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It would be great if we could rendezvous with ground targets like we can space targets. Right now I'm builing a massive base and I honestly just want to take the lasy approach

Hello fellow Kerbonauts, my name is Nick and I've been recently delving into deep space in KSP. However, I am having issues with fuel running out / too much mass. So I thought let's build a space station or assemble a larger spacecraft by launching several pieces one by one. I can kind of rendezvous but when I do I don't know what I am doing when it comes to the RCS controls or properly using the docking ports. I'm pretty new to the VAB too. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Again I'm on Xbox one.

I've installed RSS and RO alongside with RN Soviet Spacecraft and Rockets mods. What I'm trying to do is to recreate the Soyuz 4-Soyuz 5 mission and dock two Soyuz spacecrafts. The launch site is Baikonur while the orbit's inclination is 51.7°. To achieve orbit I'm using MechJeb2 with Powered Explicit Guidance. When trying to launch the second spacecraft to the same plane as the first one I can get at minimum a 0.77° of difference between the two, difference that requires to much delta-v to take care of (105m/s, the Soyuz only has 172m/s). What can I do to perform a precise rendezvous? I'd prefer to not have to fly by hand as it seems extremely difficult. What about kOS?

A mission where you re-enact something like Rendezvous with Rama - perhaps with an object like the one that recently passed through our own solar system last year: https://www.sciencealert.com/interstellar-extrasolar-asteroid-weirder-than-we-knew-oumuamua

I've been playing KSP for years, and I can rendezvous routinely, but not with a consistent use of delta-v and timing, and launching to inclined orbits is still a bit of a challenge. So, specifically, I'm looking for some guidance on picking a launch azimuth and predicting how much delta-v and time is required to rendezvous. The specific situation I have is launching from the Mun to rendezvous with a spacecraft out of the plane I'm launching into. How would I determine what heading will take me closest to the desired inclination, and what apoapsis would be the most efficient for the plane change? The main question here is the azimuth, I realize that balancing altitude change and plane change delta-v is probably pretty complex.

I'm trying to fulfill one of the missions in the Minmus storyline contract: -Rendezvous two vessels in orbit of Minmus (Have two different vessels in orbit of Minmus within visual range of each other and kill their relative velocity in order to achieve this goal.) -Return to Kerbin from orbit of Minmus -Return to Kerbin from a fly by of Minmus I have held at 0.0m/s relative velocity for over a minute at less than 20 meters distance and this portion of the contract is not marked complete. The vessel targeted in the picture launched about 40 game days prior to the bigger docked vessel. (Both docked ships launched at once and would not by themselves qualify for this contract.) When I "zeroed out", of course I didn't quite get it to 0.00000, since I'm human. So I figured maybe going from +0.01 to -0.01 would make the difference, but after reversing the drift it still doesn't work. Any ideas? [edit: TinyPic is dead; long live Flickr. Original link for insanity posterity: http://i64.tinypic.com/15qoyu0.jpg ]

Hi guys, My question is really simple. There is a way to plan rendezvous in orbiter style? For who never played orbiter there is a tool that allow you to know exactly when your craft catches (precisely which orbit in the future) the target. Of course he work when you are in the same plane. Every burn, or every little translation change in real time the effect on the interception once you have defined an encounter point (that can be the apoapsis or periapsis ). I ho that you understand me because I'm Italian and my English is not the best. Thank you

Hey there I am trying to dock in orbit of kerbin and other celestial bodies to build my space stations etc. but I'm having trouble figuring out the rcs controls in order to effectively do it. Is there anybody else playing KSP Enhanced Edition on Xbox One/PS4 that could provide me some insight? Is there any specific location you'd recommend I practice this, assuming Kerbin is not the best option? Any assistance would be appreciated happy orbiting

So I updated to the new MechJeb (2.7.0) and I am seeing an issue with trying to conduct Rendezvous activities. The initial burn towards target, once on orbit, starts off fine but then as the velocity meter starts to near the bottom and I get closer to the target the maneuver node on the navball goes nuts and just bouncing all over the place causing my craft to do the same. As a result I am have to use more RCS to try and stablize but the problem is reoccuring each time. I have tried on several different ships and I am getting the same result. I am trying to use the mechjeb to have a manned capsule Rendezvous with my space station. Any ideas on the cause and a fix? Thank You

I tried to suggest this idea to Squad and never heard anything back. However it is a simple idea, and easy to explain. Mission Idea: Large cylindrical object enters the Kerbal system, you are told about it in a prompt, its size (20 kilometres (12 mi) in diameter and 54 kilometres (34 mi) long). Your mission is to rendezvous with this object and collect science with the stock science instruments in various places, including inside it (once you figure out how to get inside). That's it, that's the mission. Science text would be from the book more or less so that the data will slowly allow you to figure out Rama and its purpose/workings. Views from inside Rama could potentially be stunning. Craft could either be given to the player or alternatively they can construct it themselves given a few (just enough) constraints. Potential issues: In the book Rama has a very high velocity, might be reasonable to reduce it for easier orbit matching. How do you make a 30 mile long cylinder in KSP with water, or at least blue deck plating or perhaps a large ditch? Clouds in a player made vehicle???

