[1.1.3] AntennaRange 1.11.4 - Enforce and Encourage Antenna Diversity

[vardicd]

Just started using the new 'dev' build, loving the changes to the antenna ranges, sadly, my system is taking a major hit to my framerate with it, so I'm going to have to roll back to the old version. not sure why its hitting my system so hard.

[Sigma88]

Unfortunately for you, APIs have been ruled to be subject to copyright

I'm still interested in what the devs feel. If the feeling is that my mod could be damaging the balance of the mod they are working on I won't do anything to go against their will. Even if I could do it *legally*.

Also, I wanted to point this thing out since it was asked by an AntennaRange user, the devs may be interested in knowing that some of their users are feeling the need of more antennas.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Also, I wanted to point this thing out since it was asked by an AntennaRange user, the devs may be interested in knowing that some of their users are feeling the need of more antennas.

Speaking as somebody who has contributed AntennaRange configs to other mods, it's not that I feel a need for more antennas (the 16, DTS-M1, and 88-88 do the job just fine), but I get mods that happen to have antennas, and I want them to integrate with everything else I use.

[toadicus]

Sigma88, that's absolutely possible! There are no licensing issues at all around enabling antennas to work with AntennaRange; maybe I should make that a bit more explicit on the front page.

Here's a quick primer:

The Fields

AntennaRange extends and augments the functionality of the stock ModuleDataTransmitter through the new ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter class. This class uses five additional configurable fields to define the part's behavior.

nominalRange is the range, in meters, at which the part should function identically to the stock module, i.e. without any modification to the power cost or packet size. This is used along with maxPowerFactor to calculate the maximum range of the part.

simpleRange is the same as nominalRange, but is used when the mod is in "simple" mode. In general it will probably need to be a much larger number than nominalRange.

maxPowerFactor effectively sets the maximum range of the antenna by essentially capping how much the power may be "turned up" to get better range. I originally used 8 for this number, because it felt right. I've since used 4 (for my DTS) and 16 (for my Comm. 88-88). You don't want this number to be too high, or small probes will go uncontrollable a lot when transmitting.

maxDataFactor defines the maximum "speed up" bonus that comes from using antennas at less their nominal range. I originally used 4 for this number for all parts; the DTS has a higher bonus now.

Note that all of the fields needed for Squad's ModuleDataTransmitter still need to be filled out. Depending on how you're defining your parts, they might need to go in your AntennaRange patch, or they might already be defined on the base part.

The Mechanic

In general, the scaling functions assume the following relation:

D² α P/R,

where D is the total transmission distance, P is the transmission power, and R is the data rate.

Data rate increases as range decreases below nominalRange:

R α nominalRange² / D²

By default, power use increases as range increases above nominalRange:

P α D² / nominalRange²

Optionally, power use may remain fixed, and data rate instead decreases as range increases above nominalRange:

R α nominalRange² / D²

Patch Conventions

To maximize cross-compatibility, please consider the following conventions for ModuleManager patches regarding AntennaRange:

• When providing new definitions for your own parts, always specify a :FOR[YourModHere] pass name.
  
• Whenever changing default AntennaRange definitions (e.g. if you were going to rebalance my antennas to suit your mod), please do so in the :AFTER[AntennaRange] pass.
  
• I recommend providing all optional functionality (e.g. enabling RemoteTech vs. AntennaRange modules) in separate patches using :NEEDS[] blocks.

A sample AntennaRange configuration for an all-new mod part might look like this:

@PART[modPartName]:FOR[YourModName]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	MODULE
	{
		// ### Module Definition ###
		name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter

		// ### Squad Definitions ###
		// Delay between transmission packets, in seconds
		packetInterval = 0.10

		// Data capacity of nominal transmission packets, in MiT
		packetSize = 2

		// Resource cost of nominal transmission packets, in units
		packetResourceCost = 20.0

		// Resource name to be consumed by transmission
		requiredResource = ElectricCharge

		// Animation module index, 0-based, of the antenna extend/retract animation
		DeployFxModules = 0

		// ### AntennaRange Defintions ###
		// Range, in meters, at which the antenna behaves per the "nominal" characteristics above
		// Used with "additive" ranges.
		nominalRange = 10000000000

