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Docking Ports...Don't Dock All The Time?


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I'm using the medium sized docking ports (Clamp-O-Tron Sr.) to connect engine configurations for my Tylo lander mission.  I've got them pointing the correct directions so that when they get close enough to each other in space, the ships - the lander and the transfer stage - dock/connect and the ship becomes one.  This is how it is supposed to work, and I've done this a bajillion times in KSP1.

But...

Am I missing something in KSP2?  I line up the ships using the Lazy Docking Method (rendezvous, point the docking ports at one another, slowly move in), and I'm traveling at like 0.8 m/s.  When I get close enough, I expect the docking ports to, well, dock.  But they don't.  The ships bounce off one another, and I have to go through hohmann transfer, match planes, match speed again, wasting days and fuel.  Then I go slower, like < 0.5 m/s, and same thing.  So I go through everything again, and when I get close, I go faster.  And boing!  Bounce-ness all over the cosmos.  It doesn't matter how fast or how slow I'm going - boing!

Before anyone asks "Are you sure you have the docking ports aligned the correct direction", I'll point you to my last post in the "What Did I Do In KSP2 Today" thread:

I used the medium docking ports on the central column for the transfer stage and the lander, and I've got docking ports on the outer arms.  When I do the next launch, I use a copy of the transfer stage, sans the outer arms; I want the second (and, eventually, third) launch to connect to the outer arm on the initial central column launch.  I know the docking ports are facing the correct way on the outer arms, as well as on the top of the transfer stage.  Not my first rodeo with docking ports here.

So what am I doing wrong?  Is this a known issue where the medium docking port simply doesn't want to work?  Am I going too fast?  Too slow?  Do I need to change Acquire Docking Force percentage?  What is happening here, and why is docking only taking place < 25% of the time?

In the event anyone wants them for testing, I can provide both the lander and transfer stage craft files so you can launch them and see this for yourself.

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Out of curiosity, were either of the crafts' ports covered by decouplers prior to your docking attempt? (I'm almost certain I've read bug reports along those lines... but I will look for it and reply back / edit this comment with such a link)

What if you try mapping an action group for each craft where a number-press specifically runs "Undock" (and do so in command of each craft) and try again?

Not the post / report I was looking for, but it'll do:

 

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11 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

Out of curiosity, were either of the crafts' ports covered by decouplers prior to your docking attempt? (I'm almost certain I've read bug reports along those lines... but I will look for it and reply back / edit this comment with such a link)

What if you try mapping an action group for each craft where a number-press specifically runs "Undock" (and do so in command of each craft) and try again?

Not the post / report I was looking for, but it'll do:

 

No...but one of them was covered by a nose cone.  I will take the nose cone off, eschew aerodynamics, and see if that helps.  I'll let you know what I find.

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I head that sometimes docking ports are still registered as "docked" even when there is nothing actually docked to them. Perhaps it's your problem, but I have no idea how to correct that. I make a lot of docking with the medium ones in my game without problem so I would say it's perhaps not directly related to the part by itself.

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2 minutes ago, Spicat said:

There is this bug report that don’t get enough attention:

 

And I don't know why it never got enough attention since it was plaguing most of my missions. :mad: it should be, per KERB measures, right up there next to the disappearing trajectories, as it's mostly related to wrong state of the ship.

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1 minute ago, The Aziz said:

And I don't know why it never got enough attention since it was plaguing most of my missions. :mad: it should be, per KERB measures, right up there next to the disappearing trajectories, as it's mostly related to wrong state of the ship.

Somehow it wasn't one I'd previously upvoted (though I imagine it was the one I was thinking about when I resorted to using Google as a KSP-forum search engine, given how awful searching is on here :/)

But I have upvoted it now :prograde:

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17 minutes ago, Spicat said:

There is this bug report that don’t get enough attention:

With a workaround in the comments (editing files)

Yeah, I had already upvoted this one.  Docking is one of the 5 basic elements in this game (build, launch, fly, dock, land).  Why it never got the appropriate attention by the devs is beyond me.

12 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

And I don't know why it never got enough attention since it was plaguing most of my missions. :mad: it should be, per KERB measures, right up there next to the disappearing trajectories, as it's mostly related to wrong state of the ship.

I'm with you on this.  It seems that the devs simply don't take our concerns into account when deciding what issues to fix.  Although, we can't confirm this as we don't get updates any longer, and the updates we got had things they were working on removed, so we never knew what was happening.

Some EA.

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37 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

Out of curiosity, were either of the crafts' ports covered by decouplers prior to your docking attempt? (I'm almost certain I've read bug reports along those lines... but I will look for it and reply back / edit this comment with such a link)

What if you try mapping an action group for each craft where a number-press specifically runs "Undock" (and do so in command of each craft) and try again?

Not the post / report I was looking for, but it'll do:

 

I did that on my first Moho and Duna missions. Docking port, seperator and docking port, it ruined the port, lander had just one docking port so single use. 
Having docking port, seperator and engine for another lander and it work with no issues. 

