Mechscientist

Hi, I've been working on a saved game for a while - through 3 releases and have run into a problem with docking ports on some, but not all of my ships. They seem to have lost their magnetism and will to connect. There was a post a while back about going into the save file and resetting the status of the dock port, which had mixed results for me. It didn't seem to help most of the ships I had in orbit, except 2 that ended up attached, but not docked. Anybody have any thoughts on how I can get them to work correctly again? Additional info - version .23 KSP Addins: MechJeb, Kethane and external launch pad, all for .23 of KSP. Thanks in advance!

After investing more hours in it than I care to confess to, I finally managed to figure it out. Now, it's fairly routine. I don't know how much you want to learn by yourself, but here are a few things that I noticed were important and missing from the link mentioned above: First, circularize the target's orbit (within a few kilometers) so that it's moving at a steady speed. This makes it a lot easier to figure out how to approach it. If you are ahead of it, then match the periapsis of your orbit with the target's orbit. If you're behind, match the apoapsis with the target's orbit. You might want to approach the target from behind at first, since the point of rendezvous will then be when you are traveling the slowest. At that point, matching the speed of the target is essentially making your orbit match the target's. Once you get close, just slow your approach to less than 1/2 m/s and take your time maneuvering your ship into position. If your orbit is matched with the target, you have all the time in the solar system to dock. My first attempt took almost a full 750 tank of monoprop, but now I typically use less than 50. Good luck!

Probably a ways off, but my Jeb is getting up in years and has trained as many of his fellow Kerbals with "the right stuff" in docking and exploring planets as he cares to. He'd like to start calling that little valley in the twin craters of the Mun his own. Perhaps adding more real world challenges into the "getting there" and exploration would be nice, but once you've solar system mastered space travel, it would be nice to have a level two.

Hi, I'm new to the forums, but have been playing KSP for quite a while. Looking forward to the info I can get and hoping to share some too.