[1.1.3] AntennaRange 1.11.4 - Enforce and Encourage Antenna Diversity

toadicus · June 11, 2015

Miravlix, sorry if I misunderstood the tone of your previous post. Let's see how the next version works out; as was said, it should have the side effect of making relays prefer Kerbin much more often. It's still not always going to prefer a 200Ãƒâ€” longer connection, but it will sometimes.

I really like how the dev build feels. But if you want something specifically different that can't be accomplished by customizing the ranges (it probably can be), I could potentially put in an "always prefer Kerbin when available" toggle. But, that's going to have some effects that I think many people (myself included) won't want; like all of your Jool moon satellites using a really slow connection back to Kerbin instead of the high speed relay network you put in orbit, just because they can. There are a couple of other options we could explore, as well.

BUT, let's give that a couple of weeks. I'll be releasing the new version with the geometric ranges soon; give that a week or two, play with some numbers in your cfgs, and then bring this up again.

Glad you like it, MrBonobo! Also glad MeCripp could help you out with those patches. Note that all custom patches are probably going to need to be redesigned a bit when the new version comes out. I may offer a little "hotfix" patch that tries to identify parts patched by obsolete patches and do some simple math to avoid them being broken and maybe try to help out their ranges a bit, but especially short-range patches (like MeCripp's) will want some revisions.

Just a side note; if I ever provide official patches for compatibility with other mods, I'd like it to be in collaboration with those mod makers. In the meantime, I'd like to provide a more useful venue for user-contributed patches to be found, where users can help curate the collection. Maybe I'll set up a wiki at my github repo for such a use, where users can collect links and add comments like "outdated" or "long range" or "short range" or something. We'll see!

vardicd · June 11, 2015

A question, since I'm bad with the math, with the latest version, what's the maximum distance the first small antenna and the big dish can communicate? I have a rocket I'm about to launch to Duna, and its got a sat it will leave in orbit to act as a relay with a big dish, and a rover which has the small antenna. I plan to have the big dish in orbit to act as a relay between Kerbin and Duna, but I don't know if that will work, or what orbit would be too high? Thanks for any help.

MrBonobo · June 11, 2015

Glad you like it, MrBonobo! Also glad MeCripp could help you out with those patches. Note that all custom patches are probably going to need to be redesigned a bit when the new version comes out. I may offer a little "hotfix" patch that tries to identify parts patched by obsolete patches and do some simple math to avoid them being broken and maybe try to help out their ranges a bit, but especially short-range patches (like MeCripp's) will want some revisions.
Just a side note; if I ever provide official patches for compatibility with other mods, I'd like it to be in collaboration with those mod makers. In the meantime, I'd like to provide a more useful venue for user-contributed patches to be found, where users can help curate the collection. Maybe I'll set up a wiki at my github repo for such a use, where users can collect links and add comments like "outdated" or "long range" or "short range" or something. We'll see!

That sounds promising! Anyway, now that I've understood the logic of the patching I might be able to do it by myself, so I will try to fix by myself because of pride and curiosity mainly And I totally understand, it's problematic I guess to release an official patch using RT parts without them knowing and agreeing. Anyway now I can start my career save with serenity and the perspective of building relay without working on them 5 hours. And as a side note I might try to produce a patch that will ajust ranges and make it easier to do relays with Outer Planets mod.

Kerbas_ad_astra · June 11, 2015

A question, since I'm bad with the math, with the latest version, what's the maximum distance the first small antenna and the big dish can communicate? I have a rocket I'm about to launch to Duna, and its got a sat it will leave in orbit to act as a relay with a big dish, and a rover which has the small antenna. I plan to have the big dish in orbit to act as a relay between Kerbin and Duna, but I don't know if that will work, or what orbit would be too high? Thanks for any help.

toadicus has the raw numbers (and some interpretation) in this post over here, but here's how to crunch them out in general (e.g. for other antennas):

To get the nominal range of the link between two antennas, multiply their nominalRanges of the antennas and take the square root. For the 88-88 and 16, that's a hair over 8 million meters (8000 km).

