blizzy78

RCS Build Aid is a great plugin to help with RCS thruster placement. I'd appreciate that. I'm still collecting all the feedback I can get.

You might want to check out my in-game docking tutorial plugin, of which I have incidentally released an update just a few minutes ago. (see signature)

Docking Tutorial 1.1.1 is now available for download. Please see the OP for a list of changes.

Actually I was talking about the other tutorial this time, second link from above in the signature. The one with video and text.

Why would you care about the navball rotating when trying to dock? Both vessels are in orbit, and it's not quite likely that RCS thrusts will modify the orbit in a meaningful way. So with that in mind, the complete navball could just be completely blue or completely brown/orange, with no degrees markers on it, so you won't even notice the rotation. So having said all that, north/south alignment that is suggested all the time is not necessary at all. Like I've said, docking when the target is not north/south aligned is neither exotic nor different from being aligned. I'd heavily object to that. SAS got the "lever arm" improvement of late, but you still cannot place your thrusters anywhere you like. That should suffice.

Exactly what MrKicker says. In my "Launch, rendezvous, and docking tutorial" I'm elaborating a bit more on that, in text form. (see signature)

Nope. /10chars

I admit it's a shameless plug, but perhaps my in-game docking tutorial can help you with getting docking practice. (see signature)

This will only affect your inclination.

How would one go about figuring out which fuel tanks to use and how many engines? For example, on the atmosphere chart for TWR >= 1.8, I can see that for a 20-ton payload and 2.2 km/s dV, the aerospike turns out to be the best according to the chart. I'm not sure how to go forward from here.

Not sure why it was hard for you. Perhaps you might want to try my in-game docking tutorial? (see signature)

The most extreme example of this would look like this: Go all the way straight vertical up to 100 km, then turn east, then burn for orbital velocity (about 2.2 km/s). You can clearly see the disadvantage of doing that.

Also: Gravity turn

... does not compute ... Actually the gravity turn is when you switch from straight vertical ascent into a ballistic trajectory. In zero atmosphere, you can launch directly into a ballistic trajectory, but this doesn't make sense in atmosphere that will slow you down, hence the initial vertical ascent phase. No, you need to turn it yourself. First go to about 45 degrees at 10 km (if launching from Kerbin), then stay a bit "before" the prograde marker and let it chase you. (I realize this might not be the most efficient way to do it, but it works just fine for me.) As for turning off SAS, this is only necessary in KSP < 0.21. Well orbiting means to go around the planet sideways, so this is were you want to go. By launching straight up, then turning 90 degrees to the side will cost you more fuel than "bending" your trajectory to the side while going upwards by gradually tipping to the side.

Please try and post only serious questions, thankyouverymuch.

Yes. The 5 unoccupied ports that can be seen in the picture are all facing inwards into the 6-way hubs.

Incidentally this is what I created. Please see my signature.

Heh, the first thing I was asked to do after people saw my in-game docking tutorial was to make another one covering rendezvous

Try the SelectRoot plugin.

He sure can, but I'd guess he doesn't care. What's the advantage of having a perfectly circular orbit anyway?

For rendezvous, you might want to check out my tutorial (see signature.)

Anti-parallel (PAR-) is the label of an attitude button in MechJeb. It simply means to rotate so you're parallel to the target's axis (a docking port's docking axis, for example), but facing the other way (= looking at it.)

If you could precisely detail the steps you're executing (in the order you're doing them), that would help, too.

Or for that matter, try to crash into things, preferably with high speeds - if blowing up and dying is your thing.

Kerbin's surface gravity is 9.81 m/s^2, Duna's is 2.94 m/s^2. So 9.81 divided by 2.94 is ~= 3.3. But really, you should use Kerbal Engineer Redux, it makes calculations a whole lot easier.