Flight Signals go through planets and moons (CommNet/Antennas not affected by occlusion)

[TFA3393]

Jumping on here just to say we really want occlusion.  Doesn't need to happen fast but I think we do need it before colonies.  I know it needs to come with visualization and maybe a tutorial but it's an easy concept for brand new players to understand.  I still remember learning about it for the first time in KSP1 easy concept to grasp but I couldn't dock with my ship until I was on the other side of the planet.  Beautiful learning moment it would be a shame to not have that in the sequel. 

[Icegrx]

Developers must reconsider this “feature” 

 

planetary bodies need to interfere with comnet. The game is much too easy in its current state. 
 

if you are worried about new players, you can easily solve this. Currently we have the option to turn comnet on and off. What we need is a 3rd option to enable interfearsnce. 
 

This is the only option to make everyone happy, and it would be a solid option. 

[epaga]

100% agree with the comments here. Not needing an actual line of sight makes probe missions far too easy, and making networks of satellites far too meaningless. Add occlusion and the KEO satellite from the one mission actually becomes useful. Use your tutorial system if need be to explain signals and relays! Set up additional missions to get a good sat network going.... it's going to be great.

[pschlik]

Having done some unmanned missions myself, I agree that the lack of celestial occlusion is noticeable and is contributing (in part; I believe there are other ways probes should be nerfed) to unmanned missions being pretty overpowered for science gathering. The ability to go to Jool and do all manner of maneuvers, even sending sub-probes into Jool itself, without ever needing to worry about being unable to transmit data back, execute a maneuver, avoid being thrown into space by Tylo, etc. is not compelling. 

Also feels like it's worth mentioning that comms networks in KSP2 would (should?) still be relevant into the endgame as every new solar system is going to be a blank slate with absolutely no radio infrastructure.

Imagine deciding a gas giant moon is the most convenient place for a starter colony but lacking the resources and kermans to wing it by building extra colonies everywhere, you choose to probe the system first to find the absolute best places to mine. With the current system, that would mean simply slapping the longest-range antenna on each probe and being done. But with occlusion you'd have the far more interesting problem of setting up robust communications first in order to avoid an eclipse from the gas giant completely shutting down every ongoing mission...or being risky/cheap and dealing with intermittent connection as it happens. And that experience could be totally different on your next playthrough should you decide to bootstrap on a different planet/moon. Honestly sounds way more interesting than just "use big antenna".

Sure, that makes it more difficult, but there are reasonable ways to mitigate that, eg: a visualization in map view that shows comms deadzones as 3D blobs or something (bonus points for allowing this visualization to not only show the deadzones right now, but also show areas that are intermittent deadzones), or other similar ideas to demistify the problem of "my probe can't talk to KSC". Instead, the feature just gets simplified to oblivion with no option to retain the more complex version. It worries me that Intercept chose to take this route in 'solving' the problem, I hope it doesn't reflect their attitude toward other game mechanics.

[Fihnakis]

Also jumping in to add support for occlusion to be implemented. Don't really want to play Kerbal Simplified Program 2. 

[CosmikDebris]

Adding another yes please for occlusion