		// Range, in meters, at which the antenna behaves per the "nominal" characteristics above
		// Used with "simple" ranges.
		simpleRange = 56250000000

		// The maxmimum multiplier on packetResourceCost, essentially defining the maximum power output of the
		// transmitter.  Maximum range is defined as: maxTransmitDistance = nominalRange * sqrt(maxPowerFactor)
		maxPowerFactor = 16

		// The maximum multiplier on packetSize, essentially defining the maximum data throughput of the
		// transmitter.
		maxDataFactor = 2
	}

	// We add this ModuleScienceContainer so that when transmission fails the antennas can try to stash the data instead of dumping it to the void.
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}

This example assumes that the base part definition does not include a ModuleDataTransmitter module, or any RT modules. If the base part definition includes a ModuleDataTransmitter module, a sample AntennaRange patch could look like this:

@PART[modPartName]:FOR[YourModName]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 10000000000
		simpleRange = 56250000000
		maxPowerFactor = 16
		maxDataFactor = 2
	}

	// We add this ModuleScienceContainer so that when transmission fails the antennas can try to stash the data instead of dumping it to the void.
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}

IIRC, RemoteTech parts should not have ModuleDataTransmitter definitions. In that case, to facilitate RT, AR, and Stock compatibility, a suite of patches like this might be appropriate:

// If we don't have RemoteTech, add a stock ModuleDataTransmitter first.
@PART[modPartName]:NEEDS[!RemoteTech]:BEFORE[YourModName]
{
	MODULE
	{
		// ### Module Definition ###
		name = ModuleDataTransmitter

		// ### Squad Definitions ###
		// Delay between transmission packets, in seconds
		packetInterval = 0.10

		// Data capacity of nominal transmission packets, in MiT
		packetSize = 2

		// Resource cost of nominal transmission packets, in units
		packetResourceCost = 20.0

		// Resource name to be consumed by transmission
		requiredResource = ElectricCharge

		// Animation module index, 0-based, of the antenna extend/retract animation
		DeployFxModules = 0
	}
}

// If AntennaRange is installed, convert that to a ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
@PART[modPartName]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]:FOR[YourModName]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		// ### Module Redefinition ###
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter

		// ### AntennaRange Defintions ###
		// Range, in meters, at which the antenna behaves per the "nominal" characteristics above
		// Used with "additive" ranges.
		nominalRange = 10000000000

		// Range, in meters, at which the antenna behaves per the "nominal" characteristics above
		// Used with "simple" ranges.
		simpleRange = 56250000000

		// The maxmimum multiplier on packetResourceCost, essentially defining the maximum power output of the
		// transmitter.  Maximum range is defined as: maxTransmitDistance = nominalRange * sqrt(maxPowerFactor)
		maxPowerFactor = 16

		// The maximum multiplier on packetSize, essentially defining the maximum data throughput of the
		// transmitter.
		maxDataFactor = 2
	}

	// We add this ModuleScienceContainer so that when transmission fails the antennas can try to stash the data instead of dumping it to the void.
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}

// If RemoteTech is installed, do their module(s) instead
@PART[modPartName]:NEEDS[RemoteTech]:FOR[YourModName]
{
	// RemoteTech module(s) here
}

As Kerbas_ad_astra noted, the next version of AntennaRange will implement "additive" ranges, which means that links will be defined by the pair of antennas in use, and not just the one antenna on the transmitting side (this will be optional; hence the need for simpleRange as seen in the examples above). Under this "additive" system, the following formulæ may be useful when designing parts:

[B]PER ANTENNA[/B]
nominalRange is a given, and is never calculated
maxPowerFactor is a given, and is never calculated
maxTransmitDistance = nominalRange * sqrt(maxPowerFactor)

[B]PER LINK[/B] (connected pair of antennas)
NominalLinkDistance = sqrt(nominalRange1 * nominalRange2)
MaxLinkDistance = sqrt(maxTransmitDistance1 * maxTransmitDistance2)

Therefore, to find the MaxLinkDistance from two sets of nominalRange and maxPowerFactor:
MaxLinkDistance = sqrt(nominalRange1 * sqrt(maxPowerFactor1) * nominalRange2 * sqrt(maxPowerFactor2))

To find a single antenna's nominalRange from a desired maxTransmitDistance given its maxPowerFactor:
nominalRange = maxTransmitDistance / sqrt(maxPowerFactor)

To find a single antenna's desired maximum range given the desired maximum link distance and another set maxTransmitDistance:

maxTransmitDistance1 = MaxLinkDistance * MaxLinkDistance / maxTransmitDistance2

Remember that maxPowerFactor may differ between antennas (and does, in my lastest configs: longAntenna is 8, mediumDish is 4, commDish is 16).

