Docking makes me want to kill things.

[Sekonda]

I adore this game. I have many Shapeway models, art works, it's legit. I have mugs too. But I am, honestly, nearly done. I just can't handle docking. It is so unnecessarily difficult and horrifically modeled.. They are supposed to work like magnets in the game right? It's so aggrevating. I spent he last 45 minutes trying to dock, the controls don't conform, my fine controls are just all over the place. I am nearly on the verge of uninstalling it. There has to be a way to forcibly dock ships, can someone tell me before I give up.

I don't really mean that; I love Kerbal. I could never. I'm just angry. But still; likely an RCS design issue. http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/220602-rcs-build-aid Might help.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Sekonda

[Vanamonde]

It's not hard, once you get the hang of it. What specifically is going wrong? Could we see a screenshot of the ships in question?

[Seshins]

what specific problem are you having? renedevous in orbit? docking ports not connecting?

If its the latter sometimes i found turning SAS off would help the docking ports connect.

ninjad.

[Sekonda]

Right I have the SAS off, I figured that out a long time ago. I used to have no issue with this. But I just cannot make it work anymore.

I just spent 90 minutes with it dancing over the lip of my Docking Port Snr, over and over and over, finest dances, over and over and over, but it was never enough to capture, I would try to adjust and apply minimal RCS thrust, never did anything, 90 damn minutes and I had to install Hyperedit and try it over and over and I cannot make it work. It literally, has just worked (typical) but now I'm just frustrated and angry at the game. Is it possible that multiple docking nodes cause other docking nodes to malfunction? I am just incredibly shocked that the Snr port is not literally SUCKING the craft straight in with a bang with a strong magnetic capture. I try to RCS in, have the Docking Port addon in for fine tuning, have Docking mode enabled, other keys labeled on the keyboard ready to go, slowly, slowly, perfect everytime but they just never physically want to co-operate with me. Surely there is a mod that improves upon their physics? Anything at all. I can't have Kerbal be a game that makes me annoyed to play it it's too great for a frustrating problem to be a problem not worth solving.

[BagelRabbit]

I'll echo Vanamode and Seshins here. It sounds as if, though you're coming in pretty well for a docking until the last minute, you begin to lose control when you get too close to the docking port. Fine-controlling things is hard, especially with misplaced (or absent) RCS thrusters or not enough/too much SAS. I've played KSP for thousands of hours, and I still don't have it down to a science.

That being said, without any images or videos, it's difficult to diagnose your problem. For all we know, you could have installed one of the docking adapters upside-down (which is a very common problem, believe it or not). Can you please give us a little more information to work with?

-Upsilon

[EDIT: It sounds as if your problem is actually a known bug with the game that causes docking ports to not want to connect. I think Claw has a bugfix for this, but I can't find it ATM... would anyone be willing to help?]

[HoloYolo]

Do you have a docking port that's different from a Senior on your craft? You have to have the same docking ports on both craft for it to work.

[cantab]

Docking takes some practice and a delicate touch, but I don't feel the game has made it "unnecessarily difficult". If anything the powerful magnets on KSP's docking ports make it easier and more forgiving than in reality, especially with smaller ships. That said there have been outright bugs where docking ports fail to connect; if there's no sign of any magnetism at all and no connection even with extreme precision you've probably had such a bug.

[Sekonda]

I'm not blowing my own trumpet but I've never had a problem with docking before. Was rather proud of how accomplished I was at it. I honestly am beginning to think it's likely I'm dealing with poor RCS design. Let me get some files up.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591585215/BE975D50ADA49A48A261F02FDE7B4271F586805B/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591585103/432DC93AF76AD6992FB114810125A85755EB2386/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591584936/58DD07C4AE1523FC9BB000E36FAD4E2544C2FE21/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591584531/AEDED6437BF3CD66855F77E2BE29D9B3BE869AFA/

There was a period of about five months of not playing during the BETA phase and I had decided to wait until release because of GTA. I'm wondering if I've forgotten my RCS design basics? My part concerned is centred, the module with the tapered end.

[Lelitu]

I'm not blowing my own trumpet but I've never had a problem with docking before. Was rather proud of how accomplished I was at it. I honestly am beginning to think it's likely I'm dealing with poor RCS design. Let me get some files up.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591585215/BE975D50ADA49A48A261F02FDE7B4271F586805B/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591585103/432DC93AF76AD6992FB114810125A85755EB2386/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591584936/58DD07C4AE1523FC9BB000E36FAD4E2544C2FE21/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/442827985591584531/AEDED6437BF3CD66855F77E2BE29D9B3BE869AFA/

There was a period of about five months of not playing during the BETA phase and I had decided to wait until release because of GTA. I'm wondering if I've forgotten my RCS design basics? My part concerned is centred, the module with the tapered end.

