Remotetech. Oh Remotetech. What am I to do with you?

[FleshJeb]

5. Avoid asymmetrical satellites. I say this because at the small size these will be, it really throws mass off. My first sats you see below have only one DTS antenna and that made it really hard to control. Even if you never activate it, go ahead and spend the cash and add a second one to the other side. In the future I will not do that again.

Agreed on all your other points. Have you tried setting the PhysicsSignificance of the antennas to 1? I believe that will force them to add the mass to the parent part.

[NASAHireMe]

4. The higher, the better, to a point. You want to get your network as high as you can with the antennas you want to use. This will leave more of a gap between your line of sight and the planet. Use this tool to plan.

GAAHHH ALSHAIN WHY DIDN'T ANYONE SHOW ME THIS EARLIER?!?! It ought to be stickied or something. I should have known someone would have already made a webapp or calculator to plan these sorts of things. I spent 5+ hours futzing with orbits and such in the game, and then another hour doing trigonometry (granted, it was only basic trigonometry), the results of which I posted here.

Basically, the gist is that the ideal constellation is a 3-sat system orbiting between 600km and 843.38km. Assuming the sats are placed in an equilateral triangle within that altitude range, you guarantee 100% Kerbin coverage with the basic Comm16 antenna.

Wow, now I feel like a fool for wasting all that time. Just yesterday I was thinking about making my own webapp for RT, mainly so I can exercise my coding skills (haven't used JS in forever). Thank god I didn't start.

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To the original poster, I think the REAL benefit of playing RemoteTech or a related mod is to make you grow as a player, in literally the way I just described above. I had to pull out my trig knowledge and do sketches and really PLAN my missions for efficiency, both in terms of dV/$$ and in terms of my personal time and aggravation.

Without RT, you never really have to plan your missions. You can theoretically play the whole game vessel-to-vessel (i.e. build a craft, fly it to its mission completion, then build the next craft, etc.). You can't do that in RT. Like in the real world, you've got to modularize and plan for the future. Actually, you STILL have advantages that the people at NASA or Roscosmos never had: you know beforehand exactly how far the next antenna will reach, how much power it will draw, etc.

In fact, I would encourage you to play WITHOUT consulting the webapp planner that was just listed by Alshain. It will force you to do the mental planning I just went through, and give you a compelling reason to learn about all sorts of things that exist in the real world but don't have much of a purpose in stock KSP, like Draim's Tetrahedron or Molniya orbits. On the other hand, if learning orbital mechanics and such doesn't give you enjoyment, forget about it.

No question, the most annoying thing about RT is those 'Doh!' moments I have from time to time. Usually, it's not slapping on an extra antenna that I need, or forgetting to turn on an antenna until it's too late. I've literally lost six or seven spacecraft that are now doomed to fly around KSP forever, with no control. Second would be the signal delay, but I haven't gone to Jool yet so it hasn't been that bad yet. I'll probably have to set up a remote control station out there.

And there are a few things that RT needs to improve. Like the system should automatically reroute relays towards Mission Control, and the Flight Computer should be more programmable. I recently lost a spacecraft because I sent a command to toggle the antenna to protect it during an aerobrake at Eve, only to find that the ensuing command wasn't to toggle it back open, but to close the antenna (even though it was already closed). So it ended up crashing into Eve. A waste of 2 hours.

All told, hope you learn from my mistakes. If you play RT rather than AntennaRange (I haven't used AntennaRange; maybe I'll check it out), I recommend playing without signal delay. It's just not worth it until they beef up the capability of the Flight Computer.

- - - Updated - - -

Tried Molniya orbits? Easier to set up that geosynchronous, don't need maintenance and provide 99% of the connection time.

Four leaf clover, and a few polar orbiting satellites, something like this.

http://puu.sh/ia2II/9e4a6dc976.jpg

In my own experience, there isn't any going back after trying remote tech. It doesn't feel right (personally) to fly a probe happily around on the far side of the Mun without a relay setup.

Plus, it gives nice reasons to add ground stations, random satellites, etc.

I ought to make a system like that, purely for the aesthetics. That looks cool.

