RemoteTech - manual?

[rottielover]

My google foo is apparently lacking, cause I can't seem to find a manual for this addon.

I've read as much material as I can find (in the last hour), and so was able to get my relay network up and running.

What I'm trying to figure out is the "Flight Computer" functions. I assume this is a mechanizim whereby you can "queue" up commands for your probe to execute at a specified time (ie do xyz burn for 12 sec at 100% thrust ). I'm assuming this is so that if your probe goes "out of range" briefly you won't miss a capture etc. however I can't seem to figure out how to use it.

Pointing dishes and such is pretty cool, but I'm missing an aspect.

Thanks in advance.

Edited July 18, 2013 by rottielover
Change prefix

[Kimberly]

Your assumption about the flight computer is correct. You can use it as a flight aide when actively controlling the craft, but also to make sure your probe keeps its heading and does a burn when it's out of range. Most of the buttons just tell your probe to point a particular heading: prograde, retrograde, normal, anti-normal, radial, anti-radial. These are always relative to your orbit, which means they won't match up with the symbols on the navball if the navball is set to Target mode, for example. "Surface" allows you to specify a heading relative to the surface of the body you're orbiting, e.g. you can tell it to point directly up or directly down.

The thrust scheduler allows you to specify a burn at a particular throttle level (top slider), for a particular time in seconds (middle box), after a particular time in the format HH:MM:SS has elapsed (bottom box). Just type in the values and press enter.

[rottielover]

Excellent, thank you. Does it interface with the stock manuver node system? (Can I setup my manuver node or nodes and have the "flight computer" handle them, or are all entries to the computer done manually?)

Thanks again

[IllicitMedic]

You can set your nodes, then enter the information from the node into the flight computer and hit send. Be sure to click Maneuver also for the attitude.

NOTE: You can click "Burn Time" to switch to Delta V if you'd rather input amount of Dealt v instead of burn time, I find that more accurate.

[rottielover]

Ah, thanks!! BTW I'm confused about one more point. In one of the tutorials I saw try said you need to have a two dish setup on your relay sats. So far all I've done is put up 4 geosync "Comsat's" with a dipole and a 9000 dish so I could control my interplanetary probe. I'm thinking that the dipole is what's getting the signal from KSP space center and the dish's are what's keeping my probe in contact? So if I wanted to setup a relay network with say a Comsat at Jool, that sat would need two dishes, one to point at Kerbin and one to point at probes or missions?

[IllicitMedic]

Ah, thanks!! BTW I'm confused about one more point. In one of the tutorials I saw try said you need to have a two dish setup on your relay sats. So far all I've done is put up 4 geosync "Comsat's" with a dipole and a 9000 dish so I could control my interplanetary probe. I'm thinking that the dipole is what's getting the signal from KSP space center and the dish's are what's keeping my probe in contact? So if I wanted to setup a relay network with say a Comsat at Jool, that sat would need two dishes, one to point at Kerbin and one to point at probes or missions?

You only need dishes for travel past the Mun if you have Geostationary satellites in orbit, the dipole has plenty of range.

Anything past the Mun then you will need dishes, a min of 2. One on a sat pointed towards the planet or craft and one on the craft pointed back towards the satellite. (You don't have to physically point them, just open up the targeting menu from a remote tech processor or core body and select a planet/moon/craft and that's good enough)

What I like to do is put 4 LKO satellites up with 4 dipoles on each. Then my 3-4 Geostationary satellites will each have 2 dipoles for signal from the LKO satellites and for transmitting to craft within range, they then also have 4 dishes each on them for long range communications. I've yet to do interplanetary missions past Minmus but when I do I'll be sending up 2 satellites with the huge dishes and will be putting them into a semi-stationary orbit around Kerbin.

Edited July 18, 2013 by IllicitMedic

[EasyAce]

You only need dishes for travel past the Mun if you have Geostationary satellites in orbit, the dipole has plenty of range.

Anything past the Mun then you will need dishes, a min of 2. One on a sat pointed towards the planet or craft and one on the craft pointed back towards the satellite. (You don't have to physically point them, just open up the targeting menu from a remote tech processor or core body and select a planet/moon/craft and that's good enough)

What I like to do is put 4 LKO satellites up with 4 dipoles on each. Then my 3-4 Geostationary satellites will each have 2 dipoles for signal from the LKO satellites and for transmitting to craft within range, they then also have 4 dishes each on them for long range communications. I've yet to do interplanetary missions past Minmus but when I do I'll be sending up 2 satellites with the huge dishes and will be putting them into a semi-stationary orbit around Kerbin.

