Docking has killed my Kerbal fun

[Richy teh space man]

Dockings like learning to ride a bike, the more you practice at it, the easier it becomes to do.

The key is slow approaches and using time warp to get closer.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

What I do to help is this, get within 50-100m. (Closer would be helpful)

Point both ships at each other ( or the 2 docking ports at each other, renember to click control from here!)

Move one of the ships forward. (Fairly quickly, about 3-7 m/s depending on your disance)

Just before you hit it, use RCS to slow down to about 0.5 m/s. then, if you are still pointing at the ship, you will dock!

[Stankleberry]

Are you putting docking ports on your ships? They won't dock without docking ports.

[Mr. Scruffy]

... of the same size (right?).

[leax256]

There's Mechjeb and ORDA, but they take forever and seem to fail ten times for every success. I'm not 13, I have a life to live outside of the game and can't spend tens of hours failing to dock two ships.

this is a poor excuse:

I work 40 hours a week, was moving, helping with a garage sale, run a youtube & twich channel and still managed to find time for KSP.

[leax256]

What are you trying to imply here?

My first docking was when I was 13, and Mechjeb didn't even have an autodocker. As far as I know/knew, there wasn't any around at all.

he meant something along the lines 13-year-olds have more free time.

[Mercy]

Here, OP.

http://imgur.com/DbXanP7

Try this tutorial that someone made for another KSP community, I hear that it's really good. Eventually after the first few times docking is easy as pie, and manual docking is very rewarding.

Oh yeah, profanity warning....

Edited August 17, 2013 by Mercy

[Scarecrow88]

Have you tried Dock Align Indicator? I haven't had a chance to yet, but I gather it's pretty good. (I'm held up by the rover problems.)

I've just tried that mod and managed to dock two ships in complete darkness, using only the information given by the indicator, so it's definitely worth a look if you're having problems docking.

[Zeroignite]

Here, OP.

http://imgur.com/DbXanP7

Try this tutorial that someone made for another KSP community, I hear that it's really good. Eventually after the first few times docking is easy as pie, and manual docking is very rewarding.

Oh yeah, profanity warning....

Contains racial slurs. There's prolly better material out there.

[Torminator]

There's a lot of great advice in this thread already. Docking Alignment Indicator and Lazor Docking Cam both offer good tools for figuring out how you're moving relative to the other port. If your ship is simple/balanced enough, MechJeb's Smart A.S.S.' "TGT+" function can keep your docking port pointed at the other docking port, and then it's just a matter of closing the gap and not drifting too much. Also, one thing that helped me is that slight differences in your orbits cause both ships to drift apart over time. The farther you are from the body you're orbiting, the less this happens. Docking at 500km or even 800km is much easier than at 100km.

Also, the Lazor system controller (the one that looks like a pyramid) shoots out a beam when you turn it on. If you can put it on a parallel surface close to your docking port, it gives you a good "guide" to show where your docking port is pointed.

Now if Docking is preventing you from having fun, there are some alternatives.

If you just need it to refuel ships, try Kerbal Attachment System. It gives you a winch that you can plug into another ship, and they'll be docked, though not rigidly. You can transfer fuel easily this way.

If you need to join two ships, try this: Surround each ship's docking port with four flanges. Don't need to be anything specific, just flat surfaces. The larger the better. Actually, just using a small docking port on a large cylindrical bottom will work great. On the one ship, mount winches with grappling hooks to these flanges. if you can get within 50m, and get your docking port pointed at the other, hit "2" on the numpad to fire all four winches. If you've aimed right, or have a big enough target, they'll stick, and now you can hold num3 to retract all four, bringing each port closer together. Note that you'll want to keep tension in the lines constantly, or the other ship may start to drift.

Romfarer, the guy who makes the Lazor mod, also has a pack with two robotic arms. These can be used to grab the other ship rigidly, and you can just pull the docking ports together. Will take a good deal of time, though, since the controls are a bit wonky.

The Infernal Robotics fork of Damned Robotics, and the Dromoman arm pack for it can let you build your own arm to do whatever you need it to.

[Caelib]

I felt the exact same way about rendezvous and docking ... then one day I took the bull by the horns and spent about 8 hours doing nothing but building extremely simple ships to practice rendezvous and docking. I have read many threads about the frustration of docking and the #1 problem that people have is because they aren't trying to dock a ship that has improperly-placed RCS thrusters. When you build your ship, build the section you will be docking first ... add all parts (including RCS Fuel)... then click on the "Center of Mass" icon in the bottom left menu (you may need to rearrange your ship to accommodate center of mass/placement of RCS thrusters). Place 4 symmetric RCS thrusters at the center of mass. I can't take credit for this comment, but somebody from this community wrote "docking starts in the VAB" -- and I cannot stress that point enough.

