Antenna Ranges

[Miro Beero]

Is there a way to see a max sphere of influence from an antenna on a space craft?

Antenna ranges mean nothing to me, if I cannot "measure" distances between planets. 

I just shot a rocket to moho and lost contact with it prior to it getting there.  Space Debris now...    :-(

[FullMetalMachinist]

43 minutes ago, Miro Beero said:

Is there a way to see a max sphere of influence from an antenna on a space craft?

Unfortunately not, because whether two antennas can talk depends on the power of both antennas. The formula for that is: sqrt(ant1 * ant2). 

This means that a probe talking to the space center will have a larger max range than when talking to another ship, because the tracking station antennas are so powerful. 

46 minutes ago, Miro Beero said:

Antenna ranges mean nothing to me, if I cannot "measure" distances between planets. 

You don't really need to 'measure' anything. Just know that the furthest apart two planets will ever be is: (solar AP of planet 1 + sun radius) + (solar AP of planet 2 + sun radius). 

All that information is available in the Wiki, and in the game by looking at the details of each planet in the tracking station. 

I know that having to do a bunch of math just to figure out if you have enough antenna range might not be fun. But IMO, it should require a little work and forward planning. This is rocket science after all. 

[juanml82]

10 hours ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

Unfortunately not, because whether two antennas can talk depends on the power of both antennas. The formula for that is: sqrt(ant1 * ant2). 

This means that a probe talking to the space center will have a larger max range than when talking to another ship, because the tracking station antennas are so powerful.

If I wanted to alt-tab to check the tracking station range on the Internet and alt-tab again to the windows calculator to do the math, the result is meaningless unless I also know the range between the ship (or its destination) and Kerbin.

Squad could add an overlay showing the ship's antenna's range to Kerbin's DSN and also add the option to change the overlay to another ship, or automatically reference the comm network's path. But why would they bother, since they expect modders will complete their game for free?

[FullMetalMachinist]

1 hour ago, juanml82 said:

If I wanted to alt-tab to check the tracking station range on the Internet and alt-tab again to the windows calculator to do the math,

I'm not saying that this is the best or preferred way, just that that's the way it is currently. 

1 hour ago, juanml82 said:

the result is meaningless unless I also know the range between the ship (or its destination) and Kerbin.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. During design, you know where your probe is going. Which means that you can fairly easily figure out the furthest possible distance that it will be from Kerbin. 

And in the 'more info' panel of the part list during construction, there are 3 values given for each antenna, for each of the levels of the tracking station. 

[KerikBalm]

This post may be useful to you:

 

 

[Snark]

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

On 5/7/2017 at 7:40 AM, Miro Beero said:

Is there a way to see a max sphere of influence from an antenna on a space craft?

Antenna ranges mean nothing to me, if I cannot "measure" distances between planets. 

I just shot a rocket to moho and lost contact with it prior to it getting there.  Space Debris now...    :-(

The simple way is to just check this table here.    Summarizes things pretty well.  The TL;DR is that for a level-2 or higher tracking station,

• anything less than a DTS-M1 or RA-2 isn't good enough for interplanetary.
• DTS-M1 or RA-2:  marginal innner solar system
• HG-55 or RA-15:  dependable inner solar system, marginal Dres, can't do Jool or beyond.
• Communotron 88-88 or RA-100:  covers whole solar system

If you want to do actual math:

1. Take the antenna power.
2. Multiply it by the antenna power of your tracking station (level 1, 2G; level 2, 50G; level 3, 250G).
3. Take the square root of that.  That's how far away KSC can control your probe.
4. To see whether that's far enough to go to a given planet, check out the planet's distance from the sun (you can get it from the tracking station, or the KSP wiki), add 13.6G (that's Kerbin's orbital radius), and that's the max distance you need to cover.
5. Your probe will be okay if your antenna range is greater than your max distance.

[bewing]

14 hours ago, juanml82 said:

If I wanted to alt-tab to check the tracking station range on the Internet and alt-tab again to the windows calculator to do the math, the result is meaningless unless I also know the range between the ship (or its destination) and Kerbin.

Squad could add an overlay showing the ship's antenna's range to Kerbin's DSN and also add the option to change the overlay to another ship, or automatically reference the comm network's path. But why would they bother, since they expect modders will complete their game for free?

It was discussed dozens of times, and if it had been easy it would have been in the game already. But it's not easy.