Currently Kerbin's maxPowerFactor is hard-coded as 8.

Feel free to use this spreadsheet for balancing antennas if it's useful to you: https://goo.gl/ChsbfL

On Balance

In my configs I've balanced the three stock antennas to cover all of the stock solar system. Since you're introducing five more antennas and working with OPM, you will probably want to change the behavior of the stock parts and diversify the range to gradually cover the whole OPM system. Since you have some parts specifically designed for use in planetary subsystems, their balance when transmitting to other parts is probably more important than their balance when transmitting to Kerbin. For longer range parts designed to make the whole interplanetary leap, the inverse is probably true.

Feel free to ask questions! If anything's unclear or you just want to bounce balance ideas off of me, don't be shy. I'm always happy to help.

[Sigma88]

Feel free to use this spreadsheet for balancing antennas if it's useful to you: https://goo.gl/ChsbfL

On Balance

In my configs I've balanced the three stock antennas to cover all of the stock solar system. Since you're introducing five more antennas and working with OPM, you will probably want to change the behavior of the stock parts and diversify the range to gradually cover the whole OPM system. Since you have some parts specifically designed for use in planetary subsystems, their balance when transmitting to other parts is probably more important than their balance when transmitting to Kerbin. For longer range parts designed to make the whole interplanetary leap, the inverse is probably true.

Feel free to ask questions! If anything's unclear or you just want to bounce balance ideas off of me, don't be shy. I'm always happy to help.

First of all thank you for the lengthy (and very useful) answer!

My mod is actually a collection of expansions for other mods, for now I'm working on OPM and RT but those are separate expansions (thus completely independent one from the other)

The main goal of my RT expansion was to cover the need of dish antennas to use around the jool system. So all of my antennas are basically designed to cover the distance from a joolian moon to the gas giant itself. (which is not possible on vanilla RT unless you use big-ass completely overkill antennas)

I gave an initial look to your mod and if I properly understand how it works it seems to me that there are some ranges where you don't have any antenna working at "nominalRange" conditions.

So I was thinking to cover those holes with my antennas.

Unless you left those holes in there on purpose (for some gameplay reasons) in that case I won't go and ruin it

[toadicus]

Unfortunately for you, APIs have been ruled to be subject to copyright

I doubt that adding AntennaRange compatibility to a couple of antennas requires dealing with APIs. A Module Manager config file will do, which as far as i know has no licensing issues.

I'm still interested in what the devs feel. If the feeling is that my mod could be damaging the balance of the mod they are working on I won't do anything to go against their will. Even if I could do it *legally*.

For the record: distributing patches facilitating AntennaRange functionality to mod parts does not violate my intent as regards any of my rights, properties, or the expressions thereof.

I've intentionally used a very permissive license that only requires written consent for using my name in regard to a derivative work. That said, I fully encourage the basic politeness of seeking consent or advice for other uses anyway, especially in the interests of "playing nicely with others". We're all here to have fun, I want to do whatever I can to help others have fun, and I'm always glad when others do, too.

Sigma88, thanks for your interest and for asking.

Also, I wanted to point this thing out since it was asked by an AntennaRange user, the devs may be interested in knowing that some of their users are feeling the need of more antennas.

I'm aware some users want more antennas, and in general I think it's a good idea. That said, I also think that avoiding save-breaking is a better idea, so within the base mod that I distribute, I have no plans to include additional parts. I also can't model or animate, so I'm incapable of producing more antennas without a collaborator. All that said, if you're interested in collaborating and offering an "expansion pack" of antennas that I could co-distribute, I'd be very interested in helping to design and balance patches around such parts, and such co-distribution. If that's something you're interested in, shoot me a PM.

