[1.12.x] JX2Antenna v2.0.5: Giant 1000G antenna for big solar systems

[Snark]

On 12/7/2016 at 7:26 AM, Snark said:

That said, though, Community Tech Tree is a handy thing to have out there, and it hadn't even occurred to me to take a look at.  Should look into this.

Just now took a peek... actually, I don't think Community Tech Tree has a lot to offer, here.  They've got a whole bunch of new nodes in there, but none are really tied to communication per se.  Even with CTT available, I think largeUnmanned is still the right home for the part.

That said, though, Engineering Tech Tree appears to have a home for this.    Sounds like it'll include JX2Antenna in its next update:

 

[Starman4308]

Excellent mod; I'll be sure to download that once the other mods I use (Real Fuels, FAR, DRE, etc) are updated.

And, for a bit of scale: the largest stock antenna will occasionally reach Mars from Earth, and your 10x antenna will usually reach Saturn (unless Saturn is at opposition from Earth). I suspect RSS configs antennas to reach much further out, but still: wonderful little antenna you two made.

EDIT: Excuse me, wonderful huge antenna you two made.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Starman4308

[NeuroticGamer]

Thanks for this cool mod!  I've been trying to figure out how I was going to transmit science with Outer Planets Mod and the stock relays in a CommNet network.

I want to get this antenna added to 

What is the Combinability Exponent for this antenna (as defined in http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet)?  Looking at the PART record, I don't see a value.  I'm not sure if that means it defaults to 0.75.

Edited December 15, 2016 by NeuroticGamer
Fixed typo

[steedcrugeon]

in response to @NeuroticGamer

@Snark should be able to confirm this but the actual underlying default 'RELAY' components of the config module have not be altered so the default Combinability Exponent Value of 0.75 has not been changed.

 

[Snark]

15 hours ago, NeuroticGamer said:

What is the Combinability Exponent for this antenna (as defined in http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet)?  Looking at the PART record, I don't see a value.  I'm not sure if that means it defaults to 0.75.

Correct, it doesn't specify a value, which means it gets the default value that all the antennas get that don't override the default.

For comparison, take a look at the part config for the stock RA-100.  That doesn't specify a value for combinability exponent, either.

So yes, it combines, and in the same mathematical fashion as the RA-100 and other "default combinability exponent" antennas.  Though with 1000G range all by its lonesome, if you find yourself needing to combine these big fellas, you must have one heck of an expanded solar system...

 

[NeuroticGamer]

8 hours ago, Snark said:

Though with 1000G range all by its lonesome, if you find yourself needing to combine these big fellas, you must have one heck of an expanded solar system...

For simple probe control?  Yeah a single 1000G antenna is great.  However, if you want to transmit science data from Outer Planet Mod objects, you need a BUNCH of even these uber antennae.  I manually modified my copy of the CommNet spreadsheet I mentioned.  If I put 4x JX2's per satellite in Kerbin orbit (to replace the wimpy tracking station), then try to reach a 2x JX2 Relay in orbit of Plock, I'm looking at 76% to 92% signal strength, depending on orbit location.  As in "Give me more power Scotty!!".  I will likely be putting JX2 constellations in Kerbol orbits that are near Jool and Sarnus in order to get near 100% science return from the outer planets. With the RA-100, it was darn near impossible to solve this.

Do I absolutely need 100%?  Probably not, even with Community Tech Tree upping the science I need.  But, it will look AWESOME to see those relay constellations out there :).

[McFortner]

Maybe I'm just speical, but I can't get the antennas to deploy.  No animation, nothing.  But it does transmit.  What have I done wrong with this?   Here are all my addons:

