[1.1.3] AntennaRange 1.11.4 - Enforce and Encourage Antenna Diversity

[toadicus]

Follow-up on the remote control point concept: I feel like it would be cool to require an engineer in order for a crewed ship to act as a remote control point. That would help give engineers a little more purpose, and might encourage diversifying crews a bit.

Further thoughts invited!

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

[quote name='toadicus']Follow-up on the remote control point concept: I feel like it would be cool to require an engineer in order for a crewed ship to act as a remote control point. That would help give engineers a little more purpose, and might encourage diversifying crews a bit.

Further thoughts invited![/QUOTE]

Honestly, my pilots are the ones that go underused -- they can't fix legs or wheels, they don't improve science returns, and probes can control a spacecraft just fine. Mods make it worse; KAS and KIS let engineers do in-situ assembly, and Extraplanetary Launchpads favors engineers for rocket construction.

[toadicus]

Thanks for the perspective [B]Kerbas[/B]! I don't get a lot of chance to actually play the game, and don't use any of those mods, so it's much appreciated.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

[QUOTE]On the other hand... I could pretty easily enable remote control points within a single link. Put differently, I could easily allow control if there is a crewed vessel with a direct connection to the probe in question. What do people think about that option?[/QUOTE]

I think if it were a pilot then yeah that would be cool, also I think having it be short range would be proper- now, would the pilots skills transfer to the probe as well? That could be a nifty bonus

[toadicus]

I think I could do that, [B]Waxing_Kibbous[/B]. I'll look into it when I go to implement things.

[Skalou]

really you wil add this? [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmVIrsx3U9A"]yeehaaa
[/URL]
i think i understand why it could consume so much ressource:
in considering N ships,
for checking a direct connexion to other ships or the KSC, the plugin have to check N connexions,

fo checking also all the indirect links possible, it has to check about (N-1) * (N-2) *...*... = N!

5!= 120
10!= 3 628 800
20!= 24 000 000 000 000 000 000
30!= 2.6 10^32
... :rolleyes:

So your limitation of the direct link sounds a prety good deal (ans still better than no link anyway),
for the need of an engineer or a pilot, both solutions seems good, depend of how we see this, on my side i would prefer a little bit the pilot to do this task, however whitout giving their skill to the controlled probe (because we could pilotnearly every stayputnik probe with 2 pilots sitting on LKO with a big enouth antenna, etc... ),
the best as usually could be to make it configurable:
-traits needed to control distant probes,
-give their SAS skill if pilot

again thank you for maintainning this mod :)

[scribbleheli]

I like the Remote control aspect! I have a question about science.
I'm sending a crewed mission to the Jool system. And am using a bunch of tiny science bombs. Is there any way to transmit science from the surface to my crewed vessel with the MPL. Or is the only way to get the science data into it is physical collection?

[toadicus]

Sounds like we're pretty unanimous on using Pilot crew to run RC probes. I hope to work on it this weekend.

scribbleheli, there is no way to pick a different destination for your science than Kerbin. That would be a really cool feature, especially in situations like you're talking about, but currently the answer is "no". I could do that without... well, I could do that. It'd need quite a bit of work and I'd need to add a bunch of UI which is not my forte. It's on the wishlist; who knows, maybe that sort of improvement will be where we go after 1.1 puts in our basic functionality.

Edited November 30, 2015 by toadicus

[scribbleheli]

I would be all over it if I knew how.
As it stands, I'm about 7 weeks in learning c++.
C# seems to be a much different animal. Maybe next semester?

[Skalou]

In waiting a maybe update, here is a "Yodadicus statue" to congrate you for your amazing work for KSP:

 

All the credits must go to Adam Beamish of sketchfab where i found this amazing model:

Sketchfab-Master Yoda-Adam Beamish

Edited December 6, 2015 by Skalou

[linuxgurugamer]

Hey @toadicus

AntennaRange seems to have disappeared from CKAN, was this intentional?

And yes, I changed the filter to "All", can't find it either by the name or by your name.

Edit:  I see that you updated it on Kerbalstuff for 1.0.5, thanks.  This may be a CKAN issue, I'll open an issue there as well

Edit2:  Looks like a CKAN issue, the same thing happened to the Tweakable Everything mod

Edited December 7, 2015 by linuxgurugamer

[linuxgurugamer]

Toadicus,

 

It's not a CKAN issue.  Here is what they told me:

AntennaRange was not removed from CKAN. You currently can't find it in the mods list due to its dependency on EVAManager which hasn't been updated (or confirmed working for) 1.0.4. This is a bug and was previously reported in #1529. Sorry for the inconvenience and/or confusion this may have caused. If the un-updated mod I mentioned is compatible with 1.0.5, re-open this issue and let us know, this will result in a faster fix for this particular mod.

 

So you need to get EVAManager updated for this to be available.

Also, this is the same problem with TweakableEverything

[toadicus]

Skalou, thanks very much!   That's very fun, and very much appreciated.  Also, kudos to Mr. Beamish for his fine modeling.

linuxgurugamer, I wandered over to KerbalStuff and mashed the "works with 1.0.5" button.  I'll try to get a proper recompiled archive up to KerbalStuff soon.

