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

[Funtime60]

What do you know. There is an OPM folder. All it had in there was a cache for some planets and moons. What does OPM stand for. I don't actually remember ever installing anything named OPM.

[TheRagingIrishman]

7 minutes ago, Funtime60 said:

What do you know. There is an OPM folder. All it had in there was a cache for some planets and moons. What does OPM stand for. I don't actually remember ever installing anything named OPM.

OPM is Outer Planets Mod 

Edited April 3, 2017 by TheRagingIrishman

[Gargamel]

Love this antenna.  Just hooked one two up to my mother ship:

 

A suggestion, perhaps as an additional mod using the same,or very similar model:   This looks like it would be an awesome space radio telescope.  Perhaps making a version that had science return similar to other telescope mods?  Irregardless, I'm going to make me one, with 4 wings rather than two (part clipping!). 

 

Thanks guys!

[Crimeo]

Edit: nevermind I'm a dumb idiot. Great mod thanks!

Edited April 6, 2017 by Crimeo

[JadeOfMaar]

Hey @Snark One other little thing. Not a complaint or anything, but from v1.2.0 Galileo's Planet Pack makes your mod even more relevant.  There's something out there now...totally worth pointing a few honeycomb-based relays at.

[NeuroticGamer]

On 4/3/2017 at 6:20 PM, Snark said:

something else is going on that I'd need to look into.  But I'd like to check that, first.  Sounds a lot like what @NeuroticGamer ran into (see his post a little earlier in this thread).

I've been out of the game for a while.  I need to go back and search my mod folder and see what is modifying what.  I have the correct value currently but I can't remember if I manually edited the mod patch file or if I created my own patch for the patch :).  Mebbe it magically fixed itself at some point, though when I made the post I was experiencing the issue and definitely doing work on my end to get it correct.  Fortunately, it is pretty obvious that things are wrong by looking at the in-game values when right-clicking on an antenna.

[KerbolExplorer]

Can this antena cover the last celestial body of the gael sistem?

[PocketBrotector]

57 minutes ago, KerbolExplorer said:

Can this antena cover the last celestial body of the gael sistem?

Last time I checked Galileo's Planet Pack, the most distant planet had a semi-major axis of 2 terameters. The JX2LDA has a range of "only" 1 gigameter, so you might have to go bigger.

[Snark]

On 5/7/2017 at 6:06 AM, KerbolExplorer said:

Can this antena cover the last celestial body of the gael sistem?

Well, I certainly thought so.  At the time this mod was produced, the most distant body in GPP was Leto, which reaches a maximum distance of 611G meters from Gael, well within the JX2's range.

On 5/7/2017 at 7:06 AM, PocketBrotector said:

Last time I checked Galileo's Planet Pack, the most distant planet had a semi-major axis of 2 terameters.

Really?  As I mention above, I thought it was Leto, and it never gets more than 611G meters from Gael.  Has GPP released a new, more distant planet recently, or something?  Just now checked the GPP wiki, and it still refers to Leto as the outermost, at the same distance it was when I made this thread's OP.

What am I missing, here?

On 5/7/2017 at 7:06 AM, PocketBrotector said:

The JX2LDA has a range of "only" 1 gigameter  terameter

FTFY. 

Even if it's true that there's something out at 2T meters, though, the JX2 can still get you there.  Like most antennas, it's combinable, so you can make a large ship that stacks multiple JX2s to boost the range.  If it were a lot more than 1T distance, that wouldn't work so well, but since it's only double, that seems doable.

Also, one could always do it in a couple of hops, with a JX2 relay halfway there.  Out past 500G meters, orbiting objects move so slowly that you could park a relay there (even if it's in a highly eccentric orbit) and it'll stay effectively "on station" for a long time.

That said, if there's enough of a reason, I might consider a JX2 patch for GPP that boosts its power somewhat, but I'd need to dig into this some more (am not where I can do that right now).

[PocketBrotector]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

Well, I certainly thought so.  At the time this mod was produced, the most distant body in GPP was Leto, which reaches a maximum distance of 611G meters from Gael, well within the JX2's range.

Really?  As I mention above, I thought it was Leto, and it never gets more than 611G meters from Gael.  Has GPP released a new, more distant planet recently, or something?  Just now checked the GPP wiki, and it still refers to Leto as the outermost, at the same distance it was when I made this thread's OP.

What am I missing, here?

I don't play with GPP myself but it was recently-ish updated to include a new distant planet - I think it's Grannus. It's not on the wiki yet because it was briefly intended to be "secret."