Just started using the new 'dev' build, loving the changes to the antenna ranges, sadly, my system is taking a major hit to my framerate with it, so I'm going to have to roll back to the old version. not sure why its hitting my system so hard.

Hmmm, can you check to see if it's vomiting all over your log? The Windows version really doesn't like it when things are writing the logs a lot; if I left some verbose logging on that could explain the slowdown. If I didn't... I'm not sure what's up. Let me know; I'll be looking in to it.

Speaking as somebody who has contributed AntennaRange configs to other mods, it's not that I feel a need for more antennas (the 16, DTS-M1, and 88-88 do the job just fine), but I get mods that happen to have antennas, and I want them to integrate with everything else I use.

Very awesome of you, sir.

First of all thank you for the lengthy (and very useful) answer!

My mod is actually a collection of expansions for other mods, for now I'm working on OPM and RT but those are separate expansions (thus completely independent one from the other)

The main goal of my RT expansion was to cover the need of dish antennas to use around the jool system. So all of my antennas are basically designed to cover the distance from a joolian moon to the gas giant itself. (which is not possible on vanilla RT unless you use big-ass completely overkill antennas)

I gave an initial look to your mod and if I properly understand how it works it seems to me that there are some ranges where you don't have any antenna working at "nominalRange" conditions.

So I was thinking to cover those holes with my antennas.

Unless you left those holes in there on purpose (for some gameplay reasons) in that case I won't go and ruin it

Nope; any holes left are an artifact of having three parts to use and a diverse set of available uses to cover. Let me know how I can be of service.

Edited June 8, 2015 by toadicus

[Andy81le]

For anyone interested, here is a config for the Tantares antennas, up to a maximum range of Minmus orbit. Simple ranges are not implemented yet. Copy the code to a textfile, name it something like Tantares_AntennaRange.cfg and drop it into the AntennaRange folder in the GameData directory.

@PART[Libra_Antenna_A]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 500000
		maxPowerFactor = 4
		maxDataFactor = 2
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}


@PART[Libra_Antenna_B]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 50000000
		maxPowerFactor = 8
		maxDataFactor = 4
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}


@PART[Vega_Antenna_A]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 13000000
		maxPowerFactor = 8
		maxDataFactor = 4
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}


@PART[Vega_Antenna_B]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 50000000
		maxPowerFactor = 8
		maxDataFactor = 4
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}


@PART[Vega_Antenna_C]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 250000
		maxPowerFactor = 3
		maxDataFactor = 2
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}


@PART[Tantares_Antenna_A]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 50000000
		maxPowerFactor = 8
		maxDataFactor = 4
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}


@PART[Almach_Antenna_A]:FOR[Tantares]:NEEDS[AntennaRange,!RemoteTech]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@name = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter
		nominalRange = 120000
		maxPowerFactor = 2
		maxDataFactor = 1
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleScienceContainer

		dataIsCollectable = true
		dataIsStorable = false

		storageRange = 2
	}
}

Edited June 8, 2015 by Andy81le

[vardicd]

Okay, just re-installed the dev build, and tried it again, I'm not seeing as much loss of performance this time, but I did just uninstall one parts pack, and killed off about 20 probes that I had running around the system, so that might have something to do with my performance issues, didn't realize I had managed to build up over 50 probes out and about. Here's a log anyway, in case you want to look it over, I'll keep using the dev build, and see if I get the issues again, and if so, if it's probe quantity related.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2rb2bvp1ckm6vdn/AAA-ix5_Lmv2SmE4gi57FAjMa?dl=0

[smunisto]

Another attempt at adding the antennas.

I can't seem to be able to make the smaller ones fit my KSC2 + Antenna combinations without limiting their Antenna->Antenna range significantly, but isn't it more realistic that way?

I mean, here's a few notes which fit my own game style and universe(they are by no mean anything close to our favorite word - "realism", but sound logical to me):

1. Relay satellites work better just to provide coverage when out of direct line of site with Kerbin;

2. With the current ranges, most antennas are better at directly phoning home, where they can be picked by the giant KSC dishes, instead of using a system of relays to "boost" the signal;

3. What I currently have is that while you are within the Kerbin system, you can have a craft with the small antennas - Whip and DTS. A lander with the whip should be perfectly able to communicate with an orbiting craft with DTS, which would phone directly home. Idea behind is that I don't need relays for anything else than coverage when out of LoS of Kerbin, while still needing some orbiting craft with antennas, thus not ruining the whole idea of the additive ranges.

