Oafman

You could try switching to infinite fuel and flying somewhere else, just to try to determine whether or not the bug is localised

Are you trying to land on the same approximate piece of land every time, or are you seeing this bug at different places on Laythe? And at what altitude does the land disappear? I'm wondering if this is just some buggy area of Laythe, or perhaps the result of something to do with your ship.

I'm struggling to think of any fix you could do without relaunching your station. I guess a claw could grab onto that reversed port, assuming you have unlocked it on the tech tree

Your docking port is the wrong way around. You're trying to dock to the back of a port

I like this idea, and might have a go if I get time. I think the part that would be challenging and most fun would be setting up the route, with all the gravity assists. Anyone who has done an asteroid redirect will already have done more difficult things once at the asteroid than this challenge requires. What won't be realistic is the scale. The comet which Rosetta is currently approaching is 5km across. Maybe custom asteroids allows you to create something that big, but I imagine that even with that mod the big roids will still not produce gravity, so you won't be able to insert the probe into a 25km orbit, which is the plan for Rosetta. Still, I hope some people give it a go, and I would be interested to see some clever routes set up

I think SRBs can work for launch from planets/moons where you have an atmosphere. So you can parachute them down and then use them to get off the ground. I did this for an Eve return vehicle, just to get me through that difficult first few kilometres of thick atmosphere, and they worked well. Not sure about using them for descent though. You would have no control. If you go for it, please report how you get on

Did you time warp through an SoI change? Weird things happen when you do. I always set alarms for every SoI change to ensure this can't happen.

Yes, as Taki said, windows are open for a while. I imagine either of MJ or Alarm Clocks' suggestions would be fine (6 days is not much difference), although I guess one would be slightly more optimal than the other. The journey to Jool from LKO shouldn't take much more than 2000m/s; maybe a bit more for corrections etc. My recent trip was a 1900m/s burn, then maybe 50m/s more at a halfway correction. When you get there, aerobrake at Jool, so you have a capture orbit. Then have a look where Laythe is, and see if your orbit gets close to it. I only had to make a small tweak to get a laythe intercept. I then aerobraked again at Laythe for capture, then circularised. One thing I did, which I reckon was worth it, was spend ~200m/s correcting my plane at Jool's equatorial node, just before my aerobrake. This put me on the exact plane with Laythe, meaning that all subsequent maneuvers were in 2D only, so were much more straightforward

Firstly, stick at it. RV is very hard at first, but once you crack it you'll find it gets easier and easier. I first learned when I had Jeb stuck in EVA orbit around the Mun. I sent a rescue craft, got it into a similar orbit, and then spent hours (literally) tweaking at maneuver nodes, making tiny burns. Eventually I got the hang of it, in the process learning a couple of key principles, and I've been able to do it ever since. Secondly, I'm not against MechJeb at all; I use it all the time. But I do believe you should learn how to do something before becoming reliant on an autopilot. So I would urge you not to fall back to MJ quite yet. I'm also quite critical of how MJ makes RVs. It does things in quite an inefficient manner, and there will come a time when you absolutely have to make a fuel-efficient RV, and you need to know how. Thirdly, if you're able to match orbits (albeit with your craft at different points on that orbit) then you've already won half the battle. I actually think talk of Hohmann transfers isn't that helpful at this stage. I think the best thing is to get into a very similar orbit, then tweak it so it's either slightly higher or slightly lower than your target. If the target is less than half an orbit ahead of you, you want to be at a slightly lower altitude, so you'll circle the planet faster and catch it up. If it's less than half an orbit behind you, you want to be slightly higher altitude, so it circles faster and catches up with you. I think it's easiest if you just make the orbits slightly different. Maybe just 5km or 10km difference in altitude, instead of burning out to a much higher orbit and then trying to Hohmann your way back in to the target. That works fine, and is much quicker (in terms of in game time), but it's more complicated. Admittedly, what I am suggesting is basically a mini-Hohmann, but you don't need to think of it like that. Once you have a similar orbit, but a slightly different altitude, just time warp until you're close to the target (ie close behind or in front of it, don't keep warping until you are exactly above or below it, you want to make your correction burn before that point). This warping might take ages (many orbits, possibly many days) but what's the hurry? If your altitude prevents you from time warping quickly, then just go to the VAB, put a lander can on the launch pad (just a can, it's not going anywhere). Then switch to map, where you'll be able to see your two ships in orbit, and now you're on the ground you'll be able to time warp very very quickly, and days or even weeks can pass in no time. So, once you do this, you'll have a close encounter (say 20km or less). You can then very gently burn prograde (if you're at a lower altitude) or retro (if you're higher) so your orbit meets that of your target somewhere on the other side of the planet. This will be a very small burn, so be extra gentle with it. Once done, warp to just before the point where your orbits meet (map will show it as the closest approach), and it's time to start using the navball with the target marker to make your very small corrections, to perfectly align your orbits, and to move very close. That's a separate skill, which people here can also help you with, but the first challenge is to get the two ships close to each other, on a very similar orbit.

