RemoteTech and building your first Communication Network (in career mode)

[carlorizzante]

Hello!

I'm struggling with the challenge to build my first network of satellites in order to have a constant link to probes across the Kerbin system.

It seems that in career mode I can't get access to a decent solar panel or other source of energy in order to power enough antennas per satellite to actually establish a working, efficient network. In fact I cannot unlock the Advanced Electrics branch - I assume until I've unlocked the previous tech branch (90 science points), which is a bit frustrating.

Also, the antennas seem ok for the Kerbin system, but I'm afraid they might be a bit underpowered for sending probes on farther distances.

I would really like to know how others usually proceed in order to build their first Communication network. How does it work for you?

Edited June 18, 2015 by carlorizzante

[xrayfishx]

Electronics don't spend energy while on rails. So basically you just need enough batteries to survive the launch and the communications satellite will remain operational indefinitely.

[carlorizzante]

Electronics don't spend energy while on rails. So basically you just need enough batteries to survive the launch and the communications satellite will remain operational indefinitely.

Thanks for the quick response. But I'm a bit confused. So I do not need to put solar panels on a satellite at all? Or to say better, doesn't a satellite need to generate energy in order to feed an antenna?

Edited June 16, 2015 by carlorizzante

[stibbons]

For your first Kerbin system network you only need the Communotron 16 omni and Comms DTS-M1 dish. You should have unlocked both of those before you started getting solar panels.

Build yourself a satellite with one each of those antennae, at least 400 or so units of battery power, and enough OX-STAT panels so you can keep at least two pointed sunward (six-times symmetry on a 1.25m core should be OK for this).

Launch one, and get it to a 700 km orbit. Then test it - activate both antennae and make sure it has enough battery power to survive the transit across Kerbin's shadow, and enough solar panels to recharge.

Once you've got your power requirements sorted, build out the rest of your network. At 700 km altitude, three satellites evenly spaced should be able to keep in touch with each other using the Communotron 16, but putting four in orbit can't hurt. For each satellite, activate its dish antenna, and set it to target the active vessel.

That's all you need for exploration all over the Kerbin system. Each moon only needs a couple of identical satellites in high orbit, with a dish permanently aimed at Kerbin and a Communotron 16 for surface comms. I usually piggyback those on to contract missions to save money.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and I also use the Hyperedit mod. For each satellite I'm putting in orbit, I place it as accurately as possible by hand. And then I use Hyperedit to cheat them all to have the same semi-major axis (SMA). Done well, the SMA is almost the same anyway, making them match just stops them from drifting over the course of the game.

Edited June 16, 2015 by stibbons

[Snark]

What stibbons said-- you can make a network that covers near-Kerbin space just fine with nothing but Communotron 16, and OX-STAT panels are fine for powering that. When you go to the Mun and Minmus, you can add Comms DTS-M1.

Once you venture out into the solar system, the 88-88 will cover the entire inner system out to and including Duna. By the time you've done that much, you'll have science points coming out of your ears, so you'll be able to get the bigger antennas for dealing with the outer solar system.

In fact I cannot unlock the Advanced Electrics branch - I assume until I've unlocked the previous tech branch (90 science points), which is a bit frustrating.

To unlock a tech node, you need to unlock the prerequisite. To understand what you need to unlock it, just click on the node and it will tell you on the info panel at right what you need to unlock it (usually it's pretty obvious from the graphic tree display what you need, but there are some cases where two tech nodes lead into a later one, and some of them require all the inputs but others only require one).

In general, if you can't unlock a node even when you have enough science points, there are two possible reasons:

1. You haven't unlocked the pre-requisite node(s) on the tech tree

2. It's too high for you for your current level of the research facility. The level 0 facility only lets you get up to a certain level of technology, then each time you upgrade the facility it raises the tech limit that you can research.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Snark

[NASAHireMe]

stibbons and Snark have answered the important bits for you: three or four satellites in 700km orbits, evenly spaced with Comm16 antennas and DTS-M1s will give you complete coverage of the near-Kerbin space, total coverage of the Mun (except its backside), and mostly-complete coverage of Minmus. Once you get to Minmus, the boatloads of science you can collect from it will be enough to unlock pretty much all of the other antennas.

For these satellites, you only need one Comm16 per craft, which draws very little charge. The DTS-M1 draws more, but even with one Comm16 and two DTS-M1s, you only need eight or so OX-STATs to keep them running, and a few 400-charge batteries. If you want to the full RemoteTech planning shebang, check this planner out.

