Finally - particular wanted news - announced for 1.1

[Anthlon]

on

http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/

finally announced so awaited

• probe telemetry
  
• antenna relay networks
  

I was so looking forwad to have these features in vanilla game! This makes sense to currently do all of "place satelite on orbit" missions, which will be left there for nonsense blocking your view or leading you to miss-click when operating with targets.

Thanks Developers! Keep up good work.

[uglyduckling81]

on

http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/

finally announced so awaited

• probe telemetry
  
• antenna relay networks
  

I was so looking forwad to have these features in vanilla game! This makes sense to currently do all of "place satelite on orbit" missions, which will be left there for nonsense blocking your view or leading you to miss-click when operating with targets.

Thanks Developers! Keep up good work.

It needs to be customisable so it can work like remote tech or dumbed down like they are mentioning. In my eyes it makes no sense to have the tracking station have complete range at level 3. Why would anyone bother with an elaborate relay setup when for less money you can just cover the entire solar system.

Plus without life support, satellites with limitations placed on them make no sense anyway. You can just put a kerball'd craft up instead and avoid the hastle of signals.

Their adding the core mechanic but with none of the intricacies that make it worth while.

[Merinsan]

While I think this is good for transmission of science, I think it should not be applied to probe control. Can you imagine the New Horizons probe having to be controlled by NASA as it flew by Pluto?

Probes are meant to be intelligent. They are meant to allow automation (in the sense we still control it). If my unmanned mission is incapable of deploying a chute while landing on Eve, because it is occluded by something, then the engineers need to be fired.

[uglyduckling81]

While I think this is good for transmission of science, I think it should not be applied to probe control. Can you imagine the New Horizons probe having to be controlled by NASA as it flew by Pluto?

Probes are meant to be intelligent. They are meant to allow automation (in the sense we still control it). If my unmanned mission is incapable of deploying a chute while landing on Eve, because it is occluded by something, then the engineers need to be fired.

Remote tech solves that with a computer to program in burns and commands whilst out of comms range.

[micha]

While I think this is good for transmission of science, I think it should not be applied to probe control. Can you imagine the New Horizons probe having to be controlled by NASA as it flew by Pluto?

Probes are meant to be intelligent. They are meant to allow automation (in the sense we still control it). If my unmanned mission is incapable of deploying a chute while landing on Eve, because it is occluded by something, then the engineers need to be fired.

This; so much this. But RoverDude already mentioned in the article (and follow-on thread) that these things will be covered by the difficulty slider. So I'm cautiously optimistic. Otherwise I'll just disable it (like I did with the stock ISRU scanning system, thanks SCANSat!) and keep playing with the (for me perfect) AntennaRange mod.

[FancyMouse]

Well, at least it sounds more forgiving than RT in the sense that you don't need 6 kerbals to set up a new control stations. Lack of signal delay is also going to make interplanetary mission a lot easier, although in RT you can also turn this off. Lack of cone antenna is like - reducing the fun of setting the network, actually, but whatever.

Anyway, I'm not feeling bad because this new system isn't comparable to RT and I'll probably still stick to RT.

(and hopefully we don't have another bug like disappearing parts after reverting due to ore scanning record)

[Bishop149]

Remote tech solves that with a computer to program in burns and commands whilst out of comms range.

Yep, also anything that's assigned to an action group can be pre-programmed to occur after a specific time eg. parachute opening.

This can be tricky though, the way I currently do parachutes on probes I may lack a connection to during decent is by tweaking the Deploy altitude and pressure settings of the chute so it opens once safe automatically. I then "deploy" them in space before I get anywhere near the target. Landings then occur completely without user input, which is often required anyway because flimsy deployed sat dishes aren't gonna survive re-entry!

I'm guessing the same trick could be used in the stock version

[X-SR71]

This feature will be cool! I'm all for new challenges! Although I'd rather they focused on fixing current bugs and solidifying current features.. Tech tree, resource mechanics, port to Unity 5, overall kraken attacks, more structural parts and adapters, are just a few areas they could focus work on... Even biomes could get more love - it's plain boring having biomes giving the same generic response to science instruments..