Now, once you rendezvous, turn on your RCS and SAS and then press "C" until the camera switches to "Chase" view. Next, begin to move your ship one direction at a time using the RCS thrusters (keys I, K, J, L, H, N) and align your prograde indicator with the target docking port. Personally, I think "docking mode" is more confusing than just using chase-view (with your view actually moved behind the craft) and so it is moving the way you're looking.

Here are two good videos that explain all of this in more detail:

Rendezvous:

Docking:

My final piece of advice is this: the amount of frustration you have while learning to do this is the same amount of satisfaction you will have when you finally figure it out. It will take time, but eventually it will all click ... anything that's hard has a big payoff when you succeed. Good luck, I know you can do it! Just stick with it!

Edited August 17, 2013 by Caelib

[Mercy]

Contains racial slurs. There's prolly better material out there.

The tutorial works and doesn't spend 90% of it's time on a single step. It's a pretty good one, regardless of the language used.

But yes, it contains some strong language and a single use of a word that may be offensive, so don't use it if you're bothered by that sort of thing.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Mercy

[Tripzter]

Once you are less...bad at it you'll find it very fun.

[Aqua667]

I don't like docking, even though I can probably do it after watching Mechjeb flail around with it. Here's a tip: ALWAYS bring more monopropellent than you think you'll need. I don't know if there's a rule of thumb, but I'll say AT LEAST 100 units per 10 tons, 7.5 tons if your inexperienced, and make sure to switch to docking mode before dock, or expect your ship to turn into a spinning glaive of death and slice your station in half.

And seriously, you don't really need to dock to do anything. I usually don't dock, but look at my ribbons below. I've reached Layhte with a single vehicle(But didn't come back:P) , and the only mod part I used is the KSPX 2.5 meter LV-N. And if your absolutely suck, go grab the Orion Nuclear Propulsion mod, with that just aim towards your target and fire away!

[Faark]

My Problem with docking was that i started waaay to big. To learn docking, build a very light, maybe automated ship with enough torque. You don't even need SAS if you have lots of torque. A small engine will do it. Get in close (very few KM), kill all relative velocity (navball helps a lot), point ship towards target, accelerate a little bit, repeat until you vessels are sitting few meters away from each other. Rotate docking ports to each other, accelerate (very very slowly). Repeat until you have docked.

No problem at all, especially if the docking port is [a] small and on top of the rocket & CoM/CoA. And after that was successful, the next try could use some RCS to speed things up and not having to rotate the ship.

[Tripzter]

and make sure to switch to docking mode before dock, or expect your ship to turn into a spinning glaive of death and slice your station in half.

Theres nothing wrong with docking in regular mode. The only difference is with one you can turn while you rotate while in the other you gotta press a button to switch between. That said unless you have a problem controlling which hand presses which button you'll be alright.

[Rufus Callahan]

the only time i have a hard time docking anymore is when my massive structures in space are causing my computer to lag.

that being said, when i first picked up the game (about 9 months ago), I couldn't dock to save my life. I tried to eyeball it because it just "felt right" to do it that way... wrong. Use the nav ball. I don't know if I ever actually look at the ships while docking... I do it pretty much all via navball. (get the three things lined up and you will be good to go!)

The biggest trick I use though... when I'm in close I just switch to the other ship and turn it to face the other ship... then i don't have to worry about lining the ships up perfectly... just get them to face each other and it solves a lot of those headaches.

[RoboRay]

...

You know, I was going to offer some helpful advice, then you decided to make insulting insinuations everyone who does have at least a rudimentary understanding of 9th grade physics. We don't know how to dock because we are children with no responsibilities or people who live in our mother's basement playing games all day. We know how to dock because we made the effort to learn and understand the principles of orbital mechanics.

There is no shortcoming in KSP when it comes to docking. Docking is absolutely trivial once you grasp the concepts and learn what the NavBall indications mean.

The last thing KSP needs is a bunch of built-in magic buttons to do everything for you so you don't have to understand. If you do insist on that, MechJeb is available.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

My problem with docking is how much concentration i need and how incredibly time consuming i find it to be, it can take me upwards of an hour to dock with my space-station around Kerbin, and if my original goal was to dock and refuel before leaving for another planet i often find i'm too mentally exhausted to continue there and then, the constant lining up of the ports takes a lot of concentration and is very repetitive, i just log out and leave it for another day, basically docking once is enough to take up an entire Kerbal session for me, i wouldn't want it changed though, i do enjoy it in a strange way, but yeah it's probably the least fun thing for me in the game too.

[Mercy]

You know, I was going to offer some helpful advice, then you decided to make insulting insinuations everyone who does have at least a rudimentary understanding of 9th grade physics. We don't know how to dock because we are children with no responsibilities or people who live in our mother's basement playing games all day. We know how to dock because we made the effort to learn and understand the principles of orbital mechanics.

