Why can't I get vessels to connect to relays?

[DaviBones]

I have a vessel with a Communotron 16 in LKO, and another vessel with a DTS-M1 in KEO. But my vessel in LKO is failing to connect to the relay: https://imgur.com/a/q67uewV

My calculation tells me that they should connect: sqrt(500K*2G) = ~31M, more than 10x what is required. What am I doing wrong?

I initially suspected my mods were to blame, but to my surprise, upon uninstalling them and starting a fresh save, the problem has persisted.

[DaviBones]

That would do it! I'm actually pretty familiar with the CommNet system, I somehow just assumed that the DTS-M1 was a Relay antenna, which was pretty silly in retrospect. Thanks for clearing things up.

Edited April 10, 2019 by DaviBones

[Geonovast]

Neither of those antennas is a relay antenna.

Direct antennas cannot talk to each other, they can only talk to relay antennas or the dishes at the KSC.

The antenna actually has to say relay on the description in the VAB.

This lists all the stock antennas and if they're a relay or not.

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parts#Communication

[TheTripleAce3]

@Geonovast I do believe that Omnidirectionals do have the ability to get signals from other antennas as long as the other ones are relays themselves 

[DaviBones]

1 hour ago, TheTripleAce3 said:

@Geonovast I do believe that Omnidirectionals do have the ability to get signals from other antennas as long as the other ones are relays themselves 

I believe that's what Geonovast was saying, no?

"Direct antennas ... can only talk to relay antennas or dishes at the KSC."

Unless omnidirectionals antenna are something I'm not aware of, but I always just assumed that was another name for direct antennas, popularized by RemoteTech.

[TheTripleAce3]

2 hours ago, DaviBones said:

I believe that's what Geonovast was saying, no?

"Direct antennas ... can only talk to relay antennas or dishes at the KSC."

Unless omnidirectionals antenna are something I'm not aware of, but I always just assumed that was another name for direct antennas, popularized by RemoteTech.

The comm 16 and 16S are omnidirectional which means they try to talk to everything nearby, but only relays and the KSC can actually talk to them.

[Snark]

22 hours ago, TheTripleAce3 said:

I do believe that Omnidirectionals do have the ability to get signals from other antennas as long as the other ones are relays themselves 

20 hours ago, DaviBones said:

Unless omnidirectionals antenna are something I'm not aware of

17 hours ago, TheTripleAce3 said:

The comm 16 and 16S are omnidirectional which means they try to talk to everything nearby, but only relays and the KSC can actually talk to them.

No, "omnidirectionals" are not a thing in KSP.

(A possible source of confusion is that before CommNet came to stock KSP in 1.2, the go-to mod that everyone used for that purpose was RemoteTech, which did-- and still does-- have a quite different and much more complex comms model.  In RemoteTech, there are two different categories of antenna, "omnidirectional" and "directional"; the latter have to designate a specific target in order to work.  My guess is that the use of the term "omnidirectional" here was due to confusion with RemoteTech.)

 

Stock KSP has two kinds of antennas:

• Relay antennas:  HG-5, RA-2, RA-15, RA-15
• Direct antennas:  everything else

Any "communication chain" that allows control has the vessel at one end and KSC at the other.  (Except for the special case of controlling with a pilot from one of the big probe cores, but let's not get into that right now.)

The difference between relay and direct antennas is:  a relay antenna can be anywhere in the chain, whereas a direct antenna can only be at the end of the chain (i.e. the currently controlled vessel).

The source of the above confusion is that @TheTripleAce3 is incorrectly referring to direct antennas as "omnidirectional".  Replace the word "omnidirectional" with "direct", and everything you said is correct. 

 

[TheTripleAce3]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

No, "omnidirectionals" are not a thing in KSP.

(A possible source of confusion is that before CommNet came to stock KSP in 1.2, the go-to mod that everyone used for that purpose was RemoteTech, which did-- and still does-- have a quite different and much more complex comms model.  In RemoteTech, there are two different categories of antenna, "omnidirectional" and "directional"; the latter have to designate a specific target in order to work.  My guess is that the use of the term "omnidirectional" here was due to confusion with RemoteTech.)

The source of the above confusion is that @TheTripleAce3 is incorrectly referring to direct antennas as "omnidirectional".  Replace the word "omnidirectional" with "direct", and everything you said is correct. 

Come to think of it, I have no idea when I started thinking of them as Omni antennae, I thought I read it on the wiki but a search there shows that couldn't be the case. Maybe it was from some video somewhere that had RT installed.

 

However, I could have sworn that I've made a chain of Landers on the Mun or minmus that rely on one HG-5 and the rest using communotron 16 antennae to communicate with the rest of the chain... I'll do some digging tonight through my saves, thanks very much for the correction.

Edited April 11, 2019 by TheTripleAce3

[Snark]

16 minutes ago, TheTripleAce3 said:

However, I could have sworn that I've made a chain of Landers on the Mun or minmus that rely on one HG-5 and the rest using communotron 16 antennae to communicate with the rest of the chain... I'll do some digging tonight through my saves, thanks very much for the correction.

Well, the HG-5 is a relay antenna, so if you had a chain of them, then any Communotron-16 ship would be fine, as long as it can "see" a nearby HG-5.