Create a Communication Relay Computer part

[Tyko]

I'm envisioning a change to the commnet mechanics in which all the antennas are Direct by default and a new part called a Relay Computer enables the antennas to act as relays.

I'd rebalance the antennas to all be Direct and the added weight and power requirements currently associated with Relay antennas would be shifted to this relay instead. So, it won't affect balance. The advantage is that you'd have almost twice as many antennas to choose from.

An added layer of complexity would be to have a lower tech Relay Computer that required 2 antennas - it's not smart enough to do anything but pass the signal between two antennas - and a higher tech version that can use only one antenna - it's storing the data and then re-transmitting

Could this be done with a part config alone? I don't think so, since this part would have to modify the behavior of other parts. What other way could it be accomplished?

Thanks!

Edited January 21, 2018 by Tyko

[Li0n]

36 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Could this be done with a part config alone? I don't think so, since this part would have to modify the behavior of other parts. What other way could it be accomplished?

For switching all the antenna to DIRECT you can probably do it with a MM patch but for the relay computer you want a new behavior so you need to write a new PartModule.

Most likely you'll wrote two PartModule, one for each type of relay computer.

I think that's a good idea so good luck (the CommNet can be tricky to work with...)