NeoMorph

I find that a lot of the "Shove the pods around the center" does work but it's not that efficient when docking. I tend to put a ring of the Place anywhere thrusters around the Centre of Mass for translation and then a single ring off centre for rotation and make that ring of quads toggle so that when I use the translation thrusters it doesn't push me off my line. Check out my tutorial at How-To-Balance-RCS-On-Your-Payload. I wish there was a dedicated RCS balancing tool but that is the closest I got...

It's a shame there isn't a virtual device like I used when skydiving. The AOD (Automatic Opening Device) take a constant reading of the air pressure. When it hit 1200ft it waits about half a second and then takes another reading... if the differences in the air pressure is greater than a set figure it knows the skydiver is dropping too fast and fires off the parachute. If we had something like that in KSP you wouldn't have to worry about deploying the chute. Just decouple from the stack and fire the escape tower... The firing activates the AOD and when it is below 1200ft it detects the speed the thing is dropping (ie it wouldn't fire until the pressure difference is positive so no firing before it is actually descending) and job done.

Cheers... It's the one thing that REALLY used to bug the hell out of me. Having to launch to orbit just to test the balance of your ship RCS was a timewasting pain, especially as the parallax view in the VAB makes it soooo hard to figure out if you really do have your translation ring in the right place. Then someone mentioned the debug hack and I was like WHOA... Then I looked at the Apollo setup and the light bulb went DING in my head. Hence what I use now and I haven't had a bad docking since.

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.

Like I said, Pixel Light Count and Shadow Cascades has a big hit. I dropped mine to 0 and it helps a lot. Edit: was sure I posted that dropping them to 0 helped earlier... guess it was a case of typing too fast as usual lol. I was doing some docking in the middle of that post so I think I thought it and didn't type it.

I've posted this in another thread but I realised it would be hard to find if others need it so here it is... NeoMorph's Balancing RCS System Mk1 Now here is a VERY good way to learn how to balance your RCS is to use the built in debugger. Yes, it is a cheat in a way but it DOES help you to balance your final capsule without flying it up into orbit. It's a bit like a simulation system for your design. Build your final payload but don't add on the boosters just yet. You want just the parts you will have in orbit and want to dock. Bit like the Command and Service module of the Apollo era. Add on your RCS... Add a ring of "Place Anywhere" RCS pods around the Centre of Mass (you can find the CoM by pressing the little weight icon at the bottom left of your VAB screen). These will be used for translating... ie up,down,left and right. Use 4 for small ships, 6 for medium ships and 8 for large ships. Now add a ring of RCS Quad pods around the ship, a third of the way from the top. 4 is fine for a small to large ship as all they are used for is turning the ship. Now here is the trick... Go into Action Groups and select one of the Custom slots. For this example we are going to use Custom10. Select one of the RCS Quads on your payload and then you should see it appear in the action group menu as "Toggle RCS Thrust" Click on this and it will now be allocated to Custom10. NOW SAVE YOUR SHIP. So many times I have got to launch and the game crashes so I always save before testing a new ship. Now that you have saved, add a couple of launch clamps to support your ship. These are just so it doesn't go boom if it falls over. Now go to the launch pad. Here is the trick. Hit ALT-F12 and a menu will appear. Hit the "Hack Gravity" button. Launch your ship... You will now be able to test your RCS without going into orbit. Turn on the RCS by hitting R and you can turn the ship with the WASD buttons and rotate with the Q and E buttons. For translating we need to do a little trick. To enter our translation mode hit the custom10 button (which is usually 0). This will turn our quad pods off and on. With the quad pods off you can now use the JKLI buttons to move left, down, right and up. To move forward and back hit the custom10 button again to turn the quad pods back on and use H and N. Testing the ship will probably show you some problems. If the ship turns when you are translating you may have to move the ring or place anywhere pods up and down the body of the payload. If the ship isn't turning fast enough when you are using the WASD buttons you can move quad pods closer to the end of the payload which will speed up the rotation. Here ends the balancing RCS tutorial. This technique was given to me by others on this board. It works well and I've just added the fine tuning ideas myself because I either had extra twitchy small craft going crazy or big craft that just wouldn't turn. You don't need two lots of RCS rings like a lot of people use (just look at the Apollo CSM if you don't believe me). I used to use way too many quad pods before I realised this.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-desktop/i-cant-turn-off-sticky-keys/a7c9fc02-2d0f-4db6-89fb-e36eca3e2ac7 God, this happened to me too (I ended up ramming one of my stations). There was another disability feature that I can't remember too that caught me out in KSP. Brain Freeze time...

