Update 1.2 - new network?

[SnaxeX]

Hi guys!

I have played a lot KSP before the 1.2 update with many mods, one of them was RemoteTech. Now, the idea of setting up a network with probes to controll your unmanned rockets is in the stock game. Nevertheless, RemoteTech was a little bit more complicated, cause I had to stay in sight of the station center and have to set up a network of 4 probes which I had to link together to do unmanned missions more far away (but still in the Kerbin orbit). Now, every probe is connected to Kerbin as long as it is in the Kerbin Orbit.

This is fine for me but I want to know, what do I have to do if I launch probes, who will left the Kerbin Orbit? Like for Duna missions and so on....cause RemoteTech seems not to work any more, which is, as I already have said it, fine for me - I just want to know how the new systems work cause I couldnt find something precisely on the internet....

 

Thank you

[Capt. Hunt]

The reason all probes work in LKO is that in addition to the tracking station at KSC, the Devs added a network of ground stations all around Kerbin to pick up and relay comm signals. much like NASA's Deep Space Network.  My understanding is that otherwise the functionality is the same as RT.  I'm not sure how powerful the ground stations are exactly, I was able to communicate with a probe orbiting Eve, but that planet is still fairly close in it's orbit in my career save.

[John Cochran]

Just simply pay attention to your network design. I decided to disable all the extra ground stations and have KSC as my only ground station. Since I'm fairly low in the tech tree right now, my most powerful relay is the RA-2 (2 million kilometer range). My network is still limited to just the Kerbin system with 3 synchronous RA-2's in orbit about Kerbin. I know I didn't need to go to the effort of making them synchronous, but having a satellite stationed directly over KSC has some nice advantages over just communications. If I want to launch into Minmus's orbital plane, I switch to the satellite over KSC, target Minmus and then wait until the AN/DN approaches the satellite. Then switch back to the craft on the launchpad and take off with the correct inclination. No mess, no fuss, and nearly perfect match every time.

In any case, those 3 RA-2 form the core of my expanding network. Around the Mun, I have 3 more satellites, each with 4 HG-5's acting as a relay. They can get a signal strength of about 99% from any of the RA-2's in orbit around Kerbin and they serve to provide control and science reports for probes and ships working around the Mun. And the network has also expanded to another set of 3 satellites each having 4 HG-5's around Minmus. Unfortunately, there was an ... incident ... upon inserting the 3rd satellite and one of it's HG-5's was destroyed leaving it with only 3 HG-5's. But the signal strength from Kerbin to Minmus was unsatisfactory so there's a 4th satellite in a highly eccentric polar orbit with a RA-2 (orbit has periapsis of 15 km and apoapsis of 2000 km so that it's rarely blocked from contact with Kerbin. This satellite serves to get a 100% strength signal from the Kerbin RA-2's and then relays that signal to the constellation of HG-5's to service any other probes or ships in the area.

So to date, there are 10 relays in the Kerbin system. 3 RA-2's around Kerbin itself. 3 sets of HG-5x4 around the Mun and another set of 3 HG-5x4 around Minmus (one damaged) and a RA-2 around Minmus to boost the signal so Minmus has a 100% strength signal. Future plans are to add some powerful relays in highly eccentric polar orbits around Kerbin as the tech for RA-15's and RA-100's gets unlocked. Figure on an apoapsis of about 84,000 km and a periapsis of about 80 km. Those to be built relays will form the core of my future interplanetary network.

 

Edited October 21, 2016 by John Cochran
Corrected number of RA-2's around Kerbin

[SnaxeX]

Ok then thank you guys a lot! I have also watched a video from Scott Manley, so I see it "in-action" what you just told me.