RemoteTech Satellite Network

[Dortmunder]

Hey guys. I'm having some trouble getting this to work. Vehicles work near my space center, so the mod seems to be working.

I put up a bunch of satellites with dishes around Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus with the intent of running some unmanned missions just to see if I could do it.

Problem is, none of my satellites seem to be working. I'll fly a ship until it goes out of LoS of the space center, then I lose control.

The satellites have battery power with solar panels, an engine, and 2 sat dishes activated(open) and a RemoteCommand module thing. But they don't seem to relay any signals.

Anyone know what I am doing wrong

Edited May 29, 2013 by Dortmunder

[Itsdavyjones]

Well you need an antenna and a constilation of communications satellites to maintain coverage. Another thing your doing is using satalite dishes. Dishes work only by pointing to another dish and are in range and LoS. A little tip for setting up a simple constilation. Have a 3 man pod with a remote command module to allow control of the remote tech probe (a probe that has solar panels, an engine, and a 8000 km antenna) as you move it to the orbit you want. For me, I found that putting it from a 100x100 orbit, transfer it to a 100x2000 orbit will allow communications with the mother ship (as long as the mothership has an antenna, dipole recommended) at the 2000km mark to allow you to circulise the orbit.

[rhoark]

The problem is you're using dishes that have to be targeted (and you can't set the target when the sat is out of contact). For a relay network, you want a hub and spoke architecture. The hubs talk to each other over long-range targeted dish connections, then relay the signal to nearby craft over a shorter-range omnidirectional antenna that connects automatically.

[Dortmunder]

I guess I need antenna's on each one then, that's probably my problem.

I set up a fairly nice network last night, which I thought was working because I put a sat in orbit then drove a remote controlled vehicle around. Must have just been getting my signal from KSC.

So now a new question. How do I replace my satellites with another I created(basically just added an antenna to the current craft). It's sort of cheating, I know. But I spent a good amount of time setting up about 10 sats last night, and I don't really want to do it again right now

I'm gonna try to figure it out myself in the files, but if anyone can give me a quick run down so I don't screw it up, that would be great

[Frederf]

It'll be in the persistence file. I don't know the structure too well but here's a tip:

1. Construct the type of satellite you want and put one in any orbit.

2. Find the existing sats and strip out the entire vessel section and paste the satellite you want in as an entire vessel.

That should merge the orbital information of the existing sat with the design of your desired sat.

[rosenkranz]

This is one of those situations that i think hyper-edit is a good thing as opposed to trying to monkey with the persistence file manually.

Make the replacement probe in the VAB by itself. Get it to the pad and use hyper-edit to rendezvous with the sat you want to replace. You should end up 250m away. Rename the new sat to the old sat's name. Then switch ('[') to the old sat and end flight.

Just don't forget to deploy the antenna on the pad before you hyper-edit anything. Otherwise, it'll lose contact after it's teleported.