Man, this quote is 100% correct. I remember lucking out with the placement of my RCS in my early capsules that when I put up a bigger one I just slapped on the RCS as usual and got into orbit and I was swearing like a trooper because the darn thing wouldn't do what I wanted. All the RCS were firing at the same time it seemed when I put SAS on. Tried turning and it would turn... tried translating AND IT WOULD STILL TURN. Trying to align with the docking port and KEEP aligned was near impossible. All because of poorly placed RCS ports. Now here is a VERY good way to learn how to balance your RCS is to use the built in debugger. Yes, it is a cheat in a way but it DOES help you to balance your final capsule without flying it up into orbit. It's a bit like a simulation system for your design. Build your final payload but don't add on the boosters just yet. You want just the parts you will have in orbit and want to dock. Bit like the Command and Service module of the Apollo era. Add on your RCS... Add a ring of "Place Anywhere" RCS pods around the Centre of Mass (you can find the CoM by pressing the little weight icon at the bottom left of your VAB screen). These will be used for translating... ie up,down,left and right. Use 4 for small ships, 6 for medium ships and 8 for large ships. Now add a ring of RCS Quad pods around the ship, a third of the way from the top. 4 is fine for a small to large ship as all they are used for is turning the ship. Now here is the trick... Go into Action Groups and select one of the Custom slots. For this example we are going to use Custom10. Select one of the RCS Quads on your payload and then you should see it appear in the action group menu as "Toggle RCS Thrust" Click on this and it will now be allocated to Custom10. NOW SAVE YOUR SHIP. So many times I have got to launch and the game crashes so I always save before testing a new ship. Now that you have saved, add a couple of launch clamps to support your ship. These are just so it doesn't go boom if it falls over. Now go to the launch pad. Here is the trick. Hit ALT-F12 and a menu will appear. Hit the "Hack Gravity" button. Launch your ship... You will now be able to test your RCS without going into orbit. Turn on the RCS by hitting R and you can turn the ship with the WASD buttons and rotate with the Q and E buttons. For translating we need to do a little trick. To enter our translation mode hit the custom10 button (which is usually 0). This will turn our quad pods off and on. With the quad pods off you can now use the JKLI buttons to move left, down, right and up. To move forward and back hit the custom10 button again to turn the quad pods back on and use H and N. Testing the ship will probably show you some problems. If the ship turns when you are translating you may have to move the ring or place anywhere pods up and down the body of the payload. If the ship isn't turning fast enough when you are using the WASD buttons you can move quad pods closer to the end of the payload which will speed up the rotation. Here ends the balancing RCS tutorial. This technique was given to me by others on this board. It works well and I've just added the fine tuning ideas myself because I either had extra twitchy small craft going crazy or big craft that just wouldn't turn. You don't need two lots of RCS rings like a lot of people use (just look at the Apollo CSM if you don't believe me). I used to use way too many quad pods before I realised this. Edit2: I used to rant about docking too... now I feel like an idiot when I think back on it lol... It's just learning new stuff is all. In orbit it's all about relative speed and try and ignore what your brain is telling you when you see the other ship. TRUST YOUR INSTRUMENTS. Sometimes you have to burn away from a target in order to get closer. Sounds mad until you realise what you are doing is nulling out (ie reducing to zero) your relative velocity. Yup... docking all all about relative velocities and THAT'S THE SECRET.

It's the textures loading. Pain in the ass if you have the res turned up full like I have but I like my rockets to look pretty. Same also with the number of light sources. I used to use a lot of lights on my ships but realised that the multiple light sources was probably causing problems too. If your ship is flashing like a disco then this is happening to you too. I was down to 1fps when I had the pixel light count up to 32 lol. This game REALLY needs some optimisation (which will be in 0.20 yay). It will only be the databases in 0.20 afaik but any optimisation is a GOOD thing. In the meantime just play about with your graphics settings in KSP and use something like FRAPS with its FPS overlay to see if it helps, frame wise.

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.

What other have said... Docking is just one hurdle you have to get over. It's tough at the start but if my morphine addled brain can handle it then anyone can. Check out my sig for some assistance (not my tutorials but a couple of guys who have pulled together some good stuff).

Actually I can't remember if it was center of Duna or AGL. Mechjeb was the one reporting my height so I think it was centre of the planet (but don't quote me on that). I do know that it didn't feel like 3km because I was counting rocks fly past on the ground lol.

I think the best gravity assist I ever had was from Ike too... I managed to get one of my mining pods into Duna orbit without even having to aerobrake because Ike caused my orbit to flip and forced me into a figure 8, came back around and then Ike slowed me again. Unfortunately I had accelerated time so fast that all this happened before I could stop it so I couldn't replicate it which was annoying because I spent about 4 hours trying to do so lol. Total accident and I got a perfect circular orbit with NO aerobrake and NO retrograde burn. The ultimate in fuel economy. Did get some good slingshots though and learned a lot about getting into the right orbit after aerobraking without having to do orbit alignment changes. Sometimes accidents are the best teachers.

I've decided that whenever anyone says "Well, Apollo had to be landed manually without the computer" I will just say "1202 error - P00 and ACCEPT".

I had one probe that I had landed to mark my Kethane mine. Totally inert. I wanted to get a view from the probe last night and switched to it and the probe began spinning and then bouncing off its landing gear before going BOOOM. It was one of the probes that was originally attached to the problem ship in this thread. I think that ship was cursed... well, I know it was... I cursed it long and hard lol.

