Space Station Orbit Issues

[Rapturist]

Good Morning everyone!

I just successfully docked something to my first space station for the first time .

So a couple questions, at some point in time I tried to rotate my station so its docking ports meet up easier with the space tug I sent up, I had it set to docking mode by accident and it linearly moved away. I know theres SAS and RCS for halting rotational movement, is there anything I can do to halt extremely small amounts of linear movement? I tried with RCS but I did not place nearly enough, and its not throughout the hull so when used it kind of rotates the station sometimes.

Second question, when docking in the future I might have issues where my craft docks too quickly and imparts some linear momentum onto the space station, kind of ties back to my first issue is there any way have a more stable space station?

Thanks!

[StormKat]

RCS will work in this case as well. Use the translation keys H, N, J, I, K, and L.

If you have done the "Control from here" option on the docking port, a little H to speed you up and a little N to slow you down.

[Sirrobert]

Congratulations on your first docking! That's one of the hardest things in the game, and once you can do it, the rest of the game is open to you. You can now build massive structures in space

A tiny lateral speed change will only change the orbit a little bit, you might aswel ignore it.

And for controlling docking speed: You can change your speed with RSC with H and N (H is forward thrust, N is backward thrust). Similarly, you can do all lateral movements with RSC: I is down, K is up (reverted controlls, like airplane) J for left, L for right. All this is relavent to the Navball. In order to also get these controlls relative to the screen, change camera mode (V key) to Chase mode.

A good way to practice docking is to send up a single rocket, with a tip you can seperate from the rest of the rocket (with docking ports). Set the tip up with RSC. Make sure it's light and ballanced: Probe body, RSC tank on either side, RSC thrusters 4 way symetry on each RSC tank, and docking ports on each side. This is a perfectly ballanced RSC probe, very easy to manouver. Perfect for practicing. Don't forget some static solar panels, and maybe some small batteries so it has power.

Just fire it up into orbit, decouple the probe and practice flying around the rest of the rocket and docking (make sure the main rocket also has a probe body, and both can use SAS to keep it stable. Don't forget some solar panels/batteries on the main rocket either)

[strongest_2hu]

Remember that quickly entering then leaving timewarp is an easy/cheaty way to stop all vessel rotation.

Given that according to your description the station is fairly unmaneuverable, you probably should reconsider maneuvering it to your tug rather than the other way around.