JDP

More or less. In my design anything that can be RemoteControlled can also relay the control signal to other vessels. A big difference between this plugin and SRN is that you need to have both a part to recieve/send the signal (an antenna) and a part to process the signal (For example the remote pod, but a RemoteControl module will do the same, even if put on a manned vessel) The simplest RemoteControlled vessel, and the one i've used a lot in testing, is the RemotePod on a Cart with a single omnidirectional antenna on top and a couple of satellite dishes strapped to the side. This vessel will get it's control signal directly from Mission control via the attached omnidirectional antenna, it can also relay that signal via the satellite dishes to other vessels. You can test the behavior of satellite dishes by driving your small cart a couple of meters away and then launching a new cart, this time with the omnidirectional antenna removed. Your new cart won't have any signal at first, because Mission Control only has an omnidirectional antenna and the satellite dishes on your first cart aren't pointed at your second. You don't have a signal connection to the network so you can't access other vessels in the settings menu (just try clicking on them in the "list comsats" submenu). So you have to switch focus to your first cart and direct one of it's satellite dishes at your second cart (this is done by clicking on the top button in the Comms status menu). Now you can switch focus back to your second cart and do the same. Point one of it's dishes at your first cart an voila, you have a signal connection to Mission Control via your first Cart.

Thanks for the input. Admittedly my plugin is a bit more complicated than SRN, and as said before i don't want it to be a successor or competitor. If people end out wanting a more simple Relay network mod, i would wholeheartedly, and without any bad fealings, invite them to use The_Duck's awesome plugin. Seing as i'm the guy who made it, of course it makes sense to me how to use it, and it can be a bit hard for me to decide which parts are hard to understand for others and which aren't . I'm working on a step by step guide right now. Yeah sorry about that. I think my latest upload was attacked by the mighty space kraken. It should be working again now.

I can see your controllable stage does have a RemoteControl module, but it doesn't look like it has an antenna, if it doesn't have that, it won't be able to get a signal. When you decoupled you removed the only available antenna from your controllable stage and therefore it lost signal. A RemoteControl module doesn't actually control your ship, it just interprits and implements a control signal from either Mission Control at KSC (which, it seems on the pic, is under the horizon of Kerbin and therefore doesn't have a line of sight to transmit it's control signal through) or a manned vessel with a RemoteCommand module and antennae. RemoteCommand allows a manned vessel to send it's own control signal. Of course, any vessel that has either a RemoteControl or RemoteCommand module is also a comsat, and they all can relay the command signal to your vessel if they are in range. For your next mission you could make your controllable stage a manned mk1 pod, add a RemoteCommand module and antennae to that stage. Your controllable debris stage can just have a RemoteControl module and antennae. But remeber to also add a RemoteSAS module, or you won't have attitude control. There is currently a bug where ASAS (even the ASAS built in to RemoteSAS) won't work on decoupled debris until after you've gone to a far away vessel or the tracking station and then back. But then you should be golden.

Thank you for your bug report ! Engines should definitely work, but there was a bug where the automation system didn't always activate them. This has now been fixed in V0.32. (edit) it seems the fix only works if you keep focus on the vessel. After one trip to the tracking station the engine breaks. The easiest fix to the engine breaking issue is to not attach your engine to the decoupler. Either decouple your RC Debris with a radial decoupler or use side mounted engines on your RC Debris. (edit edit) Or you can just mount your landing module upside down, i just tried it and it worked beautifully . And another thank you. I didn't notice that the way i reactivate staging messed with the staging setup of the mothership. This has now been fixed in 0.32 and it worked when i tested the newest build. But beware, every part in the RemoteControlled vessel gets activated, even chutes, so don't decouple it in an atmosphere, you'll definitely have a bad time. Sadly i don't know of a way of making crewable vehicles controllable when they don't have crew. KSP does some extra checking there to determine if the vessel is controllable. If you used the crewless pod included in this plugin it should definetely have worked. Did you remember to put an antenna on your pod? KSC is still mission control, and it has an omnidirectional antenna with a signal range of 5000 km. Remember that you need a Central command processor (RemoteControl, RemoteCommand, RC antenna or RemotePod) to process the relay signal into usable vessel control, and an antenna to actually get the signal. Only the RC antenna is both a Central command processor and an antenna. I've already included a way of reducing signal delay to practically zero. If you make a manned vessel and put whatever antennae you want on it Plus a RemoteCommand module, it will be recognized as another mission control as long as it's manned. So if you for example put that vessel in orbit around Minmus, it would control all rovers it can get in contact with on minmus, in stead of the command signal having to come all the way from Mission Control on Kerbin.

in calculating if two satellites are in signal range i do one of three things: 1: if they both have normal antannea i check if the distance between the two is less than the antenna range of both of them 1: if they don't both have antennae or are out of range, i check if they are orbiting two different bodies and have dishes pointed towards eachothers bodies. And then the obligatory range check. 2: if that doesn't give me a result i finally check if they are pointed at eachothers vessels, here it should not matter whether they are orbiting different bodies or not.

