Ideas to surface dock this?

[Herp]

Hey there,

Anyone has an idea how to dock these things on minmus surface? I rebuilt the fuel transfer rover already several times, adding more docking ports on different heights (doe a few millimeter really matter?), I tried going in slowly, slamming in hard, getting the nose up a bit with engines, getting it up a bit with landing gear,.. If anyone could tell me how to connect this fuel rover to this mining base

I've never docked two things by the way, I read about "controlling from here on one dock" and "setting as target on the other" so I did that.

http://oi67.tinypic.com/5eaj6h.jpg

[sal_vager]

I'd have to test this myself but it looks like they may not work due to clipping, docking ports can be sensitive to other parts in them.

[SR]

It is best to use one docking port, and test the connection on Kerbin to see if they are the right height, if not move up/down.

or use the Klaw

Edited January 28, 2016 by SR

[wibou7]

Milimeters DOES matter. Surface docking is hard, especially using landing strut; their springs are subject to local gravity and will not be of the same height on Kerbin compared to minmus.

First thing first : does your setup works (i.e. can dock) on Kerbin, on the launch pad? If not, it will probably don't work on minmus, although shaking and bumping into the port MAY eventually achieve docking.

Hints for future design : ALWAYS test extensively each port with each other port on the Launchpad. And keep in mind that landing strut will not give consistent result on bodies with different gravity. Locking them might help but you'd be better using rover wheel instead.

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by wibou7
Remove tons of useless space... my mobile browser sucks

[Plusck]

Putting an odd set of landing legs lower down can help. Leave them retracted to start with and if it doesn't connect, extend them one at a time so that you can jostle around.

[Foxster]

2 hours ago, SR said:

...or use the Klaw

This. 

[Snark]

Unfortunately, it's stupidly difficult to dock things together on the surface of a planet, which makes building bases and such a lot harder than it feels like it ought to be.  IMHO, this is one of the biggest remaining holes in the game, and I'd really like to see Squad address it at some point.

You can use the Klaw, as has been pointed out... the drawback being that it's incredibly buggy and kraken-prone; liable to crash your game and corrupt your save file.  I've sworn off using it at all, for any purpose, ever; every once in a while I weaken and try it out, to my regret again.  Just too much grief.

(I'm also strongly prejudiced against it for the purely irrational, subjective reason that it just doesn't make any sense; for me, it totally breaks that willing-suspension-of-disbelief thing.  Grabbing asteroids?  Fine.  Docking to something and transferring fuel through it?  Nope.)

By far my favorite way to dock things together on the surface of a planet is to use the Kerbal Attachment System mod.  Among other goodies, one of the features it includes is a handy little "connector port" part, which you can attach radially just about anywhere.  The way you use it is, have a connector port on your rover and one on your base.  Drive your rover so it's within a couple of dozen meters of the base.  Send out a kerbal on EVA.  Right-click connector port on rover, choose "Link".  Right-click connector port on base, click "Link".  Presto, they're now connected by a nice-looking pipe and will act as if they're one ship, same as if they were docked.  To disconnect, just right-click on either of the ports and choose "Unlink."

Simple, elegant, easy to use; it even looks cool. Plus, it gives your EVA kerbals something to do.  I absolutely love this feature, and really wish they'd make it part of the stock game.  Maybe not all of KAS, but at least this one thing is a  great (and simple!) solution to a major hole in the game.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Snark

[Foxster]

I tend to find the Klaw just about OKish for quick things like grabbing some fuel. Beyond that it is, as you say, a nightmare. Definitely don't want to use it for a permanent connection. 

[mattssheep4]

On 1/28/2016 at 0:37 PM, wibou7 said:

Milimeters DOES matter. Surface docking is hard, especially using landing strut; their springs are subject to local gravity and will not be of the same height on Kerbin compared to minmus.

First thing first : does your setup works (i.e. can dock) on Kerbin, on the launch pad? If not, it will probably don't work on minmus, although shaking and bumping into the port MAY eventually achieve docking.

Hints for future design : ALWAYS test extensively each port with each other port on the Launchpad. And keep in mind that landing strut will not give consistent result on bodies with different gravity. Locking them might help but you'd be better using rover wheel instead.

 

You can lock the suspension on landing legs to help with this.