Just make sure you arrange your solar panels so they will always receive light, including from above and behind! Angle your panels during construction in the VAB.

And if you've unlocked the small docking port, stick one on. That way, you can dock more powerful antennas, batteries, and solar panels to these satellites as you unlock them in your tech tree. I've used the exact same four-satellite constellation in 700km orbit throughout the game. I just stuck new modules on when I unlocked those techs.

[Geschosskopf]

It seems that in career mode I can't get access to a decent solar panel or other source of energy in order to power enough antennas per satellite to actually establish a working, efficient network. In fact I cannot unlock the Advanced Electrics branch - I assume until I've unlocked the previous tech branch (90 science points), which is a bit frustrating.

RT isn't at all career-friendly with the stock tech tree. If you want to use it in career mode, look around at mod trees, some of which are intended specifically for RT and/or probes in general.

But even then, RT still isn't career-friendly because of how the whole science thing works. Probes suck at science compared to Kerbals because Kerbals can do so many science-related things probes can't. Furthermore, you have an incentive to level-up Kerbals so they become more useful to you, and you can't do that if you send probes. Plus, you get way more science returning data than transmitting it, which means if you want full value you need to bring the probe home, so you might as well send a Kerbal instead and get even more science plus experience.

So yeah, RT in career mode is highly frustrating and inefficient so I don't recommend it. The only attraction in normal career mode to using probes is that they're cheap so can grab a small bit of science or some contract cash if you need that to unlock a key node. But RT takes this away by requiring a large investment in the infrastructure to make probes work at all.

Also, the antennas seem ok for the Kerbin system, but I'm afraid they might be a bit underpowered for sending probes on farther distances.

It depends on the antenna. Higher-tech antennas can talk anywhere in the solar system. What then kills you is signal delay (assuming you have that turned on). That's a whole 'nother story and leads into learning to write kOS scripts to make your probes somewhat autonomous to deal with signal delay.

And since 1.0.2, there's reentry heat, which might be tame for operations around Kerbin but which is a killer at interplanetary transfer speeds, such as when aerocapturing at Eve, Jool, or Laythe (Duna is not really a problem). To control the ship en route, you need an antenna outside any fairing protecting the main probe, and they always burn off. This severely limits your ability to aerocapture, which leads to all sorts of other problems.

I would really like to know how others usually proceed in order to build their first Communication network. How does it work for you?

Well, first thing is, if you've got RT installed, don't bother with probes at all, or setting up a network, until you've unlocked the whole tech tree. Why spend the money on low-tech infrastructure that will have to be replaced anyway, especially when all you get for that time and money is just the ability to collect less science than you can with Kerbals.

So the bottom line is, don't build a "first" network, build 1 permanent, state-of-the-art network, planned in advance with room to expand as you start colonizing other planets. And you use it only for all the probe cargo ships you send out there in support of your colonies. You don't use it to unlock the tech tree.

I wrote a tutorial on setting up a network. There's a link in my sig. I wrote it some time ago so parts of it are now obsolete, but the general idea is still the same.

[carlorizzante]

Thanks all!

I have now a much better picture on the whole things.

RT isn't at all career-friendly with the stock tech tree. If you want to use it in career mode, look around at mod trees, some of which are intended specifically for RT and/or probes in general. [...]

Thanks, I think I understand what you mean. I didn't find any of those mods for improving the TechTree. I tried the Community Tech Tree mod and it didn't work well for me. I'll look more into this aspect later today.

However, I accept that KSP is still evolving, and a conspicuous part of content is added via mods. So I'm willing to cope with some issues here and there. The game is still fun, and I enjoy the challenge added by RemoteTech.

[beabop]

Very carefully. With the 30 part limit, I had to power budget tightly using the 1x1 solar panels, mounted on a single face on a structural girder. And I got in the habit of making sure they're pointed at the sun when I enter and leave focus. RemoteTech seems to love turning your solar panels away from the sun. (Because of this limitation, with no mode to keep a fixed attitude relative to the sun, I didn't feel bad editing in a little emergency electric charge.)

Also you can abuse the fact that power is not consumed out of focus. Time warp in focus on the sunny side to build up charge in your batteries. Time warp from KSC when on the dark side.

[Geschosskopf]

Thanks, I think I understand what you mean. I didn't find any of those mods for improving the TechTree. I tried the Community Tech Tree mod and it didn't work well for me. I'll look more into this aspect later today.

