Margaul

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 Once you have gotten close to your target (rendezvous) it's time to make the maneuvers to dock. These instructions are written showing a ship docking with a station. I do not use the "Docking" mode thing included with KSP. I just find it weird and I can't get used to it. Fun Fact: The only thing I ever use the docking mode thing for is driving rovers. 1. Start by making sure you have selected you target set it as your actual target. Your speed in relation to the target should be very close to 0.0 m/s. You will point your ship toward the target. To do this you will line up your ship to point into the pink, circular target. Once you have the target lined up, start burning toward the target. From 3-5 kilometers out, it's best to burn till about 20-25 m/s toward the target. (I've been making these same maneuvers for awhile now, so I go a little faster than that, as you can see from the picture below. That's because I'm impatient. I wouldn't recommend going too fast until you get good at docking) 2. As soon as you complete the burn, flip the ship completely around. You will want to get in the "retrograde" position. Pay very close attention to the target. You will want to get very close. As soon as you are within 100 meters or so, burn till your speed is 0.0 m/s in relation to the target. If you get in close enough, you are ready to start making your RCS moves. 3. The next thing to do is refine your targeting. To do this, you will want to click on the Docking clamp you will be docking with. Click it, and push the blue button marked "Set as target" 4. Now, point the ship toward the docking clamp. In the HUD, this is the same pink circle. We will be making a slow approach so we need to use RCS. Once you are pointed toward the docking port, turn on your RCS and use the "H" key to move toward the target. If you aren't quite on as you get closer use the "N" key to burn RCS in the reverse direction. Then re-aim you ship and use the "H" key to move toward the target. Rinse and repeat. Keep your speed at or below 0.6 m/s. This is slow enough that if you collide with your target, you probably won't do any damage, and if you hit the docking port, you will probably dock. Note: When you are this close to the station, only use the RCS. Regular engine burns might push your target. RCS won't push on the target though, so you can use it as much as you like. Pro-tip- If you have ASAS on your ship, keep it turned on. As you maneuver, use the "F" key at the same time you are pressing the movement key to temporarily toggle the SAS system. For example: If you want to move to the right, push the "F" and the "D" key at the same time. when you release, the ship might wobble a bit, but it will stay closer to where you want the ship to point. Also, if you are having trouble getting the target lined up, hit the capslock key to move into "precision" mode. It can help make the painfully accurate maneuvers necessary for docking. 5. Keep making this short RCS maneuvers until the two docking ports collide. You should aim for touching while moving 0.3 to 0.5 m/s. Once they touch, the magnetic system will take over. TURN OFF YOUR SAS SYSTEM and don't touch the keyboard. The ship might move around a bit, but just be patient. Also, switch to your target (You can cycle between ships/stations that are close by pushing the "[" key.) and make sure that any SAS system is off. Just let the ships move around until they dock. 6. Once the ships are aligned, they will "snap" together. Congratulations! You have docked! (If it's really taking a long to snap together, you can toggle your SAS when the ships look like they are close to being lined up, and then immediately turn off your SAS. This can help ... sometimes).

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 Rendezvous from launch is a very necessary part of building, and using, space stations. These instructions will teach you how to rendezvous without mods. 1. Start by getting ready launch in a position that will place your launch vehicle near the target. Usually, this will be about 2-3 minutes before the target passes over the launch site. 2. Set the target as the actual target by clicking it and selecting "Set as Target." This will turn the target's orbit green. 3. Start your launch as you normally would. You want to try and make your orbit very similar to the targets. My station is in an near-equatorial orbit. Therefore, I just need to point my launch due east to meet up with the orbit. 4. Cut your engines when the apoapsis of your launch intersects the target's orbit. Since my orbit is at ~ 185,000 meters, that's where I cut my engines. 5. Make a node at the apoapsis to maneuver your orbit to be similar to the targets orbit. Make sure you check all three dimensions. You will be aiming for what is called a "co-planar" orbit. Get it close. This will be a long burn, so chances are your orbit won't end up looking like the one you are setting up. Don't worry and don't panic. It will get fixed soon enough. 6. Commence your burn. When you are done, your orbit will probably look something like the picture below. As you can see, without mods, my orbit didn't end up looking like the one I originally set up. 7. The orbits will intersect in one or two places. At these intersects, we'll make a burn that will give us an intersect. Try to be as precise as possible. You'll want that intersect to be as close as possible. (I usually aim for an intersect that is 1-4 km apart) The orbit you will be in will probably not be co-planar. That's okay though, as we will make a final correction when the ships are at the close intersect point. 8. In this next picture you can see that at the second intersect point the ships are very close together (the orange point is the 1st point where the orbits are the closest, and the purple point is the 2nd point). This is where we will rendezvous and get ready to dock. 9. At the intersect point, the Heads Up Display (HUD) will switch from showing the "orbital velocity" to the "Target velocity." This is the speed of your vehicle relative to the target. As you can see from the below picture, my speed is 31.3 m/s in relation to the target. You can also see that my station is 3.7km from the ship. To get ready to dock, we need to cut the speed down to as close to 0.0 m/s as we can. We will do that by pointing the ship so we are burning in the retrograde position. Since the HUD is showing the ship as it's related to the target, burning in the retrograde is retrograde in relation to the target. In the picture below you can see that I'm moving into the retrograde position. The retrograde marker is the yellow marker with an "X" in the center. 10. Once you have the target lined up for a retrograde burn, burn very carefully till the target speed reads close to 0.0 m/s If you overshoot the burn, you can turn on the RCS and use the "N" key to burn a little RCS in the reverse direction. Conversly, if you need to go a little faster, you can use the "H" key to burn forward. get as close to 0.0 m/s as you can. if you end up showing 0.1 m/s or so, you will be fine. If you've made it this far, Congratz! You are ready to make the docking maneuvers!

