DRVeyl
commented
3 years ago I've looked at it a couple times. There isn't any plan to try to add compatibility with the feed+reflector system. Some feeds are directional, but generally speaking they are just an element to excite, and so treating the part alone as an omni is generally correct -- a naked feed without a reflector is usually that. If you can identify specific feeds that have directional properties (ie an LPA feed) then I can review and merge a PR.
For reflectors, yes, RA treats them as the directional antenna. Because RA doesn't deal with multi-part... parts... there's no point to treating a reflector as not an antenna. RA then makes a specific assumption regarding the reflector and feed: that all antennas are appropriately physically dimensioned so that the reflector size is neither significantly larger nor smaller than how the feed would illuminate it.
RA doesn't influence the deployable-ness of a part, though. RA replaces ModuleDataTransmitter (the thing that makes it exist in CommNet and transmit science) but not ModuleDeployablePart (the thing that makes it retract/deploy). This makes me confused about your second issue, but I don't know what the RA patching would be doing to affect this. What happens when you don't have RA? Do these parts not have ModuleDeployablePart in their ConfigCache?
nicesub
Grimmas
Hello,
Just a quick question. I am using Near Future Exploration pack which adds a bunch of antennas and parts. Most of the stuff from that pack I think works fine with this mod. Except: 1) The mod has antenna feeds and dishes that acts as reflectors. Basically the mod asks you to combine feed with dish to have it working to its potential. However, RA mod thinks that feed are omni antennas which I dont think they should be as they are feeds. Also some of the dish reflectors cannot be extended and the mod thinks they are antennas which in fact they are nothing until feed is pointed into them. 2) There are some antennas that come with NFE which are massive, Hence in VAB they are folded, however as soon as I place them on the vehicle in the VAB they auto deploy and the button to extend/retract is gone. Hence these beast are impossible to lift in orbit as flight through atmosphere would destroy them.
Are there any plans to make RA and NFE more compatible? I am kinda interested in that as I am using Outer Planets Mod which adds planets that are bit further away and having these additional antennas from NFE help with comms and huge science transfers.