On 5/7/2017 at 7:40 AM, Miro Beero said:

I just shot a rocket to moho and lost contact with it prior to it getting there.  Space Debris now...    :-(

Unless you have the super-hard "Require connection for control" mode selected, then going out of contact range just puts you in limited-control mode. Nothing is space debris in limited control mode.

If you do have "Require connection" turned on in your settings, then turn it off again. And if you want to check antenna ranges, you can always just use Sandbox mode -- place a copy of your ship at your destination, and see if it has connectivity.

 

Edited May 8, 2017 by bewing

[Miro Beero]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

It was discussed dozens of times, and if it had been easy it would have been in the game already. But it's not easy.

Unless you have the super-hard "Require connection for control" mode selected, then going out of contact range just puts you in limited-control mode. Nothing is space debris in limited control mode.

If you do have "Require connection" turned on in your settings, then turn it off again. And if you want to check antenna ranges, you can always just use Sandbox mode -- place a copy of your ship at your destination, and see if it has connectivity.

 

I have the setting where I require a connection.

Remember that most of us play the game cause we love space.  

I hate the answer that I need calculators and spreadsheets.  Something should be in game.

That's why we all hate doing our taxes.  

[Spricigo]

20 minutes ago, Miro Beero said:

I have the setting where I require a connection.

Remember that most of us play the game cause we love space.  

I hate the answer that I need calculators and spreadsheets.  Something should be in game.

That's why we all hate doing our taxes.  

C'mon we don't need calculator and spreadsheets to math like:

On 07/05/2017 at 0:44 PM, FullMetalMachinist said:

 Just know that the furthest apart two planets will ever be is: (solar AP of planet 1 + sun radius) + (solar AP of planet 2 + sun radius). 
 

And given the fact we don't need a very precise result also we can just make [Kerbin apoapsis]+[duna apoapsis]+[some extra just in case] then read the description of the antennas to find which one has enough range. If that is too difficult go to setting and disable CommNet.

/rantover

[JoE Smash]

On 5/8/2017 at 12:45 PM, bewing said:

It was discussed dozens of times, and if it had been easy it would have been in the game already. But it's not easy.

Apparently a modder did the impossible....

 

[Vanamonde]

2 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

Apparently a modder did the impossible....

"Not easy" is not the same as impossible. 

[Snark]

2 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

Apparently a modder did the impossible....

What do you mean?  A modder did what modders do:  write a mod.

As you were kind enough to quote, @bewing pointed out, quite correctly, that if adding it to the stock game were easy to do, it would have been done already.  But it isn't, so it hasn't.

Note that you're comparing apples and oranges, here.  You're talking about a mod.  He was talking about the stock game.

Speaking both as a KSP modder and as a professional developer who's been shipping software for a living for a quarter-century, I can tell you that creating a mod is not the same thing as creating commercial software.  It's not even in the same ballpark.

Someone making a mod has a much different job than someone adding a feature to the core came, because they don't have to satisfy everyone.  A modder can do whatever they, personally, like.  They don't have to design something that can address a super-wide audience.  That makes the job much simpler, to a degree that someone who hasn't designed software for a living may have difficulty appreciating.

Adding a feature to the stock game means that it needs to work for everyone, or at least the vast majority of the player population.  And that is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do.

Nobody said that adding the feature was impossible, or even necessarily difficult, for modders.  He was talking about the stock game.  And speaking as someone who writes commercial software for a living myself, I wholeheartedly agree with him.

That's not to look down on modders, or belittle them in any way (not least because I am one).  It's fantastic that they do what they do.  And some of them turn out truly astounding stuff.  It's just that they're solving a very different problem than designers of the stock game are.

I took a look at the mod you linked.  It's really impressive.  Hats off to the guy who wrote it, it's a truly amazing-looking mod and looks really well executed, and I wish it every success.  I'm sure that many KSP players will love the heck out of it.  I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them end up loving it so much that they consider the game unplayable without it.

Many.

But not all.

Not even most.

And therein lies the difference.  For example, I won't be installing or using that mod myself, ever.  Why?  Not because it's a bad mod-- it isn't-- but because it's not my personal cup of tea.  For example, it adds UI, which is absolutely anathema to me, personally.  I do not want my KSP screen real estate populated by dialog boxes.  To me it's clutter and would ruin the game.  It's the same reason I will never install KER, despite the fact that it's also an awesome, very useful and clever mod that lots and lots of people find indispensable.

The game has to please everyone.  A mod only has to please the people who choose to use it.   Not everybody wants the same thing.  KER is fantastic-- as a mod.  This Antenna Helper also looks fantastic-- as a mod.  But I gotta say that neither one of those things belongs in the stock game, because they don't meet the "works for pretty much everyone" bar.

