Margaul

I love Minmus! So much fun. And the station looks awesome! Great job!

Your best bet is the nuclear engine with the big tanks (Rockomax) attached. They have a high Specific Impulse which is the rocketry version of fuel efficiency. (I believe the ISP in a vacuum is like 800). The downside of them is that they aren't very powerful. This isn't a problem in space, but it can test your patience. You may have to make multiple burns to transfer orbits. Edit: Stupid_chris nailed it right on the head. The nuclear engine is the way to go for interplanetary travel, the poodle is your friend for orbital transportation. That's exactly what I do with my "Skycrosser IA" which was become the workhorse of my fleet. I can make it just about anywhere and back with this little ship. It has the LV-N system for long range trips, with the poodle for when I need a bit more power for faster maneuvers.

Also, you have to remember that as your station orbits, it's not moving in a straight line, its moving in a circle around the planet. So if you are approaching it from a distance with your ships ASAS on focused on a specific point, the ASAS will keep your ship pointed in a particular direction in space, so your ship will stay linear. Your station, on the other hand, will be moving in an arc, so it will be basically be slowly rotating as it moves around the planet. This isn't a problem over the course of 1-3 minutes, but in a standard 30-40 minute orbit, after 5-10 minutes it can be an irritant. This is some of the reason I keep my station in a relatively higher orbit (~185,000m) than the standard 100,000m orbit. When I was still fairly new to docking, I had a total of 8 docking ports so I could approach the station from any direction and dock. It's not a big deal now because I approach at a pretty fast speed and move right toward the docking port before the rotation can affect to much. The moral of the story is that the longer you take to dock, the more the slow rotation can cause a problem.

Easiest way to stop the drifting...switch to your station, turn ASAS off, warp to 2X for like 3 seconds. The game should stabalize the movement if you don't have anything on (RCS, engives, etc). As you get close to the docking port, if you miss at the last second the magnetic attraction of the docking ports will cause the station to move a bit, so try not to miss Also, if you are moving straight toward your station, and you use the main engine (pointed in the direction of your station) to close to the station, the rocket exhaust from your engine can cause your station to move. For this reason I try to approach my station and get along side it before using my main engine to brake. Then I switch to RCS. In Kerbal, the RCS engines won't cause blowback on the station. In the real world, even with RCS, astronauts have to be very careful which RCS thrusters they use when they are docking or they will blow the target away from them. They actually used the shuttle's RCS to blow broken parts of the ISS away! So be careful where you use your main engine.

Not only did he pack a toaster, but he can use all nine engines on the Eve lander as a BBQ.....seeing as the lander isn't strong enough to get off the surface. Mission failed? Hardly....Permanent colony established.

Well there's this: http://www.kerbalcomics.com/2012/06/22/episode-ten-stranded-squared/ and this http://www.kerbalcomics.com/2013/05/20/episode-26-predictable/

The new Laurel III resupply vessel docked with Olympus Station and let Kerbin see the Eden Lander and the Skycrosser III which will be leaving soon to visit, study, and hopefully return from Eve. The "Great Experiment" or "Grape Experiment" will test kerbal engineering in Eve's harsh environment. Will the daring crew survive the trip? Will the make it back in one piece? Did Jebidah pack a toaster to make toast with just in case Eve really is made from grape jelly? The resupply and crew rotation proceeded without incident and the Laurel III brought 5 brave(?) kerbalnauts home.

Hooray! That's awesome! That will make your dockings a little safer. Docking does open up the possibilities for sure. I just docked a monstrosity of a lander and an improved interplanetary ship to my fueling station. Next stop: Eve, and if fuel permits, an extreme EVA to Gilly.

Haha. You got it, mate. I don't get a lot of chances to try Gaelic living in the deserts of New Mexico. Besides, I'm better at launching kerbals into orbit than I am with the Irish language.

Thanks. I probably will turn it into a full tutorial. I'll probably refine it a little bit. I didn't put a lot of the "basics" into the beginning that some people would need since you were already pretty experienced with spaceflight. Hope we fix/fixed your RCS issues.

Here we go: 1. On the main screen (The one that comes up when you load the game) select settings 2. Click "Input" 3. Since you (like me) dock from staging select the "Staging button" 4. Scroll down to the "Translation" keybinds 5. See what the game has for "Translate Forward" and "Translate Backward" 6. If they are currently set to "H" and "N" try setting them to something else that isn't being used See if that helps

Yeah. I think one of your mods must be interfering. I think you can check to see what your key binds are for RCS or change them in the settings from the load screen. My wife is looking now. Maybe we can help you fix it.

yeah...you have to reset the docking by getting about 5-10 meters away. Usually I just back off using RCS and then back forward again with RCS. I have to do that with some of my ships to make sure the center of gravity doesn't get weird. undock, backoff, rotate, back in.

