// Instruments
Orbital calculators
The same patched-conic math the game flies, pulled out as standalone tools. Every formula here has a sibling in the source, and the body constants (μ, radius, sidereal day) are lifted verbatim from the in-game catalog. Defaults start on Kern, home world of the Lumen system; switch to Earth or anywhere else from the dropdowns.
Born from the constellation work: the in-game deployment guide notes there's no automated phasing helper in the game, so the planner below is the tool that doesn't ship in the binary.
✦Constellation phasing planner
Lay N comsats 360°/N apart by drifting the carrier one slot every m revolutions, then re-deploying. Trade fuel for time: Δv scales 1/m, time scales m.
Δv values are the exact vis-viva figures (2·|v_apsis − v_c|). The guide's
quick-look table uses the small-offset approximation Δv ≈ v_c/(3mN), which
reads a bit high at low m. Fuel walks the carrier mass down one comsat per deploy.
⊙Orbital period & circular velocity
The instrument behind everything else: drop an altitude on any body and read the period, the circular speed, and where the synchronous ("keostationary") orbit sits.
◓Coverage geometry
How much ground a satellite sees from altitude, and how many you need in one ring for an unbroken band. The game's line-of-sight is pure geometry (no atmosphere margin), so this is the same horizon it uses.
◈CommNet link range
Antennas combine by the geometric mean of their rated ranges: a big dish drags a weak probe far past its own rating. Pick two endpoints to see how far they reach.
| Antenna | Kind | Rated range |
|---|---|---|
| DA-5 Direct Antenna | direct (leaf) | 10 Mm |
| RA-15 Relay | relay | 1 Gm |
| RA-5 Relay | relay | 5 Gm |
| Ground Station (DSN) | sink | 5 Gm |
| DSN-88 Deep-Space Dish | direct | 600 Gm |
| Deep-Space Relay | relay | 600 Gm |