I'm in a process where I am experimenting with RemoteTech. Easy experimenting of course, but it is needed before I go beyond Minmus.

What I've done so far is putting 4-5 ComSats in LKO. Then I've sent up 2 ComSats in GeoSync Orbit. One right above KSC.

The Sats in LKO all have3-4 communitrons and one of the Stock dish. The ComSats in GeoSync Orbit has one Dish each with Range of 9MM I think.

When I've sent probes to the Mun this worked fine as long as the GeoSats was pointing at the Probe.

The signal went KSC - GeoSat - Probe, or KSC - LKO Sat - GeoSat - Probe.

My next mission is to put up a relay Network around the Mun and Minmus... so the question is;

What I need is one, two or three Sats with dishes pointet at Kerbin, and all other Sats just need small antennas... or should I put up all Sats around the Mun to be pointet at Kerbin?

[fran13kie]

Once you have a dish pointed at Kerbin you can communicate to nearby probes with dipole antennas. I placed a main communication tower on the Mun's surface pointing towards my Kerbin communication network with dishes and my satellites in orbit around Mun communicate with that tower via dipoles.

[rottielover]

I'm going to have to sit down and do some (shudder) math.

I tried to put my Comsat's into Kerbinstationay orbit (2868.6 km) but I guess I didn't get the orbits perfect cause after some time accel doing my probe mission to eloo , two of them ended up almost right next to each other.

So if I'm unable to make the orbits perfect I need a new strategy of putting up enough "imperfect" orbit sats to ensure coverage.

[IllicitMedic]

I'm in a process where I am experimenting with RemoteTech. Easy experimenting of course, but it is needed before I go beyond Minmus.

What I've done so far is putting 4-5 ComSats in LKO. Then I've sent up 2 ComSats in GeoSync Orbit. One right above KSC.

The Sats in LKO all have3-4 communitrons and one of the Stock dish. The ComSats in GeoSync Orbit has one Dish each with Range of 9MM I think.

When I've sent probes to the Mun this worked fine as long as the GeoSats was pointing at the Probe.

The signal went KSC - GeoSat - Probe, or KSC - LKO Sat - GeoSat - Probe.

My next mission is to put up a relay Network around the Mun and Minmus... so the question is;

What I need is one, two or three Sats with dishes pointet at Kerbin, and all other Sats just need small antennas... or should I put up all Sats around the Mun to be pointet at Kerbin?

There is really no need for communications satellites outside Kerbin's SOI if you ask me. Using the largest satellites RemoteTech has to offer you can reach anywhere in the solar system, you may in a rare occasion lose signal due to planet being in the way or what not but that's what the flight computer is for.

But of course you can do it however you want.

My network is always setup this way and has never failed:

4 LKO Satellites with 4 antennas.

3-4 Geostationary Satellites with 1 antenna to receive signals from the LKO satellites and transmit to crafts within range. 4 dishes, usually the stock dish to send signals to the Mun and Minmus.

3-4 Interplanetary Satellites either in geostationary orbit or higher with 1 antenna and 4 of the largest dishes available which will cover the entire galaxy and offer uninterrupted communications.

I put more then 1 dish on each satellite so I don't have to keep changing targets if I'm operating on 2 or more planets/moons at once.

[IllicitMedic]

I'm going to have to sit down and do some (shudder) math.

I tried to put my Comsat's into Kerbinstationay orbit (2868.6 km) but I guess I didn't get the orbits perfect cause after some time accel doing my probe mission to eloo , two of them ended up almost right next to each other.

So if I'm unable to make the orbits perfect I need a new strategy of putting up enough "imperfect" orbit sats to ensure coverage.

All satellites IRL and in KSP will drift over time, they just need boosted/repositioned. For your stationary orbits try to aim for 0 m/s ground speed and they will take years to drift together. Once your at the corrct height you still need to fine tune your orbit for 0 m/s ground speed.

[lextacy]

Question about the dishes. Is it required that both devices in space must "handshake" eachothers dish to establish a connection? Is this connection 2-way? What if "Goe-Sat dish" is set to point at a "LKO sat" , but I hav a "mun sat" that points to him? Does he not need to also have to point to the mun too?

Like for example ,If im making some interplanetary satellites , will I need to keep adding more and more dishes to them when launching more and more probes, rovers, ect ?

[bitbucket]

If two ships are trying to communicate through dish antennas in the same sphere of influence, both of them have to be set to specifically target the other. If they're orbiting, say, different planets, then you just need to target the planet, and any vessel within the cone of the antenna's range that's pointing a dish back the other way will have contact as long as it has a line of sight.

