Power lines (mod:remote tech

[Crafting origins]

create a line of connection points all the way around the equator so that no matter what you get connection (I'm still working on it myself but so far all dandy) let me know if you do this on other planets/ bodies

[ihtoit]

done and done. This is about half my constellation, there is another GX128 sharing the track with the one in the outer orbit (situated at the antipode), and 16 more birds each with one of the short range (400km?) antennas at 100-140km orbit (tracks 2.5km apart at apoapse) to cover the planet for short range out to the Tropics. I'm good with total coverage out to 11000km (with polar coverage as well!) and systemwide coverage with narrowband relay from the GX128s which are set to "Active vessel".

The topstage burning for first deployment, carrying the 3-part microsats:

 

A Microsat, deployed:

 

How they stay in orbit I don't know, apart from the probe core these things are basically massless!

[Blaarkies]

7 hours ago, Crafting origins said:

create a line of connection points all the way around the equator so that no matter what you get connection (I'm still working on it myself but so far all dandy) let me know if you do this on other planets/ bodies

Do you mean "on the surface"? I tried something similar, although rotated by 90' , i aimed at getting a KSC -> North pole connection using only communication towers on mountains...dropped by cargo plane.
It was fun, I got all of them in place(9 towers) but there was one i could not place...just south of the northern polar cap, there is an unaccessable mountain range due to a crash-to-desktop bug. 

That was a real bummer

[ihtoit]

53 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

Do you mean "on the surface"? I tried something similar, although rotated by 90' , i aimed at getting a KSC -> North pole connection using only communication towers on mountains...dropped by cargo plane.
It was fun, I got all of them in place(9 towers) but there was one i could not place...just south of the northern polar cap, there is an unaccessable mountain range due to a crash-to-desktop bug. 

That was a real bummer

nice, did you land the plane, or was it a LAPES deployment?

[Blaarkies]

8 hours ago, ihtoit said:

nice, did you land the plane, or was it a LAPES deployment?

It was LAPSES(I never knew the term before though). I had some close encounters though, since i need to turn the plane around and slow down before the dropped tower got out of physics range(and deleted from existence)...this together with high altitude mountain ranges made my control surfaces less responsive than desired.

So i used an mk3 sized cargo plane(very short though) with upside down cargo bay, and the "towers" was really just a Rockomax Adapter 2, with a few stack batteries, solar panels, probe core, antenna and parachute. But i did place tiny detachable rover wheels on the adapter, so i can drive up to the absolute highest peak. This is dropped by staging(decoupler and parachute simultaneously, some tweaking on parachute necessary). Fly slow and low at the mountain base, "climb" towards the peaks at very low altitude and then stage.

My plan was to have a super comm tower at the poles, even docking-port assembly to build a 100m tower on its side and lift it...with boosters of course. This by itself should have given a permanent connection to planets by itself, and a few stray satellites should have covered eclipses and the like. It never got fulfilled though because of the Northern-mountains-bug

[ihtoit]

I had a slightly different approach. I do the drop at cruising speed and about 200m above terrain, then I send the plane vertical at full thrust. Handily, it goes into a tail stall at about just shy of the limit of physics range and hangs there, while I switch to the probe and watch it drop. The Sheer Mountain drop (I love that mountain, I am going to send a Kerbal up there one day in a squirrel suit) to the North of KSC I had to do twice because the first one fell short of the peak and rolled back about 15km. Switching back to the plane, it's doing about 5m/s and maintaining altitude... on its tail.

[Crafting origins]

Mine was an icbm towards the equator I really like your ideas they are really smart my idea was so you never had to wait to be in range of the ksc plus I was too lazy to get something into keosinclronis orbit

And yes on the surface like cellphone towers

[Blaarkies]

Slightly of topic, but if I ever do this again I will be using Davon-throttle-control-systems. It is a light mod that gives independent throttle control over multiple engine. The coolest feature is the center-thrust mode that throttles engines so that all thrust is always behind the center-of-mass.

Control rockets like the N1 using differential thrust instead of fins and SAS(no gimbaling even required)...or build a VTOL. I played around with it yesterday and it's really powerful, I think its easily possible to plop a tiny "tower" on the highest mountain peaks without risk.

[Crafting origins]

Will definitely check it out