However, I accept that KSP is still evolving, and a conspicuous part of content is added via mods. So I'm willing to cope with some issues here and there. The game is still fun, and I enjoy the challenge added by RemoteTech.

Remember that RT existed long before career mode so was designed to be used in sandbox. Since career mode has come along, RT has been patched up to work with it, but the basic nature of stock career mode makes it rather a bad fit for RT.

RT certainly adds a challenge to career mode. But that challenge only makes real sense if you impose a number of other restrictions on yourself. RT makes using probes to do real missions very expensive and time-consuming because you have to build the network first, but there is very little use for probes in stock career games; thus, you can largely ignore RT's constraints. For RT to be a meaningful obstacle to your career advancement, you must do something else that forces you to use a lot more probes. Life support, a probe-oriented tech tree, a house rule of always sending probes before sending Kerbals, that sort of thing. Otherwise, you can get through career mode without using probes at all.

But the biggest self-imposed restriction about RT is that you have to buy into its underlying premise. That premise is that probes are stone-stupid marionettes that require somebody back at KSC constantly controlling their every action. No autonomy at all. From this comes the necessity of the uninterrupted commsat network. And from that comes signal delay (if you turn that on) at long distances, for which you also need to install kOS, which grants probes a tiny, 1960s level of autonomy. However, this is the 21st Century. We have highly autonomous vehicles on the ground, in the air, at sea, and in space. You can now, today, buy a fully autonomous, street-legal car to drive you home through city traffic when you're drunk (one of the greatest inventions ever, IMHO ). This blows the whole concept of RT out of the water. So, for RT to make sense to even have in your game, you have to imagine your game is set in the distant past, before such modern things existed, and that the Silicon Revolution never happens on Kerbin.

[stibbons]

For RT to be a meaningful obstacle to your career advancement, you must do something else that forces you to use a lot more probes. Life support, a probe-oriented tech tree, a house rule of always sending probes before sending Kerbals, that sort of thing. Otherwise, you can get through career mode without using probes at all.

What? You can get through career mode without using crewed pods too. What's your point?

But the biggest self-imposed restriction about RT is that you have to buy into its underlying premise. That premise is that probes are stone-stupid marionettes that require somebody back at KSC constantly controlling their every action. No autonomy at all. From this comes the necessity of the uninterrupted commsat network.

You don't need an uninterrupted network, that's what the flight computer is for - providing some degree of autonomy.

And from that comes signal delay (if you turn that on) at long distances, for which you also need to install kOS, which grants probes a tiny, 1960s level of autonomy.

False. kOS is fully programmable.

You can now, today, buy a fully autonomous, street-legal car to drive you home through city traffic when you're drunk (one of the greatest inventions ever, IMHO ).

Where from?

This blows the whole concept of RT out of the water. So, for RT to make sense to even have in your game, you have to imagine your game is set in the distant past, before such modern things existed, and that the Silicon Revolution never happens on Kerbin.

No, it doesn't.

Edited June 17, 2015 by stibbons

[Prepper-Jack]

Well, first thing is, if you've got RT installed, don't bother with probes at all, or setting up a network, until you've unlocked the whole tech tree. Why spend the money on low-tech infrastructure that will have to be replaced anyway, especially when all you get for that time and money is just the ability to collect less science than you can with Kerbals.

So the bottom line is, don't build a "first" network, build 1 permanent, state-of-the-art network, planned in advance with room to expand as you start colonizing other planets. And you use it only for all the probe cargo ships you send out there in support of your colonies. You don't use it to unlock the tech tree.

Can't say I agree with this. What you say about collecting more science with Kerbals is true, though there's other things to do without the use of Kerbals. A rescue platform, for instance, is much more efficient in the long run with one crew pod being shoved into orbit than two (or better yet, simply a drone with a klaw and some parachutes attached). Collect temperature/seismic/gravity data at so-and-so 3-6 locations is much more cost effective with tiny probes, as they can easily reach 10k dV and above for minimal investment.

A network at 90 science should have the ability to reach Duna and Eve, if I remember correctly. Even if you're not using life support mods, sending probes to these systems will be significantly cheaper than sending Kerbals. 1-way vs. 2-way, plus extra mass to support Kerbals means you're usually going to spend 4-5 times as much for the Kerbal, if not more. Additionally, sticking to Kerbin/Mun/Minmus for the full tech tree is quite doable, but not as profitable (and I would contend not as interesting). Science data from space around/surface of Duna/Ike/Gilly/Eve missions are frequent, lucrative, and completely repeatable by the same probes.

