[1.11] CommNet Constellation v1.5.7 [10 January 2021] - Beta 4 of CNC+CNM for KSP 1.12.2!

[TaxiService]

(screenshots inside)

Spoiler

What is this?

A gameplay add-on for Kerbal Space Program. The purpose is to transform the CommNet network of the single type into multiple constellations of different types.

Major features:

• Make a group of satellites (a constellation) working together to archive a single purpose eg Global GPS, Ground-to-Air Communication
• Assign a vessel to one or more constellations
• Edit a ground station
• Colored connections and icons in Map View
• Built directly on KSP's CommNet infrastructure
• Many frequencies (up to 32,767!) to choose for a vessel or constellation
• Color Picker for "infinite" color choices
• User-friendly interfaces, included the sort and filter capabilities for the vessel list

Bonus: Designed by a RemoteTech developer as a test bed on multiple features of RemoteTech 2.x re-development

Why?

Three reasons:

• In our real-life universe, we have satellite constellations of GPS, GLONASS and Galileo talking to their own members. So why can't CommNet have such feature?
• Every vessel in the whole network is talking to everyone within its root range model.
• This mod is a testbed for some features of the RemoteTech redevelopment project. (I am a member of the current RemoteTech team)

Tutorials

Spoiler

Basics

Consider this picture of a 3-layered pyramid below.

At the top, there are certainly sources that control unmanned vessels over great distances of void. These sources are Ground Stations, such as Tracking Station at Kerbal Space Center, and manned pods with antennas. However, the sources need a reliable way to send and maintain control to the vessels without signal collision.

To accomplish this, communication networks in the middle come into this picture. One or more networks are known as 'constellations'. Each constellation is associated with a single frequency number with color for easy recognition. Zero or more vessels and control sources can connect to the constellation through this frequency. There will be always a single constellation (called Public or something) at the beginning and cannot be eliminated for accessibility purpose.

Lastly at the bottom, there are antennas of a vessel that send and receive frequencies. Each antenna is assigned to a single frequency. This means a vessel with N antennas can connect to up to maximum number of N constellations at the same times. Moreover, two or more antennas can be set to the same frequency to combine their power ratings into a larger non-linear power rating than any of the power ratings.

Interfaces

There are three main interfaces in KSP.

• Control Panel at Map View/Tracking Station can be accessed from Application Launcher. It has three separate pages of Constellations, Ground Stations and Vessels. In the first page, you can modify or create constellations. In the second page, there are fixed number of Ground Stations on Kerbal that you can edit their names, colors and lists of frequencies. In the last page, eligible vessels with antennas are outlined with search filters.
• Every probe core/manned pod has the interface for managing the master list of frequencies, built from the antennas of a vessel. You can toggle off/on all or some antennas. This interface is accessible from the right-click Part Action menu.
• Every antenna has the interface for the configuration of frequency and name. Like the core/pod, the UI is available through the right-click Part Action menu.

Frequent Asked Questions

Spoiler

• Is this mod compatible with the RemoteTech mod?
  • No, they are not. RemoteTech disables KSP's CommNet and runs its own infrastructure but this mod depends on CommNet to operate.
• What happens if you install the CommNet Constellation mod on your existing save?
  • For the first time, all of your existing vessels will be "upgraded" to have Constellation module and related data.
• What happens if you install the CommNet Constellation mod and start a new game?
  • Nothing bad would happen. Just edit the radio frequency of a ship in the editor and launch away!
• What happens if you remove the CommNet Constellation mod from your game folder?
  • There are no parts introduced by this mod so your existing vessels would be safe. However, the entire CommNet would revert to the network of the single type. This means every vessel would yell at each other within its range.
• How do I edit my vessel's radio frequencies?
  • Every antenna has its own frequency and your vessel can have multiple active frequencies at the same time. In the editor or flight, you can right-click and configure each antenna in an user interface.
• How can I overwrite all frequencies of a vessel to the specific frequency in one go?
  • In the control panel in either flight or tracking station, you can open up the setup button of that vessel and go to the master frequency tab to push your frequency to every antenna of the vessel.
• What is the upper limit on the frequencies created and applied?
  • The maximum number is 32,768. This means you can have up to 32,768 constellations!
• How do I filter out the long list of crafts?
  • The list in the mod interface is directly tied to the current Map View's filters. Go click any vessel type in Map View and be amazed!
• What will happen if an existing constellation is deleted?
  • The deleted constellation's frequency in all vessels and antennas will be reverted to the public constellation.

Mods required

Module Manager

Tutorials

Basics and interfaces

License

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, Version 3

Download

GitHub

SpaceDock

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by TaxiService
Thread title updated

[Mister Spock]

Looks great!  Can't wait to try it.

[Stone Blue]

Nice!... will finally be able to "separate" a 24 sat GPS constellation for Figaro GPS from my 11 sat Kerbin comm network, definitely making mapview more useable...

