Antenna choices?

[chd]

I'm not sure I get the point of the various antenna choices, other than pure looks ('cause dishes are cool).

In terms of performance, the cheapest one also seems to have the best bandwidth and the lowest power cost, and is the most compact, so why would you ever use anything else?

[Rocketfeline]

When you go deep into the game gets more data input. So you want somthing that sends data faster. And I bet that the cheapest one is the most longest one to send data out from.

[Xannari Ferrows]

This is a very good point. It is the lightest, most energy efficient antenna.

[Geschosskopf]

In the stock game, range isn't an issue. All that you see are the time required to transmit data and the amount of electricity that costs. And the way that's set up, the starter whip antenna uses the least power and takes the most time, but that time is still short enough not to be a factor. So there's no reason to use the others.

HOWEVER, there are a couple of mods you can use that change this.

For career games, I recommend AntennaRange. It has no real effect on sandbox games unless you enable certain options.

For sanbox games, there's RemoteTech, which adds a bunch of new antenna and also makes it impossible to control probes unless you have a direct communications link to them (and then also has a signal delay based on distance). Not very career-friendly IMHO (at least with the stock tech tree), and also rather obsolete in this age of autonomous vehicles. Still, if you want an extra challenge and don't mind making probes way more expensive to use, it can be fun.

[SkyRender]

There are definitely times when a high-powered antenna is called for. Rapid fly-bys of moons and planets don't tend to give you a lot of time to work with, nor do atmospheric probes on their way to the "surface" of Jool. If you have a situation where time matters, the faster antennae are always good choices.

[Laie]

In terms of performance, the cheapest one also seems to have the best bandwidth and the lowest power cost,

Because the part descriptions are wrong for some reason.

I ran a test this week: the heavier antennae transmit more data per time. The Comms-88 dish requires noticably more power per data, all others (including the high-gain antenna from the asteroid day mod) have nearly identical power requirements. That's power-per-data, mind you: the faster transmitters will still use more power per time.

[Geschosskopf]

There are definitely times when a high-powered antenna is called for. Rapid fly-bys of moons and planets don't tend to give you a lot of time to work with, nor do atmospheric probes on their way to the "surface" of Jool. If you have a situation where time matters, the faster antennae are always good choices.

I can't think of any examples, not even those you cite, where transmission time is of the essence. There is no need to transmit data the instant you acquire it. If you're doing a fast fly-by, you can either leave the experiment results windows open indefinitely or just hit the "keep" button, then review the experiment later and transmit it then. If you're falling into Jool, just pop some airbrakes and/or chutes. The atmosphere is 200km thick, after all, and dense so that a little drag goes a long way. It takes a LONG time to reach the surface. And because solar panels don't work to speak of out as far as Jool, let alone inside its atmosphere, you want the low-power antenna so you don't run out of battery before you run out of data.

[GoSlash27]

The part descriptions are backwards and haven't been fixed yet. The fancier antennas have higher bandwidth so they transmit faster.

I agree that this isn't worth anything as a practical matter, though. The lightest, cheapest antenna is clearly the way to go.

Best,

-Slashy

[FancyMouse]

I think I'll lose half my fun playing ksp w/o RemoteTech, even in career.

Sure it's not too friendly to career, but that's mostly because of stock tech tree, not RT itself. RT just amplifies that. And I find moderate difficulty is fine for my career (with both RT and TAC-LS). I gave up on hard, though.

Back to original question, transmission speed is the only concern and it's rarely a concern, unless you have tons of dataand you are extremely impatient (data transmission doesn't warp)

[Kuansenhama]

If you guys think the Communotron 16 is so great, try transmitting a full lab of 500 science data back to kerbin with it. It takes like five minutes. Believe me, I tried.

[Geschosskopf]

If you guys think the Communotron 16 is so great, try transmitting a full lab of 500 science data back to kerbin with it. It takes like five minutes. Believe me, I tried.

I dunno. I'm used to launching flotillas of 10-20 ships each needing a burn of at least 5 minutes. So having only 1 thing of 5 minutes is nothing.

[Goddess Bhavani]

I second the recommendation to try AntennaRange - the purpose of those comms related mods is not only to make communications more realistic in a way, but also to encourage antenna diversity. They have scalable difficulty so you can disable the "lose control of probes if outside comm range" thing if its too difficult.

Stock game, there really isn't incentive to choose larger antennae outside of eye candy. It's RemoteTech and AntennaRange that give incentive to match the antenna to the mission and to setup comm relay networks if you want to send ships with short range comms a long way out into space.

