Elite docking club

[Wait- Was That Important?]

All my first generation Apollo-style Munar landing craft dock without RCS- they're only about 20t each so it's not that tough.

Docking a 65 ton station module was the toughest thing I've ever done without RCS- it was really stupid of me not to put RCS on it, but ah well.

[magnemoe]

So long as you don't have such a stupid-high TWR that makes small corrections impossible, and low enough ship mass that pod torque can rotate the ship fairly quickly, docking without RCS isn't that much harder than with using RCS.

One tips is to have some small engines on high twr ships for precise control, this is also useful for getting close to the target before docking, trying do this with an almost empty ssto can be hard.

[katateochi]

I have docked without RCS, but that was awhile ago when I forgot to put RCS on, now RCS is kinda like struts; a Mandatory requirement for a viable craft.

[NeoMorph]

I ran out of RCS on two of my mining pods but luckily they are VERY agile for 3m sized tankers. The trick is to get them aligned correctly and not to rush it.

[Tristavius]

Really not that bad on a maneuverable ship. Although RCS is brilliant for correcting the final approach (and the actual docking) once you really understand what you're seeing on the nav ball, you can get your final approach corrections right just by burning to push/pull your periapsis/apoapsis as needed. You need to be able to flip your ship for this, or have liquid engines pointing both directions like my tugs do. For the actual last few hundred meters docking maneuver, with ships in the proper orientation again you can successfully make the connection without ever touching RCS, though you need either a very fast turning ship or bi-directional engines.

I've had to do this on a few different occasions. Some of my heavier station parts just simply can't be moved with RCS so I was forced to design a tug to do this without their help. My light tug which moves small tanks around my station and to nearby ships also has no rcs and needs to be flown manually (very hard actually) and finally I recently collected a Duna lander with my mothership and had forgotten to add RCS to the lander, so again it was a no RCS job, and actually it was very, very simple.

[Tristavius]

And as many others have said, don't rush it -that's the key.

[Uncle Mort]

I have done it but it wasn't a piece of cake. Had to keep switching between vessels to get the orientation. I think there might have been a element of luck involved as well.

I haven't voted because there's not an option that covers that.

[Lunniy Korabl]

I did it with ion thrusters!

[NeoMorph]

A better test for elite docking is the "First Touch Instant Hard Dock"... ie get the line up perfect so that there is no bounce on the docking collars before it completes the dock. Whenever I get a perfect dock like that it gives me a little smile. Only thing I use on docking like that is Romfarers docking camera mod. It's great for figuring out getting the correct parallel line but you CAN use MechJeb for that too. Sometimes when I'm tired I do use MJ to get me onto the right line to start but then I turn it off.

Here is my "How To Balance RCS" thread I just added today.. How-To-Balance-RCS-On-Your-Payload - It's what I do to make sure my payloads RCS is just right to make instadocks easier.

[ComradeGoat]

A better test for elite docking is the "First Touch Instant Hard Dock"... ie get the line up perfect so that there is no bounce on the docking collars before it completes the dock. Whenever I get a perfect dock like that it gives me a little smile.

Ah yes, that's always satisfying. Had a dock recently where I had to slide one of the big half-orange fuel tanks into a cavity left by engines mounted around another one to dock. To top it off, the relative rotation had to be corrct because there were things sticking up from both, so they had to fit almost like a key in a lock. That had to be absolutely perfect alignment, and it took some very gentle touches coming in at 0.1 m/s, camera in chase mode, planing round to make sure the two were perfectly axis-aligned and had the correct rotation. When it slid in there, it was the best feeling.

[bsalis]

It's not that hard with a normal, sensible craft, and some decent experience at docking.

Pics of it here - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/26064-Docking-with-no-RCS

[Klajan]

Did it once. Because my spacestation and the enginecluster I wanted to dock ran out of rcs fuel. It was extremly hard to dock these 2 around 80t spacecrafts, and my engineclusters only hat a small probe as core. And then I had to dock a small craft to refuel my spacestation.

[Tristavius]

When it slid in there, it was the best feeling.

*cough cough*

[NeoMorph]

*cough cough*

What's up... got a Kerbal (should be frog but hey, Kerbals are green) in your throat?

Hey... I just thought something... KERMIT WAS A KERBAL IN DISGUISE!

[ComradeGoat]

*cough cough*

Oh behave :-p