 

 

[FleshJeb]

@Snark Permission to necromoan, Sir?!

[Xd the great]

My way is to spam RA 100 on every craft I have. Even if it becomes space debris, i still have a workable relay that covers stuff.

[JoE Smash]

7 hours ago, Snark said:

What do you mean?  A modder did what modders do:  write a mod.

As you were kind enough to quote, @bewing pointed out, quite correctly, that if adding it to the stock game were easy to do, it would have been done already.  But it isn't, so it hasn't.

Note that you're comparing apples and oranges, here.  You're talking about a mod.  He was talking about the stock game.

Speaking both as a KSP modder and as a professional developer who's been shipping software for a living for a quarter-century, I can tell you that creating a mod is not the same thing as creating commercial software.  It's not even in the same ballpark.

Someone making a mod has a much different job than someone adding a feature to the core came, because they don't have to satisfy everyone.  A modder can do whatever they, personally, like.  They don't have to design something that can address a super-wide audience.  That makes the job much simpler, to a degree that someone who hasn't designed software for a living may have difficulty appreciating.

Adding a feature to the stock game means that it needs to work for everyone, or at least the vast majority of the player population.  And that is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do.

Nobody said that adding the feature was impossible, or even necessarily difficult, for modders.  He was talking about the stock game.  And speaking as someone who writes commercial software for a living myself, I wholeheartedly agree with him.

That's not to look down on modders, or belittle them in any way (not least because I am one).  It's fantastic that they do what they do.  And some of them turn out truly astounding stuff.  It's just that they're solving a very different problem than designers of the stock game are.

I took a look at the mod you linked.  It's really impressive.  Hats off to the guy who wrote it, it's a truly amazing-looking mod and looks really well executed, and I wish it every success.  I'm sure that many KSP players will love the heck out of it.  I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them end up loving it so much that they consider the game unplayable without it.

Many.

But not all.

Not even most.

And therein lies the difference.  For example, I won't be installing or using that mod myself, ever.  Why?  Not because it's a bad mod-- it isn't-- but because it's not my personal cup of tea.  For example, it adds UI, which is absolutely anathema to me, personally.  I do not want my KSP screen real estate populated by dialog boxes.  To me it's clutter and would ruin the game.  It's the same reason I will never install KER, despite the fact that it's also an awesome, very useful and clever mod that lots and lots of people find indispensable.

The game has to please everyone.  A mod only has to please the people who choose to use it.   Not everybody wants the same thing.  KER is fantastic-- as a mod.  This Antenna Helper also looks fantastic-- as a mod.  But I gotta say that neither one of those things belongs in the stock game, because they don't meet the "works for pretty much everyone" bar.

 

 

Wow, relax. I was just passing along that someone made a mod to do what was requested in the thread.

I found this thread while trying to find out what the range of a 1g relay antenna looked like.

Someone basically asked if there was a way to see the range of an antenna on ship vs the range of the tracking station, etc. The answer from a dev here is, "this has been asked and it's hard to impliment. If it was easy they would have implimented it."

Then suggested alt tabbing the game and doing math....

Well someone took the time to make a mod to basically do what was requested in this thread like a year ago.

I was updating the thread with the information that the request has been fufulled by someone.... In the event the interested party was still interested, or so future people looking for information like this (like I was) could now get it. Versus coming across threads saying it's too hard, so it isn't happening

Code is code....writing code for a mod vs for the stock game isn't very different. 

The ability to visualize the range of an antenna SHOULD be stock. Your argument of disliking mods because they add dialog boxes is laughable. If it's cluttering the screen then you press a button to close the box....the boxes are not intended to all be left open. I open boxes I need when I need them, and then close them when they are no longer needed....

[Snark]

3 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

I was updating the thread with the information that the request has been fufulled by someone.... In the event the interested party was still interested, or so future people looking for information like this (like I was) could now get it.

Absolutely, and that was a great idea.  So, thank you for doing that.    Providing the info about the mod, and linking to it, is a helpful public service.

It's exactly cases like this why we don't have a "no necro-posting" forum rule, and why the forum doesn't automatically lock old threads.  Sometimes, there's a good reason to post in old threads, such as what you've done here.  It's a "righteous necro."

