In game docking tutorial

[Spricigo]

7 minutes ago, Silverwood said:

 Oh and clicking on te target ship you do not get an option to select that docking port. You can select your own, just not the target craft.

I sometimes can't target the docking port if I have the vessel targeted. Clearing/changing the target allows me to get the docking port.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

40 minutes ago, Silverwood said:

Ok thanks for that.

Just tried again, before your post, got as far as the 100m away bit, but just could not get the ship aligned. Either shot off too far or the wrong way round! I can see this is going to take several hours/ days to complete. Oh and clicking on te target ship you do not get an option to select that docking port. You can select your own, just not the target craft.

You're actually doing a lot better than I did, when I first tried the tutorial.

A hundred meters away is excellent. You're right on top of it. If you start drifting off to one side, turn your ship to prograde and press N to slow down (or just the opposite; turn retrograde and press H). Keep slowing down until your relative velocity drops to zero again. Now hit Target hold again to point at the other vessel. Then switch control to the target vessel and hit Target hold again. Both ships are now once again pointed at one another and, relatively, not moving. Now switch back to your original vessel and start easing forward again. It'll be a bit tedious, and it sorta is, but just stay with it. You'll get it, and each time afterward will get easier and easier, until eventually, you won't be able to remember why you had such a tough time in the first place.

For selecting the target ship's docking port, it's gotten tougher since 1.2 came out, but @Spricigo's trick is a good one.

1 hour ago, Silverwood said:

Wow..as always you are great at replies and I thank you all. Especially the guy at work on your 'special' holiday. By the way how are you getting on without us? (??)

Well, the culture certainly went downhill, but the food sure got better. 

[Silverwood]

Well I have come to the conclusion that I am doomed to never finish this one.

I have tried about 6 - 7 times now, and on the last few occasions this has happened:

On on I got as far as the final orbit move and then the Z key no longer fired the engines, and the R key did not work the RCS, everything else worked ok.

Restarted again - got as far as the orbit move, got a perfect intersection of around 17m, fired the engine completed the move. Used warp and checked the distance - 70m so checked the view, no sign of the target, warped a bit longer 30m, again no sign, warped again 20m, no sign.No idea why this is so hard or why this tutorial is playing up!

I am going to restart the PC and try once more. After that well, I shall try in career mode with two ships and the written info you have given me.

In the interim - if anyone has any idea why this is happening - please tell me!!!

[felcas]

3 hours ago, Silverwood said:

Well I have come to the conclusion that I am doomed to never finish this one.

Don't give up, docking is really difficult to master. I did it abou a dozen times and I still get beaten. Last time I had to work my docking over Mun  for about half an hour and 2 tries before I could make it. But once you manage it you will enjoy great satisfaction, hehehhehe I jump of the chair and yell YESSSSSS YESSSSS YESSSSS every time hahahhahahaha

 

3 hours ago, Silverwood said:

On on I got as far as the final orbit move and then the Z key no longer fired the engines, and the R key did not work the RCS, everything else worked ok.

 Keep the RESOURCES window open, keep an eye for the MONOPROPELANT and the BATTERIES. If monop. is over obvious you can't use the RCS anymore but I don't know if the light will turn on or off. If batteries is expended you can't use the reaction wheel anymore too. Also you may accidentally time accelerate (>) and I guess this may disengage some controls? Happened with me some times.
 

 

3 hours ago, Silverwood said:

...70m so checked the view, no sign of the target, warped a bit longer 30m, again no sign, warped again 20m, no sign.

Try to use the F4 key, if you mistakenly toggled it, it will turn off the brackets to identify. You can also just point your ship to the target using the attittude indicator, point the attitude indicator to the pink sphere with the dot in the middle, then position the camera from behind your ship and you should see the other ship in front of yours.

 

3 hours ago, Silverwood said:

In the interim - if anyone has any idea why this is happening - please tell me!!!

I also suggest you using this mod, it helps a lot you you understand how it works.

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by felcas

[Silverwood]

Ok - sounds good.

I did retry - and I have come to the conclusion today is a bad day for docking.

On this attempt, all worked fine, then at around 70KM from the target on the map, I changed to camera, and sure enough clicking the target icon, there was the box! So no idea why it finished before.

