Jump to content

How do you dock?


juvilado

How do you dock?   

186 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you dock?

    • I use RCS thrusters
    • RCS Thrusters? Real Kerbal don't need it!
    • Depends of situation
    • Sorry, docking is just too difficult for me at this time


Recommended Posts

It's a dilemma, no doubt. To feel smug about not needing the extra mass of RCS, or feel smug about not needing magically overpowered reaction wheels. I choose to feel smug about not needing reaction wheels, therefore I use RCS to maneuver and dock.

But hey, the great thing about a single-player sandbox is you can feel smug about anything you like, and nobody's wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/19/2017 at 5:32 AM, memes in space said:

Also, what are you sending up there that you need to worry about weight? I have a lifter that can lift basically anything. Secret: it's called asparagus staging. Why don't you learn that instead...

memes in space,

 In career mode, you are constrained by mass, physical dimensions, available parts, and cost.
 In sandbox, anybody can build a behemoth. The real skill is in building an efficient lifter.
 In both cases, weight is key. That starts with not bringing stuff you don't need, like RCS and thrusters.

 IRT the OP,
 If it's impractical to rotate one or both vehicles, or my docking port isn't aligned with my thrust, then I use RCS. Otherwise I don't bother.

 Best,
-Slashy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

memes in space,

 In career mode, you are constrained by mass, physical dimensions, available parts, and cost.
 In sandbox, anybody can build a behemoth. The real skill is in building an efficient lifter.
 In both cases, weight is key. That starts with not bringing stuff you don't need, like RCS and thrusters.

When RCS tanks weigh about 3/4 of a ton, which with 2 times symmetry will give you 300 monoprop for 1.5 tons. Ooh now my craft can't take off, now what can I do? Well I could just never dock and that'll definitely make building large crafts easier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I do bother with docking, RCS all the way. I once was mucking around with an Apollo-ish-style mission for the hell of it. I realized in orbit I done goofed and forgot the RCS. "No problem," I thought. "I just need to align prograde, decouple, thrust a bit, flip over to retrograde, and thrust again." Yeah, no. I forgot exactly what went wrong, but I wound up either colliding with the other craft or thrust wrong, so alignment went balls. This was with RemoteTech installed; neither craft had probe cores. (It was a fairly minimalist design; as I said, just goofing around.) I had to EVA a kerbal to the other craft first to stabilize it. Then tried to dock. Took longer than I cared for with too much effort compared to RCS-controlled approaches I've done before. (Ah! I think I recall the problem: the separator was in the way and I had to nudge it away. My attempt knocked the lander as well, screwing up the alignment.) Since I was just goofing off and really just testing the design, I reverted to the editor and made sure to add RCS for later runs. I don't think I ever did anything productive with that design afterwards. Just did it to do it; no real objective beyond that in mind. (I don't even remember if I bothered with a munar landing and rendezvous test.)

The last set of docking I did was for my first real attempt at a true functional space station, something I always wanted to do by was too lazy to attempt (plus, 1.0.5 was not conducive to high part counts; I skipped 1.1). That was all RCS and MJ's Target Alignment Auto-pilot all the way. The station was built using NFT station parts and ports, so proper alignment was important, both for the aesthetics and for the ports to work. Frame-rate was meh too, so RCS control was kinda important for the precision. It was also needed for orienting the station and fine-tuning its orbit. It was a large and heavy stand-up guy, probably the biggest and largest I've actually designed and put up, either single-launched or assembled in-situ.

The few SSTO spaceplanes I've designed and built for docking rely on RCS as well. The docking ports I use on them are rarely ever aligned with the main engines to even attempt engine-only docking.

I do recall someone using a bunch of normal engines in each axis as RCS on a massive mothership he built. He had to; it turned WAY too sluggishly otherwise. (Never mind the frame-rate...) He had to map each set of engines to an action group. (I don't recall if AGX had a hand in this. I imagine it would considering the amount of functionality he had in that ship.)

Edited by StahnAileron
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@memes in space: there's no need to be snarky - we're just presenting how we dock our ships. There is no right answer to this question.

RE the OP: Usually my docking scenarios are classified under three categories.

  • Lightweight (both docker and/or dockee): point and shoot, no problem. Example: rescue ships.
  • Heavyweight: translation maybe needed, but probably not required if either ship has strong RWs. Example: stations or motherships.
  • Endurance-style dockings (a la Interstellar): 'Nuff said, you will fail unless you have translational thrusters. No exceptions.

Of course, all of the above is void if I'm playing with Real Fuels, as there is this distinctively un-magical thing called ullage. :P

Edited by TotallyNotHuman_
Durr, forgot example for heavyweight.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, TotallyNotHuman_ said:

@memes in space: there's no need to be snarky - we're just presenting how we dock our ships. There is no right answer to this question.

RE the OP: Usually my docking scenarios are classified under three categories.

  • Lightweight (both docker and/or dockee): point and shoot, no problem. Example: rescue ships.
  • Heavyweight: translation maybe needed, but probably not required if either ship has strong RWs. Example: stations or motherships.
  • Endurance-style dockings (a la Interstellar): 'Nuff said, you will fail unless you have translational thrusters. No exceptions.

Of course, all of the above is void if I'm playing with Real Fuels, as there is this distinctively un-magical thing called ullage. :P

aight...

 

Anyways I fixed it for you:

Lightweight: RCS needed

Heavyweight: RCS needed

Endurance-style: RCS needed

 

And real fuels sucks. because you might need a certain sized tank but it only holds hydrolox and you need some other fuel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How do I dock? Successfully. Docking is the easy part (for me). Rendezvous has proved harder than I recall, however. I used to be pretty good at it. Now it's kinda tough.

Once I had to rescue a Kerbel who had no EVA fuel. It was... an interesting experience. I basically had to get him close enough to the ladder to grab it. With just the main engine.

Edited by Bill Phil
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Simply put; I'm rearranging a community space station. So I'm docking/undocking and threading the needle time and time again and some of the time the module I'm moving doesn't even have RCS so I'm having to have my tug do all the work. 

Ive got a line of work left and it's certainly not easy.

Edited by ZooNamedGames
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, memes in space said:

aight...

 

Anyways I am just a troll,  insisting everyone disagreeing with me is wrong. Like if it matter how other people play a single player game. 

 

It's that difficult to respect other people opinions and preferences?  Play your game wherever you like and stop being a duck. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use RCS. I play with quite nerfed reaction wheels, so I have to have it anyway to turn at any meaningful rate. And since I have to carry around monoprop anyway because of that, I design stages that do mostly/excusively orbital maneuvering around monoprop-engines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, memes in space said:

And real fuels sucks. because you might need a certain sized tank but it only holds hydrolox and you need some other fuel

@regex would like a word with you.

Your perception of real fuels is also wrong - go read Ignition! or something before blatantly spouting nonsense and going durr hurr rcs bad all u ppl r nubs i am da best @ dis game.

If you wanna be immature, so can I.

Edited by TotallyNotHuman_
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, TotallyNotHuman_ said:

@regex would like a word with you.

Your perception of real fuels is also wrong - go read Ignition! or something before blatantly spouting nonsense and going durr hurr rcs bad all u ppl r nubs.

I think they were more referring to the mod rather than actual IRL fuels but you are correct in that their understanding of Real Fuels is wrong. Real Fuels is a spin-off of Modular Fuel Tanks which means that each fuel tank has a volume that you can fill with whatever fuel is needed for whatever engine, and customize each tank as needed. Of course, you might need a Service Bay type tank to handle monopropellants like hydrazine for RCS which rules out it's use for Kerolox storage, but that's beside the point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...