3 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

Versus coming across threads saying it's too hard, so it isn't happening

Well, let's be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Nobody said this was impossible to code.  Nobody said there could never be a mod that does this.  The original comment was purely about the stock game.  i.e. "it's too hard for the stock game, so it isn't happening for the stock game".  That's a completely different (and much more limited, constrained) statement.  And since this was said by a Squad employee, my guess is that the likelihood of its accuracy is pretty high.  (Certainly it has stayed accurate up to now, because we've been through a major KSP version update and several minor patches since then and it hasn't gotten added yet and there has been no indication that they have plans of doing so any time soon.)

 

3 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

Code is code....writing code for a mod vs for the stock game isn't very different.

Sure, no disagreement there.

Actually, if anything, I'd expect that writing code for the stock game would actually be somewhat easier than writing code for a mod-- because if you're writing code for the stock game, you have access to all the game's private internals and source code (which a modder doesn't), which is a tremendous advantage.

Plus you're a Squad employee working with all the other Squad employees, so if you run into any situation you don't understand... you've got immediate access to all the experts and whatever internal documentation they may have, instead of having to rely on trial-and-error and Googling and looking at other mods to see what they did and posting in the forums to try to find someone with an answer.  Which is another tremendous advantage.

But all of that is completely beside the point I was making.  Nowhere did I say this is hard to code, because it's not a fundamentally difficult programming problem, technically.  The difficulty has nothing to do with technical constraints, because it's not a coding problem.

It's a user-interaction design problem, which is a horse of a completely different feather.

For technical coding problems, the developers of the stock game have several big advantages over modders-- e.g. the ones I've described above.

But for feature design problems, it's completely the other way around.  Because when it comes to feature design, the stock game has to worry about many factors-- really hard, gnarly ones-- that mods can blithely ignore.  Mods are free to do all kinds of things that the stock game can't get away with.

• Stock features need to solve problems that are important to everyone.  Mods don't.
  • For example, neither you nor I know what fraction of KSP players even have CommNet turned on at all.  It's entirely possible that 90%+ of KSP players just turn it off.  Or that a majority of KSP players never leave Kerbin's SoI and therefore don't have to worry much about antenna ranges.  Suppose, just hypothetically for a moment, that that's the case.  It would mean that spending any time at all enhancing CommNet features would apply only to a small subset of users, possibly very small.  Would that be a good use of Squad's limited time and budget?  Or, from their perspective, would it make more sense to focus on problems that do affect everybody?
• Stock features have to be appealing to everyone.  Mods don't.
• Stock features have to be rigorously QA-tested and reliable.  Mods don't.
  • Yes, I'm aware that the stock game has bugs and that a lot of players yell about how awful and stupid Squad is.  And yes, it's not perfect, and yes, it's buggier than I'd like to see.  But overall I think they've done a reasonable job-- and I've had a lot more problems with game-breaking bugs from mods than I ever have from the stock game.  By at least an order of magnitude.  It's not even close.  Mods are free, and mod users mostly understand that and (quite properly) are more forgiving of modders than they are of Squad.  My point is... the developer has to invest a large amount of QA time (and therefore budget) for a feature.  Mod authors don't have to do this, and can leverage enthusiastic fans to help them find problems, which is a huge leg up.
• Stock features have to be supported and maintained from inception until the end of time (well, until the end of KSP, anyway).  Mods don't.
• Stock features have to be prioritized and balanced against other potential features (because they only have so many developers, and spending time on feature A  means not spending time on feature B).  Mods don't.
• Stock features have a big cumbersome fix-test-integrate-release process to go through in order to fix problems when they turn up.  Mods don't.

And so on, and so forth.

And that's not a bad thing, either.  The fact is, the stock game and mods are solving different problems.  Each one is a valuable complement to the other, and tends to be good at what the other one's bad at.

Some problems are better (or, at least, much more easily) solved in the stock game.  Some are better (or, at least, much more easily) solved with mods.

In this particular case:  the UX design needed to "solve" the antenna-range problem is a much thornier one for the stock game than it is for a mod.  That doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be done in the stock game-- and note that @bewing didn't say "impossible".  Just, "very hard", meaning "would take a very large commitment of time, resources, and budget to solve in a way that works well for everyone".  Which, in turn, would mean not solving some other, more pressing problems-- of which there are plenty.  Just spend some time reading irate posts in the forums about them. 

So this particular issue seems to me like the poster child for "problems that are better solved by a mod than by the stock game".  And events would seem to have borne that out:  here we are a year later, and the stock game still hasn't added any such feature, and someone came along and produced what looks like a very nice, polished mod that addresses the problem very well, for the particular small subset of KSP users that like this solution.

