[0.20] RemoteTech: Relay Network – V 0.5.0.1

[jrandom]

oh, i'll use v1 then, will it work with 0.21? and will i need the stock parts compatibility plugin?

If you use an unmanned pod with RT-1 in KSP .21, SAS will revert to the old .20-style SAS. I'd recommend not using RT at all and just flying manned missions until RT-2 comes out (which is what I'm doing). I'd rather not pester Cliph as it appears he has enough on his plate already.

[gwichy]

Hi, there seem to be an issue when using a Remote Control core the fairings from KW rocketery do not open properly, and any other decoupler separate but whithout force anymore, is anyone having the same problem?

[Starwaster]

Hi, there seem to be an issue when using a Remote Control core the fairings from KW rocketery do not open properly, and any other decoupler separate but whithout force anymore, is anyone having the same problem?

Do you have struts on the fairing? In addition to stabilizing your ship, they dampen decouplers, including fairings.

[MainSailor]

So I have a question regarding how you point the dishes. This is RT1 (or 0.5.0.1 I suppose.)

I have a craft with a Remote Command probe aboard, as well as a capsule with 4 crew members. I have a link when I'm in the Kerbin SOI, but once I leave, I lose the link and just get the Local Control option. I have pointed my dish at Kerbin, several of my relay sats, and even lofted an RT satellite into a Minmus trailing orbit and pointed at that, and it still won't link to any of them. I have also gone back and pointed those dishes at the craft and still not gotten a link. I know that I don't need it since I have local control anyhow, but it's disconcerting as I am about to launch an unmanned ship and will need to have a link between the relays or the new command and control craft and can't seem to keep a link once I leave Kerbin SOI.

[GavinZac]

Ideally, it would not receive commands as soon as it opened its dish if the dish is closed when the transmission arrives. You can queue received commands, but you can't queue radio waves to be received when it's convenient. You might time your transmission to coincide with the reopening of the dish, if (when) that is possible, but that's about the only way for the scenario you described to be possible.

RemoteControl is aerobraking with dish due to open in 6 minutes

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC ...

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC ...

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC ...

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC ...

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC ...

dish opens

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC : TURNING ENGINES OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: Turn off the engines, and call home!

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

Mission control receives confirmation

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ENGINE ALREADY OFF, CALLING HOME

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC receives end of transmission footer

RC : ...

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ...

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ...

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ...

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ...

MC: confirmation received, over.

RC : ...

MC recognises RC has stopped transmission

MC: ...

RC : ...

[Lexif]

Normally, you should be able to just point your dish at Kerbin once you are out of its SOI. There needs to be a dish in Kerbin's SOI that is pointed at your ship and in range. I never tried manned ships outside of Kerbin's SOI, though, only probes.

[gwichy]

Do you have struts on the fairing? In addition to stabilizing your ship, they dampen decouplers, including fairings.

Hi, no I didn't included the strut into the design, just fairing. I will do some more trial with and without RT and let you know what is happening.

[Cilph]

Hi, no I didn't included the strut into the design, just fairing. I will do some more trial with and without RT and let you know what is happening.

Known issue. Please refrain from discussing RT2 issues on this forum and do not use it for personal gameplay.

[zyngawow]

I tried to build a satellite geosyncronous relay network. I used the vanilla antenna (Communotron 16), but my satellites don't comunicate between each other. All of them are in geosyncronous orbit and 120º apart. What could be the problem?

[gwichy]

Known issue. Please refrain from discussing RT2 issues on this forum and do not use it for personal gameplay.

I am actually having this issue with RT1, I am not here to discuss the issue anyway, just reporting it .Anyway great mod, I'm looking forward the next version.

EDIT: I redownloaded and reinstalled all the mods and its working fine now, maybe I had downloaded RT2 by mistake the first time? Anyway everything is well now so I can enjoy these great mods together

Edited August 16, 2013 by gwichy

[Sma]

If you use an unmanned pod with RT-1 in KSP .21, SAS will revert to the old .20-style SAS. I'd recommend not using RT at all and just flying manned missions until RT-2 comes out (which is what I'm doing). I'd rather not pester Cliph as it appears he has enough on his plate already.

Thats exactly what I'm doing (not using RT). I'm "playtesting" ship/probe builds... rebuilding ships/crafts and testing them. Once RT2 is ready to go then I'll grab it, likely wipe my save while keeping whatever craft files I've got. Then do whatever is needed to integrate RT2. Currently I'm working on a larger kethane miner than my first, as well as a dockable lander for it. Unfortunately I have bad part lag due to playing on an 3y/o laptop so it's a little slow going lol but i did manage to dock the lander tug to the kethane miner (sent up in 2 separate launches).