I am new to the game, and as such I was going through the tutorial section, while also doing general self experiment on the game, and in the docking tutorial, i had difficulty getting the ships close enough together, because i would get within about 200 meters, and pass the other ship... then i would slow down, and go around the other side. it was quite annoying as it became 10 minutes of me ballerina dancing my way around the "Stranded" ship be fore finally giving up. is there some easy way to ensure this dancing doesn't happen so i can get the velocity killed and start docking? not looking for solutions to the problem, looking to prevent the problem in the first place.

The fastest time from launchpad to being docked wins. Rules: No mods No cheats (debug menu etc.) You must dock to a station in a 75x75km orbit Your craft must have a Mk1-3 Command Pod No part of your rocket can touch the station before you are docked You must post a video of your entry (screenshots are allowed, but in certain situations I might request a video) Scoring: The score is the MET (mission elapsed time) when the camera changes, after docking the two crafts. Leaderboard: Aphobius - 1:42 DoctorDavinci - 7:55

I got three heliocentric satellites with SENTINEL Infrared Telescopes on them for tracking asteroids near Kerbin, but I only can see on the map several fancy interrogative signs and the class of the asteroids around the planet. How can I see the orbital trajectory of this objects and how do I reach them? Thanks.

I've encountered a bug with the cheat menu. When I tried to rendezvous with a station that I had previously built using the cheat menu, my cursor disappeared and I was unable to bring it back or even exit the cheat menu. Devs plz fix.

As title, I've already put a station/ship in LKO, when it flies to the right spot, I launch another ship to it. While I was doing a rendezvous, the ship just suddenly set itself into suborbital flight for no reason, and after a short while it crash into terrain. So I have to use cheat to set it back to orbit to prevent it from crashing, then do the whole thing again. This makes me really frustrated . Can someone help me? Also, I can't use map view often, because that makes the game crash, so I don't really know when does it happens...

Hello everyone, I’ve recently been doing my ‘Kerbollo’ Apollo style Mun missions. This is my 1st Mun landing mission and for the last few days I have been trying and trying to rendezvous my kerbals with the command module, but I can’t seem to do it. I’ve watched a few YouTube tutorials, and I’ve even managed to get an encounter within a kilometre, but I can’t get the relative speed below 15 m/s, despite repeatedly using the target/anti target markers. Any tips or help from you more experienced players out there?

KSP Version: Kerbal Space Program - 1.3.0.1804 (WindowsPlayer x64) en-us What Happens: Target ship jumps in physical warp when rendezvous Mods / Add-Ons: All Stock Steps to Replicate: 1) Launch one ship to orbit 2) Launch second one 3) Rendezvous first and second ships to distance less than 1000m and more than 300m and make their relative speed <1m/s 4) Focus one of the vessels 5) Press Alt+. to start physical warp x2, x3 or x4 6) Observe how jumps target ship 7) Press / to return to x1 speed 8) Observe how target ship returns back to initial position from 3-4) Result: Target ship jumps in physical warp when rendezvous Fixes/Workarounds: I found no one. Please, help. Other Notes/Pictures/Log Files: When ships get closer than 200m this bug disappears. I.e. target ship don't jump when I perform physical warp. Here are few screenshots made one after another. You can see on the timer there is not much time passed. Also you can see relative speed between current ship and target one is 0.1m/s. The only thing changes is physical warp speed: Last screenshot was made after previous 4 to show that on x1 speed target ship is still on its old place. It's absolutely clear install, no mods present. I can provide save file with exactly this situation and VAB files for both ships (just tell me where should I send them). How can I fix this problem? I tried to look for solution for it, but found no one. Please help me, don't delete this thread! At least PM me if I doing something wrong, because I really confused.