[nalfz]

It doesn't really seem as though it would add any purpose to launching satellites because it doesn't look like kerbin is going to occlude transmissions

I guess I understand their point about the deep space network but this seems like it would be the perfect opportunity to expand the conspicuously empty upgrade progression with regards to the base by allowing the player to purchase and upgrade other sites around kerbin to control probes from rather than giving you access to an enormously advanced control system right off the bat

Actually come to think of it, you could just have the player drop down land-based stations with control points

Actually come to think of it again, remotetech and antennarange are probably going to stay around to resolve all of this so I guess I'm fine anyway and this post was entirely pointless

I do like those new dish antennas though, looks like they'll be good for adding satellite-y looking bits to my satellites

[SeaDog]

While I think this is good for transmission of science, I think it should not be applied to probe control. Can you imagine the New Horizons probe having to be controlled by NASA as it flew by Pluto?

Probes are meant to be intelligent. They are meant to allow automation (in the sense we still control it). If my unmanned mission is incapable of deploying a chute while landing on Eve, because it is occluded by something, then the engineers need to be fired.

Well, the cool think about chutes is that you can set an airpressure and activate them well before you reach the planet. No further input required. But other than that, yes, what you say makes sense.

[cantab]

It needs to be customisable so it can work like remote tech or dumbed down like they are mentioning. In my eyes it makes no sense to have the tracking station have complete range at level 3. Why would anyone bother with an elaborate relay setup when for less money you can just cover the entire solar system.

Relays around other planets and moons will be valuable to give coverage of their far side. You won't have much cause for satellites around Kerbin, but then I regard the way RemoteTech pushes that as unrealistic drudgework. Look at real life - the Mars rovers communicate to one or other of the Mars orbiters which then communicates to a dish on the surface of Earth. Heck, look at Sputnik, no complicated satellite networks supporting that one!

Plus without life support, satellites with limitations placed on them make no sense anyway. You can just put a kerball'd craft up instead and avoid the hastle of signals.

While I'd like to see life support in stock, probes still offer the advantage of being much lighter and thus much cheaper to launch, especially now that Kerbals are expensive things you don't want to send on one-way missions.

[NJP]

I'm interested to see how they implement this as a core feature in the game, but I agree with uglyduckling in that it wouldn't make much sense to have level 3 render any currently operating comms satellite obsolete. I can see Level 2 maybe reaching out to the edge of Kerbin SOI, but having it go substantially farther than that would be overkill. Perhaps, even, level 1 gives the network hardly any range at all outside of the atmosphere, with level 2 reaching to the Mun, and lvl 3 to Kebin SOI. Then you could have the moons set up with satellites to propagate the signal further to the system, and make contracts just for that (That will at least make use of the satellite-based contracts that aren't polar orbits and surface stations).

In the end, as nalfz said, I'm still gonna stick with RemoteTech.

[viktor19]

...then the engineers need to be fired.

And nothing beats 1.0.4 reentry heat in that department

[Sharpy]

Any even very rough ETA on 1.1?

[NJP]

Any even very rough ETA on 1.1?

I say it's far too early to come up with one now, given that they haven't playtested anything just yet.

[klgraham1013]

It really does seem like RemoteTech lite. Casuals will turn it off. Realism fans will use RemoteTech.

I do like the look of the stock dishes, though.

[tntristan12]

Just my ZW$6.45 on the proposed new feature: I love it and must admit I am pleasantly surprised that it's even making it into the game. Sure, I might miss having to overcome the signal relay to KSC issue and the time delay problem, but to be honest the DSN solution they are proposing makes a lot more sense. Relay networks are expensive and even NASA only really ever uses GPS to do orbit determination of low earth satellites. One thing I would like to suggest in hopes of making it more "realistic" would be to copy/paste the physical tracking station to spots all around Kerbin. Even if they don't function and mainly exist just for aesthetics, it would still help prop up my brutally fragile suspension of disbelief. As for the signal delay and flight computer stuff, I can probably live without it. I'm sure someone will mod that stuff in eventually anyway.

