Binary_Digit

You're both right of course, but clearly you're also both quite familiar with doing rendezvous. For people who are not, stuff like that doesn't really make sense yet. It just serves to overcomplicate the whole thing and makes it that much harder to learn the basics. When I was trying to learn, it frustrated me that all the tutorials I found have obfuscated the simplicity of the whole process by adding extra tricks and shortcuts like that. It's like trying to learn simple addition/subtraction by sifting through lessons on polynomials. What I found easier to digest in the beginning was this simple, 2-step algorithm. That helped me get familiar with the navball markers, the RCS strafe controls, and to know instinctively at any given time what direction I need to burn. Before I had all that straight in my head it was totally pointless for me to try and optimize my approach with advanced techniques and fancy shortcuts. So I posted it for people like me who haven't had that "eureka moment" yet. Take a complex problem and separate it into smaller, more manageable parts. Divide and conquer. I thought I was clear that this is not the most fuel-efficient way to rendezvous. Just the simplest for beginners, at least in my mind.

I wanted to share some rendezvous info that works pretty well for me and might be helpful for newer players also. I'm calling it a "brute force" rendezvous because it's a series of small burns to get you close, not a single exact burn. That's not to suggest that I'm claiming to have discovered this though...I'm sure it's probably nothing new for the more seasoned folks. If you're like me, you might want to practice in sandbox mode with fuel cheats enabled, put aside all the fancy details (like getting it perfect on the first maneuver) until later, and just do a plain, basic rendezvous to acquire some general familiarity with the whole process. Then move on to dealing the more complicated details like precise maneuvers, fuel efficiency/consumption concerns, etc. To start with, this rendezvous guide is fantastic and you should already be familiar with the maneuver node intersect indicators he talks about: His initial burn gets him within 4.7k of the station, but with a real heavy load (or due to certain noob factors on my part), after my initial launch maneuver I usually end up ~50+k away from the station instead. Clearly my launch maneuver was not very exact, but what to do? Revert to the launchpad and try the whole thing again? No! Assuming you have Target selected in the navball's velocity indicator (not Surface or Orbit) as you should: 1. Turn to face the yellow 3-prong petrograde marker and wait/warp until you are no longer closing the distance to the target. Then burn until velocity shows as close to zero as you can get it. 2. With relative velocity at (or near) zero, turn to face the magenta target prograde marker and burn toward the target. Choose a reasonable speed based on how far away you are. 3. Repeat step 1. That's it! It will use up a bit more fuel, so you're going to want to get better at reducing the number of burns, but following these steps over and over will eventually get you close to the station. The trick is: do not burn toward the target unless your relative velocity with it is zero, otherwise you might as well be trying to swim in a whirlpool. Some extra info: - As suggested in the video, it's easiest to sit on the launch pad and warp until the target station is directly overhead (+/- 20 degrees or so). Then launch. Otherwise you'll want your orbit to be above or below the target so you or it can catch up. - If you can't seem to get the intersect indicators to move closer together by dragging the maneuver node's prograde vector, then try moving the maneuver node itself to a slightly different location in your orbit. That almost always does the trick for me. - The further away you are from the station, the more affect a non-zero relative velocity will have prior to burning prograde toward the target. In other words, you burn directly toward the target, but by the time you get there you're way off. So take the time to chase the petrograde marker around and get your relative velocity as close to zero as possible prior to burning toward the target, as it will reduce the total number of burns you'll have to do. - This should go without saying, but the target's orbit inclination should be 0 degrees to make it easiest. Take the time to get your station into a good, workable orbit before trying to rendezvous with it. Anyway, I hope this is helpful for anyone else who has tried to follow some rendezvous tutorials and ended up in situations that weren't exactly like the "perfect world" situations depicted in them. - - - Updated - - - It wouldn't let me pick How To" as a thread prefix, so I had to pick [Answered].

Thanks. Somehow I didn't see the Suggestions forum, much less your existing post on this. Obviously I didn't look very hard... Those other mods look like they might solve some of this, especially the engineering based tech tree. Thanks for sharing!

