blizzy78

Looking for a plugin developer to take over this plugin! See this thread for details. I've made a plugin that uses the in-game interactive tutorial system to teach docking maneuvers. Download Docking Tutorial Plugin 1.1.3 Please let me know what you think or what can be improved about it. Thanks! In case you're interested, I've also made an in-game rendezvous tutorial and an in-game moon travel tutorial. Changes: 1.1.3, 2014-07-27 - Updated for KSP 0.24.2. 1.1.2, 2014-03-11 - Updated the plugin for KSP 0.23. - Automatic pod movement should be much smoother now. 1.1.1, 2013-08-09 - Optimized RCS thruster placement on the pods to minimize unwanted torque. - While performing a docking maneuver, the player can now see the distance and relative velocity to the target. 1.1.0, 2013-07-27 - Reworked the complete tutorial so that there are more detailed steps to follow. - Increased the mass of the side pods to make them easier to maneuver. - Increased the height of the ship's orbit so that everything stays in the sun light longer. 1.0.0, 2013-07-24 - Initial public release. The Docking Tutorial is licensed under the GNU GPL v3.

Hi, seeing that there isn't an interactive in-game tutorial that teaches docking, I thought I'd just make one. Download Docking Tutorial from Spaceport To start the tutorial, select Start Game > Training > Docking from the main menu and follow instructions. Please let me know what you think! (For additional plugin discussion please also see the Addons forum thread.)

Must be a Spaceport thing. I've most certainly added description and pictures.

I made myself a tug that I use to land or lift things all the time (see signature.) The thing just docks with the payload, secures it using Quantum Struts, and does its thing.

Key Bindings KSP Keyboard Map - Old School Gaming

Atmospheric Landing Chart: Pinpoint landings on Duna, Eve, Kerbin, Laythe!

It should work if you add some active control surfaces (wings) and perhaps a few struts here and there to minimize wobble. Also, are you sure you want to use nuclear engines to launch? They are most effective when there's no atmosphere.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, your problem is not getting into a close distance to your target vessel, but simply slowing down relative to it. Your velocities don't match, which is why it speeds past you (or the other way around.) There's a simple fix: - Select the vessel as your target. - Make the navball show "Target" instead of "Orbit" or "Surface" by clicking on the text in the navball. - Point your vessel at the retrograde marker on the navball. In navball "Target" mode, this is no longer your orbit retrograde marker, but the marker you should fire your engines to to slow down relative to your target. - Fire engine and watch "Target XXX m/s" on the navball. That's your relative velocity to your target. You want to bring that down as close to 0 m/s as you can. - Approach target using RCS or low engine thrust. - ...

I wrote a tutorial and made a video about just that: Launch, rendezvous, and docking. See my signature.

I use Romfarer's Lazor System alot which can beam anything with lasers. I haven't used it for Kethane, but it can beam SpareParts (from Orbital Construction Redux), so I'm pretty sure it does work with Kethane as well.

Kerbal Engineer Redux does a pretty good job on showing you the exact Delta-v you have, for any body in the system.

You could tilt the thrusters slightly outwards so the fire does not hit any other part of the vessel.

I find that the navball can be totally ignored when approach is done and things transition over to docking. I usually dock by visual judgment only. The chase camera is extremely helpful here.

Press V to change the camera modes, one of them is the chase camera.

Did you balance your RCS thrusters with the center of mass? See this picture: The thrusters should be placed at the ends of the green line, that is, at the same distance from the center of mass. Just place a ring of 4 quad thrusters at each end, and you're good to go. Also, it helps using the chase cam. You can also watch my tutorial video (see signature.) Approach starts at 7:22 min, docking procedures at 9:15 min.

No problem, let me know how it goes or if anything can be improved.

I built myself a craft that I constantly use to launch and land things on Ike: Spider HULL Mk 3 I also have a few variants like a smaller one with weaker engines, or a tri-engine one for special base modules I use. Those variants are not on Spaceport, though.

You need to bring the green connection "balls" together. In the first picture, I suppose the tank is upright when picked up, but not hovering over the vehicle. Move your mouse so that its connection ball is where the vehicle's connection ball is. It should snap right into place just below the upper tank. To make it more clear: Don't move your mouse pointer to where the vehicle's connection ball is. Instead, move your mouse so that the part's connection ball touches the vehicle's connection ball. It does not matter where the actual mouse pointer is. Guessing from the picture, I suspect there will be a problem with that radial decoupler, though. Perhaps remove that first.

Another helpful tutorial (with explanatory text) might be this one done by myself.

Things to check: - Is timewarp activated? - Did you run out of electricity? - Did you run out of RCS fuel? - Did you press R to activate RCS? (duh)

Would it be possible to temporarily hide the mouseover grid popup while moving the map around with the right mouse button?

Right, depending on the vessel it can freak out alot and spend all monopropellant. It wasn't a problem with the top Kerbal X stage, though. Also, it looks like things will get much better with 0.21.

The trick is to switch the navball to showing "Target" instead of simply "Orbit". By doing that, the retrograde marker switches from orbital retrograde to velocity relative to the target, which means that when burning towards the marker, you're killing all velocity relative to the target. Best combined with a really close encounter coming from a Hohmann transfer orbit I found that by stopping to use mods to dock and doing it manually, I'm using much less monopropellant to accomplish the same task.

thanks for adding my tutorial there

I personally don't pay attention to the markers anymore when I'm really close and relative velocities are low. I just switch to chase camera mode and fine tune relative velocities in any of the three axes. Once done, I move to the docking axis, kill all velocity again, and move forward. Oh yes. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to tell when you're just moving slowly on RCS. If you're a little further out it helps to activate timewarp so that with the increased speed it's easier to tell which way you're going. You're very welcome. Not too long ago I thought I could never dock manually myself, now I find myself doing it all the time without any mods.