Why is the MechJeb Docking Autopilot so slow?

[NoXion]

So I'm trying to use a small taxi craft to retrieve Jeb from a ship that I put in Kerbin orbit:

But it's being really incredibly slow. Am I missing something? I remember successfully docking once before using the Autopilot, and it wasn't this bad.

I wish it was easier to learn how to manoeuvre for docking in this game, because it's really limiting my options as I'm limited to launching vehicles all in one piece.

[Kerbal01]

Real life docking takes 6-48 hours. Chill

[Capt. Hunt]

Increase the speed limit.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Capt. Hunt

[DStaal]

I've rarely had it take more than a few minutes to dock using the autopilot.  Make sure you have enough RCS control for your vehicle, and if that's not enough increase the speed limit.

(Hard to tell what's going on in your picture - it's to low a resolution to read any of the displays.)

[NoXion]

12 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I've rarely had it take more than a few minutes to dock using the autopilot.  Make sure you have enough RCS control for your vehicle, and if that's not enough increase the speed limit.

(Hard to tell what's going on in your picture - it's to low a resolution to read any of the displays.)

It's a clickable thumbnail.

In any case, I managed to do it last night. I think the problem was that the RCS thrusters I initially used were too weak. I reverted the flight to the VAB and swapped them out for beefier ones and that seems to have done the trick. Only problem now is that the monoprop gets used up very quickly - I just about managed to dock before running out.  Might have to see if I have any RCS thrusters that are more fuel efficient.

[sarbian]

15 hours ago, Capt. Hunt said:

Increase the speed limit.

This

[DStaal]

37 minutes ago, sarbian said:

This

If you don't have the thrust to accelerate to the speed limit in a reasonable amount of time, increasing the speed limit doesn't help.  Check both.     (And sometimes you have the thrust in two axis, but not in a third...  I've managed to get MechJeb to successfully dock with *no* fore/aft RCS thrusters, on occasion.)

[maceemiller]

Either dock manually or use Navy fish's docking mod....problem over...never used mechjeb and never will, not to say it's bad but I prefer more hands on control  

Edited May 10, 2017 by maceemiller
Spelling

[sarbian]

15 hours ago, maceemiller said:

Either dock manually or use Navy fish's docking mod....problem over...never used mechjeb and never will, not to say it's bad but I prefer more hands on control  

So dock manually or dock manually ? Any other advice ?

[Streetwind]

I hear docking manually is also an option, @sarbian!

[artwhaley]

On the vessel you plan to dock TO select control from the docking port you want to arrive at, and set the docking port of the other ship to dock as the target...  then set SmartASS to target mode and select 'target +'.   Now the target vessel will orient itself for a straight in approach.   That will save you time on either a manual or automatic docking.    

 

After you've done THAT....  on the docking vessel you can set the SmartASS to 'Target parallel minus' mode and a manual docking is practically cheating.  The other vessel points at you and your vessel maintains the right orientation.  

[The Flying Kerbal]

Hi NoXion,

It's seldom I feel in a position to offer much advice on this site, there are so very many people here who are light years ahead of me when it comes to playing KSP.  However... I do understand when you say how difficult it is to learn to dock two vessels manually.  I too struggled with this for months; I'd go into orbit and do as I was told on videos and in messages on this and other forums, but still I just couldn't bring it off.

And then one day when I was messing about in the Demo version of KSP, I managed to rendezvous Jeb with an old satellite in LKO.  I couldn't dock with it obviously, there's no docking ports in the Demo, but I did the next best thing... I smashed a solar panel on the satellite with Jeb's Command Pod (the insurance company STILL hasn't paid out on this )!

The very next night I fired up KSP 1.2, built a couple of ships with docking ports, and sent Jeb and Val into space to see if I could not just rendezvous, but actually dock the two craft.  It was fiddly and I spent at least two hours trying to line them up properly, but finally I did it!

I then discovered that once you do it once, it really is much much easier the second time.  I won't go into details about how to do it, there are plenty of good videos, tutorials and messages on this site to do that, but all I will say is that - for me - when I'm getting really close to the target, I find it a big help to press Caps Lock for fine control.  Until I figured out this docking thing I was getting nowhere in KSP, indeed I was close to quitting the game, but having struggled for so long, when I did manage to do it, I felt ten feet tall, and am now finding things a lot easier.

So I urge you to not just give up on learning to dock manually, I've no doubt if you stick at it you'll learn how to do it in no time at all.

That looks like an interesting little ship in the image you've posted BTW.

[genericeventhandler]

3 hours ago, artwhaley said:

On the vessel you plan to dock TO select control from the docking port you want to arrive at, and set the docking port of the other ship to dock as the target...  then set SmartASS to target mode and select 'target +'.   Now the target vessel will orient itself for a straight in approach.   That will save you time on either a manual or automatic docking.    

 

After you've done THAT....  on the docking vessel you can set the SmartASS to 'Target parallel minus' mode and a manual docking is practically cheating.  The other vessel points at you and your vessel maintains the right orientation.  

Before you finally dock, you need to turn both ships to hold orientation or they will both try to over correct. 

Navy fish Docking Indicator + Mechjeb for manual dockings, I hardly ever let mechjeb dock anymore, it's very wasteful on rcs the way it always tries to go for the optimal straight in approach.

The best way I've found is to set the top node of the station to + Normal, and have the force roll button checked,  now if you set the docking ports to square on in the VAB, the ports will be 

Top = - Normal

Button = +Normal

Kerbin facing = + Radial

Space facing = - Radial

and Pro / retrograde for the two others.

Makes docking so much easier. 

GEH

[Ser]

On 10.05.2017 at 4:05 AM, NoXion said:

I wish it was easier to learn how to manoeuvre for docking in this game, because it's really limiting my options as I'm limited to launching vehicles all in one piece.

As a kind of off-topic, here's an instruction on manual orbital rendezvous made with great detail, in case you missed this one: 

I've realized that I use the same principles myself but without the Docking Port Alignment indicator mod.

[bigcalm]

For MechJeb...

Obviously, get close enough first.  I normally go for a rendezvous of 60 metres unless the vessels are particularly big.

First vessel - select "control from here" on the docking port, click on the remote docking port and "select target".  In MechJeb menus, go to Smart A.S.S. and click TGT+

Switch to the second vessel - and do exactly the same again.

The vessels should rotate (well, as long as they had reaction wheels) to line up their docking ports.  Very large stations you want to adopt a different method as they're a bit fragile.

Finally, switch to whichever vessel has the RCS capabilities and go to Docking Autopilot and click Autopilot On.

That should be pretty much it.  If one of the vessels is a bit twitchy, you can switch to it and set Smart A.S.S to Kill Rot instead and attempt to line it up manually - MechJeb will be controlling the other vessel.