I would, however, recommend that a jr. docking port (unlocked pretty early) be added to each satellite at the very least. That way the infrastructure doesn't need to be replaced, just enhanced.

[FancyMouse]

False. kOS is fully programmable.

except that you can't even do string manipulation

[Geschosskopf]

Geez, Atibbons, why the hostility? Do you own shares in RT or something? I'm not saying RT sucks. I'm just giving a realistic appraisal of its effects on a career game, which is what the OP wanted to hear.

What? You can get through career mode without using crewed pods too. What's your point?

The point you obviously missed, repeatedly throughout your reply, was that RT, because it's all about probes, it has no real impact on the game unless you rely heavily on probes. The way stock career is set up, it thoroughly marginalizes probes. Logical and efficient career progression relies almost entirely on crewed ships. So if you're already in the habit of playing that way, and keep doing that after installing RT, RT will have little if any impact. Therefore, there's little if any point in installing it---save that RAM for something more useful. RT only becomes significant in career mode if the player does something else (other mods, house rules, etc.) to force himself into a very different play style that uses a lot more probes.

You don't need an uninterrupted network, that's what the flight computer is for - providing some degree of autonomy.

...False. kOS is fully programmable.

The so-called "flight computer" isn't autonomy at all, it's simply an egg timer to execute something you set up previously while in direct control via the network. And that network has to be pretty much uninterrupted to set this up, having only a few small blind spots where you use the "flight computer". The probe doesn't make any decision for itself so has zero autonomy.

kOS does let the probe make decisions so actually provides some autonomy. However, unless things have changed recently, kOS is intentionally very retro, so imposes severe limits on file size, meaning no script can do all that much by itself and you still need a largely uninterrupted network to swap files around.

Both of these things, and of course RT itself, are totally antique in the 21st Century. The "flight computer" is no more advanced than a mechanical time fuze for an artillery shell, which has been around since the late 1800s, and kOS is deliberately 1960s. That's all cool if you imagine your game set back in ancient history, or in a "Dune-esque" world where true computers (in the modern sense) are illegal. Whatever makes you happy. But if you imagine your game set in the present or relatively near future, the whole RT thing is a complete anachronism.

(RE: fully autonomous cars available) Where from?

Google. They're on the road right now. Perhaps not in mass-market availability quite yet, but definitely in the very near future. And Google isn't the only company doing this.

(RE: disagreeing that RT is an anachronism in today's world) No, it doesn't.

Suit yourself. I wasn't talking to you anyway and have no intention or desire to change how you play your own games.

Can't say I agree with this. What you say about collecting more science with Kerbals is true, though there's other things to do without the use of Kerbals. A rescue platform, for instance, is much more efficient in the long run with one crew pod being shoved into orbit than two (or better yet, simply a drone with a klaw and some parachutes attached). Collect temperature/seismic/gravity data at so-and-so 3-6 locations is much more cost effective with tiny probes, as they can easily reach 10k dV and above for minimal investment.

Rescuing Kerbals 1 per launch isn't efficient even with probes. To rescue efficiently, build a big ship that can scoop a lot of Kerbals in 1 flight. And by then, the ship is so big that having a pod instead of probe core makes no real difference.

Having a probe to get "science from space near...." is about the only cost-effective use of probes, especially if you put the probe up there to begin with on a "place satellite" contract. Then you can use it repeatedly each time the "science from space near..." contract pops up. But these don't pay enough to make a special mission for. As to hopping around waypoints, you get way more science if you send a Kerbal and a full suite of instruments, not just what the contract asks for. Sure, it's more expensive, but should still be within the budget. You're not doing such contracts for the money, you're doing them for the science (and crew experience).

A network at 90 science should have the ability to reach Duna and Eve, if I remember correctly. Even if you're not using life support mods, sending probes to these systems will be significantly cheaper than sending Kerbals. 1-way vs. 2-way, plus extra mass to support Kerbals means you're usually going to spend 4-5 times as much for the Kerbal, if not more. Additionally, sticking to Kerbin/Mun/Minmus for the full tech tree is quite doable, but not as profitable (and I would contend not as interesting). Science data from space around/surface of Duna/Ike/Gilly/Eve missions are frequent, lucrative, and completely repeatable by the same probes.

