How to tell antenna range?

[Wowy]

Well? Do antennas in ksp even have range? or no?

[What Zitt Tooya]

Yes each set of antennas reach farther than previous. Also, as you upgrade your tracking station, each upgrade allows groundstations to reach farther.

If you're going to anywhere farther than Minmus (i.e., Duna) you're gonna need the strongest antennas.

[internetrules]

im pretty sure that the ranges are in

Mm (mega-metre) 1,000,000 metres
and
Gm (giga-metre) 1,000,000,000

[Wowy]

Originally posted by BOT Harvey:

Yes each set of antennas reach farther than previous. Also, as you upgrade your tracking station, each upgrade allows groundstations to reach farther.

If you're going to anywhere farther than Minmus (i.e., Duna) you're gonna need the strongest antennas.

Well I disabled extra ground stations :D so this is why i'am asking

[AoD_lexandro]

Ranges are in K or G. Communitron 16 have 500k range for direct coms, (0.5G) and all antenna are combinable. You can have 4 of them for a range of 2000k (2g).

Relays are required to bounce signals around a stellar body or for providing a stepping stone for a crafts coms to get a connection back to KSC (important for drones/science data).
They work the same as direct coms with combinable ranges.

If you need a satalite design just check out my screenshots for my cheap coms sat. Its a 9.5K credit satalite with good strong coms relay range of 2G for Kerbin and its bodies.

FYI just in case your not aware you can right click on a part for extended/pinned stats.

[andylaugel]

Range is a product of the ratings of the antennas of both sides involved. Multiply the ratings together and then take the square root to determine actual range.

The letters in ratings are standard metric prefixes, where kilo (k) is 1,000, mega (m) is 1,000,000, and giga (g) is 1,000,000,000.

KSC's rating is based on its tracking station: 2G for level 1, 50G for level 2, and 250G for level 3.

Examples

Before v1.2 came out, I landed a base on Eve.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=745273720
Eve is about 9.8 Gm from the sun. Kerbin is about 13.6 Gm from the sun. So Eve and Kerbin vary between 3.8 Gm to 23.4 Gm apart.

This base's only antenna is a Communotron-16 antenna with a rating of 500k. My level 3 tracking station at KSC has a rating of 250G. That gives is a range of sqrt( 250,000,000,000 * 500,000 ) meters, or 353,553,391 meters, or about 0.35 Gm. This is well below the 3.8 Gm minimum for KSC/Eve contact.

Later put a relay satellite in orbit around Eve, whose antenna rating is 100G. The max range between it and the base is sqrt( 100 Gm * 500 km), or 223.6 Mm. This exceeds the relay's altitude of 10.3 Mm, so they have a solid signal with each other. The relay's range with KSC is sqrt( 100 Gm * 250 Gm ), or 158 Gm, which well exceeds the maximum 23.4 Gm distance between Eve and Kerbin.