KSP: 1.2.2 (Win64) - Unity: 5.4.0p4 - OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (6.1.7601) 64bit
Filter Extensions - 2.8.0.2
USI Tools - 0.8.7
B9 Animation Modules - 1.0.4
B9 Part Switch - 1.5.3
B9 Aerospace - 6.2
B9 Aerospace HX Parts - 6.2
B9 Aerospace Legacy Parts - 6.2
Chatterer - 0.9.91.1586
Color Coded Canisters - 1.5.1
Community Resource Pack - 0.6.4
CryoEngines - 0.4.3
EVA Transfer - 1.0.5
Firespitter - 7.5
Flexible Docking - 1.0.4
Fuel Tanks Plus - 1.11
HeatControl - 0.3.3
Interstellar Fuel Switch - 2.3.1
RasterPropMonitor - 0.28
KAS - 0.6
Kerbal Joint Reinforcement - 3.3.1
KerbalKonstructs - 0.9.7.3
KronalVesselViewer - 0.0.6
KSP-AVC Plugin - 1.1.6.2
Lithobrake Exploration Technologies - 0.4
MarkIVSystem - 2.3.2
Modular Rocket Systems - 1.13.1
ORIGAMI Antennas - 0.9.5
NearFutureConstruction - 0.7.2
NearFutureElectrical - 0.8.2
NearFuturePropulsion - 0.8.2
NearFutureSolar - 0.7.1
NearFutureSpacecraft - 0.5.4
Kerbal Planetary Base Systems - 1.1.5
RCS Sounds - 5.0
ReentryParticleEffect - 1.2.0.1
SCANsat - 1.1.6.10
SpaceY Lifters - 1.15
Transfer Window Planner - 1.6
TweakScale - 2.3.3
USI Core - 0.3.3
USI Exploration Pack - 0.7
Karibou - 0.3.3
Kolonization Core - 0.2.4
Konstruction - 0.1.8
USI Survivability Pack - 0.5.4
UKS - 0.40.4

 

(I can't get ORIGAMI Antennas to deploy either BTW.  Related perhaps?)

Thanks,

Michael

 

 

[Snark]

1 hour ago, McFortner said:

Maybe I'm just speical, but I can't get the antennas to deploy.  No animation, nothing.  But it does transmit.  What have I done wrong with this?

Sorry, no idea.  I'd guess that it's some other mod you're running, but I haven't the foggiest notion which it might be (the large majority of those are ones I don't use myself.)

I'm just gonna have to fall back on the default tech-support advice that pretty much all mod authors give, when someone with a lot of mods installed is having trouble:  you should narrow it down via process of elimination to figure out which mod is the problem.

1. Make a copy of your KSP installation, and strip it down so it has no mods at all installed, except for this one.
2. Does it work now?
   • If it still doesn't, stop here.  You've got a legitimate issue with this mod, please let me know. 
   • If it works now, it means it's not a JX2Antenna problem, it's something about one of your other mods.  Read on.
3. Split your list of mods into two halves, and install just one of those halves.
4. Does it work now?
   • This tells you which half of your mods contains the problem.
   • If it's broken now, keep this half.
   • If it's working now, keep the other half.
5. Take the half-of-remaining mods that contains the problem, then go back to step #3 (i.e. split it in half again and repeat).
6. Keep doing this (it'll take you 5-6 repeated halvings) until you've narrowed it down to one mod that's causing the problem.
7. There, now you've found the culprit, and you can post in that mod's thread to ask about it.

Yes, it's unfortunately fairly tedious... but there's really no way around it.

[horace]

it doesnt deploy anyone help me

[Snark]

4 hours ago, horace said:

it doesnt deploy anyone help me

No idea, need a bit more information than that.  Can you be more specific?  What exactly do you mean when you say "doesn't deploy"?  Do you mean "I click the 'Extend Antenna' button and nothing happens", or something else?

Are you running any other mods?  If so, can you try running without other mods (i.e. with only JX2Antenna installed), and see whether it works then?  If it's the case that the antenna does work when installed by itself, but doesn't when other mods are present, then you'll need to narrow it down to figure out exactly which of the other mods is causing the problem.  See the post from me, right above yours (in response to a similar report from McFortner) about how to narrow it down to a specific mod.

[horace]

i fix it thx i just delete another antenna mod this antenna is very good

[DStaal]

49 minutes ago, horace said:

i fix it thx i just delete another antenna mod this antenna is very good

To help others: What was your issue?  What did you have to delete?  Maybe there's something that can be fixed in one of the mods so they can work together.  (Or if not, at least it means next time someone has an issue we'll know where to start.)

