Communication limitations & Hide planets

[Tortoise]

I think that the antennas should have a limitation of how far they can transmit science data. And the only way to get it back to Kerbin is if they either: Go back (not get stuck far from kerbin), transmit the data to another vessel/space station in range, or something else you could figure out.

And also, hide most of the planets and addd a telescope or something (Also add a part, for rockets in orbit or something) to search for planets then you go to them yourselves and gain info

[Nemrav]

1 : good idea but..... voyager 1 is way out there and we can still communicate + if we limited the things then people complain of transmitting being useless.

2 : its planned however its probably going to be more of a ground based observatory... devs didn't shed much light on it...

[zeel]

Well the basic comunitoron could have a range limit, since it's just an antenna. The dish version however would not, since it can be directed and focused.

However it could be interesting if you had to have line of sight (so a big planet could block you), and if you actually needed to point the dish at kerbin (just make it possible to "control from here" on a dish, then set kerbin as target, and it should be easy). Similarly a relay system, where you transmit to another ship would require some targeting - and it might be required to get science of the surface of a planet if it's hard to get line of sight back to kerbin, just transfer to an orbital probe that can relay the message.

Furthermore with varied transfer rates some science could take a very long time to send, requiring a long window within line of sight - further complicating the communication in some cases (though I would add a manageable way to store/queue data so you can fine tune your transfer. You could even split the data into smaller packets if you pass into sight for regular but short periods.

[Amaroq]

I doubt hiding is going to happen, as we discovered Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930, so if KSP simulates the 1950s-1970s space race, all the planets in the system should be discovered.

For the "transmission issues", you might enjoy the mod Remote Tech 2, which does implement communication limits, including occlusion of line of sight.

[sal_vager]

Planet occlusion would be good, though remotetech already does this