[lextacy]

im having an issue with my long range probes losing contact after some time . I have a network of 2 interplanetary relay satellites orbiting Kerbin with a 40 GM dish pointed to "active vessle" . I also have a long range probe that points to these satellites. Once this probe leaves minmus it loses connection even though its dish is also 40 GM . Does remote tech block anything outside of Kerbins SOI? If so this is stupid because how can I have a long range probe like the Voyager if i cant control it.

[Mechie_PhD]

im having an issue with my long range probes losing contact after some time . I have a network of 2 interplanetary relay satellites orbiting Kerbin with a 40 GM dish pointed to "active vessle" . I also have a long range probe that points to these satellites. Once this probe leaves minmus it loses connection even though its dish is also 40 GM . Does remote tech block anything outside of Kerbins SOI? If so this is stupid because how can I have a long range probe like the Voyager if i cant control it.

What orbital inclination are the planetary relay satellites on? Is Mun or Minmus blocking the LOS between your probe and relay? Try to put your relay in Molniya orbit to avoid it from being blocked.....

[lextacy]

What orbital inclination are the planetary relay satellites on? Is Mun or Minmus blocking the LOS between your probe and relay? Try to put your relay in Molniya orbit to avoid it from being blocked.....

Well i have LOS between all items in question. NOw the probe is at an .016 inclination orbiting the sun. But I have an older probe with a 4.064 inclination with the same dish type and it connects just fine. This is wierd....

[Vanamonde]

Hmm. This should have been moved to add-on affairs quite some time ago. Well, it's there now.

[Streetwind]

On the topic of RemoteTech I have some super noobish questions... never used it, just keep seeing people use it. They're mostly questions of understanding the advice given in this thread.

Two spacecraft talking to each other always requires one dedicated antenna on each, yes? In other words, a commsat talking to KSC and to two neighboring commsats absolutely needs three antennas for those purposes, and then one additional antenna for every single spacecraft that concurrently wants to use it as a relay? Or does it only need an antenna to "point" at another craft and is then considered talking to that craft if that craft has any antenna at all? (In other words, is receiving a passive act or an active one? Can communication from multiple craft be received on one antenna?)

Or does it maybe work something like, you tell the commsat to point one of its large dishes at Duna, and then every craft in Duna orbit or on its surface can point their antennas at the commsat and "share" that dish?

Do you need to tell both craft to point towards each other, or will asking craft A to point towards craft B hijack a free antenna on craft B? What if craft B does not have a free antenna but I point craft A at it anyway? Will a link be automatically established as soon as craft B has a free antenna again (when craft C that it was talking to goes out of range)?

If a free antenna on craft B is automatically selected does it always pick the shortest range one possible, or is it random, or dictated by build order or something else? Will it switch to a longer range antenna if the currently utilized one no longer has the range to reach the linked craft... does the range of the receiving antenna matter in the first place?

Do RemoteTech antennas have a constant Ec consumption when "talking" (pointed towards/receiving rom another craft)? I know there are issues with such things not being calculated when not inside the player's current physics bubble, but I also understand that there is a mod in development that aims to fix this...

Edited November 13, 2014 by Streetwind

[J.Random]

1. Not really. You may target a planet, then you'll be in contact with all satellites around that planet in your dish cone if they point their dishes back at you or your planet (if you're in their dish cone, of course).

2. No automatic antenna selection.

3. Antennas consume EC when activated, irregardless of having a target assigned.

Edited November 13, 2014 by J.Random

[Streetwind]

Okay, thanks. That implies that one antenna can receive from any number of senders in its zone of influence.

...But then why are people in this thread posting about their setups of commsats with multiple omnidirectional antennas? Multiple dishes I can understand, but shouldn't one omnidirectional antenna be enough to send to and receive from anything within range?

[J.Random]

One omni is generally enough, yes. Two, if you count 500km dipole for ascent. But (1) there's an option to enable multiplier in options - then several omni antennas will amplify each other, and (2) even with default settings, multiple "strategically" placed omni antennas look cool on satellite.

PS Manuals are here for everyone interested: http://remotetechnologiesgroup.github.io/RemoteTech/

Edited November 13, 2014 by J.Random

[Streetwind]

Thanks for the info

[lextacy]

Okay ive been able to repeat my problem of probes losing communication 100% . Its happening everytime I hit 12,000 Mm. Ive launched 4 probes using various dishes, hacks of the .cfg to use 100% cone angle, aimed probes to Kerbin and/or Kerbins comm sats. Everything ive tried has failed. Should I just lodge a complaint to the mod author? This is seriously starting to aggravate me.

[lextacy]

Here is a screenshot showing the issue

[Hidden Gunman]

Have you got power on your probe? Check that you haven't run out of electricity...