And I totally agree on the other points. I feel like I've invested too much thought and time into RT to go back now.

[Requia]

I have to recommend it simply because of how much I learned about orbital mechanics solving the challenges it presents, it's also neat that flying probes is different than manned missions.

[tomf]

I tried it for a few games but have decided not to bother installing it again

things I didn't like

The kerbin relay satellites - once you have set them up in one game there isn't much fun in setting them up again, plus I don't feel they are realistic - in real life there are ground relay stations

time delay - I want to fly my probes

micromanaging what sattelite is connected to what. I found it fustrating when I lost control of a probe because it was locked on to a relay satellite that went behind kerbin. I want to employ some back room staff or algorithms to do that for me.

What I liked

losing contact with craft on the far side of bodies

the inforced variety of antenna

retracting antenna and losing contact with craft during aerobraking - although it needed a better wasy to be able to extend the antenna again afterwards

[Sma]

I have to recommend it simply because of how much I learned about orbital mechanics solving the challenges it presents, it's also neat that flying probes is different than manned missions.

Indeed. A while back, before 1.0.2, as I mentioned above, I used kOS to setup my geosync comm network. It required getting a 4 hour orbital period, and to do that I needed to get some orbital calculations done (though I could have just tested it out, and figured out the PE needed for the 2,868,750 AP, and hard code it to do that, but thats no fun ). I found the formulas needed to figure out SMA and some other things. It looked complicated but once broken down it was easier to understand. It was fun figuring it out.

The kerbin relay satellites - once you have set them up in one game there isn't much fun in setting them up again, plus I don't feel they are realistic - in real life there are ground relay stations

True, once the network is up and running, you don't really need to do it again, except for other planets. As for ground relay stations, you can do that too, it just requires 5, or is it 6 Kerbals along with the required antenna/dishes.

time delay - I want to fly my probes

True, I can see that being an issue lol

micromanaging what sattelite is connected to what. I found it fustrating when I lost control of a probe because it was locked on to a relay satellite that went behind kerbin. I want to employ some back room staff or algorithms to do that for me.

If you build your sats with enough dishes it's not really a problem. I usually set mine up with at least 3, if not 4 dishes. Two for the sat in front and behind, one for active vessel, and one, I guess to connect to other relays (deep space relay). Then when you are flying a probe, you can just set it's dish target to be Kerbin, and it'll connect to any available dish around Kerbin.

retracting antenna and losing contact with craft during aerobraking - although it needed a better wasy to be able to extend the antenna again afterwards

This could be done with kOS I believe. I wrote a simple script for decending, which basically just retracted solar panels and antenna/dishes once altitude was below 70,000m. If you were doing aerobraking I imagine as long as the program was running before the antenna/dishes were retracted, and you still had power, once it was safe again to deploy them the kOS program would do so. I might have to test it out, but I'm pretty sure programs continue to run after loosing comm.

Update: I did just test it out, and kOS does continue to run after loosing connection. I didn't put any antenna on the test ship other than a comm32 which wasn't deployed. My launch program continued to run even after 3000m. Once it got up to 70,000m it deployed the comm32 and connection was re-established, at which point I stopped the program, decoupled everything, and ran a test program which deactivated the comm32, and waited until it was "safe" to deploy chutes. Then once the "ship" was landed or splashed down it deployed the comm32 again. Good to know this works, I do remember reading about it but had never tested it my self.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Sma

[sarbian]

Both the time delay and ground relay stations are just a conf file away...

[monstah]

You can also set the distance model to "Additive" instead of the "Default", which takes in consideration both antennas when calculating range.

Long story short: a small antenna can talk to a large antenna from a longer distance that it would otherwise.

I love RT, too. I make my Kerbin network with 6 satellites, which is overkill but I like the hexagon on the orbit map

[LittleBlueGaming]

I love RT, too. I make my Kerbin network with 6 satellites, which is overkill but I like the hexagon on the orbit map

That's why I don't take satellite contracts. I don't like the unordered clutter, and I don't like to move/deorbit/delete something that I got paid to put up. It's nice that funds are easy enough to come by that we can put gratuitous amounts of satellites up purely for aesthetics.