Wasn't that fast because I used Ike to give me a bit of a slingshot but I overcooked it and ended up at 3km. Was the first time I had seen flames on Duna re-entry though. At less that 1800m/s too lol. I actually could count the rocks on the ground at one point... Then I went back to Ike and dropped the mining pod off... and it all worked perfectly... until I docked with this old rocket that was a right pain as everything went wrong with it.. and it blew up as I docked. At least Jeb and Bill were happy to find Kethane...

Easier way... Get Crew Manifest Mod.... http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/18-1-kerbal-crew-manifest/ Oh and if you want to know what dumb does... just look at my NeoMorph Kerbal below... Poor old Jeb is worried...

I had a corker of a Kraken last night. Killed 7 kerbals right off and sent another 3 flying off on a streaker into interplanetary space in the middle of a huge debris cloud. And yes, Jeb and Bill were two of the survivors... Bob perished. All because I docked one ship to another... at 0.2m/s.... and the Kraken struck. HARD!

I like this quote... But I'm a pilot person who needs the flight data to see what is happening... so I'm a engineering pilot person lol.

Ummm... no they didn't. All they did when they went "Manual" was turn on Mechjeb Translatron mode and pointed the landing computer to miss a crater. It was still landed under computer control. The AGC may have had the power of a calculator but mechjeb doesn't do half the things that the AGC could do. Because it was specialised. Hell, they wove (like a carpet) the programs (yeah, I kid you not) into memory. See Here - When I was looking up the info on the AGC for my hardware interface for KSP I was gobsmacked at what the thing could do with such crude hardware. Nobody called Neal Armstrong a cheater for using the AGC after all... so if he can use a computer to set up his burns then I can too. You still have to tell Mechjeb what you want it to do if you are using it right. "Garbage In, Garbage Out". Personally I think the MechJeb haters are the ones who don't know how to use it because some of the garbage I hear about how 1.9.8 could auto dock for you and how it ruined the game was nothing like what the thing could actually do. It COULDN'T auto dock. It could help you make rendezvous by giving you the information that is actually lacking in the node system is all. Bah... sorry... The "Apollo had to be landed manually" is an urban myth and still people don't realise, even with Google. For an insight into what was "manual" about the Armstrong's landing read this -> http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html - It will show you that using Mechjeb is closer to the real thing than core KSP is.

I eventually abandoned the ship in Ike orbit, set the autopilot to retrograde thrust for the remainder of the fuel and said BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE.... and to add insult to injury KSP CRASHED JUST BEFORE THE DARN THING HIT THE GROUND. At that point I said "Enough is enough" and shut it down for the day... err... night... OMG... MORNING!

Has anyone figured out what causes the self destruct when you dock with some rockets or bases. It's not SAS as I have made sure that was turned off. I even left the SAS units off my ships to try fixing it. I have come across it with several craft and when I think it's one thing (ie a piece of a ladder intruding on the docking port) I remove it and it still happens. I just had a perfectly serviceable rocket blow up multiple times after reloading, restarting the game, restarting the PC, saying a prayer... basically trying ANYTHING to get the thing to work right and it just keeps blowing up as soon as I dock. I docked lined up perfectly, Mechjeb turned off, docking speed was 0.2m/s and KABOOOOOOOOM. There is just something weird about the docking code that when it changes viewpoint from the docking ship to the whole new ship (docking ship plus whatever you dock to) where it just folds the whole thing up. I thought it might have been a mod but I have had it happen in stock mode too. Anyone know what is really causing this? EDIT: I just realised the common denominator of every incident.... it is the shielded docking port on the one ship and a normal docking port on the other. As soon as they touch they go kaboom. While it is always this mix that this happens with I know that I have docked normal to shielded many times....

Speed is all well and good but how low have you got your aerobrakes down to? I got one at 3km on Duna when was trying to save fuel... Nearly came a cropper when I came close to hitting a crater wall.

Thank god for QuickSave.... I was just docking the last part of my Duna station when the view changed and the damned Kraken attacked and blew up everything. Was pretty spectactular tbh. A nice soft dock and the whole lot blows up. I think it was an IED fitted to the airlock. Hit the "GOBACKINTIME" button and tada... ship not docked and everything safe... for now. So yeah... thank god for KSP time travel lol. Oh yeah, and the heat shield is from the HOME pack. If I had deadly re-entry I wouldn't have survived a 3km AGL aerobrake manoeuvre.

So who else has noticed that when you get into a long mission that time in the real world passes at a humongous rate? Is the time multiplier in KSP multiplying real time as well lol. I started a mission to resupply my Duna base this afternoon. This was at about 1pm... I just had KSP crash on me and I looked at the clock and it's 10:48pm. Where the heck did the time go... I got so deep into trying to get to Duna with as little fuel used as possible, even going as far as doing some radical aerobraking (which actually got Duna to show re-entry effects), that I got mesmerised by the darn thing. It's hard to see in that image... but here is a bit of video showing how much my aerobrake managed to pull in yet not much in the way of re-entry effects...