[1.1.3] AntennaRange 1.11.4 - Enforce and Encourage Antenna Diversity

[toadicus]

Hyomoto, while we disagree about the quality of RoverDude's output (I've quite enjoyed his additions to stock and his mods, in general), I'm glad you like AntennaRange and agree with you about the way it "fits" with the game at this point.   Considering the striking similarities between AntennaRange and what we know about Squad's upcoming system, it sounds like they may feel similarly.   I'm excited to see what Squad does, and to see what scope there is for AntennaRange to add or improve functionality from there.

gamerscircle, I think someone in this thread made patches for FASA long ago; try searching around and see what you can find.  If you make a FASA patch yourself, I'd encourage you to add it here: https://github.com/toadicus/AntennaRange/wiki/Compatibility-Patches

[vardicd]

toadicus, just a quick question, have you looked at applying antenna range enforcement's control limitation to mech-jeb? I want to apply it to the mj ar case, and I was looking at amking a mm patch for my own game, but I've been staring at the code for a couple of hours, and to be honest I'm not sure what I need to add to a mm patch to be applied to mj to block control access when there is no antenna connection. I'm not sure what line of code is responsible for blocking the base probe core control. If you can give me any advice, or point me in the right direction, I'd be forever grateful.

[Jenteb07]

I have the following problem and I don't know if this is by design or not.

Situation:
I have a probe lander on Duna having a communotron 16 and a Comms DTS-M1. In low inclined and different orbits of Duna I have two sattelites with a communotron 88-88 and a couple of Comms DTS-M1.

My problem is that the communotron 16 on my lander is not making any contact at all. The other antenna is only connecting with a sattelite at Kerbin.
Why is there no connection being made with one of the satellites to work as relays?

FYI I'm not using the LOS option from antennaRange.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Jenteb07

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

The first is probably by design.  The DTS-M1 has a longer range than the 16, so its connections will always be better than the 16's (and therefore it will always be preferred over the 16).

As to your other question, about connecting to Kerbin vs. a relay satellite, the nominal range of KSP level 3 is 2 Tm (with level 2 being 1/10th of that).  The nominal range of the 88-88 dish is 9.25 Gm, and of the DTS-M1 is 3.15 Gm.  The nominal link distance for a pair of antennas is the geometric mean (square root of the product) of their ranges.

For a DTS-M1 and KSC, that distance is 79 Gm.  The Kerbin-Duna distance is between 7 and 33 Gm, or between 8 and 42% of the nominal link distance.

The nominal link distance between a DTS-M1 and an 88-88 is 5.4 Gm.  The sphere of influence of Duna is 48 Mm, or 0.88% of the nominal link distance.

Based on that, it sounds like your lander should prefer to connect to one of the satellites rather than KSC directly.  Edit: @toadicus, am I right?

Edited December 23, 2015 by Kerbas_ad_astra

[Fl0oo]

Is this working with Venstock Revamap?

[toadicus]

@Jenteb07, @Kerbas_ad_astra, remember that shorter-range antennas on a craft will almost always be ignored during rangefinding.  The only exception is for the active vessel itself, if a shorter-range antenna has a cheaper connection than a longer-range antenna.  For all inactive vessels, only the longest range antenna matters.

It doesn't make any sense that the lander would be connecting through a probe at Kerbin.  Please clarify if that's really the case, because that would be a bug.

If it's actually connecting directly to Kerbin, then the situation we're in is comparing a DTS->88-88 connection versus the DTS->KSC3 connection (assuming you've got the tracking station fully upgraded or are in sandbox/science mode).  DTS->88-88 max link range is 4.83e9m; DTS->KSC3 is 3.55e10m.  In general this means you need to be (about) 10 times closer to the 88-88 to use it over Kerbin.  So, using Kerbas' numbers above, if your satellites are in a very high orbit and Duna and Kerbin are very close together, this may be correct behavior.

Unfortunately KSP is segfaulting on my dev machine at the moment; I'll try to simulate this myself when I can.

EDIT:

I had a few numbers wrong per the actual implementation, and also found and fixed a bug in determining the ranges of inactive relays when using additive ranges (in general, they were counting as much too long).  That said, there's still a condition in which two relays that could phone home to Kerbin will not always line themselves up into the shortest network because of the "lazy" optimization the network resolution uses.

When a relay looks for a new target every frame, it discards any relays that were targeting itself last frame, and checks relays against their transmit status from the last frame.  So, suppose on frame 1 we have a DTS lander with no target and an 88-88 comsat with no target.  The DTS lander checks first: the 88-88 has no connection (because it hasn't resolved yet), so the DTS checks Kerbin: it's in range, so it targets Kerbin.  Then the 88-88 comsat checks: the DTS lander has a much better connection available than does Kerbin, so it targets the DTS lander.  In frame 2, the DTS lander checks first again: targetting the 88-88 comsat would result in a circular connection, so it skips it and targets Kerbin again.  The 88-88 comsat does the same check as before, with the same result.  All else being equal, this network in this order will never result in the more-optimal lander->satellite->Kerbin resolution.

I'm mulling over options for improving this.

@Fl0oo, I do not have any custom configs to support any antenna parts added by Venstock Revamp.  If you want to try writing one yourself, a great place to start would be the README.

Edited December 27, 2015 by toadicus

[Jenteb07]

@toadicus, I will try to make some clarifying images, but I already thank you for your response.