Now.as they say..a funny thing happened to me today... I changed to map again and then thought I would thrust to start to get a bit closer, well instead of Z I hit space... you can guess what happened next.

Oh and on final thing, in this tutorial you cannot control the target ship.

With the mod is it easy to install?

[bewing]

You can control it once you get within 2.2km of it.

 

[Silverwood]

1 minute ago, bewing said:

You can control it once you get within 2.2km of it.

 

Ok - only it says this is disabled in this tutorial.

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Silverwood said:

With the mod is it easy to install?

 basically you download the compressed file and extract to your /Gamedata folder and that is it. Some mods have other mods as dependencies which are more often bundled together.

There is this thread for mods updated to KSP 1.3 sorted by category or you may look at SpaceDock . Just be careful, its easy to dive too deep into mods and be overwhelmed by all the extra options.

[felcas]

1 hour ago, Silverwood said:

Oh and on final thing, in this tutorial you cannot control the target ship.

With the mod is it easy to install?

I thought you already tried them. 

Mods enhace the game to another level. Unless you are a purist that prefer to play the game exactly how the developers made it, you will simply LOVE mods. There are all kinds and flavors for your delight, it is like drugs, it is difficult to stop once you start. After I tried lots of them I just reinstalled and now I run only what I few it is really necessary.

I HIGHLY ADVICE YOU to start from the begin with CKAN, this is not a mod, but a program that helps you search for mods, install and keep track of what you have installed, AND IT INSTALL THE MODS FOR YOU.

 

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

6 hours ago, Silverwood said:

Well I have come to the conclusion that I am doomed to never finish this one.

@felcas has great advice about not giving up. Trust me when I tell you that you'll dock 2 ships together, then do it again and again and, eventually, you'll be wondering why you had such a tough time with it. That being said, I actually did quit the docking tutorial. I got frustrated and thought I'd never do it. It's one of the reasons I went back and did it later. I wanted to see why it was so difficult. And the verdict was; it wasn't difficult. And docking hadn't gotten any harder or easier (nothing does, really). I just had experience now, so I'd gotten better at it. And you will too.

So, with that out of the way, just a quick alternative. I remember that I kept running out of fuel in the tutorial. It's plenty once you've got more experience, but early on it makes it tough. Also, as you've discovered, you can't quicksave (because of this, I didn't even know about F5/F9 for a couple of weeks: I had already crashed on the Mun a bunch of times and would revert flight back to launch and try again: I thought that was how the game worked; how's that for stupid?) This makes it even tougher. So, if you feel like you have the rendezvous part down pretty well, there's an easier way to work on the docking itself. Just leave the tutorial for now and go to your career game (or sandbox if you haven't unlocked the necessary parts) and build a really simple ship. And it can be really simple. It doesn't even need engines. Just a command pod and pilot (or a probe core), battery, monopropellent, RCS thrusters, and a docking port (a couple of solar panels wouldn't hurt in case it takes a while). Send the ship to the launchpad, hit Alt/F12 and select Cheats (a dirty word, I know), and select Set Orbit. Your ship is now in space. Now go back to the space center and send the same ship to the launchpad again (or a different one, if you prefer) and hit Alt/F12 again. But this time, in the Cheats menu, hit Rendezvous and select your ship that's already in orbit. Your new ship will be sent into space 150 meters away from your first ship. A perfect rendezvous. Now you can quicksave and start working on your docking. You've got all the time you want. Have at it.

Of course, if you really want the satisfaction of completing the tutorial, I definitely understand that. It's one of the biggest draws of this game, for me. The tremendous sense of satisfaction after completing a mission. I don't think any other game can match it.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Cpt Kerbalkrunch

[Weywot8]

Like Cpt. Kerbalcrunch, learned to dock outside the tutorials.  Having said that, it seems that the latest version seems much better than when I first started out. I still find that the instructions can throw you off. 

Step by step pics below - skip over the parts you already know but I put it all in because I can't figure out how you ran out of fuel/monoprop. I had alot of both left over. You can probably work out what went wrong by comparing the steps. 

Hope it helps

[Spricigo]

@Cpt Kerbalkrunch offered good advice about how to practice (rendezvous/)docking. I offer a craft that I think can fulfil the requirements for the task with just a few modifications. (the craft was originally offered for a emergency refuelling mission).  Sorry to not do the modifications myself, I'm unable to log at KSP at the moment.