[ebaydan777]

so basically i cannot simply place my current probes (not RT2, not sure if i mentioned this, im using old satellites from before RT2), if I have these already orbiting in various locations, and when RT2 is actually out of playtesting, can't I simply go into VAB, built the new RT2 ship I want, replace the .craft file info with new ship to the current orbiting ships, and presto, I have the new ship in orbit without having to do everything over again. Or is this not a possibility. For some reason to me I dont see why it wouldn't work. Unless KSP just will not run parts of what is inside of .craft file. Does this make sense?

[GavinZac]

so basically i cannot simply place my current probes (not RT2, not sure if i mentioned this, im using old satellites from before RT2), if I have these already orbiting in various locations, and when RT2 is actually out of playtesting, can't I simply go into VAB, built the new RT2 ship I want, replace the .craft file info with new ship to the current orbiting ships, and presto, I have the new ship in orbit without having to do everything over again. Or is this not a possibility. For some reason to me I dont see why it wouldn't work. Unless KSP just will not run parts of what is inside of .craft file. Does this make sense?

You can use HyperEdit to place satellites into orbit. Yes, it's "cheating" but no more so than editing ships like that.

[luckyhendrix]

Hi sorry if it is a know bug , I tried to search the thread but with no luck:

When I try to control a plane witha RT antenna (RT1) with my joystick , there is a a lag beetween the moment I move my joystick and the moment the controls move, is it normal ?

[xZise]

I tried to build a satellite geosyncronous relay network. I used the vanilla antenna (Communotron 16), but my satellites don't comunicate between each other. All of them are in geosyncronous orbit and 120º apart. What could be the problem?

When you are using RT1 you need to install the compatibility pack to support the stock antennae. With RT2 this is still buggy and you have to wait for a fix.

Known issue. Please refrain from discussing RT2 issues on this forum and do not use it for personal gameplay.

I don't understand why RT2 shouldn't discussed here too. Maybe some questions don't get answers, but I'm pretty sure they don't get answers because nobody knows how to fix is. I don't see that RT1 specific questions get ignored, and most of the time a non-dev is answering RT2 specific questions, so you don't have any additional work load.

Of course it could be possible that devs (like you) can delete posts in this thread and I don't see all that RT2 specific posts, because they get deleted before. But of course then you wouldn't answer because you could have deleted that post.

Fabian

Edited August 17, 2013 by xZise

[Kethevin]

I don't understand why RT2 shouldn't discussed here too. Maybe some questions don't get answers, but I'm pretty sure they don't get answers because nobody knows how to fix is. I don't see that RT1 specific questions get ignored, and most of the time a non-dev is answering RT2 specific questions, so you don't have any additional work load.

Of course it could be possible that devs (like you) can delete posts in this thread and I don't see all that RT2 specific posts, because they get deleted before. But of course then you wouldn't answer because you could have deleted that post.

Fabian

Because they don't have the time to sort out RT2 stuff with all the RT1 stuff. RT2 is still in development, the play testing is to help them find and fix bugs. Any RT2 issues should be reported on the bug tracker to help them zero in on them in a much more efficient manner. :-)

[Kimberly]

If my calculations are correct, then with the use of 20 satellites each in 10 orbital planes, I should have excellent coverage of Kerbin's surface using just the basic 250 km antenna, with intra-plane and inter-plane crosslinks between the satellites possible. With an orbital period of 30 minutes and 45 seconds, the satellites would barely skim the atmosphere at an altitude of 72.77 kilometers. Ignoring the curvature of Kerbin, the absolute minimum latency would be 0.49 milliseconds, maximum round-trip time within a single satellite's coverage area would be 0.79 milliseconds. I could provide all of Kerbin's residents with high-speed communication with a single network!

Once RemoteTech 2 is released in earnest, I know what's going to keep me busy.

[DoubleOSeven1]

If my calculations are correct, then with the use of 20 satellites each in 10 orbital planes, I should have excellent coverage of Kerbin's surface using just the basic 250 km antenna, with intra-plane and inter-plane crosslinks between the satellites possible. With an orbital period of 30 minutes and 45 seconds, the satellites would barely skim the atmosphere at an altitude of 72.77 kilometers. Ignoring the curvature of Kerbin, the absolute minimum latency would be 0.49 milliseconds, maximum round-trip time within a single satellite's coverage area would be 0.79 milliseconds. I could provide all of Kerbin's residents with high-speed communication with a single network!

Once RemoteTech 2 is released in earnest, I know what's going to keep me busy.

And you you could replicate the GPS network and give them GPS too!

[Kimberly]

And you you could replicate the GPS network and give them GPS too!

Also planning on doing that, but that's much easier. The real network has just 24 satellites, after all. I made a 20-satellite network in 0.20, and I tested it with Figaro GPS; I achieved the goal of having at least 4 satellites visible at all times.