Looks like you are already becoming a pro at docking. Station looks great!

Yeah. I would pop a quick post on the support forum or the How To forum and see if anyone can help figure out why your RCS wasn't working to thrust you forward and backward. Good luck on the station! Post a thread with pics soon!

Hmm... odd that holding the "h" and "n" key didn't working with the RCS on but the other RCS keys did. I wonder if you have a mod going that is interfering. I just checked on one of my ships, and I didn't skip a step, so I'm a little stumped. The only thing I can think is that perhaps you didn't hold it long enough to move. They work really slowly with bigger ships. I know that with some of my ships I have to hold it on some maneuvers till my finger hurts. You might click on the "resources" menu to display your fuel quantity and then try and see if it consumes monopropellant. If it doesn't, you might drop a post on the support section. Good luck with space station. I had a lot of fun building my little station. I'm going to build a replacement for it, then I'm going to disassemble the current station and transport it to Jool, if I can. Should take the better part of a month to figure out.

Did you figure out the RCS problem? It sounds like you were in docking mode. I always dock from the staging mode. But congratz on the docking! Looks great!

Manually, you can try to figure out when to launch...usually when the command/service module is maybe 1-2 minutes from passing directly overhead. However, it's not a big deal fuel wise if you miss. The Mun's gravity is very weak, so you can theoretically adjust an orbit by using RCS once you have very similar orbits. If I were you, I would get into the same orbit of the command module. Then if you are behind the command module, make one side of your orbit just a little lower in altitude. This will allow you to catch up to the command module (It might take a few orbits, but such is the life a space traveler) Conversely, if you are in front of the command module, raise your altitude a little bit so the command module can catch up to you. It's of course nice if you can launch and get your orbit in such a way that you will be right near your command module as soon as your orbit is fixed up, but it's hard. It's the equivalent of trying to throw a rock at something that is sailing through the air and actually hitting it.

Excellent! Good Job!

Remember, take your time. Docking takes practice.

It just so happens that I made a 3 part tutorial with plenty of screenshots. It is on this thread The first part is rendezvous from launch, the second part covers docking and the third part covers docking from different orbits.

One thing I'll add: When you are building ships that you intend to dock, place the RCS right on the center of mass when you are building. As soon as you are done building the ship/stage that will be doing all the docking you will want to place symmetrical RCS thrusters right on the center of mass. Typically you will want four sets of thrusters. This will ensure that when you use the RCS system, your ship won't move weirdly. The center of mass will show up as the yellow and black ball. Try to get the RCS as close to the center of this ball as possible.

Thanks. After I get a little feedback on it, I probably will refine it and post in the tutorial section. I think a lot of people have their own way of doing EVERYTHING in this game, and sometimes it's nice to see multiple perspectives. For example, I know a lot of people that use the "I,J,K,L" buttons for RCS when docking, but I didn't use them for a long time because I wasn't smart enough. Now that I've been playing for awhile, I use them a little more, but I still dock without them 90% of the time.

Odo, let me know if you have any questions about the 3 sets of instructions I made. Anyone else, feel free to ask as well. I'll try to help anyone who is having problems with docking. Happy flying!

Note: These instructions are intended for Odo, who started this thread, but I'd like feedback because I intend to post it as a tutorial if it works well This set of instructions is a little different. I'm assuming that you've read the first two sets of instructions. I'm mostly just showing the differences between docking from launch to docking from two different orbits. 1. The first thing to do is make a maneuver, and then burn till your orbit intersects with the targets orbit. When I started this, I was in a polar orbit and I was moving down to the targets orbit. For ease of showing examples, I'm showing the orbits when I was ready to make the corrections. As you can see, my intersect is at the "bottom." I'm flying the lander in these pictures. 2. Because the lander is behind the command module I'll be docking with, I'll burn to make an orbit that is slightly lower in altitude on one side. This will allow the lander to catch up. If the lander was in front of the command module, I would make an orbit that was slightly higher in altitude. This would allow the command module to catch up to my lander. 3. After the orbit looks the way I want it to, I'll time warp until the intersects get closer together. The first picture shows the orbits right after the burn and the second picture shows when I have intersects that are nice and close. As you can see, I ended up an intersect that is really close. If the orbits never quite meet up like that, you may have to make a small burn. As you set the manuver up, the program will show you a projected intercept. Work the node till you have an intersect that is close together. 4. Once the ships are close together, make burns that will lower your target speed to 0.0 m/s. Then point the ship at the target, and use RCS to burn closer to the target. Make sure you are targeting the target docking port. Also, use the "[" key to switch to the target ship, and point it toward the docking port of the oncoming ship. 5. Make RCS burns that are similar to the maneuvers in the 2nd tutorial I wrote until you ships dock up. Remember when the ship's docking ports touch, turn off the SAS systems on BOTH ships. Congratz! If you have done all this, you've managed to dock!