Kryxal

You didn't say where you're starting from ... if it's Kerbin, you might be better off just moving to the Mun before trying to rendezvous with the station.

A two-kerbal mission, or a manned mission with probe core backup, would work well for that. Get to maybe 50m away and dead stop, EVA over, if there's too much drift board the craft and see where it went, fix position if need be, EVA back. The fun part is if you can turn your EVA mission into a debris deorbit mission...

The only time my kerbals are flung all over the place involve ladders ... they can generate a LOT of force if they can grab, probably from the rotation (especially since I'm usually EVAing with all the ladders horizontal)

Personally, I think this sounds about right:

Fuel's always good, it's nice being able to top up the tanks of something that was a bit too heavy to reach the station full...

I've had some issues where I was trying to line up a rendezvous for the next orbit, but it insisted on showing a point not too far from my maneuver node for the intercept ... so I plunked down a SECOND node after that "intercept", then kept working with the first node!

Maybe try putting the sepratrons on their own stage just below what they're splitting off, and do two stages to drop? It's not exactly ideal, but it might work...

If that is meant to dock to something then decouple the last Mainsail, might you be better off to put the probe in the stack under the decoupler? This might allow you to deorbit that last can, too, depending on fuel remaining.

Mine's currently sitting in a capsule on a ship being towed to Jool ... come to think of it, I should move him into the hitchhiker module, and get the science for high over Sun!

Quick and dirty method: match inclination, set up an eccentric orbit that just crosses the station's, orbit till your "closest approach" marker before the AP/PE switches between "ahead" and "behind", fine-tune the orbital period with a burn at AP/PE using a maneuver node (and finishing touches by removing the node and using RCS if you have it helps). There are faster ways, there may be more efficient ways, but this works ... oh, and try not to have the orbits have too much to kill in the way of velocity difference!

Slow orbit rotation glitch ... well, it's nice to know that it's not just my computer that's causing THAT! It's sort of annoying, line yourself up 10 minutes in advance, then fix it when it's time to burn...

I remember tossing a probe that way, it had a Stayputnik on top with a parachute ... HAD.

I've found jets to be a workable technique up to a point, you just have to remember a few things: 1) Your thrust is going to be at the lowest point on takeoff, be sure you can get off the ground. I actually used a pair of the small boosters to clear the clamps last time. 2) Once you're done with the jets, you WILL have to get them clear of you one way or another, and jets spool down not cut off. This goes double if you have anything overhanging the jets. 3) You might well be able to get over 20km up, but WATCH your intake air! Flameouts tends to mean "you will not go to space today". 4) Once your terminal velocity begins to skyrocket, this might be a good time to pick up as much horizontal speed as you can, you're more likely to run out of air than fuel. Now that I think about it, I wonder if mounting the engines pairwise per fuel tank might be effective, I'd just have to be careful about CoM to help them clear...

It does exist, actually ... centripetal force on object a from object b means centrifugal force on object b from object a. It's that whirling-an-object-around example ... you have forces on both ends.

You can apparently store multiple crew reports, you just have to pull them out and store them again before doing the next one. Oh, and I wouldn't call return from Eve impossible, just VERY difficult...

Might it be a better idea to have the tiny cans BELOW the joint, so you automatically drop them with the big tank they're giving a route to?

I like how that FAR window is saying "Flight Normal", and we see things exploding all over ... you know, I guess that COULD be considered normal!

Do you have those backwards? Anyway, the usual takeoff/landing profile for no particular target is to get your periapsis as low as you can afford and brake while maintaining altitude ... or the reverse, get all your horizontal speed ASAP. If you time it well, you can do a direct ascent, if not, you'll want at least SOME difference in height to set up for a transfer orbit. Don't forget about time warp too ... it's a pain if you can't warp as fast as you want, but 1000x is probably overkill for this.

I've had ships that took forever to dock with SAS off, but it can be handy to tap f a few times to damp down any forces that are causing the ports to make "rolling contact", so to speak.

I don't think the OP said anything about that maneuver that managed the high-velocity intercept of the station. Could it be they burned PAST the 400 km level of the station? There was something about catching up to the station, and if the AP were on the same level as the station, it would have been the station doing the catching up ... this would mean a pretty significant radial component to the velocity vector. Oh, and I see occasional crashes, though less than I used to, current mods are Kethane, KER, Interstellar, but Interstellar is pretty new and I think I just don't have as much memory as KSP would like...

2 returns might be worth more, but storing them both might be a bit tricky if you don't design for it...

I set up an itty-bitty probe powered by solar panels and ion drive (with 1k battery power). Maybe I should have thought about my launch window, a prograde orbit to the outer planets will ALWAYS launch on the night side! I'm currently running the engine one minute per orbit, I'm sure I'll pick up some speed eventually! Of course, then I have to worry about Mun and Minimus intercepts...

The craft would help ... what sort of TWR do you have (and say what it's relative to, 1.0 Kerbin-relative and 1.0 Mun-relative are pretty different and call for different landing profiles)?

People have managed to land Kerbals there, but it's an open invitation to the Kraken...

It DOES have chutes, so I'm sure it can deorbit ... does it do anything else or is it just how you're getting everybody home? If it's just a taxi to Kerbin, crew manifest sounds good.