I'm trying to wrap my head around flyby rendezvous - like the one portrayed in the Martian - where a small, light lander accelerates to rendezvous with a big heavy mothership on a flyby encounter. I'm going to lay out my thoughts so far, but would appreciate it if the more knowledgeable orbital mechanics people would help me out. Three options (there are many variations in between, but these three seem to capture the spectrum of possibilities) Option 1) Mothership doesn't slow down, Lander accelerates to meet it, achieves rendezvous, Mothership continues on its path Option 2) Mothership decelerates into a highly eccentric orbit, Lander achieves rendezvous, Mothership accelerates, breaks orbit on its outbound path Option 3) Mothership decelerates into a circular orbit, Lander achieves rendezvous, Mothership accelerates, breaks orbit on its outbound path So, what are the tradeoffs? Here's where I need some help DeltaV Budget - no difference - It seems like all three options would involve the same or close to the same DV expenditure. Whether the Mothership burns to slow/accelerate or the Lander does all the acceleration, I'm thinking that the DV budget is the same. Fuel expenditure - is higher in 2 and MUCH higher in 3 because you're changing velocity on the much heavier Mothership. Risk Level - Option 1 is the riskiest, while option 3 is the least risky because with 1 you only have one shot. If you miss the rendezvous, you don't have a second chance until the Mothership swings by for another encounter potentially years later. With 2 or 3, the Mothership will be returning fairly quickly, so you'll have multiple chances to achieve rendezvous. Thanks for responding!

Seeing as Principia is getting to the point where it is quite useable, it seems to be a good time to do this. The challenge is fairly straight forward. A space station has been placed in a magical square orbit around Mun. The objective is to pilot the cargo vessel, which is in low Kerbin orbit, and rendezvous with the station, using as little delta V as possible. You will need a 1.2.2 installation of KSP with a stock planetary setup, and Principia Catalan, then load this save file. https://www.dropbox.com/s/d9vbdw0wba0jkxv/rendezvous.zip Rules: No use of cheats or performance altering mods. Telemetry and visual enhancement mods are allowed. Since this is not a docking challenge, you only have to park within a 100 meter distance from the station, with a relative velocity less than 0.3 m/s. Submissions are scored based on how much delta V remains after rendezvous is complete. The Kerbals must not exit the station. Also crashing into the station to slow down is not allowed The time limit is 5 Kerbin years. This is just a technicality since I can't be certain the orbit of the station will be stable 1000 years from now. This is not a super serious challenge so extensive documentation is not really required. Just post an screenshot showing your overall approach, and one after you've completed the challenge showing how much delta V you have left. However, feel free to show your approach in greater detail if you complete the challenge with a small amount of delta V.

So I think I might have messed something up in the options and can’t figure out how to fix it. I get the pink arrow of intersect and I get really close at a 590m range to target but that’s ONLY if you and the target get to the intersect at the same time. What tool or setting allows me to set it so the pink arrow only appears when you and your target will both actually be there at the same time? This game is awesome and has a ton of neat tools so I find it completely unbelievable that I’m supposed to guess where I should be in relation to my target before I fire my engines to dock with a space station. So please tell this noob what change he made in settings to make this a lesson in insanity lol :)? Thank you - Dev

Some may remember my first topic of Saving Richfal, where I asked about the basics of an orbital rendezvous. Now that’s all we’ll and good, I can get a lovely intercept and that’s all solved. But now, docking. However this time the question is simple and only really requires one answer: Is there a way to align docking ports, for an easier time? The only way I can thing of is to be able to use SAS to lock onto target, but say I’m using a drone, is there another way? Because my main problem is that I keep missing ports. How can this be fixed?

OK so i have been looking for a way to mathematically figure out how to rendezvous with anther spacecraft with out using the map as a challenge and i have been reading on Wikipedia on orbital rendezvous, and i think i have come to an partial understanding of it but i am not sure. so here is what i know that i have to do. first i have to go either higher or lower than the target, phasing orbits, and then at a certain moment i have to speed up to catch up with the target when in a matching intersection, and then after the burn i have to point retrograde on target mode on navball and fire at closest approach when i get to the separation distance. now here is the article that i have been reading and i partially understand it except for the ARC-TAN, SINE, TAN. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_phasing so its just the arc tan, sine and tan that get me off cause i have no idea what they are

Here's the story Jeb is on EVA in an elliptical orbit, with around 43% fuel, Pe is around 90 km, Ap is around 10,000 km, and I need to rendezvous with him using only tier 2.5 technology, how? I need help. EDIT: Jeb only has 34% fuel left.