And yes I don't mind spending 5 minutes to transmit things, real deep space probes, especially those of earlier generations, don't exactly transmit very fast either.

[r4pt0r]

I pick antenna's on their asthetics, I've never had a "THIS HAS TO BE TRANSMITTED NOW" moment. I would like it if there was a stock reason to pick different ones, like range.

[micha]

In the stock game the DTS-1 is the only one which is affected by physics. I assume this to be an oversight by squad and always edit it to match the others.

Alternatively one can assume that squad made a copy paste error for the largest one.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I try to restrict myself in my Carreer mode as following:

Only for Kerbin's SOI or to send Data from a Planet/Moon to a Satelite in Orbit which has a bigger Antenna:

Only for Kerbin, Duna & EVE:

Everywhere:

It is like an imaginary Remote Tech Light restriction.

Edited July 11, 2015 by MalfunctionM1Ke

[r4pt0r]

I try to restrict myself in my Carreer mode as following:

It is like an imaginary Remote Tech Light restriction.

I think I'll do the same, looks fun

[magnemoe]

I dunno. I'm used to launching flotillas of 10-20 ships each needing a burn of at least 5 minutes. So having only 1 thing of 5 minutes is nothing.

However then you visit an science base you want to transmit science and load new one fast.

[micha]

I try to restrict myself in my Carreer mode as following:

Only for Kerbin's SOI or to send Data from a Planet/Moon to a Satelite in Orbit which has a bigger Antenna:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/4/49/Communotron_16.png/70px-Communotron_16.png

Only for Kerbin, Duna & EVE:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/a/aa/Comms_DTS-M1_02.png/190px-Comms_DTS-M1_02.png

Everywhere:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/thumb/c/cd/Communotron_88-88.png/110px-Communotron_88-88.png

It is like an imaginary Remote Tech Light restriction.

Looks similar to what the AntennaRange mod does.

[cantab]

There are definitely times when a high-powered antenna is called for. Rapid fly-bys of moons and planets don't tend to give you a lot of time to work with, nor do atmospheric probes on their way to the "surface" of Jool. If you have a situation where time matters, the faster antennae are always good choices.

Last I checked you could spam the science experiments clicking transmit each time and the transmissions would automatically queue up. Meaning the only time you truly need the faster antennae is if you're doing an impactor.

[juanml82]

Last I checked you could spam the science experiments clicking transmit each time and the transmissions would automatically queue up. Meaning the only time you truly need the faster antennae is if you're doing an impactor.

Unless, for whatever reasons, you decide to save on batteries. Say, you put a pair of rtgs in the spaceship and, since you have permanent generation, you make do with the (manned) command pod batteries. Trying to transmit with the comutron 88 will leave your ship without power for a long while, as the antenna consumes more electricity over time than your rtgs are producing.

[GoSlash27]

Unless, for whatever reasons, you decide to save on batteries. Say, you put a pair of rtgs in the spaceship and, since you have permanent generation, you make do with the (manned) command pod batteries. Trying to transmit with the comutron 88 will leave your ship without power for a long while, as the antenna consumes more electricity over time than your rtgs are producing.

Ah... but the faster antennas consume as much as or more power per packet, so they'll go dead even faster.

Best,

-Slashy

[HoloYolo]

I'd love to learn how to make a mod that adds signal delay for antennas. The farther your away from Kerbin, the longer it takes for data to be transmitted.

[FancyMouse]

I'd love to learn how to make a mod that adds signal delay for antennas. The farther your away from Kerbin, the longer it takes for data to be transmitted.

RemoteTech does that. Of course it comes along with all the other stuff. I don't know whether there are mods that only does signal delays.

btw, for data transmission it's not a big deal, but as RT simulates sending command with delay as well - you really want flight computers once get further than Minmus.

[HoloYolo]

RemoteTech does that. Of course it comes along with all the other stuff. I don't know whether there are mods that only does signal delays.

btw, for data transmission it's not a big deal, but as RT simulates sending command with delay as well - you really want flight computers once get further than Minmus.

What I mean is transmitting delay. It doesn't add any parts, but transmitting from Eeloo will take a lot longer than Kerbin. You still can turn the craft immediately when you input a control, but there's transmitting delay and no parts added.

[FancyMouse]

at least RT is simulating the other (and much more important) side - you see the delay when you send the command (i.e. you'll wait the same amount of time between you send the command and vessel starts responding). this is a gameplay changer actually.

transmitting back with the delayed science addition - personally I don't care too much.

and I was not talking about parts.