I will make a total of three posts on this thread. The first post will be rendezvous with my space station from launch. The second will be docking with my station. I decided to write a third that details the differences with rendezvous and docking between two ships that start out in different orbits. If they are helpful to you and anyone else, I'll think about moving the posts into the "How To" section of the forum. I do a lot of instructional writing for a living, so it's no hassle. It probably won't be professional grade writing though, as I'm rather lazy on weekends.

I'll try making a step by step tutorial with screen shots and see if that helps you. Give me an hour or two. It just so happens that I need to make a rescue mission to Minmus (curse you, "End Flight" button!) so I'll be making a trip to my space station to dock and fuel up. Edit: Okay - I finished my rescue mission. I'll be writing the walkthroughs for you...My wife is going to need dinner soon, so it may take a little extra time. But I will write them tonight

Docking is, without a doubt, one of the most time consuming, difficult, and rewarding thing I do. I won't say that I'm a pro at it, but I do it as part of nearly every mission I do. Mostly, it just takes patience. Scott Manly made a really good video. You can watch the video here: One of the things that you can do to practice just the docking part is to put a docking port on your ship, and one on a stage that you separate from once you are in orbit. This will help you learn how to use the RCS system for docking. The "[" can be used to switch to the other craft when you are close. Also important is remembering that you will want to use the mouse to "click" on the target's "Clamp-o-tron" and set it as your target when you are close. If you need any help trying to learn how to dock, I'll happily try to give any advice you need.

Dmagic is right now that I have thought about it. The ship I took to the Mun and the ship I took to Minmus were very similar. I used an "Apollo" style craft that carried the lander in the third stage for both missions and then docked up. For my Minmus trip, the only thing I did differently was to add a bit more fuel in the third stage which was responsible for the trans-lunar injection. My Minmus lander was very similar to my Mun lander though, and seeing as I was only using it to land on Minmus and then return to orbit to dock with my command module, It was rather overloaded with fuel.

The amount of fuel you will need to get to Minmus is pretty intense. However, landing on Minmus can be done with very, VERY little. I've landed using nothing but RCS and I've also done a spacejump (Extreme EVA) with Jeb and his jetpack. Also, the trip back to Kerbin doesn't take too much either.

Good job on getting Jeb and Bill home. You are right, it's a major milestone. You'll be a pro in no time though. After that, I'm sure the eyes of kerbalkind will turn to Minmus and then even deeper into the cosmos.

I'm not really sure how many hours it took. I would just load it occasionally and get it rolling while I was watching something on TV. I also stopped halfway through to make an impromptu Mun landing to test a (failed) single seat flying vehicle. I do know that the game time recorded from deployment to arrival at the ice cap was 1 day 11 hours and 32 minutes. That includes nights when the kerbals had to "camp" while waiting for the sun to come out and charge the batteries. @Spartwo - Thanks. I like the simplicity of the rover too. It is a 0.19 design that I just kept because it works well and is easy to deploy.

