Trying to wrap my head around antennas

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Okies, ever since the satellite system and the relay antennas and all of that came into KSP I've been working on trying to set up a deep space relay network of science transmission and control and communications on distant planets and systems. I was mostly successful branching out then got rather far out and reached a point where I'm not connecting how I expect it and I'm terribly confused and need help.

Okay there's different antennas of different strengths that can connect at different distances. I get that part.

So I started out with lots of the smallest antennas on small satellites attached to a probe core with batteries and solar panels. I've put them in various orbits around kerbin at various heights. They work, I have about 5 or 7 of em orbiting Kerbin, and one laid down landed on kerbin on the opposite side from KSP as a relay. So far, this part works great. Anything I launch from KSP now has full ground control while within kerbin. The signal bounces across various antennas and they relay and sometimes go through multiple to talk back to KSP if it's like, on the other side of the mun or the back side of kerbin. So all this is fine. So then I unlocked the longer distance RA-15 antenna. I put that in orbit at 68,000 km from kerbin, almost right at the very edge of the kerbin system. Expecting in my mind that since this one can reach further into space, that it would mean if I put another RA-15 orbiting say, Duna, it would act as a direct uplink to the kerbin system. Then I could put multiple smaller short range ones orbiting Duna.

Well, this kind of works. I put a small satellite with a RA-15 on it orbiting almost as high as possible around Duna. It makes a connection all the way to KSP, but.. it connects direct, and sometimes when kerbin orbits so that the KSP ground station is on the other side from where duna is, I get a drop in connection. The RA-15 "uplink" from Duna never tries to bounce through the RA-15 I have orbiting kerbin. I don't understand why.

I then tried putting another RA-15 in very high orbit around Dres. This one also connects direct to KSP. And if the sun or something is blocking direct line of sight, it drops connection. when it can still reach Duna.. it should be able to bounce through Duna's RA-15 -> Kerbin's RA-15 -> Kerbin local network. But it doesn't.

What am I doing wrong here? Why do these distant antennas connect direct instead of bounce through other systems? If they would relay through other systems then I would have more contact with KSP-Ground-Home a lot more often. I even tried putting a RA-15 in orbit very high around Jool system. That one's the worst.. it's only able to communicate with home when their orbits are close enough and half of the time it can't connect to home because it's too far away. But yet it's pleanty close enough to Dres.. it should be able to connect through like this: Jool -> Dres -> Duna -> Home. But again, it doesn't either.... scratching my head and about to abandon the game at this point thinking the antenna system is borked and doesn't work.

If the relays and bouncing and routing doesn't work like I think it should there... then what's the point of having any smaller antennas what so ever if they can't connect to anything? If this is how it works then all the ships I send in to deep space (Jool or beyond) will just have the largest antenna possible onboard and connect direct to KSP, and lose signal if it gets out of range or Kerbin's turned around. Seems stupid to me. I thought we could set up an extensive relay network and make it so we can always control all of our ships from anywhere in the system once setup right... but apparently not.

[Made in-Human]

The relay network can be a bit confusing and to be honest I also have a bit of trouble understanding the whole mechanics of it. However I've never had any problems establishing solid connections between systems. i.e: my Mun relay network communicates with Kerbin's network, but because it is so close to Kerbin itself it ALSO communicates with KSC directly. Likewise my Minmus network communicates with both Mun's and Kerbin's network.
As far as I have seen there is no need to set up stationary relays in Kerbin's surface, since it seems they already exist without having to put one yourself.

Do you have a fully upgraded tracking station? This is important, because if it's not T3 then your furthest relays (Jool, Eeloo, Dres) WON'T link up! Or at least they'll have problems doing so, regardless if antenna is highest tech. Btw, do you know that you can hide/show the network paths with the button on the top left (next to mission or universal time) on the map screen? Try clicking it until it shows the entire network, just to verify if each network system is in fact not communicating with each other. Also, the RA-15 is one tech below the highest rating relay, which is the RA-100. The RA-15 can communicate with far away systems like Jool or Eeloo (if tracking station is at T3) but ONLY when they are close. So that may explain your problem.

One way I try to avoid issues is I also add high tech Communotrons to the probes carrying relays, though I'm not sure if this has any impact on signal strenght.

I'll leave you with this link explaining the whole deal in a more technical and precise manner, albeit maybe a bit confusing too <o<

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet

Hope this helps!

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Thanks for the comments.. I'm playing science sandbox and all facilities should be maximum upgrade all the time from the start.

I read some of the pages and from everything I'm understanding, the "Communotron 16 / 16-S" and "HG-5 High Gain", and "DTS-M1 / RA-2" antennas are only used for localized communications within a planetary system. The "bigger" antennas starting with RA-15 and up are only used for "Deep System" communications direct to Kerbin system.

In other words, RA-15, and the big Communotron 88-88 / RA-100 will never "bounce" or relay through any other system. They are -ONLY- for direct uplink to KSP. And then you put smaller antennas within the system. This is how it's supposed to work.

Like, more to explain better: 1 Deep-system antenna at the furthest possible stationary orbit within a system (RA-2, RA-15, or RA-100, depending on distance) Like say a RA-15 or RA-100 at 2.6 billion meters orbit in the Jool system. That would uplink to kerbin directly. (but only when kerbin is rotated so KSP ground is facing jool) And then you could establish smaller antennas like the RA-2 in stationary orbit around each of Jool's moons and then it would connect up to the big RA-15/RA-100 and go to KSP.

But the bigger deep space antennas aren't designed to relay through other systems so they never will. They're designed to -PROVIDE- relay to smaller ones but we can't connect multiple large ones together, sadly.

I was hoping I could just link up like multiple RA-15's, one in each system and daisy-chain my way across the galaxy. But it doesn't work that way. I'm going to have to put an RA-100 on Jool, and RA-100 on eeloo and all the other distant systems.