[MaxZhao]

Yeah release!! Congratulations!!

[pap1723]

Very good idea for a mod and the interface you built looks great!

[linuxgurugamer]

CKAN soon?

[TaxiService]

2 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

CKAN soon?

Yup, this is on my To-Do list. I need to get some CKAN experience first.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, TaxiService said:

Yup, this is on my To-Do list. I need to get some CKAN experience first.

Would you like me to do this for you?

[ZobrAA]

@TaxiService, this is awesome! Did you know, that @alexustas, ASET Props author, have a radio prop for IVA?

And this mod now! Make this work together, anybody, PLEASE!

Airplane sims fans will be happy!

Also questions/suggestions: can we configure radio-frequencies for KSC and DNS? Additional Kerbin-Side bases frequencies maybe?

You know...

• Tower Control, this is AT-1391, requesting permission to land.
• AT-1391, this is Tower, you have a permission to land at runway 09.

Edited April 9, 2017 by ZobrAA

[TaxiService]

16 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Would you like me to do this for you?

Can you check if I set up my CKAN index correctly?

I uploaded my mod to SpaceDock and followed this CKAN guide to register it to CKAN. Now, my pull request is the remaining item to complete the CKAN registration.

[linuxgurugamer]

Didn't work, but don't worry about it.  I have a script which will do a better job.

Should be available via CKAN in a few minutes

[TaxiService]

57 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Didn't work, but don't worry about it.  I have a script which will do a better job.

Should be available via CKAN in a few minutes

Thanks so much! I verify my mod is present in CKAN. I guess the guide I followed is bits outdated.

9 hours ago, ZobrAA said:

@TaxiService, this is awesome! Did you know, that @alexustas, ASET Props author, have a radio prop for IVA?

And this mod now! Make this work together, anybody, PLEASE!

Airplane sims fans will be happy!

Also questions/suggestions: can we configure radio-frequencies for KSC and DNS? Additional Kerbin-Side bases frequencies maybe?

You know...

• Tower Control, this is AT-1391, requesting permission to land.
• AT-1391, this is Tower, you have a permission to land at runway 09.

Hmmm, do you have a suggestion on an useful purpose of that radio prop for CommNet Constellation? All I can come up with is the vessel's frequency can be changed from IVA instead of the outside camera.

Thanks for suggesting the option of changing the ground stations' frequencies. I totally overlook this and will add another interface to edit the frequency of each ground station.

[Oectacan]

Hi. Nice mod.

Can I use two or more different  frequency's on one vessel?
Like, first antenna to first frequency, and second to other one.

[ZobrAA]

13 hours ago, TaxiService said:

Hmmm, do you have a suggestion on an useful purpose of that radio prop for CommNet Constellation? All I can come up with is the vessel's frequency can be changed from IVA instead of the outside camera.

Yes, for changing frequency from IVA. But after that all possible goodies from the radio.

Like translate something (typed via MFD prop) on that frequency to match contract mission goal, or to activate action group of another vessel remotely, or activate KOS and IR Sequencer programs for that vessel. Unlimited possibilities!

We only need a way, a framework interface, so different awesome mod-pieces can communicate with each other!

Edited April 10, 2017 by ZobrAA

[rasta013]

I've been busy so I'm late to the party but freaking great idea for a mod man.  Definitely will be giving this a go as this has been a pet peeve of mine for a while.

[maculator]

On 9.4.2017 at 6:32 PM, Oectacan said:

Hi. Nice mod.

Can I use two or more different  frequency's on one vessel?
Like, first antenna to first frequency, and second to other one.

I'll just add this and check it out.

I'm too wondering if what @Oectacan asks is possible. This would be pretty neat to unclutter the deepspace transmissions.

edit:

Now that I'm thinking of it a "use only best connection" -option would be the best thing I could imagine.

So my mun groundstation would only connect to the closest munsat and not to every sat in range.

This would really really really tidy up space.

KSC would connect to the closest kerbinsat on frequence1 via dishtype1, the kerbin sats would connect to ksc via dishtype1 on frequence1 and conect to each other via dishtype2 on frequence2 then the closest kerbinsat would establish connection to the munsat via dish3 on frequence3  and they're their own network (dishtype4 on frequence4) and whoever is near munbase alpha (dishtype5 on frequence5) would connect it to the KSC

tl;dr: assign frequences to dishes to further seperate communication.

I'm not a native english speaker, but as far as I understood atm thi is not possible, however I'd love to have that anyways great mod!

Edited April 11, 2017 by maculator

[The-Doctor]

You're trying to kill RemoteTech aren't you? 

[Varsi]

16 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

You're trying to kill RemoteTech aren't you? 

Like some sort of a double agent? Infiltrated Remote Tech team to kill it from within.

Will definitely need to test this when I get home.

