An illustrated docking tutorial

[Snark]

For any who are interested:

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by Snark
Updated link to new posting location

[Alshain]

Looks good so far but the accepted term for the procedure is Rendezvous, not intercept. The point where two ships cross at a closest distance is intersect, not intercept, based on in-game text (I honestly don't know if that is what the real space agencies call it)

In your fine tuning section you might also mention if your relative velocity is very slow, you can fine tune it in the opposite direction, by 'pulling' the prograde marker to the pink circle and slightly increasing relative velocity.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Alshain

[Snark]

Looks good so far but the accepted term for the procedure is Rendezvous, not intercept. The point where two ships cross at a closest distance is intersect, not intercept, based on in-game text (I honestly don't know if that is what the real space agencies call it)

In your fine tuning section you might also mention if your relative velocity is very slow, you can fine tune it in the opposite direction, by 'pulling' the prograde marker to the pink circle and slightly increasing relative velocity.

Yah, I suppose "rendezvous" makes more sense-- I'd used "intercept" because I think of "rendezvous" as encompassing both "be in the same place at the same time" and "match velocities". I was looking for a term that encompassed only the former but not the latter.

That said, "rendezvous" is a common enough term that I suppose I should stick with it.

Good point about the prograde thrusting for low velocities-- will add that.

[mudkest]

Nice guide, but I find teh following step for matching velocities a lot easier: when you have an intersect flag, set up a manoeuvre node there to match the orbit of your target as close as possible. That way you have a nice guide(manoeuvre marker) for what direction to burn and how much delta-v you need to match speed with target. Switch navball to target mode and look at target velocity to judge when to cut your burn instead of using the node, but if you set up the node correct those are pretty close anyway.

I can make some pictures later if its not clear what I mean

[_stilgar_]

Very good article, even though I've docked a lot of ships, I still learned something from it Thanks!

[Snark]

Nice guide, but I find teh following step for matching velocities a lot easier: when you have an intersect flag, set up a manoeuvre node there to match the orbit of your target as close as possible. That way you have a nice guide(manoeuvre marker) for what direction to burn and how much delta-v you need to match speed with target. Switch navball to target mode and look at target velocity to judge when to cut your burn instead of using the node, but if you set up the node correct those are pretty close anyway.

I can make some pictures later if its not clear what I mean

No, I get what you mean. I've done it a time or two when I had a high-velocity intersect and not a lot of fuel left, and wanted to see before setting up the rendezvous whether I'd have enough dV to match velocities.

In practice, though, I almost never do it-- it's just not worth the extra fiddling to set up the maneuver node, and it's also not useful for making sure that when I coast to a stop relative to the target, I'm a dozen meters away and not a kilometer-- fine-tuning the approach requires some off-axis thrust, which will just send the maneuver-prograde indicator all higgledy-piggledy. And it's very rarely the case that I'm on the last dregs of fuel when I'm setting up a rendezvous, so precise advance knowledge of dV requirement isn't super necessary.