Tips and tricks for docking small-large objects in orbit.

[Sharpy]

For a moment, forget the physics of the KSP, and I'll teach you docking by navball alone.

You can treat it as a minigame.

First, make sure you're in the Target mode. Click the speed indicator over the navball till it reads "Target". Rightclick the right docking port and pick it as target, then rightclick your docking port and select "control from here". Rotate your craft so that your port is roughly parallel to the target port (so that when they touch, they bind). Switch RCS on.

Now comes the minigame. It's played on the navball in its entirety. You don't really need to look at the screen.

Actors: Center of Navball (CoN), the Target Marker (TM), and the Prograde and Retrograde markers (PM, RM)

Rules of the game (again, forget physics.):

- Burning prograde (H or just shift, to use main engine) pulls the PM towards CoN, and pushes RM away from CoN.It also increases your SPEED value. Burning retrograde (N) is the opposite: pulls RM, pushes PM away.

The lower your speed, the stronger the influence.

- Sideways translation (IJKL) pushes the PM up/down/left/right.

- TM crawls across the navball in direction opposite of PM.

- your goal is to line up CoN, PM and TM in one point, with zero distance and zero velocity.

That's about all the rules. Now, how to play?

First, accelerate towards the target (H) so that you get the prograde marker visible at all. Hopefully, the target marker is visible too. Make sure you're moving slowly, so that you don't need to burn a ton of fuel to move around, and you dock, not crash.

Then, using IJKL move the PM to be roughly on the opposite side of TM as the CoN. This will make TM crawl towards the CoN.

Once CoN and TM are lined up, use IJKL to line up PM with the two. Then just use H/N to adjust the speed, and control the alignment of the three.

If everything falls apart, retreat (N) and try again.

Once the electromagnet catches you, disable SAS (T) and let the magnet work its magic.

 

The only times you need to look out of the navball are:

- first, turning to align heading towards the plane of the docking port

- peek at the distance

- make sure the ports bind, and not some other elements knock, if the ports aren't the most extended parts of the ship and station - if you placed them in a fancy way. But generally, the whole game is played in the navball.

[Spricigo]

22 hours ago, Sharpy said:

- Burning prograde (H or just shift, to use main engine) pulls the PM towards CoN, and pushes RM away from CoN.It also increases your SPEED value. Burning retrograde (N) is the opposite: pulls RM, pushes PM away.

[clarification needed] 

Usually by 'burning prograde/retrograde' people means 'align prograde/retrograde mark with center of navball and burn' .  While there you just mean 'go foward/rearward'.   Also 'foward/rearward'  will very with where you are pointing. 

BTW:  "Forget the physics"  it's probably the worst advice on how to deal with with a physics simulator. The irony it's that you used it right before a long explanation about the physics of docking maneuvers. 

[Sharpy]

56 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

[clarification needed] 

Usually by 'burning prograde/retrograde' people means 'align prograde/retrograde mark with center of navball and burn' .  While there you just mean 'go foward/rearward'.   Also 'foward/rearward'  will very with where you are pointing. 

BTW:  "Forget the physics"  it's probably the worst advice on how to deal with with a physics simulator. The irony it's that you used it right before a long explanation about the physics of docking maneuvers. 

Well, whatever you call the directions you activate with HNIJKL - RCS thrusters.

And truly, instead of trying to think how the craft moves, which is immensely complex and bound to cause you making mistakes reducing the operation to a minigame played in the navball (with however it's bound to physics being entirely out of your mind) makes the operation quite easy.

"Push or pull a marker", "move marker up or down", "line markers up", "make marker move, by placing another marker on its opposite side" - while all these are results of the in-game physics, you don't need to think about them that way. Think of them as arbitrary rules of a silly minigame of moving the markers. Quite simple too.

Drat, had I known this all some 20 years ago, you could expect me writing a docking game for Amiga.

Edited August 3, 2016 by Sharpy

[Spricigo]

32 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

Well, whatever you call the directions you activate with HNIJKL - RCS thrusters.

Cmon... It's not how I call the directions,  it's how the game call the directions,  be it In the navball  or According control imputs. 

I may call HNJIKL directions "Diane, Frank,  Lauren,  Rick,  Roger,  and  Ursula",  but it may cause problems to anyone unfamiliar with it.  Specially when one notice the initials and associate with "forward,  rearward,  rigth,  left, up and down"  but in my name scheme Frank go rearward,  ursula goes right and so on. 

[Spricigo]

51 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

And truly, instead of trying to think how the craft moves, which is immensely complex and bound to cause you making mistakes reducing the operation to a minigame played in the navball (with however it's bound to physics being entirely out of your mind) makes the operation quite easy.

"Push or pull a marker", "move marker up or down", "line markers up", "make marker move, by placing another marker on its opposite side" - while all these are results of the in-game physics, you don't need to think about them that way. Think of them as arbitrary rules of a silly minigame of moving the markers. Quite simple too.

Drat, had I known this all some 20 years ago, you could expect me writing a docking game for Amiga.

The Physical Rules are the rules of the game.  No matter how strongly you try to pretend otherwise. 

Don't get me wrong,  by all means look at it as a minigame if that make it simple for you. My point it's that it change absolutely nothing about the Gameplay.  You are 'solving'  what was never a problem to begin with.