3 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

The ability to visualize the range of an antenna SHOULD be stock.

Sure.  No argument there.  I would love to have such a feature myself.  I don't think anyone is saying that it wouldn't be nice to have.

But it ain't free, and coming up with a solution that would be appropriate for the stock game is really hard.  Making it happen would require the following:

1. Come up with a design that works for the stock game.  (I haven't seen anyone do this yet.)
2. Decide which other really vital features to cut in order to allow implementing the feature.  (I haven't seen anyone come up with a list... which of course would be difficult for someone outside Squad to do, since nobody outside Squad actually knows the real engineering cost of the various features, or their budget.)

So the question isn't "would it be nice to have".  Being an actual shipping-commercial-software developer is a hard juggling act that depends on balancing a lot of factors quite aside from sitting down and coding.  Sometimes we don't have nice things because they'd be too expensive relative to other things.

Which is why it's great that we have mods. 

3 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

Your argument of disliking mods because they add dialog boxes is laughable.

Well, it's laughable to you, perhaps, because you have a coping strategy that works for you.  It wouldn't work for me.  I could go on at length as to why not, and why having functionality and UI like this grafted onto the stock game would be like sandpaper on my soul... but I won't, because the fine details aren't relevant to anyone but me, personally.  No point in boring you more than I already have. 

Besides, it would be a pointless and un-resolvable argument, because it would be an argument over what to like.  It would be as silly as getting into an argument over "which ice cream flavor is better, vanilla or chocolate?"  (Chocolate.)

Suffice to say that I do have reasons-- carefully thought out, cogent reasons-- and therefore I like what I like, and I don't what I don't.

It's personal.

And therein lies the rub.  Different people like different things.  You like a solution that I don't.  I like a solution that you don't.  Ask a bunch of other KSP players, and they'll like still other solutions that perhaps neither you nor I would care for.

Players differ vastly about which problems they consider to be important or unimportant-- and also in how they'd like to see those problems solved.

Trying to please them all-- or even a significant majority of them-- is a mind-bendingly difficult design task.  It's a big part of the reason why commercial software development is difficult and requires a lot of trained professionals working full-time.  It's why things that may seem obvious and easy to the layperson often don't make it into the stock game-- because it's actually harder than it looks.

And it's why it's such a wonderful thing that KSP is so moddable:  because mods don't have to please everyone and can target solving specific problems really, really well for specific target audiences.  And there are hundreds of mods out there.  So any player can get a highly customized KSP experience by picking and choosing the mods that they like that solve the problems that are personally important to them, in ways that are personally appealing to them.

Nobody's opinion is laughable... to themselves.  Everyone likes what they like.  And that's perfectly reasonable-- no matter what they happen to like.

[JoE Smash]

My decision to finally buy this on sale on Steam a couple months ago was actually heavily influenced by the number of available mods to the game. KSP IS pretty fortunate that is so easily mod-able and is fortunate that it has such a strong modding community. I'm not sure I would have been as happy with the stock game as I am with the heavily modded version that I play. I'm pretty sure I would have totally lost interest in playing it by now if it wasn't for all the mods. Like linuxgurugamer and probably others I typically install around 100 mods through CKAN. (Actually I think linuxgurugamer probably runs closer to 200 mods than 100)

From big mods like texture and planet packs to little mods like better burn time and improved chase camera, this game is made much better by the mods that are available.

[mystifeid]

2 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

From big mods like texture and planet packs to little mods like better burn time and improved chase camera, this game is made much better by the mods that are available.

What I really like is the ability to have multiple installations. Which includes having at least one stock install. It's only recently that I've gone back to playing stock and in the process have discovered numerous ways to improve efficiency. This not only improves my gameplay, it has saved me a lot of time irl. And renewed my interest in the game.

[Malarug]

On 5/7/2017 at 4:40 PM, Miro Beero said:

Is there a way to see a max sphere of influence from an antenna on a space craft?

Antenna ranges mean nothing to me, if I cannot "measure" distances between planets. 

I just shot a rocket to moho and lost contact with it prior to it getting there.  Space Debris now...    :-(

So. I know it's old. But I had same problem and found a working solution. With Kerbal Engineer or similar mods when You target something it shows distance.

[Miro Beero]

52 minutes ago, Malarug said:

So. I know it's old. But I had same problem and found a working solution. With Kerbal Engineer or similar mods when You target something it shows distance.

I use a mod.  It shows the sphere of influence on the satellite.  I don't have the mod off hand but if you need it, I can post it later.