Curious about those tracking stations?

[Kerbart]

So, if you're wondering how those tracking stations look like. I'm going to assume they're all the same. This is Harvester Massif. It surely is massive!

Look carefully. (Here's the enlargement on imgur). That white speck, just below the right-most leg... That's Jeb. The dish rotates as well. Pretty cool, and worth a visit!

[Francois424]

I was wondering if they could be something we could buy to unlock and mayby/or decide where to place them.

But I really love the homage to Harvester, even tho I'd have preferred the Harvester Komet myself.

[KerikBalm]

Are they individually destructible? is it possible to lose a ground station? if so how would someone repair them, through a UI at the tracking station?

Does damaging one damage the whole tracking station network uniformly?

[Rath]

It would be really funny if they all still counted as part of the tracking station building, just offset and rotated to be in the correct positions.

[elpollodiablo]

After seeing this, i now want a feature to build them on other planets by sending something like 4 engineers and a massive amount of ore to a specified spot.

This could actually give Dres a purpose

[Sharpy]

34 minutes ago, Rath said:

It would be really funny if they all still counted as part of the tracking station building, just offset and rotated to be in the correct positions.

Crash into a dish half the world away.

Return to KSC.

Tracking station in ruins.

[Aegrim]

56 minutes ago, elpollodiablo said:

After seeing this, i now want a feature to build them on other planets by sending something like 4 engineers and a massive amount of ore to a specified spot.

This could actually give Dres a purpose

But if you could build something like that on another planet would be cheaper and more effective in space instead?

[Sharpy]

15 minutes ago, Aegrim said:

But if you could build something like that on another planet would be cheaper and more effective in space instead?

massive amount of ore is cheaper and more effective on the surface.

Unless... DRESTEROIDS!

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

Crash into a dish half the world away.

Return to KSC.

Tracking station in ruins.

Is that how it works? Interesting!

 

[Sharpy]

7 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Is that how it works? Interesting!

Dunno. It might.

[ZooNamedGames]

We should get a list of locations where they are. Then I'll take my GhostEye vessel and fly to all of them and back.

[KerikBalm]

I heard there were 5 on some youtube video... I don't know if that included the one at KSC, or if it was 5 + KSC.

I would expect at least 6 to have uplinks all around kerbin... For example North pole, South pole, and then at the equator at 0, 90, 180, 270 longitude.

and even then when you are low to the ground between ground stations.

I wonder if we will need com sats just for operating probes remotely while at low altitude on kerbin.

Also it seems the science data transmission value is linked to signal strength (and it seems the max % cap has been massively raised for at least some experiments... but I would hope that surface samples still need to be returned or at least brough to a lab, to get full science rewards), so sciencing far from a transmitter may be difficult without com sats

[Kerbart]

3 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Dunno. It might.

It's easy to check. I did this in Sandbox so I can't destroy buildings, but I'll give it a go one day. It's probably wiser to destroy the Tracking Station at the KSC though. In case the off-site ones turn out to be harder to destroy than the vessel you just spent hours flying towards it can handle.

[worir4]

Oooh, maybe there could be a new repair dish contract. You have to fly to a dish and EVA and repair with an engineer.

That would give a new use for planes and actually make them have a purpose.

[klesh]

Very cool.  I remember commenting tha the relays on Kerbin would be silly if there was no actual dish there.  Its great that they were able to include them.   If the next pre-release fixes the ComNet bug, then I'll go have a look for some.   I'll try to count them.  

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

I wonder if we will need com sats just for operating probes remotely while at low altitude on kerbin.

As low as 86k, there is 100% coverage if you're in a low inclination orbit.   If you're in a polar orbit at 86k, there is one station each in the high northern and high southern latitudes but you still have blackout zones.

[worir4]

Maybe on hard mode you could have to build them around Kerbin. At the start you could have maybe a few around the equator so you had coverage only there but everywhere else would be a deadzone until you built more. 

The strength could also be upgraded so that it would at first only reach maybe 90km up but could be upgraded further.

 

Sorry, don't mind me just typing my dreams onto here. XD

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, Aegrim said:

But if you could build something like that on another planet would be cheaper and more effective in space instead?

Note that an manned base on Mun backside would let you control crafts behind the mun. Its no sure way to put an satellite so it stays behind Mun. 
An manned craft can control locally even if out of communication with the space center. 

This brings up another question, say you use an advanced probe like the octo2, this is only in comunication with munbase beta. 
I assume the base need an command module who is manned, does it have to be manned by an pilot or would any kerbal outside of tourists I hope do?
Does the pilot skill matter? I guess not so an high end probe has more capabilities than the novice pilot controlling and an 3 star pilot can not help an staysputnik.

How about transmitting science? does it require an link to kerbin? does this require an lab or does an command module do if not?

The huge gold probe we got in 1.12 is supposed to have some extra functionality.

Finally, the main issue with the communication system in KSP is that satellites in geostationary orbit and the L4 and L5 points will drift. In real world you have both automatic and manual station keeping. 
This would be an nice addition, you put an satellite in an close to GEO orbit and it should understand this like contract orbits and hold the position.
Note as the L1,4 and L5 points is an point, putting multiple crafts there would not work well. 

 

[ansaman]

Wow... I flew for hours to get a couple of screen shots and you beat me to it ! I did NOT see "Tiny Jeb." I guess I am going to have to do a "walk-up" to get a really close picture.

[Kraken1]

This does bring up an interesting point, as it seems that the inland space center actually has a proper name. (Who'd a thunk?) There's even a uplink to it as well, suggesting it's not (entirely?) abandoned. (As I may have previously assumed because of the career world record's saying that it was abandoned.) The name for it in the 1.2 prerelease (it may change, we don't know.) is Baikerbanur or something around there. Most likely a reference to Baikonur.

[klgraham1013]

Yep.  I'm building a base around one of these.