4. The aforementioned is valid for mid- and late-game interplanetary scenarios too, where you don't have to have a super-complicated relay scheme just to phone back Kerbin, while, yes, you could techinically do that if you want Nominal tranmission rates. For example, you send a craft to Duna. The lander has a DTS, the orbiting craft(or your relay sats) have 88-88s. The lander/orbiter transmit directly to the 88-88s which phone KSC directly, instead of hoping to have another relay nearby.

5. What bothers me a bit is that the nominalRange for the bigger antennas surpasses KSC2, but unless you know the numbers, in-game it shouldn't be such a big problem(we all want to have fun and pretty lines, that's the important thing, right?).

With that said, here's the spreadsheet.

I wonder if it is possible to modify KSC's ranges via the MM patch? I guess, if I modify KSC2s range, this would allow me to have better nominalLinkDistance antenna spread around the chart? I guess the ranges, such as the powerfactor are hardcoded for now?

Any advices for better implementation within the listed guideline points are welcome.

I will probably also give this a whirl tonight, by putting it in a cfg and firing up the game for the first time since I started creating this cfg

[toadicus]

vardicd, I did a bunch of benchmarking yesterday, and in non-GC frames the network resolution is taking about 20µs per relay for a network of 4 relays. Going up to 50 relays it seems reasonable that it'd take 250µs per relay... 50 times, which is 12.5ms; enough that whatever else is going on in your heavily-modded install is probably going to push you under the 60 fps mark. I'd be surprised if it pushes you below 30 fps, though. How severe is the hit you're seeing?

I'd still like to get this threaded... but it's Really Rather Complicated, so that particular endeavor is going to need to wait. In the meantime, there are a few things I can do -- I can spread the network out so it only resolves a few relays per frame, perhaps -- and there are a few things you can do -- try pushing your update delay up to about 66 ms and see if that a) helps and is something you can live with.

Thanks for testing!

smunisto, I've been playing my career save a bit lately and have actually been rather happy with the way the relays are working. I have a bunch of little sats in Minmus orbit, all with Comm. 16s, and a single comsat with a Comms DTS. I'm upgraded to KSC2. So the little sats have a (max) range of 10.6 Mm with the comsat or 60 Mm back to Kerbin; the big sat has a range of 35.5 Gm back to Kerbin.

Relays prefer lower cost connections; that is, connections where range²/maxRange²[1] is the smallest. The little sats and the comsat are going to be at most, say 2 Mm apart, whereas they're all about 47 Mm from Kerbin. (47/60)² is a lot bigger than (2/10.6)², so the little sats will all use the big relay rather than phoning home to Kerbin. They'll even use marginally-yellow connections to the big sat, because (47/60)² is really right at the edge of their range, so it's rarely going to be useful.

Mun is next on my hit list; it'll be interesting to see what things look like there, since 10/60 is a lot more like 2/10.6. I suspect they'll actually wind up flipping around a lot, but generally preferring Kerbin.

So that said, there's a reason I like the idea that some of the higher-end antenna pairings should be useful in a "Jool's Moons" sort of environment. If you put a couple of Farseers in high, inclined Jool orbits to phone home to Kerbin, IMO they should play nicely as relays for medium-sized antennas throughout the Jool system. You don't need to look at Pol->Bop; Jool->Bop would probably be fine.

But, that's just my opinion and my gut feeling as I type this. The numbers you've got on paper there are making sense and looking nice. Play test it; see if you can get a few others here to play test it, and see how it shakes out!

One final thought on this balance pass: once you're happy with the ranges, you should tinker with the power use, part mass, and scales. The 90-09 should be a bit bigger and heavier than the 88-88, and the Farseer should be a bit bigger and heavier than the 90-09, etc. Hopefully the Origami part maker already sorted that out, but if not, you've got ModuleManager and can do it yourself.

