ComNet Ideas for maximum coverage and minimum upkeep

[GoSlash27]

2 minutes ago, ThisIsntFactorio said:

i can't find any changelog can you post your source please?

Well, *my* source is my copy of 1.2 experimental, now up to build 1500, but you can keep up with the changes here:

 

Things are still in flux, so check often!

Best,
-Slashy

[ThisIsntFactorio]

Thanks

Edited September 18, 2016 by ThisIsntFactorio

[ansaman]

Discussion in another thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/148205-example-what-a-network-looks-like-with-no-ground-stations/

Hope this helps. Someone even displayed some math skills!  

[rdwulfe]

Hmn, I think I'm still having problems understanding the new commnet and how it changes with upgrades... So the L1-L3 in the documentation refers to how upgraded your comm center is, right? And that makes the signal on each antenna stronger? Or am I misinterpreting things?

Also, do relays still combine their strength, or is that no longer a thing?

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, rdwulfe said:

Hmn, I think I'm still having problems understanding the new commnet and how it changes with upgrades... So the L1-L3 in the documentation refers to how upgraded your comm center is, right? And that makes the signal on each antenna stronger? Or am I misinterpreting things?

Also, do relays still combine their strength, or is that no longer a thing?

Your DSN (Tracking Center) level determines how sensitive/strong it's receivers are - meaning you can hear the same (spacecraft) antenna from further away.  Antennas are more like engines, each one has a given strength and that strength never changes.

The only antenna that currently stacks (combines) is the C-16 whip antenna.

[nosirrbro]

Satswarm. Just launch a lot of little commsats everywhere in the Kerbin system. It's not very efficient but takes next to no effort or orbit adjusting.

Edited September 23, 2016 by nosirrbro

[tater]

The current Comsat paradigm is exactly wrong for gameplay. Right now, the "relay" antennas are just as long ranged as the "direct" types. As a result, spam a few big relays, and everything talks to everything else. 

The opposite should be true. The "RA" antennas should be direct, high gains. The relays should be the shorter ranged types (anything below the 100G stuff, really, at least until late in the tree).

If done this way, you actually have to think. You send a high gain with a relay to Jool to service your Jool mission instead of just leaving your RA 100 someplace in the solar system and forgetting about it, since they will form a net with zero effort.

[John Cochran]

I'd suggest three satellites with good relay antenna. Place them in an orbit spaced 120 degrees apart about 80,000 kilometers from Kerbin. Doing that will cause the far sides of Mun and Minmus to be covered by the satellites. For those rare situations where the Mun occludes Minmus, they also cover Minmus. And since they're outside the orbital radius of Minmus, at least one of them is always visible outside of the Kerbin SOI. So if Kerbin is visible, the dishes at KSC serve. For those situations where Kerbin is occluded, the three satellites provide a backup. About the only thing not served is perhaps the poles of the Mun and Minmus. But I suspect even those would be covered if the orbit of the three relays is inclined. (don't want to incline too much however, or you'll lose coverage of the far side of Minmus from time to time. The when you go interplanetary, drop off two more extremely capable relays in Kerbin's orbit. One leading Kerbin by 120 degrees and the other trailing by 120 degrees. That ought to then cover the entire Kerbol system.

[RX2000]

I just keep throwing up satellites all over everywhere until anywhere within Kerbin SOI is just completely saturated with green lines. Its worked for me so far. I dont think I should have any issues when I go to Duna. Well assuming I put a few relay sats up around Duna first.

[magnemoe]

17 hours ago, RX2000 said:

I just keep throwing up satellites all over everywhere until anywhere within Kerbin SOI is just completely saturated with green lines. Its worked for me so far. I dont think I should have any issues when I go to Duna. Well assuming I put a few relay sats up around Duna first.

Yes, adding an small relay on any satellite you put up for contract will solve most issues
For duna and Ike, putting two satelites well outside Ike orbit should cover most bases, optional put an ground relay on each body on the side facing each other, you want to do it anyway for the science from surface contracts. 

[Buzz light fear]

On September 16, 2016 at 0:32 PM, Leafbaron said:

@ddavis425 I think your right, The only way to ensure full coverage on the occluded sections of the moon would to have a relay network (120 degree phasing) the celestial body, If they were in high enough orbit you wouldn't need the leading and trailing comsats at L4 and L5.

Edit: L4 and L5 being hypothetical locations since KSP doesn't model Lagrange points. 

I will hopefully be able to play extensively tonight and test these great theories!

You don't need L4 and L5 you just need the sat to be in the same orbit as the mun on either side of it or print and back

[Blaarkies]

How about a satellite in a kerbin polar orbit, with a Pe of 70km, Ap of 83 000km(SOI edge), and the Ap being directly above the north pole?
90% of the time, it will be +5000km away from kerbin and will catch sight of KSC. If you drop a relay on the mountain east of KSC, and one more relay on the mountains 200km north of KSC, then you will have near permanent connection .