It looks to me like there is only one ring of RCS thrusters

right near the docking port, and significantly offset from COM.

That will give excellent rotational control, and nearly no translation control.

Remember, always balance the torque around COM with multiple thruster rings.

Fine control mode will help some, but make it easy with a balanced pairs of rings, or one ring around COM.

[Prime flux]

You also might consider start using Docking port alignment indicator mod http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43901-0-90-Docking-Port-Alignment-Indicator-%28Version-5-0-Updated-01-09-2015%29

Which makes docking a lot easier.

[tater]

Blocking is also a possible issue.

[Sekonda]

You guys are the best community. I'll concentrate on the RCS distribution at first as Lelitu's comment makes sense that the translation control is pretty much non-existent meaning that when I get to that fine control point one end is skipping out over the other.

- - - Updated - - -

Blocking is also a possible issue.

I'm not familiar with the term.

[Jett_Quasar]

I know exactly how you feel; when I first started this game I was afraid to even attempt docking, but it's an essential skill for space exploration and colonization so I persisted and now I have a surefire method. I taught my nephew in about 10 minutes, I'm going to put together a video that can help you, there might already be some out there, but I need to work on my video editing skills anyway...

JR

[tater]

You guys are the best community. I'll concentrate on the RCS distribution at first as Lelitu's comment makes sense that the translation control is pretty much non-existent meaning that when I get to that fine control point one end is skipping out over the other.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not familiar with the term.

If the RCS is too close to another part in a particular direction and the thrust is blocked. But that one set of RCS is nowhere near the CM, which is a huge problem. The build aid looks like a good tool, but you can eyeball it with the CM in the VAB.

[X-SR71]

make sure you place RCS controls in the right places to avoid rotation during translation!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35996-1-0-2-RCS-Build-Aid-v0-7-2

[klesh]

It's not hard, once you get the hang of it.

Totally. I don't even use the docking indicator mod or anything.

[problemecium]

Docking is like riding a bike. The first time you try, you'll spend hours on end falling on your face (at least figuratively) and having to start over and try again, but once you've got it you've pretty much got it. Once you've mastered basic docking, it's not a big step up to other things like multi-docking, docking without RCS, etc.

[LordFerret]

Totally. I don't even use the docking indicator mod or anything.

I prefer a docking camera; Between it and the Navball, it's a breeze... when you've got balanced thrusters that is.

I would suggest to the OP that going into Chase view mode also helps, as it puts your view orientation in alignment with your pitch and yaw controls as when viewed from behind the ship... a starting point in getting oriented.

[selfish_meme]

StockRCSFX I think is the mod you are looking for

[Kerbart]

You also might consider start using Docking port alignment indicator mod http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43901-0-90-Docking-Port-Alignment-Indicator-%28Version-5-0-Updated-01-09-2015%29

Which makes docking a lot easier a trivial exercise.

There, I fixed it for you

[Alshain]

Learn to dock, prove you can do it more than once, install DPAI and stop being annoyed by the process. Real astronauts have instrumentation, why shouldn't you?

[Robotengineer]

Learn to dock, prove you can do it more than once, install DPAI and stop being annoyed by the process. Real astronauts have instrumentation, why shouldn't you?

*whispers* 'Cause it's cheating... */whisper*

[regex]

*whispers* 'Cause it's cheating... */whisper*

It's not even that, it's just not needed. I mean, if you really want to line things up the navball, with all its lines and colors, is right in your face, no need for any other indicator. Learning to read the navball will help immensely with docking.

[FancyMouse]

I guess it's just different style whether using DPAI or not. Without DPAI, my docking maneuver is always approaching to target, meaning that the adjustment will be always translation followed by rotation (so that it points to target again). With DPAI, I'm always having the orientation correct, then it's 3-d translation approach/adjustment.

My feeling is latter uses much less monoprop (I guess mostly because the translation for the always-point-to-target approach will use much monoprop because of the silly SAS). Latter is also taking less attention from me, so that I can dock while chatting with my friends.

[Alshain]

It's not even that, it's just not needed. I mean, if you really want to line things up the navball, with all its lines and colors, is right in your face, no need for any other indicator. Learning to read the navball will help immensely with docking.

Not the case, the stock navball does not have all the information you need without looking at the craft. If you think it does, try doing it from IVA. No cheating an orienting your craft before hand, because that is exactly what the Navball does not have, you have to eyeball the orientation of your craft by looking at the craft itself.