[linuxgurugamer]

4 hours ago, toadicus said:

Skalou, thanks very much!   That's very fun, and very much appreciated.  Also, kudos to Mr. Beamish for his fine modeling.

linuxgurugamer, I wandered over to KerbalStuff and mashed the "works with 1.0.5" button.  I'll try to get a proper recompiled archive up to KerbalStuff soon.

thanks

 

[RoverDude]

On 11/24/2015, 6:47:03, toadicus said:

Sounds like we're pretty unanimous on using Pilot crew to run RC probes. I hope to work on it this weekend.
 

Which is also what the stock system will use for remote control points (this was one of the things we covered back when the feature was announced)

[MaxPeck]

I have a suggestion/request for you.  I've been playing with the Lackluster Mod that has a bunch of antennas included in it, and so I had to go and write a MM cfg to include all the additional antennas.  It was kind of painful, and I was left trying to come up with nominal ranges for a bunch of antennas using the stock values that are hard-coded as a baseline.  In order to come up with something reasonable that wasn't a bunch of arbitrary values, I developed a method for calculating signal quality based on power and bandwidth.

What I did was look at the bandwidth and packet size to figure out how many packets per second could be transmitted, and then looked at the power requirements per packet to figure out the power/second being transmitted, which I decided was the signal strength of the transmitter.  I then ranked the antenna according to signal strength, graphed the stock ones and then figured out where on the graph the others fit in.  Then I just overlaid that graph on another chart of ranges and used that to determine the nominal range for each antenna.  I'm sure someone better than me at math could do that part, but the signal strength calculation is pretty consistent.

For example: in Lack's antennas, you have the Communitron 32 and the Omni Radar, both of which have similar values:

Name	Bandwidth (mits/sec)	Packet Size (mits)	Packet xmit time (secs)	Packets/sec	Packet Power (amps)	Signal Strength (amps/sec)
Communitron 16	6.6	2	.30	3.3	15	49.5
Omni Radar	6.6	1	.15	6.6	7.5	49.5

 

So while they both have the same signal strength, and thus the same range, the Omni transmits data at twice the rate, so it's a higher speed connection over the same range.

So in this model, the bandwidth essentially dictates the gain of the antenna - low bandwidth will require more power/packet (low gain) to achieve the same signal strength as a higher bandwidth, but lower per-packet power requirement (high gain).  So the high gain antenna would utilize the same amount of power per second as the low gain, but transmit more data over the same range.

Bringing this full circle, I guess my suggestion/request would be to code this method into the antenna range mod, so that instead of needing a cfg or MM config for each antenna, your mod could just read the bandwidth, packet size and packet power values and calculate the signal strength, and then apply a nominal range based on whatever scale you think appropriate.

Did that all make sense?

 

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by JJE64
typo

[toadicus]

RoverDude, thanks for pointing that out.   That's a detail I'd missed in my original read-throughs.

JJE64, what I'm really missing in your assessment here is how the Comm 16 transmits data twice as fast as the Omni.  If they're both moving 6.6 MiT/sec, they have the same throughput.  As far as I can see the only mechanical difference the Omni has is that it will use less power more often to achieve exactly the same result, except that in an "out of power" situation the Omni might wind up 1 MiT ahead of the Comm 16.

It would be neat to programmatically determine the range of an antenna given the power use and the specified throughput, but to do that "right" I need to add a bunch of other inputs, like frequency and singal bandwidth (which is not what you're calling bandwidth), or else I just need to do it abstractly.  In either case, I have intentionally chosen not to do things that way for now because in general I think it is less intuitive both for part designers and for part users if they can't just look and see what their antenna can do.  I'm already borderline failing to adequately communicate the ranges to players, so that's a hurdle that needs to be overcome before something like this is tackled.

One last thing: the "stock" antenna ranges (my configs) are not hard-coded, they're all configurable in my .cfg.  If you want to change them in your patch, just use an :AFTER[AntennaRange] pass declaration and go right ahead.

[MaxPeck]

Bandwidth is the game's designation, not mine.  I'm just rolling with that they provide.  Oh, and I made a mistake, I was using the Communitron 32, not the communitron 16.  Sorry about that.  I do use amps in place of electriccharge just because it's easier to type.

So it's not necessarily about the number of mits/second, it's about the number of packets/sec and the power required to blast them out.  They are both capable of broadcasting the same 6.6 mits/sec, but the CT32's packet size is 2 mits to the Omni's 1.  That means that in one second, the Omni can broadcast 6.6 packets to the CT32's 3.3.  It's not about the amount of data sent, it's about the throughput of packets and the power used to send them.  Maybe using two similar antenna was a bad example, let me use antenna with different specs, both from Lack's mod...

Name	Bandwidth	Packet Size	Packet xmit time	Packets/sec	Packet power	Signal Strength
Communitron 32	6.6	2	.30	3.3	15	49.5
Scanning Dish	20	20	1	1	85	85

So here, the scanning dish would have a greater range: it broadcasts 1 packet per second @ 85amps, and so it's broadcasting 85amps/sec, whereas the CT32 can broadcast up to 3.3 packets per second at 15 amps, but only puts out at most 49.5 amps per second.  So the scanning dish is sending more power per second than the CT32, regardless of the amount of data being sent.

