Kerbals stuck in solar orbit

[Zeb Kerman]

I'm bad at the game, and multiple Kerbals of mine are going on one-way trips. I have hundreds of landers that never made the trip to the moons, Space stations that gravity assisted themselves out of orbit, rockets meant only to go up, and down. Most of these vessels don't have docking ports, and if they did, how do I reach them? How do I get the ones without docking ports? Mind you I can't land on any planets or moons yet, due to my lack of skill, but I have the entire science tree unlocked.

[Draalo]

Focus at one problem at a time.

Search this forum, read and try. For example rendevouz and docking. Use the grabbing unit to dock with vessels without a dockingport.

Feel free to ask specific questions here - and provide screenshoots

Watching tutorials on youtube also helps understanding orbital mechanics.

Watch livestreams, you can ask in the chat if you dont understand why the streamer is doing an action or why actions have been taken in a specific order.

 

And welcome to the forum

[bewing]

Well, if you are bad at the game then you can always get yourself deeper into trouble by trying to fix things.

But if you just want to rescue Kerbals, they don't need docking ports. In fact, they can mostly rescue themselves. Especially if there is another ship fairly close-by -- but in the direction you want to go.

Kerbals have jetpacks that they can use to fly around. And those jetpacks are really powerful. And flying a Kerbal around on EVA when using their jetpack is a skill that you need to develop anyway.

Of course, if you misuse your jetpack, you can get your Kerbal into even more trouble than they already are in.

Really, once you've gotten to the stage where you can fling rockets around the planetary system -- then the next most important skill you absolutely need to learn at that point is rendezvous. You need rendezvous for everything. For rescuing Kerbals, or having Kerbals rescue themselves, or rescuing stranded ships, or refueling your spacetugs ... or anything. So I'd say definitely look around here and on youtube for rendezvous tutorials, and practice.