By the way, that crazy idea I posted previously? That's based on Teledesic, a proposal in the 90s to put 40 satellites each in 21 orbital planes! Because Kerbin is so much smaller, and the atmosphere is less of an issue, my network ought to actually be better despite having far fewer satellites.

[DoubleOSeven1]

Also planning on doing that, but that's much easier. The real network has just 24 satellites, after all. I made a 20-satellite network in 0.20, and I tested it with Figaro GPS; I achieved the goal of having at least 4 satellites visible at all times.

By the way, that crazy idea I posted previously? That's based on Teledesic, a proposal in the 90s to put 40 satellites each in 21 orbital planes! Because Kerbin is so much smaller, and the atmosphere is less of an issue, my network ought to actually be better despite having far fewer satellites.

You could always recreate the Iridium network... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation

[Kimberly]

You could always recreate the Iridium network... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation

I could, but why not think big?

I think I'll design some microsatellites instead of recreating the Teledesic design, though. Besides there being no suitable parts for it, the darn things were supposed to be 12 meters across, with a solar panel of 12x12 as well. I'd prefer to just take 20 microsatellites up at once, get the transport vehicle into the right orbit and then use a 21/20ths orbital period to move them into place. (I can't use 19/20ths, because I'd be in the atmopshere!)

[DoubleOSeven1]

I could, but why not think big?

I think I'll design some microsatellites instead of recreating the Teledesic design, though. Besides there being no suitable parts for it, the darn things were supposed to be 12 meters across, with a solar panel of 12x12 as well. I'd prefer to just take 20 microsatellites up at once, get the transport vehicle into the right orbit and then use a 21/20ths orbital period to move them into place. (I can't use 19/20ths, because I'd be in the atmopshere!)

Now you gotta post pictures of that, launch vehicle, sats and all including a tracking station shot!

[Kimberly]

Here's my satellite design:

I've dubbed the system LO-COM, for Low Orbit Communications. For the design, I decided to go barebones, for the ease of mass production as well as being able to carry 20 up with one launch vehicle. Each satellite weighs 203.7 kg, and has 1066 m/s available for station-keeping and orbital maneuvering. Why so much delta-V? Well, I can't help it! That's the lightest fuel tank with the lightest engines. I gave each one two engines for balanced thrust (the bottom surface has to be clear so it can be attached to the launch vehicle), giving the craft a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.5. I've tested it and the satellites can in fact deorbit and land themselves safely!

I wondered about whether it would be worth having in-orbit spares. To see if ground spares would suffice, I tried launching a single satellite with an, ahem, simple launch design. It didn't get into orbit, mostly due to this happening:

Edited August 18, 2013 by Kimberly

[DoubleOSeven1]

Here's my satellite design:

I've dubbed the system LO-COM, for Low Orbit Communications. For the design, decided to go barebones, for the ease of mass production as well as being able to carry 20 up with one launch vehicle. Each satellite weighs 203.7 kg, and has 1066 m/s available for station-keeping and orbital maneuvering. Why so much delta-V? Well, I can't help it! That's the lightest fuel tank with the lightest engines. I gave each one two engines for balanced thrust (the bottom surface has to be clear so it can be attached to the launch vehicle), giving the craft a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.5. I've tested it and the satellites can in fact deorbit and land themselves safely!

I wondered about whether it would be worth having in-orbit spares. To see if ground spares would suffice, I tried launching a single satellite with an, ahem, simple launch design. It didn't get into orbit, mostly due to this happening:

Nice! I always lack inspiration for designing them, would you mind if I used your design? Also how would you do interplanetary?

[Kimberly]

For continuous interplanetary coverage, you need two relays in opposite points of an orbit around Kerbin. Whenever one is blocked by Kerbin, the other has a line of sight. You also need two relays in the same set-up at the destination to receive the signal, and they can then propagate it to whatever network of satellites you've set up around the destination planet. Each relay needs at least two dishes, to communicate with the two relays it is sending/receiving from. (Due to RemoteTech's limitations, you can get away with less, but if you ask me, the more the merrier!) For bodies that are tidally locked to their parent, like the Mun, you can have only one "receiving" relay. For example, you don't need two relays around the Mun, because if you place one on the surface facing Kerbin it will always be able to see at least one of the two relays around Kerbin.

If you really want a highly unnecessary degree of coverage, place a relay in orbit around Kerbol in the same orbit as Kerbin, but 1/4th of an orbit ahead or behind. It will always have a line of sight to both Kerbin, and any object that is blocked by Kerbol from Kerbin's perspective.

And sure, you can use my design, though keep in mind it's thoroughly useless unless you have a whole swarm of those. Also, I don't think I deserve much credit, I basically slapped on whatever parts were lightest and would do the job.