1. Remove the liquid fuel from the last Stage
2. Replace the Advanced Grabing Unit with a Clamp-O Tron Jr
3. Put two Place-Anywhere 7 Linear RCS Port, near the Clamp-O Tron, in radial symmetry facing up.
4. Make sure all RCS ports have the actuation toggles for Pitch, Yaw and Roll off (need Advanced Tweakables turned enabled on settings)
5. Remove stage 2

Alternatively, put the Clamp-O Tron- inside a fairing and launch the vessel normally  (instructions in the page, launch procedure so easy that my cat can do it) and a second one. They will end similar orbits but not equal, from there you can practice rendezvous and docking (have multiple and frequent saves)

[Silverwood]

Hi Guys,

Well at last I have managed to dock! It was not in the tutorial though. In sandbox I created the same tutorial - 2 ships on in higher orbit, anyhow this meant I could save as I went. In the end I did not need to reload, I have to say the instructions given really helped. So to any new players - believe me you can dock, you just need to practice.

Thanks again.

Keith

Edited July 5, 2017 by Silverwood

[felcas]

1 hour ago, Silverwood said:

Hi Guys,

Well at last I have managed to dock! It was not in the tutorial though. In sandbox I created the same tutorial - 2 ships on in higher orbit, anyhow this meant I could save as I went. In the end I did not need to reload, I have to say the instructions given really helped. So to any new players - believe me you can dock, you just need to practice.

Thanks again.

Keith

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

CONGRATS!
Isn't it very satisfactory?

[Silverwood]

11 hours ago, felcas said:

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

CONGRATS!
Isn't it very satisfactory?

Yes I would have to say so.

Watching the two ships edge close certainly gets the pulse going!

My main game is in career mode, none of my pilots have yet advanced enough to get the target SAS mode, So docking is limited to sandbox at present.

13 hours ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

@felcas has great advice about not giving up. Trust me when I tell you that you'll dock 2 ships together, then do it again and again and, eventually, you'll be wondering why you had such a tough time with it. That being said, I actually did quit the docking tutorial. I got frustrated and thought I'd never do it. It's one of the reasons I went back and did it later. I wanted to see why it was so difficult. And the verdict was; it wasn't difficult. And docking hadn't gotten any harder or easier (nothing does, really). I just had experience now, so I'd gotten better at it. And you will too.

So, with that out of the way, just a quick alternative. I remember that I kept running out of fuel in the tutorial. It's plenty once you've got more experience, but early on it makes it tough. Also, as you've discovered, you can't quicksave (because of this, I didn't even know about F5/F9 for a couple of weeks: I had already crashed on the Mun a bunch of times and would revert flight back to launch and try again: I thought that was how the game worked; how's that for stupid?) This makes it even tougher. So, if you feel like you have the rendezvous part down pretty well, there's an easier way to work on the docking itself. Just leave the tutorial for now and go to your career game (or sandbox if you haven't unlocked the necessary parts) and build a really simple ship. And it can be really simple. It doesn't even need engines. Just a command pod and pilot (or a probe core), battery, monopropellent, RCS thrusters, and a docking port (a couple of solar panels wouldn't hurt in case it takes a while). Send the ship to the launchpad, hit Alt/F12 and select Cheats (a dirty word, I know), and select Set Orbit. Your ship is now in space. Now go back to the space center and send the same ship to the launchpad again (or a different one, if you prefer) and hit Alt/F12 again. But this time, in the Cheats menu, hit Rendezvous and select your ship that's already in orbit. Your new ship will be sent into space 150 meters away from your first ship. A perfect rendezvous. Now you can quicksave and start working on your docking. You've got all the time you want. Have at it.

Of course, if you really want the satisfaction of completing the tutorial, I definitely understand that. It's one of the biggest draws of this game, for me. The tremendous sense of satisfaction after completing a mission. I don't think any other game can match it.

Thanks. I did not realise there was a 'Rendezvous' option. I did use the set orbit to recreate the tutorial, not cheating as the tutorial starts in orbit!

That option does allow you to really work on just the docking side of things. Good idea.