Balance suggestion for CommNet - Changes to power on KSC and some antennas

[Hexicube]

First off, not sure if this is the right place for 1.2 feedback. There's no separate area and nobody made a post about 1.2 here yet.

 

After starting a new career and realising the connection strength to KSP remained at just about 100% for a sub-orbital hop, I thought about the max distance for a given antenna when paired with KSC directly. They are as follows:

	5k (Probes / Manned)	500k (Communotron 16)	5m (HG-5 High Gain)	5b (DTS-M1 / RA-5)	50b (HG-55 / RA-50)	100b (Communotron 88-88 / RA-100)
5b (Tier 1)	5Mm (halfway to Mun)	50Mm (Minmus)	~158Mm	5Gm	~15.8Gm	~22.4Gm
50b (Tier 2)	~15.8Mm (Mun)	~158Mm (Deep Space)	500Mm	~15.8Gm (Duna if close)	50Gm (Duna/Dres always, Jool if close)	~70.7Gm
100b (Tier 3)	~22.4Mm (halfway to Minmus)	~224Mm	~707Mm	~22.4Gm (Dres if close)	~70.7Gm	100Gm (Jool always, Eeloo if close)

Note: G is changed to b, to represent "billion" instead of "giga". Distances still use gigameters.

The main concerns I have are in regards to the Tier 1 building at KSC. Without upgrades, you can control a probe freely way before you have to worry about Mun encounters (Communotron mostly useless), and a single cheap Communotron 16-S (available very early on, before you even achieve orbit half the time) will let you operate inside Kerbin's SOI without issues (making the HG-5 completely useless, as it doesn't have the power for interplanetary). Tier 2 is also very close to Tier 3 for practical purposes, the only time you really need a Tier 3 is if you want to do lots of Dres stuff without investing in a 50G antenna, or if you want to always talk to Jool. Additionally, using two RA-100 antennas on the connection vessel going to Eeloo would give it enough power to connect directly to KSC at all times. The biggest distance (worst case scenario) comes out at around 126Gm, compared to a range of about 141Gm.

If the KSC tiers were changed to 5m/500m/50b and the top 3 tiers to 5b/20b/50b, you would get this chart:

	5k (Probes / Manned)	500k (Communotron 16)	5m (HG-5 High Gain)	5b (DTS-M1 / RA-5)	20b (HG-55 / RA-50)	50b (Communotron 88-88 / RA-100)
5m (Tier 1)	~158km (Low orbit)	~1.58Mm	5Mm	~158Mm	~316Mm	500Mm
500m (Tier 2)	~1.58Mm (High orbit)	~15.8Mm	50Mm (Minmus)	~1.58Gm	~3.16Gm	5Gm
50b (Tier 3)	~15.8Mm (Mun)	~158Mm (Minmus, Deep Space)	500Mm	~15.8Gm (Duna if close)	~31.6Gm (Dres if close)	50Gm (Duna/Dres always, Jool if close)

This massively reduces the effectiveness of a Tier 1 building (Tier 1 + 50b doesn't even get you interplanetary), and also forces using a network for outer bodies (Jool, Eeloo) unless they happen to be close. Relatively early tech (Tier 2 + HG-5) is enough to allow exploration of Kerbin and its satellites, and the best of the best have halved range to prevent being able to connect from almost anywhere. Tier 3 KSC also becomes mandatory later on as the ranges start to exceed what would be reasonable for interplanetary interaction, and the HG-5 has some usefulness as you can use it for Minmus without a Tier 3 KSC.

Alternatively, KSC tiers of 500m/4.5b/50b would match the 10x progression from first to third tier (1x/3x/10x), and would allow some interplanetary connections without making Tier 3 mandatory. This would also allow using the HG-5 with a Tier 1 KSC for Minmus communication, making it an excellent antenna choice early on for those wanting to explore Minmus.

A lot of the numbers do end up being strange with the 5m/500m/50b proposition, which could be resolved with changes to the tiers with odd numbers. The following tier values give nice ranges with minimal impact on range usefulness:

	3.125k (Probes / Manned)	1.25m (Communotron 16)	5m (HG-5 High Gain)	4.5b (DTS-M1 / RA-5)	18b (HG-55 / RA-50)	50b (Communotron 88-88 / RA-100)
5m (Tier 1)	125km (Low orbit)	2.5Mm	5Mm	150Mm	300Mm	500Mm
500m (Tier 2)	1.25Mm (High orbit)	25Mm	50Mm (Minmus)	1.5Gm	3Gm	5Gm
50b (Tier 3)	12.5Mm (almost to Mun)	250Mm (Minmus, Deep Space)	500Mm	15Gm (Duna if close)	30Gm (Dres if close)	50Gm (Duna/Dres always, Jool if close)

By avoiding trailing decimals, it becomes a lot easier to mentally compare ranges. It also ends up looking nicer on GUIs, even if values such as "3.125k" and "4.50G" look arbitrary. Preventing Munar access with Tier 3 + Probe was also intentional, as this makes a dedicated antenna important for anything involving other bodies.

[Kelderek]

There is a separate area for 1.2 here -->

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/82-12-pre-release-branch/

[RuBisCO]

These tables are awesomes, please put them on the wiki!