealistic. Bad move! I'll save my relay building efforts for putting around my target planets, when I get to the stage of trying to make landings. Out of interest, does anyone know how realistic the DSN power really is? Is there a modifier level that people prefer to use to match real world capabilities? Thanks

To clarify, it was only KSP I was talking about re: stacking antennae - I was pretty sure they did stack. I'm fairly comfortable with constellation designs and how they establish line of sight, its really just range that I'm not understanding. Any further insights about this would be very welcome! Doing some reading online, I think perhaps that DSN groundstations were better established in the early 60s than I thought they were, and that part of the answer I'm looking for is that there wasn't as much down time as I imagined to ground stations. Perhaps I should turn the additional ground stations back on in KSP! Thanks

That's news to me? I thought that all antennas were combinable, for diminishing returns in increased power? Thanks

Its difficult, becuase I do want to bother, I just think I'm missing something. I guess maybe what my question really is (other than perhaps "have I got something wrong in my rough calculations") is "what were radio communications like with the Mariner 2 spacecraft...?!" Thanks

Please tell me where I am going wrong in my thinking here! In the opening days of a career, I have enough rocketry tech to launch a simple probe that can reach Eve. However, I need to wait until I research RA-2 antenna (or something of equivalent power) in order to be able to communicate with it when it gets there, to transmit science back and make it worth sending it in the first place. So, I wait until I have researched RA-2's, stick a couple of them on and off we go. I arrive at Eve some time later, and oh dear, I don't have line of sight to KSC (Kerbin facing the wrong way etc.) What to do? A relay! If I put something in a nice high polar orbit of Kerbin, I will get line of sight. But to give me enough power for the relay to connect to my probe, it would need to have around 30 to 40 RA-2's!? (depending on exactly how far away Eve is from kerbin when I arrive). That's right isn't it - the relay needs enough power to reach the probe, regardless of the power of the DSN? What am I missing? Do we just accept temporary blackouts, and hope we don't need to make a correction or caputre burn at just the wrong moment? I guess I can deal with having to take science readings and then wait until signal is restred to transmit them, but waiting 3 hours to perform a burn seems not good. Do I just assume I will have improved the tech of my antennas at Kerbin in the time it takes for the probe to reach Eve? Its a fair assumption that I will have, but it doesn't seem like the answer real life space agencies accepted when sending probes to Venus in the early days! Did they just accept some downtime? Thanks

This first bit is the sort of thing I was originally thinking of, as a means of finding the average latitude with time. However, reading this second bit makes me realise that the whole issue is probably pretty minimal, as the cone in KSP is pretty much an entire hemisphere (unless I'm mistaken, I don't think signal strength decreases towards the edge of the satellite's field of vision, only with distance?) Thanks

Thanks for taking time to respond, certainly useful to understand more about the maths behind the maximum latitude, however what I'm really looking for is a way to work out the average latitude it will dwell above in terms of time. Say, for example, I have found an interesting site I want to land at and rove around and it is at latitude 50 degrees. What inclination or maximum latitude do I need to put the orbit in so that on average it will spend most of the time somewhere near over my 50 degree latitude site? Obviously it will spend some time at a slightly higher latitude, some time slightly lower, and then a very short amount of time down in the other hemisphere, but the hang time will be on average at 50 degrees. Does that make sense? I don't think I'm explaining it very well! I'm probably being optimistic that I'll be able to get an easy solution to this really... Thanks

I'm planning to put up a satellite into a Molniya-style orbit. I know that as Kerbin is a perfect sphere, the real life restriction on the inclination is removed. What I'm trying to work out is what the realtionship is between inclination and the centre of area that the apoapsis hangs over. I understand that as the inclination increases, so the maximum latitude that the ground track will reach increases, but is there a (realistically acheivable by me) way to model what average latitude it will hang over? Thanks