Migrating my post here from a new thread I shouldn't have started: A frustrating thing about the current science tree is that essential parts are spread all over the place. I often find myself purchasing a certain science tech just for one of the parts in the set. The others that come with it, I don't care about so much. And in some cases the part isn't even usable without researching something else too: - It's cool that we can get a Science Jr. early on with Science Tech, but adding it to your craft pretty much means you can't EVA to collect surface samples and return to the vessel unless you research Space Exploration to get a ladder. - Spaceplane parts are mostly available through the middle of the tree, but if I want landing gear for them I need to go down the science part of the tree. Huh? - It's very difficult to rendezvous and dock without lights, even in sunlight. But the first access to a docking port is in Specialized Construction, while the lights needed to make them effectively usable are way down in Electrics. Speaking of Clamp-O-Tron docking ports (Specialized Construction), they are only usable if you can put a self-sustaining vessel into orbit. To do that, you also need the following: Batteries (Science Tech) Solar panels & lights (Electrics) Radial decouplers (Stability) Strut connectors (General Construction) External fuel ducts (Fuel Systems) In addition, you probably want RCS thrusters (Advanced Flight Control) and an advanced SAS (Specialized Control). Not to mention whatever techs are necessary to get engines with enough power and fuel tanks with enough fuel. In short, it only makes sense to have docking ports after you've already researched half of the tree! But if you want radial attachment points from Advanced MetalWorks - a useful part that has applications other than on a dock-able vessel - you have to buy the docking ports first. Don't get me wrong, I can tell that a lot of thought went into organizing the science tree as it is, and it couldn't have been easy. The way it's organized does make sense for the most part, but I think these problems are unintended side effects that cannot be adequately solved because not all parts fit neatly into a specific category like the tree tries to do. What I propose is to allow us to spend science points to research specific parts, instead of categories of parts. Each science purchase would "research" a certain part and make it available (for building in science mode or for purchase in career mode). Some parts should have their minor counterparts as prerequisites (Clamp-O-Tron Sr. requires Jr. and regular size first, or Gigantor XL requires OX-STAT and OX-4L/W first, etc.), while other parts should be available from the beginning but with a cost that makes you save up a bit for them (struts, fuel ducts, radial attachment points, HubMax multi-point connector, other tangental parts that have no particular category or other upgrades). If one of these parts is considered "too powerful" to have at the beginning, then either its science cost can be made prohibitively high, or a technology that costs science points, but unlocks no parts directly, could be required to unlock the ability to research the part. I think that would add a lot of customization to our space programs. We could focus only on spaceplanes, stations, or bases, without having to buy virtually every other tech in the tree just to get essential parts for our focus.

A frustrating thing about the current science tree is that essential parts are spread all over the place. I often find myself purchasing a certain science tech just for one of the parts in the set. The others that come with it, I don't care about so much. And in some cases the part isn't even usable without researching something else too: - It's cool that we can get a Science Jr. early on with Science Tech, but adding it to your craft pretty much means you can't EVA to collect surface samples and return to the vessel unless you research Space Exploration to get a ladder. - Spaceplane parts are mostly available through the middle of the tree, but if I want landing gear for them I need to go down the science part of the tree. Huh? - It's very difficult to rendezvous and dock without lights, even in sunlight. But the first access to a docking port is in Specialized Construction, while the lights needed to make them effectively usable are way down in Electrics. Speaking of Clamp-O-Tron docking ports (Specialized Construction), they are only usable if you can put a self-sustaining vessel into orbit. To do that, you also need the following: Batteries (Science Tech) Solar panels & lights (Electrics) Radial decouplers (Stability) Strut connectors (General Construction) External fuel ducts (Fuel Systems) In addition, you probably want RCS thrusters (Advanced Flight Control) and an advanced SAS (Specialized Control). Not to mention whatever techs are necessary to get engines with enough power and fuel tanks with enough fuel. In short, it only makes sense to have docking ports after you've already researched half of the tree! But if you want radial attachment points from Advanced MetalWorks - a useful part that has applications other than on a dock-able vessel - you have to buy the docking ports first. Don't get me wrong, I can tell that a lot of thought went into organizing the science tree as it is, and it couldn't have been easy. The way it's organized does make sense for the most part, but I think these problems are unintended side effects that cannot be adequately solved because not all parts fit neatly into a specific category like the tree tries to do. What I propose is to allow us to spend science points to research specific parts, instead of categories of parts. Each science purchase would "research" a certain part and make it available (for building in science mode or for purchase in career mode). Some parts should have their minor counterparts as prerequisites (Clamp-O-Tron Sr. requires Jr. and regular size first, or Gigantor XL requires OX-STAT and OX-4L/W first, etc.), while other parts should be available from the beginning but with a cost that makes you save up a bit for them (struts, fuel ducts, radial attachment points, HubMax multi-point connector, other tangental parts that have no particular category or other upgrades). If one of these parts is considered "too powerful" to have at the beginning, then either its science cost can be made prohibitively high, or a technology that costs science points, but unlocks no parts directly, could be required to unlock the ability to research the part. I think that would add a lot of customization to our space programs. We could focus only on spaceplanes, stations, or bases, without having to buy virtually every other tech in the tree just to get essential parts for our focus. Thoughts?