It does recognize both Powersat and Dynasat. But since neither of them save any information of antennatypes available to them, it doesn't recognize any antennae on them and hence they are not useble as relay nodes. for now, You could fix this by strapping an antenna or two on them. If that's possible that is. To be honest i was kinda setting my hopes on you when it came to energy. My preliminary idea is for RemoteTech equipment to have a very low use of energy. Probably a bit more if its a very long-range class of antenna. The plan was to make sure players could use it alongside zoxygene, which would have to have a much higher energy drain. Then we would have created two different types of missions: low-energy unmanned missions and high-energy manned ones.

Well i like being ambitious . If i wasn't, i would never have started this project. But maybe you're right. I'll do some research into how exactly to interface with another plugin, and which plugin i want to use. Then i need a way to make it an optional feature. I would find it awesomely challenging to have to supply electricity to my unmanned vessels, but some might not. Thankfully that bit is very easy. I already simulate a loss of control every time a vessel is out of range. But for this, i might want to up the ante a bit graphically. It would be very easy to both disable the vessel controls and simply make the entire GUI go blank, save one blinking red message: "Out of power!". You should really feel that you're in trouble when you loose all power in the middle of empty space. I'll look into it, but first i need to be done with the main task. I still need to keep a check on any more bugs in the plugin and i need to find out how to implement a config file for the entire mod. I'd like to make it possible again to set your own custom coordinates and world of the main mission control, plus the speed of light.

You're welcome . Yeah I was thinking about something like that. There are however some challenges. I would like to not only calculate the energy consumption and generation of my controlled vessel, i want to calculate it for all vessels in the relay network. That seems very hard to do to me right now. Basically, as far as the game is conserned, vessels that are too far away don't really exist. I certainly don't know of any way in which they can run any code. I do kind of have an idea for a workaround based on the way i currently communicate with vessels who don't really exist, but would be very complicated to implement. Smarter men and/or women than me need to do the fieldwork in the electrical API field. I hear that it's coming. When it does, i think i will add power consumption to this plugin. would like to do more with power, not only with the ever requested power consumption. But also power transfer. As i wrote earlier today i see wireless power transfer as a vital part in making functional and modular bases possible. Another key feature would be fuel generation out of something like Munar soil, much like the current Munar zoxygene generator. I envision vast Munbases complete with powerplants, fuel refineries, huge interplanetary command centrers, life-support modules and crew quarters.

Another note. And an important one this time: Be careful with having the settings menu open when you decouple. It can crash your game, and has just crashed the game of my devoted alphatester (yours truly). Aparrently i overlooked something that throws a NullReferenceException under certain circumstances when you decouple and have your settings menu open. I'm working on fixing it right now and think I have a full understanding of what generates the problem. I'll post a v0.31 as soon as I'm done testing it. (edit) Aaand its done. Went all the way to the Mun, tried my worst to recreate the problem but the fix caught it. I made another small little addition to the settings menu while i was at it; now you have the ability to cancel your changed settings. I've changed the download link to point to the newest version of the plugin.

Yep, that's pretty much it. Though i had to rewrite a lot of The_Duck's code to make all the extra features work. So i chose not to call it the same just so people wouldn't mix the two together. The_Duck's code is much more elegant than mine and mine still has some kinks to be ironed out. In short, I didn't really wan't to usurp The_Duck's project by setting mine up as a sequel to it. It let's you make a satellite relay network through which to control unmanned vessels. It also let's you launch multiple unmanned vessels as one and decouple them later in the flight. You could for example launch a big mun lander with 4 small rovers attached to it. On landing you could decouple the rovers and still be able to control each of them, provided they are in signal range. In the satellite relay network department, my version differs from The_Duck's in that i take the individual range of each antenna in consideration and has a new type of antenna (the satellite dish) that only works if you have two satellite dishes pointed towards eachother or eachothers planets. Given that the signal range of the normal antennas don't even reach the Mun, you will have a little bit of an extra challenge in setting up your relay network. In my version you could also, for example, launch a manned vessel with a RemoteControl part on it in orbit around the Mun and then it would be the missin control for your Mun rovers (if it's in signal range). I hope i explained it more clearly this time

I'd think it safest not to doubt the mighty spaceKraken. You might anger it. Aaand back on topic: Wellcome on board. I don't think you are the only one led to this game by youtube. I was completely sold 10 minutes after seeing kurtjmac derping around in his letsplay.

Yeah, I just saw it. I was already thinking about implementing something like it: RemotePower. It wouldn't primarily be about transfering fuel, but electrical energy. That way functional base construction is finally feasable. Dedicated power generators could send power to fuel refineries, life support, very long-range satellite dishes and so on. I think these things would be good to have by 0.17 when the Kerbol system gets a whole lot larger.