Right, first attempt at using module manager this morning didn't work quite as planned. The .cfg file appeared to be used, but not withheld expected result. I started a new career game, launched a command pod, and ran a crew report right on the launchpad, and it a) completly filled the bar for the experiment, making it non-repeatable, and b) was only worth 1.5 science (I think in stock on Kerbin surface it should be worth 3?) So, what have I misunderstood about baseValue? Or have I gone wrong in a way I haven't yet realised?! Thanks Never mind, got this working now. In case anyone is interested in the final .cfg I went with the following. It results in experiments needing to be repeated around 2-3 times as often as in stock to get most of the value. Obviously some of the high value experiments that already needed repeating are now going to need a *lot* of repeating, especially on high value worlds! I'll play through this career with it, and if it is too harsh, I might try reducing baseValue by a set amount, rather than by a factor. We shall see! @EXPERIMENT_DEFINITION:Final { @baseValue *= 0.667 }

{ Perfect, thanks! }

Thanks again. Last question (hopefully...!) - in the thread that you referenced, the .cfg file contains a last section where they are dealing with any possible future/mod experiments using: @EXPERIMENT_DEFINITION[*] { @baseValue *= 0.625 They go on to change scienceCap as well, which I wouldn't need, but am I right in thinking that the intention of this line is to amend baseValue to 62.5% of whatever stock would have been, across the board? If so, my .cfg is going to be literally just those two lines, and I can play around with the percentage very easily?!

That's really helpful, thanks! So, if I was to leave scienceCap at their stock values, and set baseValue to around half their stock values, I would have to repeat the experiment around twice as many times to get all the available science, but he total science I would receive would be the same as in the stock game? (I get that it might not be a direct half/double relationship)

Not sure if this is the right sub-forum for this, feel free to move if not. I'm wondering if there is a way to change how effective running science experiments is. I know you can alter the science rewards in the difficulty settings so that an experiment only yields x% of what it normally would, but that doesn't stop the experiment being completed to the same level. For example, a crew report splashed down in Kerbin's oceans would only yield part of science value it would normally, but you would still be unable to run it again, as the "experiment" is complete, and in the R&D archives the bar for that experiment would be full. On the other hand, a mystery goo experiment in the same location would need to be repeated two or three times (for reducing rewards) to fully fill the bar. Is it possible to change this? The reason I'd like to make the change is that it would make repeating missions more relevant, which a) feels "more like real life" (e.g. NASA gained additional knowledge from the reports of the Apollo 12/14/15/16/17 crews when they returned from the moon, they didn't discover everything there was to know when the Apollo 11 crew came home (ok, slightly dubious example, as part of the additional information would be represented by visiting different biomes, but you get the idea)), and b) gives you more launches to do in a career, making it last longer. (for me, longer game = more fun, I know not everyone feels the same!) Apologies if I've missed something really obvious, like a slider in the stock game that does exactly this...! Thanks

That's great, thankyou!

Stupid question - for the skybox, do I need all the files in the dropbox link, and do I need to save them with the file names given there? Thanks!

Thanks for this, I will give it a try.

Anyone able to confirm this is still current? Also, if I install in the order suggested, and then add Outer Planets on top, is that likely to muck anything up? Thanks

Unfortunately, yes. I used this satellite to complete two contracts, so I gave myself some dV to transfer from one orbit to the second, and it turns out it was a bit more than I needed - however, it's almost certainly not enough to correct my mistake here! I suspect I'm doomed, but if there is a super efficient way, it might just work...!

This is it, thanks! Obviously got lucky the half dozen times I've done this before, as I didn't realise it mattered! Hmm... Anyone care to advise on the most dV efficient way to fix this?!

I've launched a satellite to fulfil a satellite contract mission, and have matched the given orbit to within what I would expect to be acceptable error margins (as close if not closer than others I've succesfully matched in the past). However, the contract is not being marked as complete. What have I not done?! I've got a screenshot to attach, but I'm new to the forum and not sure how to do this, perhaps someone can advise? Thanks!