Fully Unmanned mission.

[Chrisalead]

Hi all, quite new to KSP and I love it.

But I seem to have a little problem and from what I have found on the net it's not possible to solve... What I want : A probe orbitting Duna and a rover on Duna. I expected the rover to be controllable by the probe since it has the best probe core, a 88-88 antenna to connect to Kerbin. The landing vehicule has another probe core and 88-88 antenna. And the rover has a smaller antenna to be able to communicate with any of the other 2 (lander and orbital probe). But it doesn't work !

And from what I have read on the net, it's not possible to do it without at least one kerbal pilot for example in the orbital probe. But the whole point of my mission is to be fully unmanned ?

Am I missing something ?

[Snark]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! 

Moving your question about how to play the game to Gameplay Questions.

42 minutes ago, Chrisalead said:

But I seem to have a little problem and from what I have found on the net it's not possible to solve... What I want : A probe orbitting Duna and a rover on Duna. I expected the rover to be controllable by the probe since it has the best probe core, a 88-88 antenna to connect to Kerbin. The landing vehicule has another probe core and 88-88 antenna. And the rover has a smaller antenna to be able to communicate with any of the other 2 (lander and orbital probe). But it doesn't work !

I'm having a little trouble picturing what you want.  Do you have two craft, or three?  I see you have an orbiter, and a rover, and what's this "landing vehicle" you're talking about?

Anyway:  The 88-88 is a "direct" antenna.  It's only good for controlling the craft that it's on.  So if your orbiter has an 88-88, that's helpful for controlling the orbiter, but not for controlling the rover.

For a scenario such as you describe, you need to have a relay antenna on the orbiter.  That way, if the orbiter can see KSC and the rover can see the orbiter, then it means the rover can relay its signal through the orbiter and you can control it.

[Ty Tan Tu]

As usual Snark has already answered the question, but just to state it in another form. It sounds like the lander is the vehicle that delivered the rover to the surface, and you also have an unnamed probe orbiting Duna. You are on the right tract, all three vehicles can communicate with each other most of the time (I would imaginge the orbital probe loses connection from time to time when it is on its far side of its orbit). What is missing is the manned part of your unmanned mission. Those men, i.e. you, are sitting in the tracking station at KSC on Kerbin. Your orbital probe has to be able to communicate with you at KSC or you can not control them. To do that you will need to add the relay antenna Snark mentions.

I have a very similar setup on the much simpler problem for a base on Minimus, but with three orbiting probes. The surface base communicates with an orbit probe that has a relay antenna. But the first orbital probe can not reach Kerbin either so it relays the signal to the second orbital probe. The Second orbiter transmits the signal back to the KSC, and I can control it from there.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Ty Tan Tu

[Plusck]

The question has already been answered two ways, so I'll just add a third:

There is no way for a probe core on one ship to be able to control anything that is not physically connected to it (and which therefore becomes part of its own ship, as it were).

The sort-of exception to that, which I think is what has confused you, is that some parts have a "remote control" capability built into them. However, you should probably imagine this as being a bunch of wires leading to a socket for a joystick (+ flight instrument suite) to be plugged in at the end of it: yes, a pilot with nothing better to do can come along, plug in a joystick and do remote control from there, but if there is nobody on board, a remote-control-capable probe core cannot plug its own virtual joystick into that socket.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Plusck

[wumpus]

7 minutes ago, Plusck said:

here is no way for a probe core on one ship to be able to control anything that is not physically connected to it (and which therefore becomes part of its own ship, as it were).

I think the point here is that you will need a probe core for each ship/lander (regardless of control, KSP has a tendency to delete such rockets without cores).  You will also need to provide communications so you can direct them from KSC (don't worry, we don't have speed-of-light issues in KSP) which means being careful of relay and non-relay communication.

[Geonovast]

Here's something I slapped together quick and ran up to Duna.  It's by no means ideal, but.

Here's the package I shipped to Duna.  Relay sat, Lander, and Rover.  Sat and Lander each have an RC-001S, Rover has a RoverMate with a Jr. Docking Port glued to the front for a "Control From Here" point.

Ditch the satellite in Duna Orbit.  This is the middle of the relay antenna, the RA-15.

Drop down, deploy the completely pointless 88-88s on the lander, and detach the Rover.

Stuck a DTS-M1 on the back of the rover.  Easily my favorite stock antenna.

The signal to the Rover is coming from the relay in orbit, not the Lander.

 

Of course I'm also a huge fan of ridiculous not-stock antennas.

[Spricigo]

 

An unmanned vessel just don't have a Kerbal on board but still need someone to control it. They are not autonomous. 

While you can solve it putting  one or two competent pilots in specialized vessel near your unmanned vehicles, the most common solution its to ensure a communication link back to a ground crew at KSC. For that communication link you need to setup a CommNet.

 

Your craft , each with a communotron 88-88, should have no problem reaching back to KSC unless something(like Duna itself)  get in the way between then and Kerbin. But, as mentioned, those direct antennas don't allow communication between then (they are like cellphones, but without the towers that provide the connection to the phone network).

 

 

 

[Chrisalead]

So many answers in just one night that's great ^^. You are all gonna laugh, I was SO SURE that the com 88-88 was a Relay antenna ! And yes that's why it wasn't working ^^. Thanks all for your help.

[Guest]

Another hint -- I like to do unmanned missions so usually the first thing I do when starting to explore a new system is to send two or three relays with the highest-power relay antennas I have into highly inclined, high, and eccentric orbits around them. The rest of my orbital craft -- probes, stations, what have you -- will have RA-2s, which are sufficient to reach my high-power relays. Then I can use Communotron-16s or at most DTS-M1s on my landers and other probes. As long as any one of my orbiting craft is over the horizon, the probes will be controllable, and in practice this will almost always be the case. It's kinda sloppy but ultimately not much more expensive than building a carefully optimised network with a minimum number of relays.