Mods really slow down the time it takes for the game to load. And KSP takes ages without any mods. So firstly, give it plenty of time, because it might just be taking ages. If that doesn't work, then remove your mods one by one and try to load the game between each removal. Once it works, you've found your culprit. There's a bunch of parts mods which I can't seem to use for these reasons, but the main utility mods all seem fine (MJ, alarm clock etc).

Check out this blog for analysis of this topic: http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.fr/

It isn't obvious on Imgur how to post whole albums. Thanks for the explanation.

Nah I'm only half way to Jool, not in its SoI yet. I clicked everywhere around the planet, but only ended up targeting various moons, and never the actual planet. Tried restarting, but nothing changed. But then I clicked on my path and created a random maneuver node, and hey presto, I was immediately able to select the planet as a target. I then removed the node and the planet remained as my target. So this doesn't explain why it happened - just a bug I guess - but it was an easy fix. Thank you all for your suggestions.

I'm on my way to to Jool, and for some reason (probably a double click or something) it is no longer my ship's target. When I left click on Jool, to set it as target again, nothing happens. I can focus my view on it if i double click, but I can't get the little menu to appear which enables me to set as target. I can set any other planet or moon as target, just not Jool. What am I missing? Thanks in advance

Try this calculator: http://alterbaron.github.io/ksp_aerocalc/

Seriously? I had no idea. That's tremendous. I once spent a few minutes looking for my Eeloo probe, to see how close it was getting to the planet, before realising I must have F9'd on another ship and deleted it. I now have a stop and think rule before hitting F5 or F9. But having multiple F5s saved will be a huge help

That rover is gonna go round in a very small circle!

KSP is a very hard game to learn. Without the additional challenges of FAR, DRE and LS. I'm finding it more than enough challenge right now without them, though I do plan to implement them one at a time as my understanding of how to play the game improves. So I think they have to be optional. That is of course the case right now, but if squad does implement them into career mode, I don't see how the game can remain accessible to novices unless they can be switched off. Almost every game ever made has difficulty levels.

Fair enough. It sounds like there was nothing wrong with your RV & docking techniques. It was just that your ship sucked

I think that is the planet Jool .. .. And well done Arn1e, all very impressive. I'm in the process of trying to do something similar, only in a rather less elegant way than you and some others have done it. And I'm not finding it easy....

Have you been able to get your prograde vector on top of the target vector on your navball? If you can do that at a decent distance (which I accept will not be easy with a craft which is hard to control) then you can just edge in slowly, keeping the prograde vector on top of the target vector. When the prograde vector starts to move off the target vector, aim to the opposite side of the target vector and accelerate very slowly (maybe just RCS, depends on distance). This will drag your prograde vector back onto the target vector. If you've turned around to slow down, then you need to 'push' your retrograde vector onto that of the target, which means you have to be on the opposite side of the retrograde vector from the target's retrograde vector. So you 'pull' a prograde vector onto a target, and you 'push' a retrograde vector. I realise I'm not explaining this very clearly. Someone in another thread made a good diagram which explains this, but I cant remember which thread. And you might already know all this. But the fact that your image makes it look like you're just burning towards the target vector, without considering your actual direction of travel, suggests this might be the problem.

Very well played! Though tbh, I think your winch is OP...

I actually stopped using MJ autopilot for RVs. When I do an RV manually, I put myself in a slightly higher or lower orbit (maybe 5km or 10km difference) and then time warp until I'm close enough to move into the same orbit as my target and be very close to it. But if I give this job to MJ, it always moves to a phasing orbit of 191km (i've been docking things at 82km) before plotting a Hohmann transfer to the target. This is obviously very inefficient, burning all that fuel to get up there and then back. Is this just something it always does, or can i change the way it approaches an RV in the settings somewhere? I couldn't find anything.

Go very slowly and use plenty of time warping. This applies to both RV and docking. I've seen videos where people lean on the gas towards the target, then slam on the brakes when they're really close. MJ does this for RVs, but then MJ is a computer who needs a lower margin for error. Instead of gunning it towards their target they could just edge slowly towards it, time warp, slow time to make a tiny correction (eg just a single tap of RCS), time warp again etc etc. You have much more margin for error doing it this way, and much more opportunity to make corrections. And you'll use less fuel & monoprop

I foresee a slow frame rate.....