[toadicus]

@Jenteb07, note my edits above.

[HalcyonHush]

Hi Toadicus, love the mod.

It's great how it encourages the use of different antenna and also (with LOS turned on) building satellites; all while keeping things simple and as stockalike as possible.

The one thing I thought was a bit too simple though was the icon - so I made my own!

It's up to you whether to use it or not but just thought I'd share  http://imgur.com/a/MOJCz

[MaxPeck]

So there I am... walking around on the Mun, when I suddenly notice my Kerbal is showing as suboptimal.  He's outside my base, literally surrounded by antennas, both stock and from mods, mostly of the DTS .  There are at least 3 communications relay satellites overhead, and all of them have a clear line of sight to Kerbin.  Is there a way to manually designate relay stations, or would you consider adding such a thing?  It seems to me that any one of the many antenna within line-of-sight, if not throwing distance from my guy walking around should have been sufficient to the task...

[toadicus]

@HalcyonHush, thanks very much!  I'll likely include these, with credit, in the next release.

@JJE64 EVA Kerbals have a very short range.  Your description sounds like he probably shouldn't have quite been in suboptimal yet though, so it's hard to know exactly why that might be the case.  EVAs don't lose anything from being suboptimal, though.

I don't currently have a way to designate specific relays, and a feature like that is not currently planned.  That doesn't mean I couldn't think about it someday, though.

[MaxPeck]

3 hours ago, toadicus said:

I don't currently have a way to designate specific relays, and a feature like that is not currently planned.  That doesn't mean I couldn't think about it someday, though.

Not being all that versed at the ins and outs of writing the guts of mods, but just as a matter of speculation, how difficult would it be to create a small part that you attach to a satellite or other communications relay station that designates it to the network as a repeater station?  Not to the exclusion of other antenna, but something that assigns priority within the network to that particular antenna?  Maybe give a bonus to that satellite or station if it has multiple antenna, like a real repeater station would have... just a thought.

[toadicus]

@JJE64, the simplest way would be the way Squad appears to be doing it (based on their post some months ago), which is to make most antenna parts only useful as transmitters, and have an entirely separate part for relays.  Other methods get more complicated based on how particular you'd like to be able to be.

[godefroi]

Is there any kind of debugging output? I've got a level 2 tracking station, and a HECS with one of each antenna is completely locked on the launch pad; the icon is red. I've tried extending the Communotron-16 in the VAB, but it makes no difference; I'm completely unable to launch a probe. What might I be doing wrong?

[toadicus]

You can try right-clicking on the antennas to see if they give any clues in their status readouts.  But, that's not expected behavior in general.  If it persists, can you get me a debug log (Windows: \path\to\KSP_win\KSP_Data\output_log.txt; Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/Squad/Kerbal\ Space\ Program/Player.log; Mac: ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log) after a run of the game that exhibits the problem?

[godefroi]

I PMd you my logfile. I didn't see anything obvious (or much related to AR in general), but maybe you know what to look for.

[ManuxKerb]

Hi fellow Antenna Ranger users,

I have a Science lab in LKO and a Comunotron and a DTS on the lab directly. However i can not transmit science. The button in the lab (Transmit science) simply does nothing, no antenna opening animation, no starting transmission. Simply nothing.

As this was the case with AR some time ago, i do not believe it is fixed. I can provide a save if wanted.

Thanks for looking into this!

 

Edited January 7, 2016 by ManuxKerb

[toadicus]

@godefroi, AntennaRange and RemoteTech aren't intended to play nicely together; the issue is that AntennaRange is not applying any of its modules because it has found RemoteTech to be present.  If you want to use AntennaRange, you should remove RemoteTech, and vice versa.  Generally speaking the two are mutually exclusive.

@ManuxKerb, I'll look into it again.  IIRC I couldn't duplicate it last time, so a save would probably be useful.  Especially one with minimal extra mods required.

[ManuxKerb]

Hi toadicus,

 

Here is the save: https://www.sendspace.com/file/v5us8f

I uses quite a few mods but not too exotic ones. I will pack up a zip file for your convenience. (120 MB) It will probably not use all mods in the pack i just wanted to make sure. Also Squad folder is not included :-) https://www.sendspace.com/file/8d0hy3

It is the second ship in the Tracking station. Science is already in the lab but as said i can not transfer it.

Many thanks for looking into it!

In terms of 1.1: How will AR change with the new ranged system ? Any ideas ?

Thanks a lot!

[godefroi]

17 hours ago, toadicus said:

@godefroi, AntennaRange and RemoteTech aren't intended to play nicely together; the issue is that AntennaRange is not applying any of its modules because it has found RemoteTech to be present.  If you want to use AntennaRange, you should remove RemoteTech, and vice versa.  Generally speaking the two are mutually exclusive.

Er, I have RemoteTech installed there (I'll have to check when I get home)? Well, no wonder it's not working. Sorry for wasting your time.

[godefroi]

So, it turns out that RemoteTech is NOT installed, however, the folder for it was still there,and there was a settings file in it. Once I remove the folder, AR works as designed. Thanks!

[Andem]

Really didn't want to read 39 pages, and can't test it out at the moment. relay systems do work, right?

[toadicus]

@Andem, yes they do.

[Andem]

3 hours ago, toadicus said:

@Andem, yes they do.

Awesome. Thanks!

[Andem]

Random idea. Can you disable chatterer when you are out of coms range or have low power? That would be pretty cool.