There is no shortcoming in KSP when it comes to docking. Docking is absolutely trivial once you grasp the concepts and learn what the NavBall indications mean.

The last thing KSP needs is a bunch of built-in magic buttons to do everything for you so you don't have to understand. If you do insist on that, MechJeb is available.

What?

I'm pretty sure the "Not 13" remark was about how a grown man/woman will have less spare time than a 13 year old kid.

[Anton P. Nym]

There's Mechjeb and ORDA, but they take forever and seem to fail ten times for every success. I'm not 13, I have a life to live outside of the game and can't spend tens of hours failing to dock two ships.

NoFix: PEBKAC

I try to help people struggling with the game, but this bit disinclines me from extending the same patience. I also have to wonder at how poorly the craft are built if even autopilots have a 90% failure rate when docking.

In summation: sorry you didn't like the game. I hope you enjoy whatever game you move on to more.

-- Steve

[Skorpychan]

Docking is all about getting your head around the core ideas of celestial mechanics... in real life. In the game, you have a plethora of useful tools that can effectively reduce it to an afterthought.

1. Getting an intercept - The maneuver node and targeting systems are tailor-made for this. Target the ship you want to dock with, then set up a maneuver node and adjust it so that you get an intercept with it. It helps when the two vessels have at least somewhat similar orbits, of course... Anything within 1KM is plenty close.

2. Closing the gap - Once you're about a minute from intercept, set the navball to Target (it's usually set to Orbit or Surface; just click that text to change it), pull up the map screen and start thrusting towards the retrograde (yellow X) marker. Adjust your thrust so that the time to intercept is somewhere between 20 and 50 seconds by the time you're down to 1m/s. Advanced tip: if you fire equidistantly from the pink dot in the direction that the yellow X is but on the far side of the yellow X and pink dot, you'll push the yellow X closer to the pink dot, making your intercept even closer!

3. Final intercept - By the time you get down to 1m/s, you've usually got a pretty close lock on your target. Flip your ship around and use RCS to accelerate as needed to get to it faster, keeping the prograde (yellow circle) marker over the pink circular marker. Time acceleration really helps speed this along. Try to keep your speed no faster than 1m/s per 50 meters of distance left to cover, and slow to 0.2 to 0.3m/s by the time you get within 50 meters. This is also the time to select your target docking port on the ship you want to dock with and select Set Target, as well as choosing Control from Here on the docking port on the incoming ship which you want to dock with.

4. Docking adjustment - If the port's not straight ahead, switch camera to Chase mode (hit V to switch modes), and adjust your heading so you can get closer. The translation controls (IJKLNH) are very helpful for this. Your ultimate goal is to get it so that the pink circle is right in front of you, and then get the yellow circle right in the center of that going between 0.1 and 0.3m/s. The game takes it from there, assuming your craft are not unbalanced and don't drift.

Thank you. I'm going to try my docking experiment again today, and hopefully this will help it succeed.

I think it's got to, if I want to get my current lifter design to make missions out to Jool and beyond. JUST enough fuel to get into orbit around Dres.

[tobjv]

Thank you. I'm going to try my docking experiment again today, and hopefully this will help it succeed.

I think it's got to, if I want to get my current lifter design to make missions out to Jool and beyond. JUST enough fuel to get into orbit around Dres.

Good Luck!

[segaprophet]

Docking used to boggle my mind, now it's routine. Although I understand the dynamics behind it and can do it manually - I usually use MechJeb Smart A.S.S. and Lazor docking cam to speed things up. Here is my routine -

It's simpler than you think - Need to catch up to something? Establish a slightly lower orbit. Need it to catch up to you? Establish a slightly higher orbit. Time warp and once it's close (1-3km), head towards it using MechJeb's +TGT. Once you're very close (50-100m), cancel out your relative velocity with MechJeb's -RVEL.

Align your target vehicle's heading to either 0 degrees North or 180 degrees South (+NML or -NML in MechJeb. This will keep your target's docking port from spinning around too much as both vehicles orbit.

Align your other vehicle to the opposite heading of the target and hold it there with A.S.A.S. or MechJeb. Control from your docking port, then right click and target your target vehicles docking port. This should allow you to right click your docking port to bring up the Lazor docking camera. Then simply bring it in with your RCS translation controls (turn on fine control), using your Lazor Cam to align it perfectly.

That's it - this all become very routine once you understand what us going on with each step.

Edited August 17, 2013 by segaprophet

[Tripzter]

First time i docked it took me 4-5 hours, 2nd time upwards of 10 hours since i didnt know my translation controls and had a complex module. since then i've gotten quite better, currently it takes me 5 minutes to fix my randevu and another 5 minutes to dock including high alignment of the ports. Its simple but it takes some practice just like most of the stuff out there.