[1.1] RemoteTech v1.6.10 [2016-04-12]

[Drew Kerman]

I think Cilph was considering a feature like that, but rejected it. I personally am against it for two reasons:

1. While realistic, it's quite unintuitive; if active vessel has taught us anything, it's that most players have trouble diagnosing communications problems that are happening somewhere else in the network. At the moment we're trying to smooth out the learning curve for RT, not make it even more baffling for new players.
   
2. Predicting when communication paths will and will not be available is quite difficult, and requires plotting the orbits of all celestial bodies and all current vessels. That's considerable computational overhead, even if we get all the special cases (e.g. paths possible through different satellites at different times) right.

Wow, I never really considered the fact that if a probe is 10 light minutes away, it can't receive a command from you until at least 10 minutes after it successfully connects to KSC. That could potentially be detrimental in some situations. I don't think it will be too confusing if you allow us to use the Flight Computer even when there is no connection to send commands. When the timer runs down, if the craft still has no connection then the command fails, and an error message can pop up in the green notification text center top of the screen saying that communications are not established. RT doesn't have to predict whether the command will succeed, it just has to operate as normal and either has a connection when the command reaches the ship or doesn't. As far as predicting when to send the command to arrive when a probe is in contact, that's easy enough for the end-user to handle. Arrowstar's Mission Architect software can produce a graph telling you when a craft anywhere in the kerbol system has line of sight to KSC (or any other ground target/orbiting vessel!). Here I am using it to show that my Duna probe will have constant comms with my two interplanetary comm sats when it first arrives at Duna (unbroken line across the top shows when one drops out, the other is there).

I'm not sure how RT handles out-of-contact craft but I assume it knows at all times how much signal delay is present, so there shouldn't really be any re-coding necessary besides allowing the FC use without a connection.

If you really think it would cause support headaches, a cfg switch to enable FC use without a connection defaulted to False would be okay as well. Just let us advanced users make full use of our comm windows please!

[CaptRobau]

I think I can help as long as you're willing to suspend disbelief a bit... (this might not work well for you Meta Jonez though)

Create extra ground stations around Kerbin. Link to readme on what the parameters do. If you have some every...60° longitude at some nice height, maybe 100,000 meters, you should get Omni coverage out of Kerbin. It does really make the whole network really easy though

Thank you! Maybe I won't plaster it over the entire globe, but place extra tracking stations in strategic positions. That'd be a nice medium between the unrealistic single tracking station and the perhaps too unchallenging uniform coverage.

[Resender]

I like RemoteTech, i really do. But I hate precisely timing my orbits to keep my Deep Space Network working (2 sites on Kerbin with large dishes, near the equator and 1/3 the way around from KSC). BORING. So I usually install it for a week, get a nice network around Kerbin and the Mun and then...I have to fix orbits...so I uninstall.

Anyway, there HAD to be a better way

....

I tried this a few versions of both KSP & RT2 ago,but I tried another path namely to the north pole.

Since Kerbin doesn't have an inclination towards it's star it's always dusk at the pole.

Mün is also always visible from the pole,so my idea was to make a relay like this on Kerbin to its northen pole,then link to 1 or several relay's on the Mün poles

[Gfurst]

I tried this a few versions of both KSP & RT2 ago,but I tried another path namely to the north pole.

Since Kerbin doesn't have an inclination towards it's star it's always dusk at the pole.

Mün is also always visible from the pole,so my idea was to make a relay like this on Kerbin to its northen pole,then link to 1 or several relay's on the Mün poles

Hummm, ac ommunications station on Kerbin and Mun is poles... I like it, very good indeed.

[Starstrider42]

I'm not sure how RT handles out-of-contact craft but I assume it knows at all times how much signal delay is present, so there shouldn't really be any re-coding necessary besides allowing the FC use without a connection.

Actually, no it doesn't, because it can't. If a craft is out of contact, then there is no path -- not direct from KSC, not relayed through a dozen satellites, nothing in between -- that leads to that satellite. If you don't know how far a signal has to travel, you can't calculate signal delay (though you can set a lower limit by assuming a direct link). Hence the need for forward modeling -- you can't define the signal delay until you know which path(s) will open up in the near future.

