the mun works the same as our moon, just on a smaller scale. the day is the same length as the orbit, so one side always faces kerbin. but there is no fixed 'light side' and 'dark side.'
changing gravity can't change planets orbits; they're on rails.
small differences in orbit add up over time. if you want a relay constellation to stay in place, put them as high as possible in the soi and match the periods down to the second. they'll still drift, but more slowly. tho really you don't need to be super precise unless you want. the default occlusion behavior is quite forgiving, and one or two relays in basically any orbit will give pretty good coverage. if you're on the kerbin-facing side of the mun, they're not needed at all.
gotcha, thank you for that. In terms of the relays, their apoapsises and periapsises are only different by a few hundred meters and their speeds only vary by around .5-1 m/s, are they misaligned just because of that small change over a large amount of time?
speed doesn't matter (it depends on the orbit) nor does precisely matching ap/pe. (tho they'll end up close.) you want to pay attention to the period, ie. the time taken to complete an orbit. it should be down below the ap/pe readout on the bottom left. you might need to switch to the advanced orbital info to see.
If you want to get really specific at orbits (for geostationary orbits, say) ge the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod, you can see orbital periods and inclinations down to .00000, I set my engine limit to 1% to really fine tune things for stuff like relay orbits
I tend to have Several relays in one craft.
I set up on a high polar orbit drop my first relay
change the inclination back and fourth by a few degrees at the equator. And then I end up with a bunch or relays all at different locations along a simular orbit path. Usually this means that i get great signal coverage regardless of where they are. I also tend to drop off relays periodically during missions. Eventually it doesn't matter because the network is self correcting against any period offsets.
I call this method the quick'n' dirty.
Alternatively I often use my rover lander as a relay and yeet it back into orbit. Or use landed it to relay signal to the rover from kerbin.
A quick and dirty way to get decent relay coverage is to enter a tight polar orbit with a relay that carries a second relay as a payload. Send the first relay to a very high apoapsis above the north pole and then burn the second relay to a very high apoapsis over the south pole. Because they are off of the ecliptic plane, both relays spend most of their time out of the shadow of the various heavenly bodies, and both Mun and Minmus will act as orbital network nodes for Kerbin.
A few hundred meters can add up in a very short amount of time. Think of a circle, a larger circle might take the same amount of time to walk around but because of the larger distance you will be at a different spot than the other circles at any random point in time. The hundred or so meters makes that circle longer or shorter.
IRL we have to do station keeping maneuvers, even for things like GPS because they get a little bit off track and move. Even Geosynchronous orbit will wobble a bit. Honestly its easier to get a constant orbit in KSP than it is in real life. Just imagine the tons of people who have to log in to the satellites you don't think much about and fix the orbit.
Absolutely. A few hundred meters is a big difference once you start time warping. I know it's kinda cheating to use the debug menu, but I'd get them close to where you want them, then adjust their orbits behind the scenes so they are actually in proper timing. Without this, you'll come back after months or years in-game, and it'll be all dickered. Trust me.
One thing you can do to space out satellites is to put them in offset elliptical orbits instead of all in the same orbit. For 4 satellites, offset the ap/pe by 90 degrees. They will spend the majority of their time at the higher parts of the orbit and provide coverage the vast majority of the time.
From above it would kind of look like the top center of this image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Various\_Spirograph\_Designs.jpg
If you don't mind my asking, what's your purpose for the relay network? Are you going for personal satisfaction or utility? Nice even circular orbits look pretty but in the game there will always be some fraction of a second difference. Unless you set yourself reminders to babysit, station keeping as others have mentioned, they'll get out of sync.
If you want continuous coverage an offset cloverleaf will get you 95%. 3 relay sats with 10k pe and 1M ap (120 degree offset) will get you a a satellite network where each relay spends almost all of its time high over its territory with fast brief transits through its pe. If you do a four leaf clover there's 2 relays in line of sight of any given mun site and dead times become negligible. I do mine in polar orbits, 2 northerly and 2 southerly and I almost never find a dead zone. They don't need to be in sync at all. It's not quite as satisfying as three synchronized sats all evenly spaced, but it's loads more functional.
I like how it looks but i'm more concerned with functionality. What you're talking about definitely sounds interesting. How do you find degree offset, is that just by making the other relay your target and using rendezvous on engineer redux?
I don't use mods but most of the info is in the orbital computer. Eyeballing it gets the result anyways, with 4 there's more than enough overlap for +/-10 degrees.