[Norcalplanner]

On 12/16/2016 at 7:44 AM, Snark said:

Though with 1000G range all by its lonesome, if you find yourself needing to combine these big fellas, you must have one heck of an expanded solar system...

Like a 3.2x scale version of Galileo's Planet Pack? 

I think this antenna is the solution for my comms problems - two monster satellites each with a few of these antennas, in synchronized highly elliptical polar orbits around Gael, should effectively boost the range of Gael's DSN while eliminating most signal LOS occlusion problems.  My sincere thanks go to both of you for creating this mod.  

Edit - 

Here's the satellite which restored a link to my probes on and around Tellumo:

Three of these antennas ended up being the magic number, simply because it looks good when they're angled 60 degrees apart from each other.  Thanks again for making this possible.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Norcalplanner
Added the picture

[Leo_G.]

Please get this into CKAN soon!  It's amazing.

Please get this into CKAN soon!  It's amazing.

 

EDIT:  Nevermind.  I need to update my KSP version.  Found it.

[Snark]

On 12/24/2016 at 0:48 PM, Norcalplanner said:

Three of these antennas ended up being the magic number, simply because it looks good when they're angled 60 degrees apart from each other.

Sweet!  I bet it looks cool when it's opening and closing. 

(Gotta admit, I love this thing, myself... am so happy with this awesome model that steedcrugeon made.)

[amarius1]

Will you add compatibility to Kerbol Origins?

[Snark]

5 hours ago, amarius1 said:

Will you add compatibility to Kerbol Origins?

...Not sure what you mean by "compatibility".  It's an antenna, it'll work anywhere.  I don't know anything about Kerbol Origins, though; is there something special about it, e.g. does it make a solar system so huge that 1000G isn't powerful enough, or something?

Could you explain a bit?

[CarnageINC]

Just a FYI for those of you who just installed and can't deploy the JX2.  If you have also recently installed Remote Tech and used the GitHub download link, you've probably downloaded the wrong version (1.7.2).  Ensure your downloading Remote Tech 1.8.3.  LOL, I just spent 2 hours going through and trouble shooting to figure out the issue

[Funtime60]

Does anyone know any mods like this with bigger antennae? 1T is good, but by my math I would still need 215,444 on each end to reach Valentine, a red dwarf star orbiting Kerbol at a velocity of 1.1m/s and an altitude of just under 10Pm. That's 10 Petameters or 10,000 Terameters. Obviously the normal 100G isn't going to cut it.

Thanks

Edited January 23, 2017 by Funtime60
I made an error in my math and accidentally used an average weighted combinability exponent of 1.00 instead of the correct 0.75

[MoeKitsune]

Could you make a lower powered 1.25m or 0.625m version for more compact probes? 

Edited January 23, 2017 by TheJewelOfJool

[steedcrugeon]

4 hours ago, TheJewelOfJool said:

Could you make a lower powered 1.25m or 0.625m version for more compact probes? 

It is unlikely, i think stock has all the lower power antennas covered really very well. If you wanted this antenna smaller your could just half the re-scale factor?

[Snark]

Hi all,

I've released v1.1 of JX2Antenna.  This update adds a patch for Galileo's Planet Pack, which removes a "power up" to the stock antennas.

(For anyone who hasn't been fortunate enough to come across Galileo's Planet Pack, a.k.a. GPP, it's an amazing mod that I've only discovered relatively recently, and in which I'm currently having a ball doing a career play-through.  Really nicely done; how have I managed not to cross paths with this excellent planet pack until now?  Hats off, and many thanks, to @Galileo for giving me a seriously shiny new toy to play with.) 

Like Outer Planets, GPP makes the solar system a lot bigger, and runs into the same problem that the most powerful stock antennas just won't reach.  GPP works around this by adding a part upgrade to the top-end antennas (RA-100 and Communotron 88-88) that multiplies their power by 10 when the largeUnmanned tech node is researched.  That upgrade would make the JX2 kinda moot, since it turns those antennas into 1000G devices themselves... and interestingly enough, on the same tech node that unlocks the JX2!