Another example using stock antenna:

Name	Bandwidth	Packet Size	Packets xmit time	Packets/sec	Packet Power	Signal Stregth
Communitron 16 (The correct one this time)	3.3	2	.60	1.65	12	19.8
Communitron 88-88	20	2	.1	10	14.1	141

So here, the stock 88-88 uses 14.1 amps to send one packet, and can send up to 10 packets per second, so it's blasting out 141 amps/sec.  the CT16, on the other hand, only sends 12 amps per packet and with the much lower throughput, can only send 1.65 packets per second, so it's only broadcasting 19.8 amps/sec.  So it makes sense that the range you've assigned to the 88-88 (80,900 Mm) is much higher than what the CT16 can do (67.1 Mm).

As for frequencies and such, I wouldn't neccesarily worry about that too much.  Just assume everything transmits in the same band, and that band is universal.  Call it subspace radio and thank Star Trek.  Whatever.  In this case, what your mod would have to do is recognize something as an antenna, read the bandwidth, packet size, and packet power, and use those to calculate the signal strength.  You could then apply a set formula to translate signal strength into a nominal range.  I don't enjoy calculus, but when I graphed it, it came out somewhat curve-ish, so someone better at math should be able to come up with a formula to figure it, or just make a linear formula that you like and re-assign the stock antenna according to it.  Either way, nominal range would be a function of signal strength.  I don't do c#, so unfortunately I can't do much more than have the idea, but there it is.  Does that make more sense?

Edited December 9, 2015 by JJE64
Awful, horrible typos. I'm ashamed.

[toadicus]

In general I think I disagree with your suggestion that "it's about the number of packets/sec".  "Packets" are an arbitrary construct that the game uses to know how often it should do a thing, and are most analogous (I think) to the units of whatever data transmission protocol is being used (e.g. TCP/IP, etc.).  The actual data throughput in MiT/sec is a better representation of the overall use of physical bandwidth over time, and it's that number that is positively related to signal strength and signal bandwidth.  The packets/sec and amps/packet concept is more a reflection of the overall efficiency and behavior of the transmission protocol itself, and not the connection at all.  So, I remain fairly sure that your Comm 32 and Omni Radar are functionally identical in all of the physically-significant ways that this mod cares about.

That said, I do understand your basic concept.  More throughput + less power = Less Range, and conversely.  Currently we are technically overconstraining the system by defining all of the above simultaneously.  I could procedurally determine antenna gains or nominalRange numbers using throughput and power assignments, but it remains something I'm wary of mostly for part maker's sakes.  I'm not through thinking about it; I'll give this some serious thought and run it past a few people.

Thanks very much for your input; feel free to keep it up!

[MaxPeck]

2 hours ago, toadicus said:

So, I remain fairly sure that your Comm 32 and Omni Radar are functionally identical in all of the physically-significant ways that this mod cares about.

They are, I realized afterwards that they were not not the best to use as an example.  The main difference between them would be play asthetics - the CT32 is a mast, the Omni is a dome.  Everything else in terms of range and transmission speed are identical.  Bad choice on my part.

Anyway, thanks for considering it.  Just out of curiosity, is RoverDude's stuff that he's working on for 1.1 going to render this all moot?

[toadicus]

To all appearances, RoverDude's relay system is going to substantially replace AntennaRange's basic functionality.  I don't yet have any information than you do, so I can really only speculate from there.  As soon as I get more information, I'll start exploring the best future for AntennaRange.

[Hyomoto]

In my experience I've dropped quite a few mods thanks to Squad's efforts.  I don't use DRE, FAR, Better Bouyancy, AJE, Select Root, etc, ect, ect...  anymore, and I see it as a good thing.  I imagine some people like myself look at many mods as a stopgap for missing or underdeveloped aspects of the game, but as stock catches up it's fair to think some mods will become redundant.  Unique to Antenna Range, and a big draw for me, is it's simplicity.  It just works, quietly and simply.  While I wouldn't mind a bit more complexity to it here and there, I mean this as an honest compliment when I say it doesn't clash with the base game and feels natural.  It feels like what a stock implementation of antenna diversity might, and I'd say I turned out to be right because it's possible this stock version might well be plenty for people like myself who looked to this mod for just that.  I suppose you'll probably never get a trophy but you can bet this is one of the models they used when deciding how the stock implementation should behave.

That said, I'm not really a fan of RoverDude's mods and based on my experience with them I'd be surprised if there wasn't something you could add or change.

[RoverDude]

heh, no need to be a jerk about it, yes?  

There are always much nicer ways of saying things (or better yet, follow the proverb about 'if you don't have something nice to say...').

[Seaview123]

I guess you can't please everyone all the time...

If it makes a difference, I love Antenna Range, and I'm a big fan of RoverDude's work, too. You guys are alright in my book!

 

[gamerscircle]

I was going to ask, how much effort it would take to add the antennas from FASA, but after reading the last posts in this thread and remembering that 1.1 will have an antenna enforcement of its own.