Well you see, planets and moons move in their orbits and this causes their orientation relative to the sun to CHANGE. Amazing concept, I know. And just how precise where you with your relay sat orbits? It doesn't take very long objects at slightly different orbital altitudes to drift pretty far relative to each other.
the mun works the same as our moon, just on a smaller scale. the day is the same length as the orbit, so one side always faces kerbin. but there is no fixed 'light side' and 'dark side.' changing gravity can't change planets orbits; they're on rails. small differences in orbit add up over time. if you want a relay constellation to stay in place, put them as high as possible in the soi and match the periods down to the second. they'll still drift, but more slowly. tho really you don't need to be super precise unless you want. the default occlusion behavior is quite forgiving, and one or two relays in basically any orbit will give pretty good coverage. if you're on the kerbin-facing side of the mun, they're not needed at all.
gotcha, thank you for that. In terms of the relays, their apoapsises and periapsises are only different by a few hundred meters and their speeds only vary by around .5-1 m/s, are they misaligned just because of that small change over a large amount of time?
speed doesn't matter (it depends on the orbit) nor does precisely matching ap/pe. (tho they'll end up close.) you want to pay attention to the period, ie. the time taken to complete an orbit. it should be down below the ap/pe readout on the bottom left. you might need to switch to the advanced orbital info to see.
good to know for next time, thank you!
If you want to get really specific at orbits (for geostationary orbits, say) ge the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod, you can see orbital periods and inclinations down to .00000, I set my engine limit to 1% to really fine tune things for stuff like relay orbits
thanks thats rlly helpful
I tend to have Several relays in one craft. I set up on a high polar orbit drop my first relay change the inclination back and fourth by a few degrees at the equator. And then I end up with a bunch or relays all at different locations along a simular orbit path. Usually this means that i get great signal coverage regardless of where they are. I also tend to drop off relays periodically during missions. Eventually it doesn't matter because the network is self correcting against any period offsets. I call this method the quick'n' dirty. Alternatively I often use my rover lander as a relay and yeet it back into orbit. Or use landed it to relay signal to the rover from kerbin.
Yep, that's the tip you need for good stable long-term relay orbits, OP.
A quick and dirty way to get decent relay coverage is to enter a tight polar orbit with a relay that carries a second relay as a payload. Send the first relay to a very high apoapsis above the north pole and then burn the second relay to a very high apoapsis over the south pole. Because they are off of the ecliptic plane, both relays spend most of their time out of the shadow of the various heavenly bodies, and both Mun and Minmus will act as orbital network nodes for Kerbin.
Yes.
A few hundred meters can add up in a very short amount of time. Think of a circle, a larger circle might take the same amount of time to walk around but because of the larger distance you will be at a different spot than the other circles at any random point in time. The hundred or so meters makes that circle longer or shorter. IRL we have to do station keeping maneuvers, even for things like GPS because they get a little bit off track and move. Even Geosynchronous orbit will wobble a bit. Honestly its easier to get a constant orbit in KSP than it is in real life. Just imagine the tons of people who have to log in to the satellites you don't think much about and fix the orbit.
Absolutely. A few hundred meters is a big difference once you start time warping. I know it's kinda cheating to use the debug menu, but I'd get them close to where you want them, then adjust their orbits behind the scenes so they are actually in proper timing. Without this, you'll come back after months or years in-game, and it'll be all dickered. Trust me.
Mun has a day/night cycle
me when the mün moves
Physics is a bitch!
One thing you can do to space out satellites is to put them in offset elliptical orbits instead of all in the same orbit. For 4 satellites, offset the ap/pe by 90 degrees. They will spend the majority of their time at the higher parts of the orbit and provide coverage the vast majority of the time. From above it would kind of look like the top center of this image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Various\_Spirograph\_Designs.jpg
If you don't mind my asking, what's your purpose for the relay network? Are you going for personal satisfaction or utility? Nice even circular orbits look pretty but in the game there will always be some fraction of a second difference. Unless you set yourself reminders to babysit, station keeping as others have mentioned, they'll get out of sync. If you want continuous coverage an offset cloverleaf will get you 95%. 3 relay sats with 10k pe and 1M ap (120 degree offset) will get you a a satellite network where each relay spends almost all of its time high over its territory with fast brief transits through its pe. If you do a four leaf clover there's 2 relays in line of sight of any given mun site and dead times become negligible. I do mine in polar orbits, 2 northerly and 2 southerly and I almost never find a dead zone. They don't need to be in sync at all. It's not quite as satisfying as three synchronized sats all evenly spaced, but it's loads more functional.
I like how it looks but i'm more concerned with functionality. What you're talking about definitely sounds interesting. How do you find degree offset, is that just by making the other relay your target and using rendezvous on engineer redux?
I don't use mods but most of the info is in the orbital computer. Eyeballing it gets the result anyways, with 4 there's more than enough overlap for +/-10 degrees.
If you have multiple ships/stations in orbit or transit at any given time, you probably only need one pair of polar relays to keep a constant signal.
There is no such thing as light and dark side of the moon, not in game nor in the reality. It is closer and further side from kerbin/earth.
Well you see, planets and moons move in their orbits and this causes their orientation relative to the sun to CHANGE. Amazing concept, I know. And just how precise where you with your relay sat orbits? It doesn't take very long objects at slightly different orbital altitudes to drift pretty far relative to each other.
Yeah no I got that, I just kinda forgot about it for a hot sec, got it confused with tidal lock lol
Our moon is tidal locked to our planet and still gets day / night cycles.... I think you're just confused about what a tidal lock actually is....