Good point about the combinability - I think with a default combinability factor it would take 3-4 antennas on one ship to double its effective range? Don't know the exact formula offhand.

[Snark]

35 minutes ago, PocketBrotector said:

I don't play with GPP myself but it was recently-ish updated to include a new distant planet - I think it's Grannus. It's not on the wiki yet because it was briefly intended to be "secret."

Ah, okay, I've been out of the loop on that one.  I should go take a look.  (Not just for JX2Antenna, but also because my current career playthrough is GPP and I want shiny new toys!) 

Thanks for letting me know!

(and oh man, wouldn't that planet be a pain in the posterior to explore via probe if you were playing RemoteTech with signal delay turned on... signal delay around 2 hours.  Ouch.)

35 minutes ago, PocketBrotector said:

Good point about the combinability - I think with a default combinability factor it would take 3-4 antennas on one ship to double its effective range? Don't know the exact formula offhand.

The JX2Antenna specifies in its config that it's combinable, but doesn't specify a combinability exponent, which means it gets KSP's default exponent value of 0.75.  What that means is, take how many antennas you have, and raise it to the 0.75 power, and that's the antenna-power multiplier.  (The actual formula is more complex in order to allow mixing different kinds of antennas.  But for the simple case where all the antennas have the same power, that's what it boils down to.)

So, suppose you have three of these antennas on the ship.  3^0.75 = 2.28, which means that the combination would have slightly more than double the power of a lone JX2.  If you had four antennas, 4^0.75 = 2.82, i.e. not quite triple the power of a lone antenna.

[Calvin_Maclure]

3 hours ago, Snark said:

Even if it's true that there's something out at 2T meters, though, the JX2 can still get you there.  Like most antennas, it's combinable, so you can make a large ship that stacks multiple JX2s to boost the range.  If it were a lot more than 1T distance, that wouldn't work so well, but since it's only double, that seems doable.

Stacking multiple JX2s will increase the range? Huh, I didnt know that (or didnt remember it). What's the rule? Is 2x antennae = 2x the range?
Does RT antennae also do this??

[Snark]

Just now, Calvin_Maclure said:

Stacking multiple JX2s will increase the range?

Yes, same as every stock antenna in KSP except the Communotron 16S.

1 minute ago, Calvin_Maclure said:

What's the rule? Is 2x antennae = 2x the range?

See my post immediately above yours. 

2 minutes ago, Calvin_Maclure said:

Does RT antennae also do this??

I don't think so, but then I haven't played RT since forever (long before 1.2), so I don't remember for sure (and/or it might have changed since I played it.)

[KerbolExplorer]

4 hours ago, Snark said:

Well, I certainly thought so.  At the time this mod was produced, the most distant body in GPP was Leto, which reaches a maximum distance of 611G meters from Gael, well within the JX2's range.

Really?  As I mention above, I thought it was Leto, and it never gets more than 611G meters from Gael.  Has GPP released a new, more distant planet recently, or something?  Just now checked the GPP wiki, and it still refers to Leto as the outermost, at the same distance it was when I made this thread's OP.

What am I missing, here?

FTFY. 

Even if it's true that there's something out at 2T meters, though, the JX2 can still get you there.  Like most antennas, it's combinable, so you can make a large ship that stacks multiple JX2s to boost the range.  If it were a lot more than 1T distance, that wouldn't work so well, but since it's only double, that seems doable.

Also, one could always do it in a couple of hops, with a JX2 relay halfway there.  Out past 500G meters, orbiting objects move so slowly that you could park a relay there (even if it's in a highly eccentric orbit) and it'll stay effectively "on station" for a long time.

That said, if there's enough of a reason, I might consider a JX2 patch for GPP that boosts its power somewhat, but I'd need to dig into this some more (am not where I can do that right now).

You are missing Grannus a star thats orbiting ciro P.S.last time i sent a probe there it took 200 years

[Snark]

1 hour ago, KerbolExplorer said:

You are missing Grannus a star thats orbiting ciro P.S.last time i sent a probe there it took 200 years

Yup, @PocketBrotector just pointed that out a few posts above.  I'll look into it, thanks!

[JadeOfMaar]

6 hours ago, Snark said:

Really?  As I mention above, I thought it was Leto, and it never gets more than 611G meters from Gael.  Has GPP released a new, more distant planet recently, or something?  Just now checked the GPP wiki, and it still refers to Leto as the outermost, at the same distance it was when I made this thread's OP.