Burlock and Anford Kerbin started the third morning on the early sunlight and watchful eye of Ike The crisp morning started off well and the intrepid crew felt good about the prospect of reaching the icecap by midday. Sure enough, as the Sun crept into the sky, the ice covered mountains of Northern Duna peaked out over the horizon. The landscape of Duna the boys traversed was often treacherous. The largest mountains thousands of meters into the thin Duna atmosphere. Often these mountains ended at nearly sea level. Burlock carefully managed the drive trying to keep the rover creeping up the mountains and then keeping the speed of the rover around 20 m/s on the steep downward slopes. As they traveled downward on the last slope, the crunch of ice could be heard beneath the tires, and the crew knew that the first major milestone of the rover journey was nearing completion. Finally, the light ice was replaced by thick fields of snow and ice. The crew slowly headed up the first tall mountain of the icecap. When the batteries depleted, the crew radioed back to command that they were stopping to survey the area for the possibility of building what would perhaps be the most impressive ski resort in Kerbal history. Burlock planted the flag victoriously, naming the mountain "Mt. Kerbalhorn" Space command radioed back congratulations. Burlock and Anford had travelled well over 200 kilometers from the landing site, marking them down in the history books for the longest rover drive on a celestial body. They told them to take a little time off and camp. Space command had a few other priorities to attend to. (It turns out a junior technician accidentally hit a button marked "End Flight" while checking on the status of a Minmus orbiter, stranding a crew on the north pole of the mint flavored moon).

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Great missions and great thread!

I have to say I never really use the ASAS trick. I did try using the ASAS for some nifty tricks with rovers. This resulted in dead kerbals. As a general rule, I try to land in the flatest spots possible. I have had to ZOMGTHROTTLEUPHARD!!!! on even some minor hills. When I first started landing on Duna, hills were a concern. Since I play without mods, a parachute assisted landing on Duna has the tendency to place me in non-ideal locations. I actually used a couple extra landing gears in case I tipped over. Now I just use pretty wide gear setups. Hills scare me. When I landed on Ike, I was sweating bullets because the whole moon looks like a crumbled up mountain with very few flat places. It wasn't that bad though.

Congratz on the Minmus landing. I love goofing around on Minmus. The low gravity makes for some fun adventures. Extreme EVAs are fun. A little jump with some pack fuel and Jeb flies around like superman.

After you make about 5 posts to the forum, your privileges should change and you will be allowed to add a signature. Other than that, welcome to the game.

Nice screenshots! It's great to see another "non-mod" player who has managed to get some quality exploring in!

Welcome to the game and welcome to the forums. Next stop for you...the Mun...Next stop after that...a rescue mission to get your Kerbals off the Mun.

Yup. The wobble at the top is going to cause you hell. It wobbles and mechjeb and the ASAS will try to correct. as it wobbles more, it corrects more making an oscillation that will eventually spin it out of control The air resistance will help hold it steady at lower altitudes, but as that decreases, bad things will happen. If you have trouble running struts up that high, attach some hardpoints halfway up, strut those from the bottom, and then run struts up from the top of the hardpoint to the wobbly top.

Just to add to all the other great information, the reason that orbits are specific altitudes for specific speeds (in a very oversimplified explanation) is that orbits are really nothing more than controlled falling. Your spacecraft "falls" through space. It just happens to miss hitting the planet. You "fall" and the speed takes you to specific altitude on the other side of the planet, where you basically start to "fall" again, once again missing the planet, until you reach the other side. All of this falling is due to gravity. In the Kerbin system, when you fall so fast you leave the gravity of a planet, you immediately get grabbed by the gravity of the sun or another celestial body. Now, once your falling speed is very similar to the rotational velocity of the planet, you are basically falling as fast as the planet. As explained above, this falling speed relates exactly to how far you will "fall" to the other side, and therefore, the size of the orbit. A little weird to grasp at first, but that's how it works. Being "weightless" in orbit doesn't mean that you or your spacecraft is not affected by gravity. It's, strangely, freefall. The same weightless affect can be duplicated (and is by NASA and other space agencies) by diving a plane through the air creating a few seconds of free fall. This is part of astronaut training called "The Vomit Comet."

Dia duit, Althalus! Go n-éirí do thuras leat le Kerbals!

Welcome aboard

Great job! I practiced rendezvous and docking quite a bit before even trying to go to the Mun and Minmus. I play the game without any mods and I still have a sense of accomplishment and victory when I get a good docking. Nothing quite as fulfilling. One of my favorite lines by Chris Kraft of NASA as quoted in From the Earth to the Moon "Rendezvous: two spacecraft meeting up in orbit. Want to have fun? Come over to my house. You stand in the back yard, I'll stand in the front, you throw a tennis ball over my roof and I'll try to hit it with a rock as it comes sailing over. That's what we're going to have to do."

I must sing the song of our people and say "ERMAHGERD!!! RESKUE DERNUT!!!" I need this. We must have the precious.

This is probably the most amazing thing I've seen since I started playing Kerbal

Good job. As a helpful hint, those big orange tanks are a little bugged. You might want to put a white tank between the engine and the tank to avoid overheating and general weirdness. Good luck on your next adventures