Connection

Connections represent your ability to communicate with other processors or vessels. You can use them to find out whether such communication is currently possible and send messages.

Obtaining a connection

There are 2 types of connections. The first type is used to communicate with other processors within the same vessel. You can obtain a connection by using CONNECTION suffix. Assuming your vessel has a second processor tagged ‘second’ it could look like this:

SET MY_PROCESSOR TO PROCESSOR("second").
SET MY_CONNECTION TO MY_PROCESSOR:CONNECTION.

The second type are connections to other vessels. Assuming you have a rover on duna named ‘dunarover’ you could obtain a connection to it like this:

SET MY_VESSEL TO VESSEL("dunarover").
SET MY_CONNECTION TO MY_VESSEL:CONNECTION.

Structure

structure Connection

Suffix	Type	Description
ISCONNECTED	Boolean	true if this connection is currently opened
DELAY	Scalar	delay in seconds
DESTINATION	Vessel or kOSProcessor	destination of this connection
SENDMESSAGE(message)	Boolean	Sends a message using this connection

Connection:ISCONNECTED

Type

Boolean

True if the connection is opened and messages can be sent.

• For CPU connections:

  • This will be true if the destination CPU belongs to the same vessel as the current CPU, and will be false otherwise.

• For Vessel connections:

  • If you are using Stock KSP and chose the PermitAll connectivity manager, then this will aways return true.

  • If you are using Stock KSP and chose the CommNet connectivity manager, then this will obey the rules of the stock CommNet system for whether a connection path exists between the source and destination vessel.

  • If you are using the RemoteTech and chose the RemoteTech connectivity manager, then this will obey the rules of the RemoteTech mod for whether a connection path exists between the source and destination vessel.

The connection has to be opened only in the moment of sending the message in order for it to arrive. If connection is lost after the message was sent, but before it arrives at its destination, this will have no effect on whether the message will reach its destination or not.

Note

Debris Vessels: If you are using the KSP Stock CommNet system, be aware that it never includes “debris” type vessels in the communications network. ISCONNECTED will always be false for any vessel of type “debris”, no matter what antennas it may have on it.

Note

ISCONNECTION fails just after scene load: If you have just loaded the scene, such as after a vessel switch, then both the Stock CommNet system and the RemoteTech mod often have a slight delay before they “find” all the communication paths that exist. This means that ISCONNECTION will often return False for the first second or two after a scene load, even when the correct answer should be True. It will be unable to report the correct answer until a second or so later after the communications paths have all been discovered by the game. Because of this, if you have a boot script that depends on an accurate answer for ISCONNECTED, it’s a good idea for that boot script to start with a short wait of a second or two at the top of the script.

Connection:DELAY

The number of seconds that it will take for messages sent using this connection to arrive at their destination. This value will be equal to -1 if connection is not opened.

• For CPU connections:

  • This will be always equal to 0 if the destination CPU belongs to the same vessel as the current CPU. Otherwise it will be equal to -1 as no such connection is allowed.

• For vessel connections:

  • If you are using the PermitAll Connectivity Manager, then this will always be zero, as messages arrive instantly.

  • If you are using the stock CommNet Connectivirty Manager, then this will always be zero, as stock CommNet does not impose any delay from radio signals.

  • If you are using the RemoteTech Connectivity Manager, then this will report RemoteTech’s signal delay along the path being used to form the connection. RemoteTech calculates the number of seconds of delay due radio signals traveling at the speed of light, which can be quite significant when dealing with interplanetary distances.

Connection:DESTINATION

Type

Vessel or kOSProcessor

Destination of this connection. Will be either a vessel or a processor.

Connection:SENDMESSAGE(message)

Parameters

• message – Structure

Returns

(Boolean) true if the message was successfully sent.

Send a message using this connection. Any serializable structure or a primitive (String, Scalar or Boolean) can be given as an argument. It is always worth checking the return value of this function. A returned false value would indicate that the message was not sent for some reason. This method will fail to send the message and return false if Connection:ISCONNECTED is false.