[Felbourn]

I'm checking with this thread to see if these are unknown issues that I should delve into more with logs, a debug build, etc, or if these are "yea we know, we'll get to it when we can, don't waste your time because we have what we need (other than time)" issues. This is with a fresh 0.25 and 1.5.1 RT install.

(1) I am getting GUI errors sometimes in the TS view (or it might be both TS and Map view) when I open the antenna menu that's at the bottom of the screen in TS and Map view. It says something about not popping enough pushed contexts. In TS view the menu will then not close, and pretty much the entire UI becomes unresponsive until I close the game and restart.

(2) I had the double-ship bug last night. I deleted one of the copies form the TS view and everything was fine afterward. I thought this was gone, so... letting you know I had it.

(3) I am repeatedly getting dishes that do not work when pointed in a direction rather than at a specific target. Say for example I have two dishes with 25 Mm range. I put one at Mun and one at Kerbin. I point each dish at "Mun" and "Kerbin" as well. When they are within range, and I look at the "cones view" of the dishes to make sure they really are pointing where I think they are, I do not get a connection. If I toggle the dish at Kerbin to point at the satellite directly instead of Mun it will enable the control link. If I toggle it back to "Mun" it goes back to unlinked. I can toggle this repeatedly to show that direct targets work and general direction targeting does not.

[The Czosnex]

Is there away to configure RemoteTech so that you only need the connection with KSC to transmit science? I'd like to disable the signal the delay AND the need for having the connection in order to operate a probe (but probes should still require an antenna).

[Dwight_js]

I'd like to disable the signal the delay AND the need for having the connection in order to operate a probe (but probes should still require an antenna).

Couldn't you get that by just playing stock?

[BigD145]

Couldn't you get that by just playing stock?

Yes, they can. Put an antenna on every craft and you don't need RT at all. Oh wait, that's already a requirement for sending science in stock.

[The Czosnex]

Yes, they can. Put an antenna on every craft and you don't need RT at all. Oh wait, that's already a requirement for sending science in stock.

Yeah, but in real life, probes in deep space aren't operated in real time. They have instructions transmitted occasionally on what to do. While with RemoteTech you still need the connection everytime, even with singal delay disabled. In stock you need antennas only if you want to transmit science, but you can still get it by returning back to Kerbin. And you don't need any comm sat network to transmit it.

I'd just like to have fun setting up a sat network to transmit my science while pretending that my control input is what the probe was "programmed" to do.

Edited October 23, 2014 by The Czosnex

[Mecripp]

Yeah, but in real life, probes in deep space aren't operated in real time. They have instructions transmitted occasionally on what to do. While with RemoteTech you still need the connection everytime, even with singal delay disabled. In stock you need antennas only if you want to transmit science, but you can still get it by returning back to Kerbin. And you don't need any comm sat network to transmit it.

I'd just like to have fun setting up sat network to transmit my science while pretending that my control input is what the probe was "programmed" to do.

You might like AntennaRange better you can found it here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56440-0-25-AntennaRange-1-4-2-Enforce-and-Encourage-Antenna-Diversity but if you want RT for the lines you can disable the delay in your RT folder you will see RemoteTech_Settings.cfg there you can disable delay

ConsumptionMultiplier = 1
RangeMultiplier = 1
ActiveVesselGuid = 35b89a0d664c43c6bec8d0840afc97b2
SpeedOfLight = 3E+08
MapFilter = Omni, Dish, Path
[COLOR="#FF0000"]EnableSignalDelay = True[/COLOR] <--- Here change to false
RangeModelType = Standard
MultipleAntennaMultiplier = 0
ThrottleTimeWarp = True
DishConnectionColor = 0.9960784,0.7019608,0.03137255,1
OmniConnectionColor = 0.5529412,0.5176471,0.4078431,1
ActiveConnectionColor = 0.6588235,1,0.01568628,1
GroundStations
{
	STATION
	{
		Guid = 5105f5a9-d628-41c6-ad4b-21154e8fc488
		Name = Mission Control
		Latitude = -0.131331503391266
		Longitude = -74.594841003418
		Height = 75
		Body = 1
		Antennas
		{
			ANTENNA
			{
				Omni = 7.5E+07
			}
		}
	}
}