Closer than that and you'll get a bonus to data rate, further and you get penalized. To get the maximum range where maximum data rate applies, divide the nominal range by the square root of the square root of the product of the two antennas' maxDataFactors (whew!). For the two antennas in question, that's sqrt(sqrt(8)), so the maximum range where you'll get max data rate is 4.8 million meters.

Further than nominal, you get penalized by data rate, up to a maximum point governed by the max power factors. To get this range, multiply by the square root of the square root of the product of the maxPowerFactors, which is sqrt(sqrt(128)), so the maximum possible range is about 27 million meters.

To put those numbers in perspective, Duna SOI is 47 million meters, so as long as you're not too far out, you'll be OK. In fact, satellites in a dunastationary orbit will give your surface probes the maximum possible data rate.

- - - Updated - - -

That sounds promising! Anyway, now that I've understood the logic of the patching I might be able to do it by myself, so I will try to fix by myself because of pride and curiosity mainly And I totally understand, it's problematic I guess to release an official patch using RT parts without them knowing and agreeing. Anyway now I can start my career save with serenity and the perspective of building relay without working on them 5 hours. And as a side note I might try to produce a patch that will ajust ranges and make it easier to do relays with Outer Planets mod.

Outer Planets already comes with a patch that puts the 88-88's nominal range at 8e11 meters. Its max link distance to a level 3 KSC is 2.7e12, which is plenty to reach Plock (7e11).

smunisto · June 11, 2015

I have passed into the stage of game testing my patch, however I am seeing strange results.

I am sure these are due to my lack of knowledge regarding how MM works or something that I am missing, but:

1. Issue 1: The Origami antennas show no nominal and max ranges inside the VAB, even though the patch seems to have been applied Correction: Seems like the problem is that data inside the VAB seems to use simpleRange all the time instead of adjusting itself to the actual setting used:

a) https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/LHsHhtLJbvyWYji - patch has been applied, but no ranges on Origami Correction: This is due to the aforementioned constant usage of simpleRange for the VAB data tab, a value which I didn't define for the Origami's in my patch.

https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/dANudTIivIDhRO8 - default antennas show ranges Correction: But simpleRange

c) https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/yWtcCFCMG1CCmm6 - upon launch I see transmission ranges, but they are nothing like the expected ones in my spreadsheet. Correction: Maybe something with simpleRange? I doubt it, it should stay at the simpleRange value if so?

2. As a follow-up to screenshot "c" - An illustrative shot, accompanied with data - I am using additive ranges and no "fixed cost" with the latest version of the dev build.

https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/HBQKw5Qp6kKdbPQ

EDIT: Yes, MrBonobo, I think the base of the patch I am making came from MeCripp, however I have modified it slightly.

Edited June 11, 2015 by smunisto

MrBonobo · June 11, 2015

I have passed into the stage of game testing my patch, however I am seeing strange results.
I am sure these are due to my lack of knowledge regarding how MM works or something that I am missing, but:
1. Issue 1: The Origami antennas show no nominal and max ranges inside the VAB, even though the patch seems to have been applied:
a) https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/LHsHhtLJbvyWYji - patch has been applied, but no ranges on Origami
https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/dANudTIivIDhRO8 - default antennas show ranges.
c) https://bg3.biz/cloud/index.php/s/yWtcCFCMG1CCmm6 - upon launch I see transmission ranges, but they are nothing like the expected ones in my spreadsheet.
2. As a follow-up to screenshot "c" - all antennas show ranges, that are different than the ones I defined in the spreadsheet.

Don't know if this will help but you should inspire yourself from the patch given by MeCripp from the previous page. I tried my own patch but finally he was the one who got it right, you might adapt your patch according to what you see in his.

vardicd · June 11, 2015

***
To put those numbers in perspective, Duna SOI is 47 million meters, so as long as you're not too far out, you'll be OK. In fact, satellites in a dunastationary orbit will give your surface probes the maximum possible data rate.

