Building Ground Comm Stations

[guto8797]

I proposed this at the Main RT2 thread, and i got adviced into placing it here.

IRL, before major comm networks were online, probes were controled from ground stations. My suggestion is that, upon 0.24. the player would have an option ingame to pay some cash and have a transmission point (Just like the KSC) placed on a designate location on Kerbin (if possible even add a prop or a visual). This would allow for some easier early game probe management, as things such as Antenna breaking during atmospheric flight and the natural curvature of Kerbin can difficult unmaned launches for new players.

PS: Sorry for Ingrish, not natural.

[Rockstar04]

I would love to see this added as well, I normally do some config Tomfoolery go get at least 4-5 "Comm Stations" on Kerbin before I even start playing

[erendrake]

Should we make these comm stations cheap enough to have multiple of them in the early game?

I really dont have a feel for how expensive stuff will be in 0.24. Maybe it might fit better if you had to really scrimp and save to get 1 additional comm station in the first few tiers?

Or maybe have it be an ongoing cost to maintain each station? On Jun 26, 2014 6:55 AM, "Trent Petersen" notifications@github.com wrote:

I would love to see this added as well, I normally do some config Tomfoolery go get at least 4-5 "Comm Stations" on Kerbin before I even start playing

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/RemoteTechnologiesGroup/RemoteTech/issues/108#issuecomment-47221624 .

[Rockstar04]

I imagine it all really depends on what we really get with 0.24 (Price and balancing wise). I know in the configs you can set the range of the ground stations, maybe you would be able to buy several (2-3 additional) stations that can only reach very low orbits, and then upgrade (or replace) them later with stations that have much higher ranges?

[erendrake]

That is a great idea. I agree that until we can play in with budgets and see how much extra cash you might have. And then balance RT on top of that On Jun 26, 2014 7:13 AM, "Trent Petersen" notifications@github.com wrote:

I imagine it all really depends on what er really get with 0.24 (Price and balancing wise). I know in the configs you can set the range of the ground stations, maybe you would be able to buy several (2-3 additional) stations that can only reach very low orbits, and then upgrade (or replace) them later with stations that have much higher ranges?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/RemoteTechnologiesGroup/RemoteTech/issues/108#issuecomment-47223477 .

[guto8797]

Thanks for the feedback! Personally I just think that we need some coder insight, I have no idea if this is possible, but this is my idea on how it should go:

-We get a RT2 Icon in the toolbar. There is a "Purchase ground comm Station" and "Upgrade Ground COmm Station" -If we purchase a ground comm station, we get to pick coordinates, or even best, select a spot on the map and a Station gets built there (even best, adding a model ,such as the KSC comm towers) -Stations have an upkeep cost, There is the option to shut em down to save on these costs, or disabling maintainance at all in the config. -Upgrade Comm station allows us to select what range shall the upgraded tower reach too, at the cost of money and higher upkeep. We could also upgrade the KSC aswell.

[erendrake]

@guto8797 I am one of the developers on the team and this is no small feature :) but its a good one so im sure we will look into it. I imagine we would release some small part of this in iterate on it.

[JDPKSP]

An interesting way of achieving this while still requiring the player to actually build and deploy the ground relay station could be to implement this suggestion from the old RT2: http://github.com/Cilph/RemoteTech2/issues/221

[guto8797]

@JDPKSP I also posted something along those lines a while ago, but it is different. Radio comms I think they would be usefull, specially for Airplanes and rovers on a planet, But the idea of ground stations would be to enable some usage of unmanned vessels early game. In a normal game it takes forever untill you are able to set up a SatNetwork, getting batteries, solar pannels, etc takes a lot of time. In real life, before satellite networks were up, things like Sputnik and other probes got commands from some ground stations that beamed microwaves.

IMO these stations should be affordable at the begining, as Sat Networks are expensive, and getting something like airplanes to deploy hand made stations also takes a while.

[linuxgurugamer]

A suggestion for a small improvement, or addition:

There is a way to set up more groundstations, but they are static. Would it be possible to have groundstations be treated as science, so that (if configured) as more science is unlocked more groundstations become available?

[ianjirka]

There is a mod that will do this already - http://kerbinside.com/

Sent from Surface

From: linuxgurugamer Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎May‎ ‎30‎, ‎2015 ‎3‎:‎35‎ ‎PM To: RemoteTechnologiesGroup/RemoteTech

A suggestion for a small improvement, or addition:

There is a way to set up more groundstations, but they are static. Would it be possible to have groundstations be treated as science, so that (if configured) as more science is unlocked more groundstations become available?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[linuxgurugamer]

That mod will create new bases and comm stations, but not as time goes on. It's all or nothing.

What I think would be good would be the ability to add new stations during gameplay.