And for the last part thats tricky and think right now alittle buggy something got change so it don't work like it did or it can be a hit and miss.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Mecripp2

[dtoxic]

Yeah, but in real life, probes in deep space aren't operated in real time. They have instructions transmitted occasionally on what to do. While with RemoteTech you still need the connection everytime, even with singal delay disabled. In stock you need antennas only if you want to transmit science, but you can still get it by returning back to Kerbin. And you don't need any comm sat network to transmit it.

I'd just like to have fun setting up a sat network to transmit my science while pretending that my control input is what the probe was "programmed" to do.

yeap and if you need connection just to transmit science you need to remove "ModuleSPU" from cfg's but that is bugged right now i too am waiting for that to be fixed

[FreeThinker]

When I acquired the level 6 technology to grab asteroids, I naturally wanted to grab one for further study. However I quickly realized that the range of my Remote Tech would not allow me to send a probe until I gained access to the level 7 long range dishes

Therefore I propose to add 2 medium range dishes which fill the COMMUNICATION gab between the level 5 short range dishes and the level 7 long range dishes

Communotron 22-22

Tech: Advanced Electrics

Range: 500.000 km

Covers KEO: 82400 km

Cone Diameter: 4,8 grad

Communotron 44-44

Tech: Advanced Electrics

Max Range: 2.000.000 km

Covers KEO: 330.000 km

Cone Diameter: 1,2 grad

For comparison I show the Communotron 88-88 which is stats were used to calculate the maximum range and cone diameter of the Communotron 44 and Communotron 22

Communotron 88-88

Tech: Electronics

Range: 40.000.000 km

KEO : 1.100.000 km

Cone Diameter: 0,06 grad

Besides for Astroid missions, due to the their KEO coverage, medium range dishes also are very useful for any interplanetary rockets that want to stay in contact with all satellites in KEO Orbit between 90.000 km and 1.100.000 km

Edited October 23, 2014 by FreeThinker

[The Czosnex]

You might like AntennaRange better you can found it here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56440-0-25-AntennaRange-1-4-2-Enforce-and-Encourage-Antenna-Diversity but if you want RT for the lines you can disable the delay in your RT folder you will see RemoteTech_Settings.cfg there you can disable delay

yeap and if you need connection just to transmit science you need to remove "ModuleSPU" from cfg's but that is bugged right now i too am waiting for that to be fixed

Thanks for the answers!

EDIT: Yeah, it's bugged indeed I'll try AntennaRange then. Too bad it doesn't display the lines and such.

Edited October 23, 2014 by The Czosnex

[Noio]

I tossed this together because I was tired of not remembering all the vital stats of my antennas. Maybe somebody else will find it useful too. It's not artsy, but hey...

[Itsdavyjones]

I tossed this together because I was tired of not remembering all the vital stats of my antennas. Maybe somebody else will find it useful too. It's not artsy, but hey...

Very useful, saving for future reference, and who cares about artsy, its practical and that's all that matters.

[Starstrider42]

(1) I am getting GUI errors sometimes in the TS view (or it might be both TS and Map view) when I open the antenna menu that's at the bottom of the screen in TS and Map view. It says something about not popping enough pushed contexts. In TS view the menu will then not close, and pretty much the entire UI becomes unresponsive until I close the game and restart.

Logs and savegame, I think. What you're describing could be pretty much any problem happening anywhere in any GUI code. At least if you don't have any mods other than RT and MM we can rule out bugs introduced in another mod's code...

(2) I had the double-ship bug last night. I deleted one of the copies form the TS view and everything was fine afterward. I thought this was gone, so... letting you know I had it.