To quote mrenigma03, the original creator of this mod: "Miss your old TI calculator? Tired of guessing at rendezvous angles? Well good news - Jeb taped his old calculator on the side of his ship with those nosy scientists on the ground being none the wiser!" Click on "?" on the in-game menu for a manual describing how to use this mod. Or here's a video by Charlie Garcia: Or Hadlock: Download here! Source If you wish to use Protractor without requiring the part on your ships, I highly suggest you try malah's StockPlugins: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99869 CLEAN OUT ALL PROTRACTOR FILES BEFORE UPGRADING! NEW INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS: Unzip the Protractor folder to your GameData\ folder in the main game directory. The resulting path should be ...\GameData\Protractor\... Note that the part has moved earlier in the tech tree with version 2.4.11. This shouldn't cause issues, but you may have to research it again in the R&D. Changes in 2.5.1 (5/15/15) * Fixed bug due to change in API behaviour. Was involving all engines in the burn time calculations. Will now only consider active and operational engines, so burn times should work as before, again. * The KSP-AVC .version file now has a maximum supported KSP version set to 1.0.*, as I expect it will not break with that version line, and it will be less annoying this way. Changes in 2.5.0.2 (5/1/15) * Version bump for KSP 1.0.2. Recompiled and updated versions. Changes in 2.5.0.1 (5/1/15) * Version bump for KSP 1.0.1. Recompiled and updated versions. Changes in 2.5.0 (4/27/15) * Changes for KSP version 1.0. Incremented version to 2.5.0. The release of KSP 1.0 deserves at least a minor version bump. Congratulations to Squad for this important milestone! * Various fixes to accommodate API changes. Changes in 2.4.16 (2/27/15) * Fixed bug where Toolbar button would disappear when another ship with protractor would exit physics range (OnDestroy got called, for whatever reason). * Added CKAN support. A .netkan file was added to the sources, and submitted to netkan. Changes in 2.4.15 (12/16/14) - Who Needs Nodes Edition! * Incremented version number to v2.4.15. * Recompiled with KSP 0.90 and updated KSP version in .version file. * Removed obsolete, now dead, code, which was using deprecated API calls. Changes in 2.4.14 (10/24/14) * Added estimated burn time to delta-V display to help with timing burns correctly. Clicking on the delta-V column header will show an estimated burn time for the estimated delta-V. You will want to stop at the correct closest approach distance, and not necessarily when this reaches 0. When the throttle is off, uses max thrust. Otherwise, uses the current throttle setting for the current thrust. * Cleaned up the init sequence properly to get rid of any and all related errors (such as the toolbar button disappearing). Hopefully. * Closest approach line will only appear when the current trajectory is not already an intercept with the destination SoI. Changes in 2.4.13 (10/08/14) * Updated version number and recompiled with KSP 0.25. * Fixed problem with initialization happening too late, after it was needed. This fixes the non-functional non-Toolbar icon, as well as a problem with opening it from the Toolbar button. Changes in 2.4.12 (8/11/14) * Fixed a NullRef during startup that just happened to also be causing another bug I was trying to fix with the Advanced mode. Changes in 2.4.11 (8/11/14) * Borrowed some code from MechJeb2 (which is GPL3) for switching GUI skins. Added a new button right before the help button called "Settings" where the skin can be switched. One of these is the Unity default theme. * Moved the Protractor parts to Flight Control in science/career mode. It is now available earlier. It is also now 400 funds, down from what I felt was on the high side. * Replaced some code for SI postfixes, and parsing seconds into a date/time string which comes from MechJeb2 (also GPL3). The times are now in a different format which should be clearer (but slightly longer). Added font metrics. * Other tidbits. For complete changes, see github. Changes in 2.4.10 (7/26/14) * Updated version number and recompiled with KSP 0.24.2. Changes in 2.4.9 (7/24/14) * Updated version number and recompiled with KSP 0.24.1 and Toolbar 1.7.5. Changes in 2.4.8 (7/23/14) * Updated version number and recompiled with KSP 0.24 and Toolbar 1.7.4. Changes in 2.4.7 (6/14/14) * Added (optional) support for blizzy78's Toolbar. If you have it installed, it will be used. Otherwise, it will behave as it always has. Changes in 2.4.6 (6/14/14) * Fixed ModuleEnginesFX support. * Added support for Kerbal time. It will use whichever your game is set to. Changes in 2.4.5 (2/11/14) *added support for ModuleEnginesFx (used by mods like Atomic Engines) (I hope!) Changes in 2.4.4 (12/28/13) *updated for KSP 0.23 Changes in 2.4.3 (10/16/13) *updated for KSP 0.22 and added to tech tree for campaign mode License information: All code (except ToolbarWrapper) released under GNU GPL license 3. Source is here: https://github.com/RealGrep/protractor. ToolbarWrapper is Copyright Maik Shreiber, released under the BSD 2-Clause License. Models courtesy of Shanakin over at the SA forums, released under MIT license Thanks to Eryxias over at the SA forums for the minimize icons. Thanks to r4m0n and The_Duck for code for thrust/mass and delta-v spent. Thanks to r4mon, The_Duck and the entire MechJeb2 team for skin change code and a few other tidbits of borrowed code (which are GPL3). Thanks to adammada for line rendering code Thanks to three03 from SA for the color scheme Special thanks to the goons in #KSPOfficial and the KSP thread at SA for all their testing, suggestions and patience. And obviously, thanks to the original author, mrenigma03, for writing this nice program. If you come back, let me know and we can transition this back to you, if you'd like. His source is here: https://github.com/mrenigma03/protractor