Sending 1-way probes to get science is inefficient. Unless you're willing to write off all the science the probe didn't get, you'll have to send a roundtrip Kerbal there anyway. Because the Kerbal could have gotten everything the probe did, plus all the rest, the probe is a complete waste of time and money. Instead of paying just for the Kerbal's trip, you now also pay for the redundant probe trip. Plus now have to wait however long for the next transfer window to that planet, which is inconvenient. The only time it's worth sending a 1-way science probe is if you have no intention of ever sending a Kerbal there. Like to the surface of Eve or Jool.

True, it IS handy to have a probe with just a thermometer orbiting someplace to milk "science from space near..." contracts. But OTOH, if you're actually developing other planets, you'll likely have a space station in orbit there that can do the job.

I would, however, recommend that a jr. docking port (unlocked pretty early) be added to each satellite at the very least. That way the infrastructure doesn't need to be replaced, just enhanced.

It's the same either way. You still need to launch and place a bunch of whole new satellites if you build a "starter" network. There's not a lot of cost savings adding modules to old satellites when the real money is being spent on the lifters.

[Dunbaratu]

Electronics don't spend energy while on rails

That's false.

Electricity drain is one of the few things that actually IS calculated when on rails. Put the probe in shadow when it has solar panels for recharge and a small battery capacity and it will stop working until it hits sunlight again.

[stibbons]

That wasn't hostility. It was pointing out that you were trying to build a case using information that was at best misguided, at worst flat-out wrong. It doesn't make your case look very good.

[carlorizzante]

Well... one could perhaps use MechJeb to simulate a semi-autonomous probe.

I can see the limitation inherent to the RemoteTech mod. Still I like the idea that in order for a mission to be successful (and realistic), a sort of continuous communication with the Space Center is desirable. Kerbals can obviously go a long shot without it. Probes might need a bit more control, but again, doesn't a real Space Agency like NASA make sure to have a control of as many aspects of a mission before launching it? Doesn't NASA make sure to keep a communication channel with their crew or probes as much as technically possible? So why won't we?

In the end it's a game, and as all games it's totally unnecessary playing it. However, the moment we decide to play it, we better accept its limitation and constrains.

RemoteTech might be not perfectly integrated with the gameplay. I'm willing to cope with that because when I play I do it for the fun, I make my own rules. Money in game are secondary to me. I play for the experience.

[Streetwind]

To return to the actual topic at hand...

I found RemoteTech to work just fine in career mode when I tried it before the 1.0 update. Now that that update has happened, and the tech tree changed, things may of course be different, but I imagine it would still work out decently enough.

For my playthrough I made extensive use of the communotron-32, the large omni antenna that RemoteTech adds. You could get it relatively early in the tech tree. My basic commsat was (IIRC) a stayputnik, six OX-STAT, one communotron 32, a RCS tank and a small monoprop engine (from a mod, but it was basically just a linear RCS port that responded to the engine throttle instead of to the RCS controls). I forget exactly what batteries I mounted, but it had enough storage to make it through the 20-minute geostationary 'night' with its antenna active. (Nowadays you would probably use an OKTO instead of a Stayputnik, since it has SAS and you unlock it together with the solar panels anway.)

Turns out that the communotron-32 consumes very little power and has just enough range to form a geostationary "square" around Kerbin with four satellites. I actually never built a LEO network at all. As the antenna is omnidirectional, you only need one single antenna per satellite to build an infinite-connection geostationary network in four launches. Takes a bit of fiddling to get them properly aligned, as there's not much leeway for drifting out of position, but it's not like dish networks don't require fiddling, either. And with two uplinks to KSC, the network can survive at least one broken link anywhere in the chain with zero negative impact... more than that if there are other vessels with omnidirectional antennas in orbit, as they will often automatically "bridge" the lost connection.

After those four, whenever I needed to link a distant location (like Minmus), I simply launched a sat (well actually a pair to cover planetary occlusion) with one communotron-32 and one dish antenna of the appropriate size into a sub-geostationary orbit somewhere. Point the dish towards Minmus, send another identical sat to Minmus, link the dishes, and base local communications off of omnidirectional antennas again. Since I can connect an infinite number of concurrent vessels in Kerbin orbit, I can just throw up another tiny dedicated sat for whatever, whenever and then forget about it And if that ends up being too many at some point in the future, I will have high-end technology then to effortlessly consolidate many small sats into one.

I see a lot of people struggling to build giant commsats with four to six energy-hungry dishes and the whole low-tech solarpanel-and-battery-spam shebang, just to set up basic geostationary network that still needs a dedicated LEO network to support more than a handful of concurrent craft... I like to think that my solution is a bit more elegant and a lot less hassle Of course, I will have to see if that still works in 1.02, since it depends on when exactly the communotron-32 unlocks, and how much less power the OX-STATs generate. But the six I mounted were more than enough in the past, and the OKTO has room for 8.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Streetwind

[FancyMouse]

My take is a little bit different.