For example, career starts with only KSP. As time goes on, you would want to build more across the planet. So in the beginning of the game, it would be difficult to launch a single satellite and get it into orbit without losing contact with it, just like it is. But in the later part of the game, to help (among other things) with the orbital clutter, be able to build ground stations so that you could eliminate your satellite network, or at least supplement it.

Right now, I have to manually edit the config when I get to the point where I feel that another ground station would be reasonable.

LGG

On 5/30/2015 7:11 PM, ianjirka wrote:

There is a mod that will do this already - http://kerbinside.com/

Sent from Surface

From: linuxgurugamer Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎May‎ ‎30‎, ‎2015 ‎3‎:‎35‎ ‎PM To: RemoteTechnologiesGroup/RemoteTech

A suggestion for a small improvement, or addition:

There is a way to set up more groundstations, but they are static. Would it be possible to have groundstations be treated as science, so that (if configured) as more science is unlocked more groundstations become available?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/RemoteTechnologiesGroup/RemoteTech/issues/108#issuecomment-107098290.

[Sigma88]

@linuxgurugamer I had this idea in mind and I thought I could put it out there, let me know what you think about it

I called it the NearSpaceNetwork (NSN), the general idea stems from the fact that KSC crappy antenna range encourages the user to put more satellites in orbit (and I like that)

NSN consists of 3 ground stations on kerbin's equator, 120° apart one from the other I was thinking, unlock the first KSC antenna in the "Survivability" node with small range, maybe not even capable to reach KerbinSynchronousOrbit. the second upgrage (node = FlightControl) would add the other two ground stations and raise the range to cover KSO but not Mun nor minmus the third upgrade (node = AdvancedFlightControl) would raise the range to the current range (just outside Kerbin SOI if I recall correctly) I don't think making the range bigger than what currently is would be a good idea with this set up.

let me know what you think about this :) I would argue why I think this is a good Idea but I've already written too much, I'll expand on that later if anyone cares :D

[linuxgurugamer]

Sounds reasonable, but....

First antenna needs to reach about 2/3 of the way to KEO orbit, This way you could set up a series of satellites to be able to reach KEO orbit.

I think that whatever the ranges are, that they be changable via a cfg file which would be in the GameData directory. If the file is not there, then use your values, but if it does exist, then it will override the default values.

This would allow preserving the custom changes whenever the mod gets updated

But overall, sounds reasonable.

[Sigma88]

keep in mind that for satellites you need to reach Tier 5 of the tech tree

I proposed to unlock the first KSC antenna in the survivability node (tier 3). It's purpose will be sending down science from kerbin orbit from manned ships. I'd say between 500km and 1000km: enough to cover "in space high" but not enough to cover KSO

Then you have a choice:

unlock basic science to get the termometer the probe core and batteries, so you can send probes around (probes with a limited life span)

or

unlock the ground stations and get some more science around kerbin with an uplink available

after this, when you will have both the solar panels and the ground station upgrade, you will be able to set up your comms system (which will be simpler since you get 360 coverage from groundstations, you can just put a couple of relay satellites 180° apart in a polar orbit with antennas to cover whatever you want to cover)

finally as you get the last KSC upgrade you will be able to reach minmus, the mun.

then as you unlock bigger antennas (parts from RT) you can add those to your relays and go explore planets

[wile1411]

While playing around with the CommNet mod, I saw that the additional tracking stations were defaulted to no frequency - so the game play for more of less the same as it you had none.

Seeing as this RT feature request is to have "buildable" ground stations, why not just utilize this frequency idea and allow a usable frequency only able to be assigned to a given Ground Station after it is "purchased"? All the in game ground station infrastructure is already available and the code required to get them functioning how you want would be mostly via UI unlocks via some sort of progression you can set. I've added ideas below that help for direction.

The original idea was posted on the KSP forum and I've copied my original post below. Just bear in mind that the comments are in relation to the CommNet mod, but could easily be adapted to RT.

Forum Post here

The idea is that now you have the Ground stations available in the frequency listing UI - could they be "unlockable" with some reasonable/configurable fund amount?

Specifically - Currently the ground stations start with no frequency set (was that intentional? Not an issue btw - it's what gave me this idea and is easily added in the UI) I picture the idea as a button under the Station UI tab to "Purchase/Install" the ground station. Once this is purchased, only then does the station become visible on the map view as the "dot" that you currently have showing. Only then would a player be able to see the button to assign a frequency only after it's unlocked.

That way you get a nice progressive mix between having only KSC and having all ground stations. It'd be nice to start out with only KSC and having to manage the whole control issue when out of sight from KSC and then in the later part of the game having an easier time of tracking/controlling stuff once all ground stations are unlocked.

Not sure about unlock fund amount, but I'd figure something on par with the existing building upgrades. Other idea would be maybe for some stations to cost more than others. Maybe the equatorial ground stations cost 25% more than the others that get used on polar orbits - reasoning could be the extra funds represent more Kerbals staffing the ground stations around the sunny equator and less funds for those at higher latitudes closer to the poles.