[justspace103]

@TaxiService This looks like an amazing mod and it looks very useful!

Im having a small problem that on MAC when i go to click on the App-launcher Icon nothing comes up, and i cant make new networks. does anyone have a fix for this?

[TaxiService]

On 4/10/2017 at 0:32 AM, Oectacan said:

Hi. Nice mod.

Can I use two or more different  frequency's on one vessel?
Like, first antenna to first frequency, and second to other one.

Let's have a public discussion because it is a design dilemma of how a comm vessel handles one or more frequencies.

I have a few things in mind when I designed this mod few months ago.

1. Each probe core/command module has one frequency and the vessel uses the dominant frequency.

2. Each antenna has one frequency and the vessel takes from its antennas and builds its the frequency list.

3. A vessel has exact one frequency to hold.

Considering that KSP's CommNet is the simplified version of the real-life communication network or even RemoteTech, I chose the first option as it is aligned along with the CommNet's philosophy of simplicity. The second option would requires a player to keep track of comm sats' frequencies, risking a difficulty increase in context of CommNet design.

Any thought on this?

3 hours ago, maculator said:

Now that I'm thinking of it a "use only best connection" -option would be the best thing I could imagine.

So my mun groundstation would only connect to the closest munsat and not to every sat in range.

This would really really really tidy up space.

KSC would connect to the closest kerbinsat on frequence1 via dishtype1, the kerbin sats would connect to ksc via dishtype1 on frequence1 and conect to each other via dishtype2 on frequence2 then the closest kerbinsat would establish connection to the munsat via dish3 on frequence3  and they're their own network (dishtype4 on frequence4) and whoever is near munbase alpha (dishtype5 on frequence5) would connect it to the KSC

tl;dr: assign frequences to dishes to further seperate communication.

I'm not a native english speaker, but as far as I understood atm thi is not possible, however I'd love to have that anyways great mod!

Hmmm, this is good idea but I want to expand it. Would a map filter (like RemoteTech's Multi-Path filter) of showing working connections of all vessels be nice? CommNet's filters are single-path, first hop, neighbours and all-network only.

3 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

You're trying to kill RemoteTech aren't you? 

That's cute. This mod will never ever hold a candle to the RemoteTech 2.0 and its huge potential once it is eventually released.

1 hour ago, justspace103 said:

@TaxiService This looks like an amazing mod and it looks very useful!

Im having a small problem that on MAC when i go to click on the App-launcher Icon nothing comes up, and i cant make new networks. does anyone have a fix for this?

I need your output_log.txt and a screenshot of what happen after clicking App-launcher icon. I think the mod window was mis-positioned, out of your screen but it shouldn't happen.

[maculator]

@TaxiService I'll go for number two since it sounds like the easiest way to get close to what I ment. I makes everything possible exept the "connect only to closest antenna" part.

edit:

Now that I figured out what the mapfilter stuff is about  (not a native english speaker) I think it would be a good thing too.

 

edit edit:

This would also be a great opportunity to force even more diversity in antenna usage:

Each of the following groups would use a special frequency with one "Joker" per group who can communicate with the next stage.

1.[communotron 16, communotron 16s, communotron DTS-M1]

2.[Communotron DTS-M1, HG-55, 88-88, HG-5 High Gain Antenna]

3.[HG-5 High Gain Antenna, RA- 2 Relay, RA-15 Relay, RA-100 Relay]

A frequency limits wich antennas can communicate with eachother. And then there could be "channels" like in radio communication so you can differ your mapping satelites from you minumus operation and your spacestation. (Channels could ba toggleable via probecore, you have 1-10 and can say on wich ones you would like to communicate)

Your spacestation might be the closest connection for your minmus operation at some point but maybe they just don't care about!? so you set them to channel 2, minmus to chanel 3 and be good.

 

Edited April 11, 2017 by maculator

[Stone Blue]

.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Stone Blue

[brama0309]

I wanted this mod since I first tried RemoteTech! Awesome!

One little problem: Can you lock the the key input in the game when you are configuring the freq. and so on while flying? (Like MechJeb) Because every time I use the spacebar when nameing a new frequency, the the next stage will start..  

[Wadusher0]

3 hours ago, brama0309 said:

I wanted this mod since I first tried RemoteTech! Awesome!

One little problem: Can you lock the the key input in the game when you are configuring the freq. and so on while flying? (Like MechJeb) Because every time I use the spacebar when nameing a new frequency, the the next stage will start..  

You might want to press alt-L to lock your staging when naming anything where you want a space. It won't stop other action groups from being pressed but those are less of an issue.

Also, welcome to the forums.

[justspace103]

@TaxiService

Log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kmqrj3a42dl62d9/KSP copy.log?dl=0

 

So the button shows up and the lines from public broadcasting but when i go to click the button it doesnt pull anything up. but hte weirdest thing is, that i tried it in another save on the same game, and it worked.