Yeah, the duplication bug is not gone, just mortally wounded. The problem is that we can't fix it if we can't reproduce it, and we can't reproduce it because we've *almost* fixed it. So if you can make a save file that always causes duplication when you load it, that would be perfect. https://github.com/RemoteTechnologiesGroup/RemoteTech/issues/18

(3) I am repeatedly getting dishes that do not work when pointed in a direction rather than at a specific target. Say for example I have two dishes with 25 Mm range. I put one at Mun and one at Kerbin. I point each dish at "Mun" and "Kerbin" as well. When they are within range, and I look at the "cones view" of the dishes to make sure they really are pointing where I think they are, I do not get a connection. If I toggle the dish at Kerbin to point at the satellite directly instead of Mun it will enable the control link. If I toggle it back to "Mun" it goes back to unlinked. I can toggle this repeatedly to show that direct targets work and general direction targeting does not.

I'm hoping to redo the cone code by the end of this week (hopefully fixing whatever's going on here), but a save game would still be useful as a test case.

Therefore I propose to add 2 medium range dishes which fill the COMMUNICATION gab between the level 5 short range dishes and the level 7 long range dishes

Communotron 22-22

Tech: Advanced Electrics

Range: 500.000 km

Covers KEO: 82400 km

Cone Diameter: 4,8 grad

Communotron 44-44

Tech: Advanced Electrics

Max Range: 2.000.000 km

Covers KEO: 330.000 km

Cone Diameter: 1,2 grad

I do like the idea of a intermediate-range dish (probably just the 44-44, to keep from overwhelming new players with too many new parts). However, we would need someone to make a model for the new dish; there's no one in the group with those skills at the moment.

Yeah, it's bugged indeed I'll try AntennaRange then. Too bad it doesn't display the lines and such.

That's worrying. So far we've only had this problem with parts that are supposed to act both as probe cores and as antennas. Are you saying that even if you delete the extra modules from normal probe cores (or just delete the *_Probes.cfg files, which add them), things don't work as they should?

I tossed this together because I was tired of not remembering all the vital stats of my antennas. Maybe somebody else will find it useful too. It's not artsy, but hey...

http://i.imgur.com/N51Bi0p.png

Ooo, very nice. I can even understand it at a glance.

[Superfluous J]

This may help, it's a modman config for each dish that changes the descriptions to tell you how far each thing reaches from KSC...

This stopped working when RemoteTech2 changed names to RemoteTech, so I've modified the file.

The config file, just drop it into GameData along with ModuleManager.dll

@PART[RTShortAntenna1]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Hardy. Always on to start. Needed for a probe-only mission. Will work on any line of sight to KSC if below 150km altitude.
}

// Communotron 16 (Stock part repurposed for RT)
@PART[longAntenna]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Will work on any line of sight to KSC if below 1960km altitude (Below Keosynchronous)
}

// CommTech EXP-VR-2T
@PART[RTLongAntenna3]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Will work on any line of sight to KSC if below 2460km altitude (Just Below Keosynchronous)
}

// Communotron 32
@PART[RTLongAntenna2]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Will work on any line of sight to KSC if below 4430km altitude (Well Above Keosynchronous)
}

// Comms DTS-M1 (Stock part repurposed for RT)
@PART[mediumDishAntenna]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Reaches Minmus. Cone covers Keosynchronous at Mun.
}

// Reflectron KR-7
@PART[RTShortDish2]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Hardy. Reaches all of Kerbin SOI. Cone covers Kerbin well within Mun's orbit, Keosynchronous well within Minmus' orbit.
}

// Communotron 88-88 (Stock part repurposed for RT)
@PART[commDish]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Reaches Duna at all times, Dres on Kerbin's side of Sun. Cone covers Kerbin just outside of SOI. At Eve and Duna closest, cone will not cover Keosynchronous.
}

// Reflectron KR-14
@PART[RTLongDish2]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Hardy. Reaches Dres at all times, Jool on Kerbin's side of Sun, barely reaches Eeloo at its periapsis. Cone covers Kerbin from all planets. At Moho and Duna's closest approaches and when Eve is on the same side of Sun, cone will not cover Keosynchronous.
}

