I can't seem to dock, any tips?

[Rutabaga22]

I've tried dock many times, but I always seem to get close encounters, but can't get the two crafts together. How do y'all dock?

[Caerfinon]

I learned by following this guide. It's about the whole rendezvous process, but the end section deals with docking specifically. 

There is also the Mechjeb docking autopilot, but that burns a lot of RCS.

[jimmymcgoochie]

If you can get within 1km of the target, the easiest way to dock is just point both vessels at each other and thrust towards it at a couple of metres per second, gradually slowing down as you get closer. There’s a mod that adds new SAS modes to point parallel or anti-parallel to the target which means they’ll point the same or opposite directions, or MechJeb’s Smart ASS can do the same thing. If you don’t have the SAS modes to point at the target due to an unskilled crew or low-tech probe core, pointing one vessel to normal and the other anti-normal will also keep them pointing in opposite directions which will make docking easier. Also remember to press caps lock to engage fine control mode which will save propellant and also make the controls much less forceful, making it easier to do precise adjustments for docking. You should also disable pitch/yaw/roll controls on your RCS thrusters as reaction wheels are more than up to the task of attitude control and using RCS for it will only mess with your trajectory.

During the final approach, switch to camera locked mode and look down the length of the vessel doing the docking, rotating the camera as necessary so that the translation controls (IJKL) match what’s on the screen (i.e. pressing I moves you up, etc.). Move your prograde marker so that the target marker is between prograde and where you’re pointing and the target will move closer to the middle of the navball:

       (centre of navball) ->         , if the target goes too far then move the prograde marker to the other side and bring the target back to the centre.

As with many things in life, practice makes perfect. Put two probe cores with RCS and docking ports on them into orbit together and practice your approach and docking (use the set orbit cheat and infinite propellant if you want ) until it makes more sense and you can reliably dock them together. It took a lot of clever people doing a lot of number-crunching and at least one failed mission before docking was achieved in real life, so don’t worry if it’s not immediately intuitive- it is rocket science after all!

[magnemoe]

On 9/1/2022 at 11:04 PM, Caerfinon said:

I learned by following this guide. It's about the whole rendezvous process, but the end section deals with docking specifically. 

There is also the Mechjeb docking autopilot, but that burns a lot of RCS.

This is very good, note if target is at 80 km orbit it might work better to get into 80 km orbit and raise Ap above say to 110 km, less efficient but you are not restricted to the 71-80 km room. 
You might also have to wait some orbits before you can start dragging the node to get an intercept as in 5, use the + to delay one or more orbits you can drag to get an intercept. 
You can use RSC to try to get an closer intercept by trial and error just do small changes to the trajectory to get distance down. 

Match velocity as in 6 I recommend making an node but relative velocity is more important than node, its mostly there to time the burn. 
Burn towards target usually this will put you some hundreds meter from target, come to stop and repeat but slower this time. 
If new stop couple of ship lengths from each others. 

Set target docking port as control point at tell target to face you. Set your ships docking port as control node and also set you to face the other ship. 
Use RSC to move at couple of m/s towards target and keep your velocity vector on the target, as long as the target point towards you you will dock. 
The cheap probes don't have the point towards target node, only experienced pilots or the more advanced probes has this. 
 

[Aerodynamic Kerbal]

Watch Jacksepticeye try to dock. It personally helped me a lot.