Comm-network at Duna

[GrouchyDevotee]

PS4, Enhanced Edition, 1.01, default controls, normal difficulty, career mode.

Finally arrived at Duna with my first sortie consisting of of two landers, their delivery vehicles, and a couple of communications satellites.

In orbit everything has great comm strength, but nothing is communicating with each other.

My scan Sat directly overhead of my lander at a range of 44 km with; 4x 88-88, 2x Communotron DTS-M, and a Communotron-16S  (lots of electricity, and deployed) was no help to my now vaporized Duna lander that had a communotron 16 deployed...

Displaying the communication comm-net has all my Duna satillites only communicating with Kerbin, and not with each other even when one has signal drops because Duna or Ike are is the way....

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2018 by GrouchyDevotee

[VaPaL]

None of those are relay antennas, so they relay the signal from Kerbin to other crafts. You need a HG-5 or RA-2 or RA 15 or RA-100 to relay the signal from Kerbin to your lander or any other craft.

Relay antennas can relay signals from one craft to another also. For example, you ha a satellite with relay antennas on Duna, and you are going to Eve, if you don't have direct line of sight from Eve to Kerbin, your signal can be raleyed from Kerbin to Dune to Eve (if range and line of sight permits).

I don't remember ir your lander also need to have a relay antenna. I think not, but is worth checking.

[Capt. Hunt]

The craft on the end of the chain doesn't need a relay, but those comsats definitely do.  Also, any antenna that needs to be deployed can potentially burn off during reentry or be torn off by aeroforces (although that's less likely at Duna it can still happen).  The probe core itself has an antenna capable to receiving relay command signals from orbit too, which you could have used during reentry.

You don't need that many antennae either, just one of either the 88-88 or the DTS-M1 (or the equivalent relay) would have probably been sufficient, depending on your tracking station level.