Your RT2 networks?

[Tortoise]

I just setup my first basic RT2 network. And I wanted to share it, while also seeing some of yours! Show us!

I used this rocket I built

(Yes I use FAR and everything btw. And no I don't use mj)

to launch my first 4 communication satellites!

[weeble]

Very nice design and job setting up that network. You should consider posting a pic on your actual satellite that you're using. I'm too embarrassed to show my attempts!

[Gryphon]

(I am using RT2, TAC life support, FAR aerodynamics, and Procedural Fairings, among other mods not relevant to this.)

Here is my keostationary equatorial orbit comsat network:

I named each satellite in the network based on the position of the sun from KSC towards its location: Sunset, Twilight, Midnight, Predawn, and Sunrise.

The apparent gap in the network is intentional; the ground-based antennae at KSC cover that part of the sky.

Note my pre-positioned Kerbal retrieval ship in LKO. While it is on the opposite side of the planet from KSC, it has a short window when all the KEO Comsats are simultaneously visible, as shown here.

The links going offscreen are to the Munar comm network, currently being deployed.

KEO Comsat, first wave of deployment (2 sats).

Each sat has an interplanetary-range dish, a shorter range dish for long links in the Kerbin SOI, and the largest omni available, intended for links to Kerbin, LKO, and the rest of the KEO Comsat net.

I also included a Clamp-o-tron jr. on the aft end for refueling or expansion.

After it was in operation, I decided it the sats needed an RTG for auxiliary power, so I brought extras along for the first wave sats when I was deploying my second wave of KEO Comsats.

KEO Comsat, second wave of deployment (3 sats).

Similar to the first wave, but I unlocked the biggest dish, and more is better, right? These also included the PB-NUK on initial deployment.

MSEO Comsat (3 sats).

I am currently deploying three equidistant comsats to semi-synchronous equatorial orbit around the Mun. Each has two dishes to link back to two separate KEO Comsats, and an omni to support Munar ops.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Gryphon

[Nori]

~snip

How do your Mun sats have enough power to last through the night? Unless I'm wrong you only have a few hundred EC and if you have all three antennas going and a 19 hour (1/2 Sidereal rotational period) that is only enough for 200seconds out of the 2200 for the dark period.

[SuccessPastaTime]

Here's my main go to for Kerbin SOI coverage. Still has upper stage attached to it, so don't mind the Saturn V style painted part.

I'm so nitpicky about how my satellites look, I literally spend way to long in the VAB and never actually get the missions done. Don't got a picture of their layout yet, but I place three in KSO at least.

[Wiseman]

This thread is great, since it made me review my entire network, which had all sorts of weird and broken connections

Anyways, here's what I'm running for my heavily modded save, including stuff from KSPI-Lite and KW Rocketry. This network (especially the KGN, MOS, and MiOS satellites) was inspired/stolen from this guide. I'm aiming for satellites around at least Duna and Eve as well, but we'll see how long I'm motivated to keep launching dozens of commsats.

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Edited September 24, 2014 by Wiseman

[Taki117]

While I don't have a pic of my network I do have one of my sat.

Here's one of my Long Range Sats, these were placed Halfway to the Mun

Here's another version of my inter-system commsat

While not a picture of my network specifically you can see the inter-system sats at KSO and the Long Range Sats further out. There are 3 KSP sats and 4 of my Long Range Sats.

Here's another showing the inter-system sats (This was a different save so I didn't have the long range satellites)

Edited September 24, 2014 by Taki117

[Gryphon]

How do your Mun sats have enough power to last through the night? Unless I'm wrong you only have a few hundred EC and if you have all three antennas going and a 19 hour (1/2 Sidereal rotational period) that is only enough for 200seconds out of the 2200 for the dark period.

Um.

I may not have fully tested the electrical consumption without a charge from the panels, and I forgot that KSP doesn't spend electric when you are not focusing on that vessel, so when it looked OK, I thought it was OK. I'd rather pretend that it works the way it should, so I checked it out:

The good news is that it's only 20 minutes of Kerbin shadow at keosynchronous equatorial orbit.

The bad news is that with the full 210 EC available, the satellite batteries last about 1 minute with all antennae active.

In the dark, the sat with all antennas up drains the 210 EC in about 1 minute.

HOWEVER, with the dishes turned off and just the omni antenna active, the sat has enough power for continuous operation without input from the solar panels. The Kerbals COULD keep re-aiming dishes to different parts of the network as sats go in and out of shadow, and it would work OK.

I'd rather have enough power to get through shadow periods, though; in my mind, constant switching is a recipe for losing unmanned craft, when you forget to retarget in the correct order and lose control of the satellite.

(In the version more real than RemoteTech, you could just use a really large dish like Arecibo and still contact the satellite, like they did, for instance, with ISEE-3. But I digress.)

If my math is right, then I need more power or more battery for that shadow: 5 more PB-NUK's or 4300+ EC of batteries.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

There are also Munar shadows to contend with. A craft will stay in the Munar shadow the longest while it is out on the limbs of the orbit, going directly toward or away from the Mun. This could be 8+ minutes. At those points of the orbit, the batteries should be recharged sufficient to handle that amount of time (I think). However, if the craft encounters the Munar shadow just before or after the Kerbin shadow, it will still be an additional 4 minutes or so of discharge time. That adds up to 5200+ EC required.

So, thanks for the heads-up; now I get to fly ANOTHER mission to each satellite!

Edit: Oh, hey, the Universal Storage guy made a spreadsheet for figuring this stuff: http://www.kingtiger.co.uk/kingtiger/wordpress/2013/11/20/kasa-power-requirements/

Edited September 24, 2014 by Gryphon

[Boomerang]

I try to keep it pretty simple and exact for the sake of cutting down on the number of crafts. Here's my typical Kerbin setup, sans connection lines.

