No control of small Rover just outside KSC?

[Jerrens]

Hi,

I've build a small rover to do some science around KSC, but as soon as I leave the near area of the space center it loses control... It has an OKTO probe core and a HG-5 antenne which is deployd. My commnet settings are set to be quite difficult, but I thought so close to the space center there should always be a connection... Anybody has an idea?

Thanks!

Safe launches!

[HvP]

When it doubt try to eliminate the simplest possible problems first.

Probes and rover wheels need electricity. Are you running out of battery power?

Also, if you have the other ground stations turned off and the ground occlusion set to the higher difficulties you may lose a connection to the tracking station when you go over a big hill or past the horizon.

Edited October 13, 2016 by HvP

[Jerrens]

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Probes and rover wheels need electricity. Are you running out of battery power?

I've got additional rechargeable batteries and solar panels installed (sun is up by the way )

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Also, if you have the other ground stations turned off and the ground occlusion set to the higher difficulties you may lose a connection to the tracking station when you go over a big hill or past the horizon.

Ground stations are turned on, occlusion is set to 1.0... But I'm barely 2 km out in flat terrain (not even at the first hills surrounding the space center).

Also no mods installed (only the Kerbal Alarm Clock).

Thanks!

[Hodari]

6 hours ago, Jerrens said:

Ground stations are turned on, occlusion is set to 1.0... But I'm barely 2 km out in flat terrain

If the occlusion even on a world with atmosphere is set to 1.0, that's probably your problem.  Keep in mind that Kerbin is much smaller than Earth, so the horizon will be closer.  You'll probably need to bounce a signal off a satellite in order to use rovers.

[Jerrens]

Ok thanks for clarifying! Did not realise it would be this challenging, but that's what I like

Time to put up some geostationary relays around Kerbin than!

Safe launches everybody!

[DerekL1963]

4 hours ago, Jerrens said:

Time to put up some geostationary relays around Kerbin than!

If you have additional ground stations on, you don't to be kerbostationary...  Two birds about 1000k up and 180 degrees apart will give you virtually 100% coverage.   Even without additional ground stations, you don't need kerbostationary - the birds just need to be in an equilateral triangle and in sight of each other.

[Technical Ben]

Or build a giant tower? (Joking, I don't even know if this would be supported in the KSP engine, or just not work at all)

[Jerrens]

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Or build a giant tower?

That idea is so crazy... it might actually work! We should give it a try

[Hodari]

9 hours ago, Technical Ben said:

Or build a giant tower? (Joking, I don't even know if this would be supported in the KSP engine, or just not work at all)

Largest tower you could build would be whatever the current physics range is(something like 20km, I think).  Good luck actually putting together something of that scale though.  And if you can build it, it would definitely work, but obviously just putting up a satellite would be much easier and give a lot more coverage.  Still, if you're just looking for a fun idea for something new to do...

[Vikins]

What a problem with MechJeb?

You can get an actual version for 1.2 RSP.

https://ksp.sarbian.com/jenkins/job/MechJeb2-Dev/