[PLUGIN, PARTS, 0.20] RemoteTech: Relay Network – V 0.5.0.1 RemoteTech is no longer in active development. For the latest version of RemoteTech, go to the RemoteTech 2 forum. Based on The_Duck's Satellite Relay Network and developed with his permission, this plugin implements different types and ranges of antennae and self-built command stations. Download: Get the core 0.5.0.1 plugin here. (source here.) Get the probe compatability pack here. (a pack of modified config files to add RemoteTech functionality to the stock probe cores and antennae, using ialdabaoths ModuleManager) (This plugin is free to use and modify as long as the original authors are credited. This plugin, and derivatives thereof, may only be hosted on kerbalspaceprogram.com.) Description This plugin allows you to construct vast relay networks of communication satellites and remotely control unmanned vessels. Your remote controlled vessels need a command station to control them, Mission Control at Kerbal Space Center (KSC) is your first command station, with a omnidirectional antenna with a signal range of 5.000 km. But your remote controlled vessels might not always be in the sky above KSC or might be more than 5.000 km away. For your first missions it might be a good idea to have them be manned, that way, your crew has control and you can switch it over to remote control at will. Which parts are needed for what Always add a signal processor: The first thing your vessel will need is a signal processor to process the incoming control signal from a command station. It will also allow other vessels to use yours as a relay satellite. Signal processors are divided into two types: RemoteControl: Adds remote control to an unmanned vessel or Debris and makes it part of the relay network. RemoteControl modules process the incoming signal from a command station and controls the vessel accordingly. If a RemoteControl module is put on a manned vessel, the crew automatically have direct control of the vessel, though controls can be switched over to let a command station take over. RemoteCommand: Adds remote control to vessel or Debris, makes it part of the relay network and can give it command over other vessels if it has enough crew. RemoteCommand modules do all the same things as RemoteControl modules, but in addition they can send out a signal of their own, making the RemoteCommand vessel another command station. RemoteCommand will only be able to send a control signal if it's placed on a vessel with at least 3 crewmembers to actually man the controls (can be changed in the config file). Always add an antenna: Once your vessel has a signal processor it will need an antenna to actually receive/send a signal. There are two types of antennae: Omnidirectional antennae: for short range communication. These have a shorter signal range but can send and receive in all directions. The standard antenna has a range of 5.000 km and will do nicely if you're staying close to kerbin. If you are planning to leave Kerbin orbit, you will need to use a satellite dish. Be sure: that you have a line of sight to a command station (For example Mission Control at KSC), or a satellite relay network in place to route the signal to you. Satellite dishes: for long range communication. These have a longer range (their signal reaches from Kerbin to at least well beyond the orbit of Minmus) but need to be pointed at another satellite dish in order to have signal connection (this can be done through the settings menu). Ideally, you should have a relay network in orbit of vessels with a RemoteControl module, an omnidirectional antenna and a satellite dish. If you have two vessels that are far apart (for example one in orbit around Kerbin, and one around the Mun) you don't need to precisely point them at each other, it's enough to point them at each others planets. Be sure: that your dish is pointed at a vessel that has a dish pointed back at you. Be aware: that you can point a dish at an omnidirectional antenna. It will boost the range of the antenna by x2 (a standard antenna would have a range of 10.000 km with any vessel that points a dish at it). Changing RemoteTech settings The first time RemoteTech runs, it creates a config file (Settings.cfg) in you KSP folder in: \PluginData\remotetech You can open this in a text editor such as notepad. The available options should be self-explanatory. You can also press <modifier key> + f11 to access the settings in-flight. Adding RemoteTech functionality to parts Here is a detailed overview of the RemoteTech PartModules, their function and their variables together with default values. Credits and thanks: The_Duck: For creating the original plugin upon which this is based. gresrun: For the pathfinding algorithm. Tosh: For plenty of inspiration and part creation (rhyme intended). rkman: For parts and “keepin' it realâ€Â. NovaSilisko: For the Probodobodyne antennae. r4m0n: For donating the MechJeb PID controller. Alchemist: For eureka-inspiring insight. Kreuzung: For making sense of PartModules. The community: For being all round awesome, and notably for doing a lot of work making RT 0.17 compatible. To mention just some of the awesome people: SpaceghÈ«st. Tomato. BoJaN. Mortaq. Cheers -JDP

I recently had the same problem. I was editing the texture of the standard RCS fuel tank in order to make a mock up part for a mod I\'m working on. Now I\'m by far not experienced in part making, but as far as i could figure the problem is that the texture is storede in the .mu file. I solved my problem with deleting the .mu file and changing a few lines in the config file to make it uses the .DAE file and my texture: // --- asset parameters --- mesh = model.mu scale = 0.1 changed to: // --- asset parameters --- mesh = model.DAE scale = 0.1 texture = RemoteControl.png