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Align 'target' with 'prograde'


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How can I quickly align 'target' with 'prograde' on the navball (I'm learning how to dock)? I keep flying past my target because my prograde isn't lined up all the way with my target.

Edited by WillWam
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19 minutes ago, WillWam said:

Okay, so what I've been doing is using 'target' on the navball. Do I just freehand it? Do I keep SAS on?

Yes, the nav ball should be in target mode. When you're first learning, turn on both SAS and RCS and add some extra monopropellant fuel to your craft so you don't run out while practicing.

The translation controls (IJKL) allow you to move the prograde vector around. Assuming that you are facing prograde, I/K will move it up and down, J/L will move it left and right. You can use this to place it over the target marker.

Edited by HebaruSan
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Just now, HebaruSan said:

Yes, the nav ball should be in target mode. When you're first learning, turn on both SAS and RCS and add some extra monopropellant fuel to your craft so you don't run out while practicing.

The translation controls (IJKL) allow you to move the prograde vector around. Assuming that you are facing prograde, I/K will move it up and down, J/L will move it left and right. You can use this to place it over the target marker.

Got it! Also, I just turn on infinite fuel :P

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Well, you don't really have to quickly align prograde with the target, exactly. You burn a couple times to get it close, certainly -- while you are inbound. Then you align retrograde. If you burn to 0.0m/s retrograde in target mode, that means you are stopped relative to your target. So as you are drifting past your target, you do that burn. Now you are stopped. Now you point straight at the target and give it a little juice. You will probably still miss the second time, unless you were less than 30 meters apart, or unless you use RCS to correct small errors in your aim. But once you stop relative to your target, you've got all the time in the world to do your alignment.

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2 hours ago, Snark said:

Hi @WillWam,

If you're asking about the process of getting things lined up for docking, here's an illustrated docking tutorial I put together a while back, that you may find helpful.  :)

Extremely helpful. Please consider reposting that on the current forum software! I didn't know about the fine-control mode! I am currently trying this right now in KSP.

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One trick that I use when docking two ships that are both pilotable is align to target from both sides- that is, if you have a station and a ship, use the bracket keys to switch to the station, control from the desired docking port, set the docking port as the target, and align to it using the nav ball. Then switch back to the ship and do the same. Repeat to get the desired accuracy. Doing this, you don't even need RCS to dock successfully. 

There's a bug where if your docking port isn't aligned with the center-of-mass, automatic alignment via SAS won't work quite right, but the nav-ball still seems to be correct.

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