Leto is indeed the outermost planet. But Grannus is not a planet. The GPP wiki's home page has plenty mention of it now.  

Be sure to try out the included GPP_CareerSaver patch if/when you update. The usual add/remove planet mid-game thing will hit you otherwise.

Bugs to watch out for:

• If you're interested in asteroids, there's a } at line 59 in our Asteroids.cfg that needs to be deleted in order for them to start showing.
• The ringed planets will need the Kopernicus dll update by blackrack for their rings to work right.
• Delete GPP\GPP_Resources\Ammonia.cfg it's full of errors (I forgot that Ammonia only goes by the name LqdAmmonia in CRP...because reasons).

Edited May 9, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[Snark]

17 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

But Grannus is not a planet. The GPP wiki's home page has plenty mention of it now.

Ah, excellent!  Thanks for the useful information (and especially the tips on how to continue a career game).

I'm a little confused by the info shown here, though.  How far is it orbiting from Ciro?  The picture says that its semimajor axis is only 2G meters, which is hardly very far.  Perhaps it says "M" where it means "KM"?  (I note, for example, that its SoI is 500G meters, which seems more reasonable.)

[JadeOfMaar]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

Ah, excellent!  Thanks for the useful information (and especially the tips on how to continue a career game).

I'm a little confused by the info shown here, though.  How far is it orbiting from Ciro?  The picture says that its semimajor axis is only 2G meters, which is hardly very far.  Perhaps it says "M" where it means "KM"?  (I note, for example, that its SoI is 500G meters, which seems more reasonable.)

Oops. That's indeed an error, and one which is not present in the completed in-game KSPedia. It will correctly say "km" at the end in semimajor axis. Grannus' periapsis is only about 1.2Tm so 2x JX2 should easily handle it.

@PocketBrotector's antennae may be best suited for keeping in touch with Grannus near its apoapsis... However high/far in the galaxy that is.

[Spaceception]

@Snark Will this work with Extrasolar? I edited the orbit of Valentine to be about 10x further than Eeloo.

Btw, I'm still using 1.2.2

Edited May 29, 2017 by Spaceception

[DStaal]

45 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

@Snark Will this work with Extrasolar? I edited the orbit of Valentine to be about 10x further than Eeloo.

Btw, I'm still using 1.2.2

If I'm running the math right, you'll be close to the edge of what one JX2 can reach - depending on what you mean by 'about'.   A bit under and it should be able to reach.  A bit over, and you'll definitely need to combine them.  Right on - and it will depend on your planetary alignments.

I'd say it'd be suitable therefore.  It'll be a bit of work, but you should be able to manage.

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, DStaal said:

If I'm running the math right, you'll be close to the edge of what one JX2 can reach - depending on what you mean by 'about'.   A bit under and it should be able to reach.  A bit over, and you'll definitely need to combine them.  Right on - and it will depend on your planetary alignments.

I'd say it'd be suitable therefore.  It'll be a bit of work, but you should be able to manage.

Oh, wait, brain fart, I actually made it 15x further, so how would I make a network, I tried doing that with stock, but it didn't make a web of communications, I'm a noob to this as well, so... uh... yeah.

[Snark]

12 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Oh, wait, brain fart, I actually made it 15x further, so how would I make a network, I tried doing that with stock, but it didn't make a web of communications, I'm a noob to this as well, so... uh... yeah.

So, if you have an object that's 15x more distant from the home planet than Eeloo gets from Kerbin, then yeah, a lone JX2 won't reach.  However, you have several options available to you:

• Combine multiple antennas.  Like most of the stock antennas, the JX2 is "combinable", i.e. if you have multiple of them on one ship, they combine for greater total transmit/receive power.  The JX2 has the default "combinability exponent" of 0.75, i.e. if you have N of them, then your power will be N^0.75 times the power of a lone JX2.  So, for example, if you had four JX2 antennas one ship, it would have 4^0.75 = 2.8 times the power of a lone JX2.  So, if you had a ship with four JX2s talking to another ship with four JX2s, the max range would be 2800G instead of the 1000G that you get with a single JX2.
• Use a relay network.  i.e. make a "bucket brigade" of JX2-equipped ships, spaced at intervals, so that you don't try to make the connection in a single hop.
• Tweak the antenna.  With a simple ModuleManager patch (or just hand-editing the .cfg file for the antenna), you can make the JX2 antenna have any power you like. 

 

[Spaceception]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

Snippy

Thank you

[steedcrugeon]

Nearly ready...

[Nicias]

Has anyone tried this with 1.3?