// CommTech-1
@PART[RTGigaDish2]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Hardy. Reaches everywhere. At Moho and Duna's closest approaches and when Eve is on the same side of Sun, cone will not cover Kerbin. On any inner planet (including Dres), Eeloo at closest approach, and Jool on the same side of Sun, cone will not cover Keosynchronous.
}

// Reflectron GX-128
@PART[RTGigaDish1]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Lightweight. Reaches everywhere. Cone will not cover Kerbin from low Sun orbit or Moho and Eve when on the same side of Sun, or a lot of Duna's close approach. All inner planets (including Dres) and Jool for all but when it on the opposite side of Sun, and about half of Eeloo's orbit the cone will not cover Keosynchronous.
}

// Old part - not in game anymore.
@PART[RTShortDish1]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Decommissioned part. Do not use.
}

// Old part - not in game anymore.
@PART[RTLongDish1]:AFTER[RemoteTech] {
@description = Decommissioned part. Do not use.
}

// Reflectron DP-10

[Drew Kerman]

Actually, no it doesn't, because it can't. If a craft is out of contact, then there is no path -- not direct from KSC, not relayed through a dozen satellites, nothing in between -- that leads to that satellite. If you don't know how far a signal has to travel, you can't calculate signal delay (though you can set a lower limit by assuming a direct link). Hence the need for forward modeling -- you can't define the signal delay until you know which path(s) will open up in the near future.

Ah, I knew I was probably missing something :/ Well, it's still something that can be simulated by the end user, at least I know about it now! A way to toggle signal delay on/off without having to restart the game would be nice tho

[FreeThinker]

I do like the idea of a intermediate-range dish (probably just the 44-44, to keep from overwhelming new players with too many new parts). However, we would need someone to make a model for the new dish; there's no one in the group with those skills at the moment.

Well since the Communitron 44-44, and Communitron 22-22 are basisicly configurations, of the Communitron 88-88, for the time being ,we can use the same model.

In order to minimise part count, perhaps it's an idea to make the Communitron reconfiguarable and upgradable. For example by allowing to reconfigure it for long med or short range by EVA or with click of a button.

Edited October 24, 2014 by FreeThinker

[Resender]

I got a question to the development team about a feature that Cilph was working on before haven to resign from development, namely bouncing off the signals off the atmosphere allowing greater ranges,has that idea been scrapped completely

[The Czosnex]

That's worrying. So far we've only had this problem with parts that are supposed to act both as probe cores and as antennas. Are you saying that even if you delete the extra modules from normal probe cores (or just delete the *_Probes.cfg files, which add them), things don't work as they should?

Yep, the mod gets broken and I can't control things... unless I did something wrong. Someone should make a config without the module. Someone who knows what he's doing

[FreeThinker]

BTW, I want to set MultipleAntennaMultiplier to a realistic value.

If I compare the Communotron 16 to the Communotron 32 which has twise the range, but 4.6 times the power requirement. Assuming multiple antennnas with similar total power compared to a single antenna are worse, It would require about 5 antenna's to double in range.

Therefore a MultipleAntennaMultiplier of 0.25 would create this effect, correct?

How do I exactly calculate the maximum range when multiple omni range antanas are available?

I guess it is something like: Total range = Max range + (sum of additional ranges * Multiple Antenna Multiplier)

Example: 2500 + 4*2500*0.25 = 2500 + 2500 = 5000 km

Edited October 24, 2014 by FreeThinker

[shand]

hey guys, just wondering if theres a way to get remote tech and mechjeb to play together in a more realistic fashion. for example i would like mechjeb to be able to carry out autopilot functions out of contact range (if autopilot engaged prior to los of contact).

obviously there is the flight computer, but that doesnt respond to conditions - i am mostly concerned with landing/ascent more than manoeuvre nodes.

[dtoxic]

Yep, the mod gets broken and I can't control things... unless I did something wrong. Someone should make a config without the module. Someone who knows what he's doing

Can you describe your steps of what you are trying to achieve, and what is not working? just so that we can confirm its the same problem i am having when removing [ModuleSPU] from a Hybrid probe that has a integrated omni Antenna [ModuleSPUPassive]