[KerikBalm]

So in the course of career and some sat contracts, I ended up with 2x RA-2 probes orbiting outside the orbit of Mun, approximately 180 degrees apart (I adjusted their orbits after contract completion). They give me great coverage of kerbin and Mun. There are a few deadspots on Mun (when its halfway between the relays, at low altitude on the farside of Mun there are some deadspots), but earlier HG-5 relays that I launched take care of those.

I also ended up with an RA-2 (or was it a 15?) in a rather wide polar orbit of kerbin (roughly half the distance to Mun). For those rare times when mun is between one of the RA-2 relays, the polar orbit sat will almost always ensure the connection.

These don't help very much for Minmus though, and 3 would be better than 2.

My current plan is to decomission those RA-2 sats (copy them to a backup file, then delete them from the main game to save performance :p), and do a new network of 3x RA-15s (or maybe 3x 2 stacked RA-2s to stop interplanetary connection spamming that will happen when I start putting RA-100s at other planets) at the edge of kerbin SOI. Then it should basically give complete coverage for everything interior to those 3. With RA-15s reaching a comm-16 from one end of kerbin's SOI to another, if I incline the orbits of the RA-15s more than the orbit or minmus is inclined, I should even be able to get the poles of Minmus covered....

I think that will be my final career network for kerbin SOI, and I can drop the polar orbit relays and short range HG-5 relays etc etc...

Of course, I'm still going to make some huge honking RA-100 arrays for when Kopernicus updates and I need to get a signal to Plock

[SpeedDaemon]

On 9/15/2016 at 3:00 PM, Leafbaron said:

Exactly what I planned on doing!  no way to get "precision" orbits without RCS and CAPS lock that I've found. Hopefully B9 aerospace updates to 1.2 soon because I love the rcs blocks it has and if I remember correctly if you tap the translate keys with b9 you get very small thrust, almost like tapping the throttle button and if you hold it down it throttles up to full power. 

Well, there is, sort of... The way I've handled this in the past is to build my satellites as if there was some kind of station-keeping facility (usually just including RCS thrusters, and 2 or so units of monopropellant per year of planned lifetime).

Once they're launched into the proper orbits, edit the save file to make all of the satellites in the constellation have exactly the same orbital parameters, with no digits after the decimals, and the proper phase separation. They will stay perfectly lined up as long as they stay on rails (you never fly them, or get close enough to load them into physics). I don't really consider this to be cheating, given there's no other way to do it that I know of, and I'm spending the extra mass/funds to outfit them for station keeping. Same technique might work for placing craft at L4/L5.

Once their station-keeping fuel is "used up", you can send a "refueling" mission, or replace them, or whatever.

[Buzz light fear]

On 10/17/2016 at 11:34 AM, SpeedDaemon said:

Well, there is, sort of... The way I've handled this in the past is to build my satellites as if there was some kind of station-keeping facility (usually just including RCS thrusters, and 2 or so units of monopropellant per year of planned lifetime).

Once they're launched into the proper orbits, edit the save file to make all of the satellites in the constellation have exactly the same orbital parameters, with no digits after the decimals, and the proper phase separation. They will stay perfectly lined up as long as they stay on rails (you never fly them, or get close enough to load them into physics). I don't really consider this to be cheating, given there's no other way to do it that I know of, and I'm spending the extra mass/funds to outfit them for station keeping. Same technique might work for placing craft at L4/L5.

Once their station-keeping fuel is "used up", you can send a "refueling" mission, or replace them, or whatever.

The way I design comsts is with ion engines. Put on top of my stock alike delta iv family launchers (love the family) ad use the ion engines to circularize the orbit to almost perfect with maybe .01 degree between the sats. This way it is really realistic and fuel efficient and the cons I make have almost indefinite lifespan because they use reaction wheels for attitude and only need smal adjustments for a nearly sincronus orbitss.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

On September 17, 2016 at 9:59 PM, 5thHorseman said:

Actually this is not true. Though the information isn't readily available it's there. You can get time to apoapsis and time to periapsis in map mode. Subtract those times from each other and you have the time for half an orbit, double that value and you have the time for one orbit.

As usual KER's far easier and more straightforward, but in a pinch at least you can still do it in stock.

I've used this method a few times in RT. 3 Kerbin sats @ 120 degrees can be stable for about 30 - 40 years if you're using ants set to 1% throttle. Certainly long enough for a full ride through Jool system and back before it goes to crap.

Toss in a pair of polar elliptical relays at 90 degrees inclination to each other, and now you just have to worry about occlusion from whatever body you're nearest in the solar system. That's easily solved by either launching sat network 1 window earlier than Kerbals, or always bringing along some "breadcrumb" relays. 

Of course, you could always put out sun-centric polar relays... But now you're just showing off