First I don't bother with geostationary - I find better with manned first mission because you'll get too much flexibility out of it.

Next I tend to use less Comm-32, since a lot of my light-weight probes are using Comm-16 (to save solar panels) and I don't want to lose connection to them. Even in the case of Comm-32, I often make sure that I have reasonable coverage for a Comm-16-equipped-probe. So the solution I come up with is just a 4-satellite equatorial network of radius 2Mm for LKO, each having one Comm-32 for covering LKO and talking among themselves (while any probe with Comm-16 can have full coverage on LKO), and two DTS-M1, which is for active vessel at the beginning, and future coverage to Mun/Minmus/relay satellites.

Second network (actually 2 networks) would be just 2~3 satellites per Mun/Minmus at polar orbit, where it connects back to the LKO network. It's not full coverage but I don't need full Mun/Minmus coverage anyway. Plus I have one space station on each of the moon and it also gives some coverage.

Then preparation of interplanetary. Kerbin side I did two things:

1. I fly a cargo plane and put several rovers (without wheels, in fact) with the longest antenna you have targeting active vessel - that's going to be really handy when your interplanetary probe get out of omni range but still close to Kerbin enough and you want to do some correction burn. (I learned it in a hard way - once had to splash down an antenna plane in a certain area in the middle of the ocean to provide coverage for a probe which just get out of Kerbin SoI)

2. Local relay satellite - nothing fancy here. By then you should be able to build large satellites and just spam antennas for that. For safety I'm putting it on 5Mm orbit so that when Duna gets closest to Kerbin, I still get coverage with 88-88.

Finally network on other planets - I can't say too much about them because my missions are still ongoing. But the basic plan is similar to how I build Kerbin system. The only exception is Jool, which I haven't started planning yet... it would be really fun for this one, I expect.

Edited June 18, 2015 by FancyMouse

[carlorizzante]

Now, how do I change the label from "Unanswered" to "Answered!"?

[FancyMouse]

The best way to prevent people reading a post is to make it sticky

[Geschosskopf]

RemoteTech might be not perfectly integrated with the gameplay. I'm willing to cope with that because when I play I do it for the fun, I make my own rules. Money in game are secondary to me. I play for the experience.

There's an alternative to RT called AntennaRange, which was specifically designed for career mode. Its primary purpose is to force you to use a big enough antenna (or set up a relay network) to be able to transmit science reports. As such, it affects both probes AND crewed ships. However, it has no signal delay, so you can always control your probes as you want to (IOW, it assumes modern, highly autonomous probes). AR also adds no parts, so you only have the 3 stock antennae. In general, the dipole will only reach low orbit from the surface, the DTS-M1 can reach about from Mun to Kerbin, and the 88-88 can cover the whole solar system (although having some relays helps).

AR has several options you can enable. One of them adds the requirement for line-of-sight links, so you have to set up RT-like commsat constellations to bounce signals around intervening planets (without this, you don't need any fancy networks). Another option prevents any probe control unless linked to the network but because there's no signal delay, this isn't as harsh as it is in RT. There's also an option that allows reducing the power required to transmit data at the cost of increasing the time needed. This helps in keeping probe size down.

AR is much simpler to use because it figures out all relays by itself. You don't need to set the target of each antenna on each satellite yourself, and you don't need multiple antennae per satellite, either. When you want to transmit an experiment, AR sees if the ship's own antenna can reach Kerbin. If not, it checks all other ships in flight with antennae and tries to find a path through them.

In general, AR is a good "extra ingredient" to spice up a career game because it affects all ships transmitting science data. It does not require any major change in your customary play style to feel its effects, and it doesn't require quite as much infrastructure as RT even with the LOS option enabled. However, AR has zero impact on sandbox games, or in career games after the tech tree is unlocked, UNLESS you just want it to force communications links for probe control without bothering with signal delay.

[Snark]

Now, how do I change the label from "Unanswered" to "Answered!"?

There's a sticky at the top of the forum titled exactly that.

[carlorizzante]

There's an alternative to RT called AntennaRange, which was specifically designed for career mode. [..]

Thanks. I'll check that out as well. Indeed it might be a good option for a newbie like myself.

The best way to prevent people reading a post is to make it sticky

Haha, saw it now, thanks