You should be able to modify KSC ranges with a ModuleManager patch, like so:

@TRACKING_STATION_RANGES[*]:FOR[SmunistoARPatches]:NEEDS[AntennaRange]
{
	// Indexes are 0-based, so this is KSC2
	@range,1 = 123456789
}

I haven't tested this or anything, so it's possible it won't work, but everything I know about ModuleManager says it should. It's possible I might need to add a "name" field to TRACKING_STATION_RANGES for it to work right.

Footnotes:

[1] Technically perhaps this should be range²/nominalRange², but that wouldn't change very much.

[vardicd]

The hit on my system isn't too bad, the more relays I have, the harder it hits me [obviously] however, I've noticed that even with the few that I have now, the performance loss builds fairly quickly. Even if all I do is launch a command pod, nothing else and let it sit on the launch pad, as the relays cycle through connections, FPS lag tends to hop up to the point where after an hour or so I have to restart KSP to reset it. I am also starting to have a suspicion that there's some other mod interactions going on too that's not helping. I've started to notice Mech-jeb windows failing to appear, and earlier I had a kerbal on eva just stop and go completely unresponsive. I had to exit the game an restart to get him to realize he wasn't a statue anymore. I know that the dev build for antenna range is having a problem, somewhere though, because with the older version I have no problem with it, but I still have the other performance issues. Until I can figure out where that problem is, I can't tell exactly how much that is influencing this, and how much this is influencing that[i suspect the two problems aren't really related though, as I said with the older version I get no problems with Antenna range]

[toadicus]

The hit on my system isn't too bad, the more relays I have, the harder it hits me [obviously] however, I've noticed that even with the few that I have now, the performance loss builds fairly quickly. Even if all I do is launch a command pod, nothing else and let it sit on the launch pad, as the relays cycle through connections, FPS lag tends to hop up to the point where after an hour or so I have to restart KSP to reset it. I am also starting to have a suspicion that there's some other mod interactions going on too that's not helping. I've started to notice Mech-jeb windows failing to appear, and earlier I had a kerbal on eva just stop and go completely unresponsive. I had to exit the game an restart to get him to realize he wasn't a statue anymore. I know that the dev build for antenna range is having a problem, somewhere though, because with the older version I have no problem with it, but I still have the other performance issues. Until I can figure out where that problem is, I can't tell exactly how much that is influencing this, and how much this is influencing that[i suspect the two problems aren't really related though, as I said with the older version I get no problems with Antenna range]

If you can try to duplicate one of those specific problem scenarios and get me a log for it, that'd be great.

[vardicd]

If you can try to duplicate one of those specific problem scenarios and get me a log for it, that'd be great.

I'll see what I can do, work week is starting tonight, so game time will be limited. Hopefully in a day or 2.

[toadicus]

New dev build with a number of optimizations. In general this has sped up the average loop time by 10-20% in my test network.

[zip] [tar.gz] [tar.xz]

[Miravlix]

Why does my 200K Orbit Station insist it's better to go through whatever I have floating around in the 199 to ground level bracket?

The logic for deciding what route to take to Mission Control, seem to have been reversed from what would be natural behavior. You don't jump to 20 other ships because they happen to be in between you and the target, you check Max Range and move towards Min, not the other way around.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Why does my 200K Orbit Station insist it's better to go through whatever I have floating around in the 199 to ground level bracket?

The logic for deciding what route to take to Mission Control, seem to have been reversed from what would be natural behavior. You don't jump to 20 other ships because they happen to be in between you and the target, you check Max Range and move towards Min, not the other way around.

Ships are greedy and will use whatever node is the closest. Who cares what the relays think? They're not in focus right now.

In the dev build, where range depends on the transmitter and receiver, a long-range receiver (which KSC is) will often be preferred over a slightly-closer but much-shorter-range receiver, so the networks may appear more rational if you use that.

[toadicus]

Kerbas_ad_astra has given a true and accurate reporting. Relays are picked to maximize cheapness for the live vehicle. That's intentional and will not change, because you the player are looking at the live vehicle right now, and one of the primary intentions of the mod is to offer you a tangible reward -- a savings of your real time -- for building a network where things are close enough for you to get cheap connections.

