Can't Rendezvous correctly

[Thisusername]

I am new to the game, and as such I was going through the tutorial section, while also doing general self experiment on the game, and in the docking tutorial, i had difficulty getting the ships close enough together, because i would get within about 200 meters, and pass the other ship... then i would slow down, and go around the other side. it was quite annoying as it became 10 minutes of me ballerina dancing my way around the "Stranded" ship be fore finally giving up. is there some easy way to ensure this dancing doesn't happen so i can get the velocity killed and start docking? not looking for solutions to the problem, looking to prevent the problem in the first place.

 

 

[bewing]

Welcome to the forums!

Rendezvous and docking are very difficult for a beginning player. So, first off, I should say congrats for getting to 200 meters -- that's a big accomplishment right there.

You might want to read this recent thread about the same topic:

There are several keys to the process. I think the most important one is understanding what it means to thrust in the retrograde direction while you are in target mode on your navball. If you do that, you can bring your relative velocity to 0. When your relative velocity is zero, you are stopped. When you are stopped, you have lots of time to aim your rocket in the direction you want to go, and then give it a little bit of gas to get you there.

That's the basis of the process. You come zooming in to your 200m distance -- and then you stop. You turn your rocket around to be aimed at your target again, give it a little gas, get a lot closer, and then you stop again. At that point, you are probably close enough to aim at a docking port and dock successfully.

But the docking maneuver itself has several tricks to it.

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by bewing

[Zeiss Ikon]

17 hours ago, bewing said:

That's the basis of the process. You come zooming in to your 200m distance -- and then you stop. You turn your rocket around to be aimed at your target again, give it a little gas, get a lot closer, and then you stop again. At that point, you are probably close enough to aim at a docking port and dock successfully.

If you aren't averse to using mods, you can get a lot of rendezvous help from a tiny mod called Better Burn Time.

It'll clue you when to start your burn (once you've gotten pointed at the target relative velocity retrograde marker  ) in order to stop at or very near closest approach.  That will help your 200 m distance stay 200 m so you have time to figure out docking from that distance.  With practice, you can learn to set up intercept maneuvers a full orbit out with sub-300 m separations, and "stop on a dime" at closest approach.  From there, docking is mostly a matter of knowing how, and being patient enough to wait, even if you're in a hurry (Scott Manley has a couple videos of things like docking with a suborbital target, picking up an EVA Kerbal, suborbital, with empty maneuvering pack, and such, where you are in a hurry -- there's still some waiting involved).

[radonek]

7 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

If you aren't averse to using mods, you can get a lot of rendezvous help from a tiny mod called Better Burn Time.

Actually, you don't need that. You just put maneuver node at rendezvous point and fiddle with it until you see same orbit as target vehicle. There, you just planned a speed-matching burn. A bit rough, but good enough to get good idea of burn time, delta-v, and target vector. I'd still do it by retro marker marker, but I come in prepared.

[Superfluous J]

I suggest the "Approach" section of my "Rendezvous, Approach, and Docking" tutorial though you may also need the "Docking" part.
 

Spoiler