Excellent, I'm good then.

Kerbas_ad_astra · June 11, 2015

Hey toadicus, I think your maxTransmitDistance isn't getting properly set in the editor in the additive range case. Looking at the numbers in the editor, nominal range to Kerbin is OK, but the maximum range seems to be getting calculated based on the simpleRange (e.g. 11.4 Gm = sqrt(20500000 * sqrt(8) * 2.25e12) for the Communotron 16). (They work just fine in flight, calculating both nominal and maximum ranges correctly based on nominalRange, since I use additive ranging.)

This has the side effect of causing antennas whose patches I haven't updated to the new AR format (i.e. missing simpleRange) to report a zero maximum range in the editor.

toadicus · June 12, 2015

smunisto, I'm sorry, the ranges in my spreadsheets and configs for the KSCs are actually the maximum ranges, not the nominal ranges. So all of your calculations are high by sqrt(sqrt(8)). That's my bad; I didn't properly inform you about that, and wasn't consistent enough to cover the gap.

Kerbas_ad_astra is also right; the maximum range to KSC tooltip in the editors is wrong. Fixed now by commit #84925a48.

smunisto · June 12, 2015

smunisto, I'm sorry, the ranges in my spreadsheets and configs for the KSCs are actually the maximum ranges, not the nominal ranges. So all of your calculations are high by sqrt(sqrt(8)). That's my bad; I didn't properly inform you about that, and wasn't consistent enough to cover the gap.

Thank you for the answer. However, would you care to elaborate on this?

I am sorry, but my math english is terrible. From what I understand, I should probably transfer all of my nominalLinkDistance calculations to the MaxLinkDistance tab. Or maybe I should remove the multiplication from the formula somewhere?

Here's is my chart again for reference:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YZaOYZtx-ikgOV6W0QTF1GErYTbS8uhHgMO-WIRTjUk/edit?usp=sharing

This time it has edit permissions, so feel free to fix it in one cell(or in a few cells in order to make the formula correct), just mark them in some color. I will later revise the chart and my patch.

And of course, thanks yet again for the immense help.

toadicus · June 12, 2015

smunisto, fixed the KSC ranges for you. Since your 90-09 was already set up to self-balance itself based on the nominalRange you wanted, it did so. The Farseer might need to be redone manually.

Sneaky Edit:

Dun dun duh...

Edited June 12, 2015 by toadicus
So sneaky.

mcalisi · June 13, 2015

I found the science transmission bug [R&D]: No Science Subject found with id sciencelab@Mun as well, but without the antenna range plug-in. The only add-on that I am currently running is DebrisFix. The Communotron is extended and the science transmission registers up to 100% (twice), yet no science is transmitted and the antenna remains extended and transmitting. Aborting the transmission only progresses to have a perpetual "aborting transmission" message replacing the "transmitting" message. The antenna is on a docked rover. If I disconnect and/or reconnect the rover, there is no change to the antenna status.

Here is a copy of a section of the Player.log (Mac OS 10.10.3).

[R&D]: No Science Subject found with id sciencelab@Mun

(Filename: /Users/builduser/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/MacStandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 56)

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

at ResearchAndDevelopment.GetScienceValue (Single dataAmount, .ScienceSubject subject, Single xmitScalar) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ResearchAndDevelopment.SubmitScienceData (Single dataAmount, .ScienceSubject subject, Single xmitScalar, .ProtoVessel source, Boolean reverseEngineered) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at RnDCommsStream.submitStreamData (.ProtoVessel source) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at RnDCommsStream.StreamData (Single dataAmount, .ProtoVessel source) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ModuleDataTransmitter+.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

(Filename: Line: -1)

[CurrencyConverter for Unpaid Research Program]: 0 Reputation taken, yields 0 Science