Since the JX2's whole mission in life is to fill that ecological niche in the comm network, this patch undoes that upgrade.

No other changes in this release-- if you're not running Galileo's Planet Pack, this release is functionally identical to 1.0 as far as you're concerned.

Enjoy!

[Gorby1]

This is just the mod I was looking for! The antenna looks great, love the transparency on the golden dish panels. I didn't even realize OPM was quadrupling my antenna strengths until I came here, I started my first CommNet game with OPM installed and I thought things seemed a bit too easy...

[NeuroticGamer]

On 2/8/2017 at 6:52 PM, Snark said:

Hi all,

I've released v1.1 of JX2Antenna.  This update adds a patch for Galileo's Planet Pack, which removes a "power up" to the stock antennas.

Like Outer Planets, GPP makes the solar system a lot bigger, and runs into the same problem that the most powerful stock antennas just won't reach.  GPP works around this by adding a part upgrade to the top-end antennas (RA-100 and Communotron 88-88) that multiplies their power by 10 when the largeUnmanned tech node is researched.  That upgrade would make the JX2 kinda moot, since it turns those antennas into 1000G devices themselves... and interestingly enough, on the same tech node that unlocks the JX2!

Since the JX2's whole mission in life is to fill that ecological niche in the comm network, this patch undoes that upgrade.

No other changes in this release-- if you're not running Galileo's Planet Pack, this release is functionally identical to 1.0 as far as you're concerned.

Enjoy!

I've noticed that If I install OPM and JX2, the actual values are cut by a factor of 4.  For example Communotron 16-S will show 125k in orbit instead of 500k.  Is OPM altering range via a different mechanic?  Should I be seeing 500k or 125k for Communotron?

I've commented out the portion of the patch related to OPM (changing the displayed values back to stock) but I'm now wondering if OPM is using a non-obvious mechanic to increase antenna range.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, NeuroticGamer said:

I've noticed that If I install OPM and JX2, the actual values are cut by a factor of 4.  For example Communotron 16-S will show 125k in orbit instead of 500k/

Huh.  Well, that's weird.  No idea what's going on, there.

2 hours ago, NeuroticGamer said:

Is OPM altering range via a different mechanic?

No, it's just doing a plain-vanilla tweaking via ModuleManager, just like everybody does.  If you look in GameData/OPM/, there's a file called OPM_CommNet.cfg, which contains config like this:

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@antennaPower *= 4
	}
}

@CUSTOMBARNKIT
{	
	@TRACKING
	{
		@DSNRange = 2000000000, 50000000000, 2000000000000
	}
}

See that "@antennaPower *= 4" ?  That's where it's multiplying the range of every antenna by 4.

Now look at JX2Antenna, in the "Patches" subfolder; there's a file called jx2_OPM.cfg.  You can see it here.  As you can see, it does "@antennaPower /= 4", i.e. divide all the powers by 4, to cancel out the multiply-by-4 that OPM does.

 

2 hours ago, NeuroticGamer said:

Should I be seeing 500k or 125k for Communotron?

You should be seeing 500k, i.e. the stock value.

I have no clue what could be causing your problem.  I tested this before I published JX2Antenna, and it worked as expected.  Also, FWIW, it's been downloaded a few thousand times, and you're the first person to ever mention this problem-- if it were simply broken, I expect someone would have mentioned something by now.

For example, by a happy coincidence, just recently in the post above yours, @Gorby1 was commenting precisely that he was happy that this fix was being done to OPM with JX2Antenna.  So I assume it's working properly for him.  Gorby1, can you confirm?  Perhaps you and @NeuroticGamer can compare notes as to what's going on?

Anyway, NG, all I can think of from your description is that somehow, your OPM installation isn't applying the range extension, I know not why.  Are you running some old, pre-CommNet version of OPM, or something?  What happens if you run OPM without JX2Antenna?  Do you see Communotron as having a range of 500k, or 2M?  You should see 2M.  If you're not, there's something wrong with your OPM.