[rkman]

It really does seem like RemoteTech lite. Casuals will turn it off. Realism fans will use RemoteTech.

It is more similar to the "Antenna Range" mod which many people use.

It needs to be customisable...

It is:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/350-Development-Relay

[klgraham1013]

It is more similar to the "Antenna Range" mod which many people use.

Yeah. I should probably withhold judgement until we know more.

Edited July 23, 2015 by klgraham1013

[juanml82]

Good! Now we just need NASA to replace the Deep Space Network with satellites so this feels realistic

[goldenpsp]

This feature will be cool! I'm all for new challenges! Although I'd rather they focused on fixing current bugs and solidifying current features.. Tech tree, resource mechanics, port to Unity 5, overall kraken attacks, more structural parts and adapters, are just a few areas they could focus work on... Even biomes could get more love - it's plain boring having biomes giving the same generic response to science instruments..

You do realize it isn't an either or. The core KSP team is working on the U5 port, squashing bugs etc. They aren't going to bring on someone like Roverdude in to fix bugs.

[cantab]

I'm interested to see how they implement this as a core feature in the game, but I agree with uglyduckling in that it wouldn't make much sense to have level 3 render any currently operating comms satellite obsolete.

In my mind what wouldn't make much sense is for advanced ground-based communication equipment, unencumbered by size and weight limits, to have *less* performance than satellites. As I said already, satellites will still be needed to communicate with the back sides of bodies you're orbiting or landing on.

[LostOblivion]

It really does seem like RemoteTech lite. Casuals will turn it off. Realism fans will use RemoteTech.

I do like the look of the stock dishes, though.

Indeed, and they are completely free now to make this fully customisable in the settings screen from the start. I'd like to see these things configurable:

1. Already-established DSN, or having to set it up yourself upon starting career. Could be solved by placing stations around Kerbin, like the tracking station. (I'm not for the planet itself serving as a tracking station itself, should make use of ghe actual tracking station.) Making the initial comsat network around Kerbin is after all a really fun part of RemoteTech, so this should be configurable.

2. Occlusion fuzzyness, from soft to hard occlusion.

3. Max range for tracking station/DSN in steps of covering 100 km from station, to all LKO to Mun to entire Kerbin SOI to Duna, to Jool, etc., and difficulty controls which upgrade level does what.

Signal delay is the only thing I think does not belong in stock, and could be something that is still done in a mod with a good flight computer, like RT.

[juanml82]

The problem with occlusion is that real life probes aren't controlled by remote control, they operate on preloaded computer scripts.

So, for instance, in my latest Duna/Ike mission I've sent a mothership with an ore scanner (unmanned) and two spaceplanes, capable of carrying crew, but unmanned. After aerocapture, all three "child" ships separate, the scanner goes to Ike and scans it. An unmanned mining rig lands in an ore rich location and the scanner is sent to Duna, to scan Duna.

A real life mission would have preprogramed scripts. Mission control will, upon receiving information of the successful aerocapture, send a command so the ships separate and the scanner executes, in sequence, the required maneuvers to capture and Ike, scan it and return to Duna. Since those maneuvers are innacurate, mission control would later fine tune them, but the probe is not going to, for instance, fail to execute a burn because Ike happens to be between the probe and Kerbin. It will execute the maneuver as planned and, once it stops being occluded, mission control will know if it was successful or not.

Simply put, Remote Tech is not realistic. It adds a complex gameplay, but complex =/= realism

[tater]

It needs to be customisable so it can work like remote tech or dumbed down like they are mentioning. In my eyes it makes no sense to have the tracking station have complete range at level 3. Why would anyone bother with an elaborate relay setup when for less money you can just cover the entire solar system.

Plus without life support, satellites with limitations placed on them make no sense anyway. You can just put a kerball'd craft up instead and avoid the hastle of signals.

Their adding the core mechanic but with none of the intricacies that make it worth while.

Why would anyone think an elaborate relay setup would be needed to communicate with spacecraft never farther away than Mars is from earth near closest approach? New Horizons is vastly farther than anything in the Kerbol system, and uses just ground stations. Voyager and Pioneer as well.