Four satellites in semi-synchronous equatorial orbit. At that altitude other craft can get by with using the Communtron 16 rather than the 32 in LKO, which isn't the case if those comsats were in Kerbi-synchronous orbit. Each is also equipped with two short range dishes to maintain coverage upon the Mun and Minmus.

The two polar orbits are very heavy comsats with a mid-range dish for each of Moho/Eve/Duna/Active Vessel and a long range for each of Dres/Jool/Eeloo/Active Vessel. The AP of their orbits is around 4000km with a PE of around 95km, synchronized so that as one is reaching PE, the other is reaching AP. That way one is very nearly always visible to anything trying to maintain contact with Kerbin from afar.

[Overjay]

Boomerang, DUUUUDE! Those polar orbits are genuine! I'll use them for sure

[Nori]

So here is my current network.

Got 4 Sats around Kerbin with 3h orbit times.

3 are around the Mun and I'm currently adding 3 to Minmus. See captions on images for more info.

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[Beale]

I've tried to avoid Geo (Keo?) stationary orbits due to the "drift" that happens with floating point errors. So I opt for Molniya orbits around Kerbin.

Suprisingly near-perfect coverage, you'll be connected just about anywhere in the Kerbin system.

You see a "four-leaf" clover around Kerbin here.

The Satellites are nothing special, just the 2nd most powerful dish and some arrays + (shameless plug) some Tantares omni-directionals.

The far side of the Mun gets partial coverage by the Munar relay.

Which has been helpful in landing this fella.

Really nice to see other's networks!

Edit: Oh, and before the network was set up, a series of ground stations with a crew of 6 gave pretty decent coverage.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Beale

[SuccessPastaTime]

Nice Molniyas. I've been doing those lately too. It's much easier to spread them out compared to KSO orbit sats, IMO.

[Deadpangod3]

My communications network is planned to consist of multiple rings of communication sats going like this,

Geosynchronous ring, main communications ring, connected to ksc via Geo Sat Alpha, three of the sats in this ring connect to a single sat in a ring of comms sats in a 250 km orbit or wherever I put it, this sat is the Low Orbit Communications Hub, covered in large dishes, and it connects the ring at this altitude, then, three of the dishes in this ring, maybe three in the geo ring too, connect to a single sat in either an orbit between the geo sats and the mun, or above the mun, and that satellite will keep that ring in contact, overall I'll have a few sats to target at the mun and Minmus, and the hubs can be used to target other planets, or if necessary, I can launch a ring with multiple hubs to keep all the planets in contact.

I'm going to busy for the next month...

[schoff123]

I've tried to avoid Geo (Keo?) stationary orbits due to the "drift" that happens with floating point errors. So I opt for Molniya orbits around Kerbin.

Suprisingly near-perfect coverage, you'll be connected just about anywhere in the Kerbin system.

You see a "four-leaf" clover around Kerbin here.

http://puu.sh/bNlPu/da2294de35.jpg

The Satellites are nothing special, just the 2nd most powerful dish and some arrays + (shameless plug) some Tantares omni-directionals.

http://puu.sh/bNlT9/0057f3ba88.jpg

The far side of the Mun gets partial coverage by the Munar relay.

http://puu.sh/bNlWD/56896c13a6.jpg

Which has been helpful in landing this fella.

http://puu.sh/bNlZk/c1cad3b3c4.jpghttp://puu.sh/bNm5M/52e7b328f3.jpg

Really nice to see other's networks!

Edit: Oh, and before the network was set up, a series of ground stations with a crew of 6 gave pretty decent coverage.

http://puu.sh/bNmaW/6c48086ae8.jpg

whats the AP/PE on those molniyas? about 600k/100k?

[jordanjay29]

<snip>

Which mods are you using besides RT? I've seen some of those parts before, but not where to find them.

[undercoveryankee]

Here's the plan I've been following for my last couple of careers:

Eight satellites with Communotron 16s in a 175km equatorial orbit of Kerbin. This compact ring will reach an atmospheric vehicle using a Reflectron DP-10 anywhere along Kerbin's equator. Note to self: calculate the highest latitude to cover a DP-10 at ground level and the range of altitudes at which the inner ring will cover the poles.

Lunar and interplanetary relays in pairs at 1000km altitude equatorial. I chose 1000 km because it keeps all satellites within the cone of a KR-7 in Mun orbit, and within the cone of a GX-128 by the time a probe goes out of the range of an 88-88.

The first pair of relays each carry a Communotron 16 and four DTS-M1. Targets are Mun, Minmus, active vessel, and spare. Spare dishes will be used if a station or mothership needs to relay to its support craft while outside the coverage of its cone-mode dishes. Hasn't happened yet.

Second pair of relays carries the 88-88. Targets are Moho, Eve, Duna, active vessel, and two spares for symmetry. The shorter-range "active vessel" dishes on the older satellites can become spares once the longer-range "active vessel" dishes are available, since "active vessel" doesn't care about cone width.

Third pair of relays carries the GX-128. Targets are Dres, Jool, Eeloo, active vessel, and two spares. The "active vessel" 88-88s that are freed up now target Dres, to provide coverage of high Dres orbit at close approaches when the GX-128 cone is too narrow.

Mun and Minmus get sets of three equatorial relays with Communotron 16 and one DTS-M1 to talk to the Kerbin-orbit relays. Mun-orbit relays go at 240 km altitude to support use of DP-10 on landers and rovers. I thought of that altitude only on my current career, so I haven't calculated the corresponding altitude for Minmus yet.

Duna- and Jool-system local relays will be designed the next time a career advances far enough to need them.