Tech Upgrades

Unlike Remote Tech or the stock comms system, upgrades are very important in Real Antennas. New antenna levels can be unlocked in R&D, and ground station upgrades provide a significant boost to ground station antenna gain.

Tech levels

Upgrading tech levels adds many improvements to your antennas, including better data encoding, lower noise levels, and more efficient amplifiers. The two main improvements are efficiency and idle power draw.

Idle power draw is the base power draw of the encoding equipment of your antenna. An antenna will always draw this much power, even when it is inactive, but it will remain constant no matter how large or small the antenna is.

Efficiency is how well the antenna amplifiers can convert electricity into radio signals. This will only effect your antenna when it is running, and the exact efficiency and power draw will vary depending on power level you select for your antenna.

• Tech Level 0: Starting tech, based off of WW2 era radios and encoding. This uses primitive vacuum tube amplifiers and transmitters, sending analog data. They are quite inefficient, heavy, and have lots of noise, limiting their effective range severely. Amplifiers are roughly 5% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 2 watts.

• Tech Level 1: Lunar Range comms. Although still using analog transmitters, improvements in miniaturization allow for practical communication out to the moon, although the high power draw means you will probably still want to keep your antenna shut down until you have data to transmit. Amplifiers are roughly 8% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 0.3 watts.

• Tech Level 2: Digital comms. Switching to digital encoding allows for a nearly 16 times increase in bandwidth, and much better sensitivity and lower noise allows for better range. However, the digital encoding equipment is much more power hungry than the simple analog equipment. Amplifiers are roughly 10% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 8 watts. From this tech level on, your vehicles can relay signals, without the need of an extra antenna.

• Tech Level 3: Interplanetary comms. Further reductions in noise and improvements in encoding and miniaturization gives more performance, allowing for practical communication throughout the inner solar system. However, this results in even more power hungry digital equipment, further increasing idle power draw. Amplifiers are roughly 13% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 19.5 watts.

• Tech Level 4: Improved comms. Better encoding methods allow for a massive 64 times increase in bandwidth, and other minor improvements increase range. Amplifiers are roughly 16% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 25.7 watts.

• Tech Level 5: Advanced comms. More general improvements allow for a slight increase in bandwidth, and lower power draw. Amplifiers are roughly 22% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 23 watts.

• Tech Level 6: Deep space comms. Encoding improvements and noise reduction allow for a slight increase in bandwidth, and increase effective range enough for practical communications to the outer solar system. Amplifiers are roughly 25% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 21.4 watts.

• Tech Level 7: High data rate comms. Further general improvements to amplifiers and encoding. Amplifiers are roughly 30% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 18.3 watts.

• Tech Level 8: Massive scale comms. More general improvements. Amplifiers are roughly 37% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 18.3 watts.

• Tech Level 9: Efficient comms. More general improvements. Amplifiers are roughly 44% efficient, and the encoders have an idle power draw of 11.7 watts.

Ground Stations Unlike Remote Tech, you shouldn't just upgrade your ground stations enough to get maneuver nodes and then ignore them. Just like real life, ground station upgrades apply the same improvements to ground based antennas that your spacecraft antennas get, and add capabilities for new radio bands.