In the live build, that's determined strictly by proximity. The closest viable relay is your target, period. In the dev build, link ranges to different targets may differ, and the "maximum range" to Kerbin will pretty much always be much higher than the "maximum range" to another target. The "cheapest receiver" is then picked based on the minimum proportion of current distance / maximum range. Since your maximum range to Kerbin is much larger than your maximum range to other things, Kerbin will be preferred much more often than it currently is.

That said, if something is literally 200,000 times closer to you than the surface of Kerbin, as you describe... it's probably going to be cheaper.

Now that you hopefully understand the functionality, if you'd like to calm down and make a feature request and a reasoned case as to why I should consider it, I'm always happy to listen.

Edited June 10, 2015 by toadicus
Changed KSC to Kerbin lest anyone think I'm adding a requirement that I'm not.

[toadicus]

One more dev build: [zip] [tar.gz] [tar.xz]

I consider this a "release candidate". It has no meaningful changes from yesterday's build, but should now correctly report useful ranges in tooltips in the editor and R&D while using additive ranges.

I'm holding back a release pending vardicd's next report and a day or two of report-free testing of this build.

[cipherpunks]

Here is a CFG for the BoxSat mod if anyone wants https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72893034/AntennaRange_BoxSat.cfg.zip

404 not found anymore

please reupload or something

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Do you mean the KSI blade antenna?

Exactly, this one! Many thanks.

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Tis but a click away:

Originally Posted by MeCripp

Here is a cfg to add AntennaRange to this list of parts with RT2 you need to zip up or delete the plugin folder and the cfg's here is a list of some of the mods it covers but, I do think, I need to cut the range on them, I just haven't got around to doing it.

RemoteTech2

Squad

Hyomoto Aerospace

Dmagic

DongFangHong

FASA By Frizzank & APOLLO By DennyTX

NovaPunch

Telemachus

Lionhead

AIES

LLL-Lite

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xv2153q8yb...ennaRange2.cfg

404 also, maybe soneone still has a copy of that?

[Mecripp]

404 not found anymore

please reupload or something

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Exactly, this one! Many thanks.

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404 also, maybe soneone still has a copy of that?

You can found them here the ranges are shorter then what this mod uses https://github.com/Mecripp/AntennaRange-Patch or https://github.com/Mecripp/Kerbal-AntennaRange-All-In-1_Patch

[Miravlix]

That said, if something is literally 200,000 times closer to you than the surface of Kerbin, as you describe... it's probably going to be cheaper.

[MrBonobo]

First of all thanks a lot Toadicus for your hard work and your really good mod. I love RT2, it's fun, but I have many other plans for my KSP Career and it adds way too much work. The fact that your mod is configurable and more permissive is perfect for me. Keeps the challenge and raise the fun!

You can found them here the ranges are shorter then what this mod uses https://github.com/Mecripp/AntennaRange-Patch or https://github.com/Mecripp/Kerbal-AntennaRange-All-In-1_Patch

Thanks to you, MeCripp, for your patches. Though I'm not exactly sure how to use them. If I understood properly it is suppose to configure the antenna of other mods for AntennaRange, right? So am I suppose to keep the full folder of RemoteTech2 with the plugin and all and add the patches to the AntennaRange folder, or do something different?

[Mecripp]

First of all thanks a lot Toadicus for your hard work and your really good mod. I love RT2, it's fun, but I have many other plans for my KSP Career and it adds way too much work. The fact that your mod is configurable and more permissive is perfect for me. Keeps the challenge and raise the fun!

Thanks to you, MeCripp, for your patches. Though I'm not exactly sure how to use them. If I understood properly it is suppose to configure the antenna of other mods for AntennaRange, right? So am I suppose to keep the full folder of RemoteTech2 with the plugin and all and add the patches to the AntennaRange folder, or do something different?

If you want to keep RT parts delete all but the parts folder in the RT folder and the patches you can put anywhere you want in KSP/GameData/ hope it helps.

[MrBonobo]

If you want to keep RT parts delete all but the parts folder in the RT folder and the patches you can put anywhere you want in KSP/GameData/ hope it helps.

YES! It helped a lot! Thank you very much! Moar antennas = moar fun! You should consider the possibility, with the agreement of the mod makers, to do an official patch for AntennaRange in order for everyone to have access to it! Anyway, thanks again!

[Mecripp]

He knows the link and anyone is free to use it.