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2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm with you on this.  It seems that the devs simply don't take our concerns into account when deciding what issues to fix.

Should I bring back the red text from underneath every KERB post?

Votes≠priority≠severity

Cuz, you know, something as trivial as 35 science points for a difficult mission was upvoted to space, but I don't think it's a bigger concern for the players than broken docking port states. Yet our own votes seem to suggest so.

They're probably being looked at one way or another, we just can't tell because*we* didn't put it high enough to appear on the top voted list.

Edited by The Aziz
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I’ve had this happen. 
 

when it happens to me, I notice the docking port itself has physically moved from its intended place. 
warped off axis slightly, or pushed into the craft itself. Nothing I did would fix it and allow it to dock at that point. 
 

for me, I think this happens most often when I am using a larger ship, or station, have SAS on and time warp. It’s like the torque of SAS completely reconfigures parts on the craft under time warp. 
 

to minimize this, I now turn SAS off every single time I warp. 
 

I wonder if your ports look like they have moved around at all? 

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On 3/27/2024 at 10:33 PM, The Aziz said:

Should I bring back the red text from underneath every KERB post?

Votes≠priority≠severity

Cuz, you know, something as trivial as 35 science points for a difficult mission was upvoted to space, but I don't think it's a bigger concern for the players than broken docking port states. Yet our own votes seem to suggest so.

They're probably being looked at one way or another, we just can't tell because*we* didn't put it high enough to appear on the top voted list.

Now the 35 science points for 200 ton to Minmus is fixed in minutes, changed to 300 :) 
Docking ports might be harder, but on craft load game should check if docking port is docked to something and if not set it to ready to dock. 

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So i launched my transfer stages this morning without nose cones...and they worked as expected.  My flying was bad, but thats a different story.

How is it possible that we have effectively one-time-use docking ports?  And why isn't this a higher priority?

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2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

So i launched my transfer stages this morning without nose cones...and they worked as expected.  My flying was bad, but thats a different story.

How is it possible that we have effectively one-time-use docking ports?  And why isn't this a higher priority?

How do you typically attach your nose cones?

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1 hour ago, kdaviper said:

How do you typically attach your nose cones?

If I have a docking port at the top of the rocket, for docking with something already up there, I put a nose cone right on the port and undock it when I git space.  Works in KSP1.

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I just saw this now, and I think I figured it out a while ago.

Docking ports seem to be totally fine and work perfectly, so long as you don't (when building) connect them to anything other than another docking port. When you "undock" from a nose cone, decoupler, engine, or whatever the docking port gets put in a state where it can't dock anymore.

The workaround solution is (sorry for stating the obvious) "don't do that" :D Instead of docking to a nosecone, dock the port to a docking port that's attached to the nosecone. Instead of attaching your docking port to an engine, attach it to a docking port that is on a decoupler attached to the engine.

I've yet to have a problem with docking ports since I started doing this.

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I have had the docking ports not docking issue also.

In one case, when I separated my lander from the mother ship, whilst being in control of the lander as I float away from the mother ship, I right clicked the mothership docking port expecting to find "set as target" but didn't, Instead I found "undock". So now every time I separate I click on both docking ports, and from both ships and make sure all possible instances of the "undock" option is clicked.

I looked to me as though the lander and the mother ship disagreed as to the state of the mothership docking port. When in control of the mother ship, right clicking on the motherships docking port didn't show an undock option, only "control from here". The "undock" option only appeared for the motherships docking port while right clicking on it while being in control of the lander.

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14 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

The workaround

I've also had very good success using engine plates and decouplers.

If I want a nosecone over a docking port, I do this:

  • Nosecone
  • Decoupler (arrow pointing down)
    • Decoupler is attached to engine plate attachment node
    • So there is a fairing here between the decoupler and the engine plate, covering the docking port
  • Docking Port
  • Engine plate (with attachment node facing "above")
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2 hours ago, Poppa Wheelie said:

I've also had very good success using engine plates and decouplers.

If I want a nosecone over a docking port, I do this:

  • Nosecone
  • Decoupler (arrow pointing down)
    • Decoupler is attached to engine plate attachment node
    • So there is a fairing here between the decoupler and the engine plate, covering the docking port
  • Docking Port
  • Engine plate (with attachment node facing "above")

I had one issue, small docking port, seperator, second small docking port did not work,
Standard docking port, separator and engine of lander or docking port or docking port, decopler pointing down and nose cone on top of lander worked without issues. 
My guess is that the separated ports got bugged because not docked but close they docked then separator was used, trying to undock did not work. 
Second design was tested in orbit. 

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18 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

If I have a docking port at the top of the rocket, for docking with something already up there, I put a nose cone right on the port and undock it when I git space.  Works in KSP1.

I hate to say this but I think KSP2  has it out for you.

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30 minutes ago, kdaviper said:

I hate to say this but I think KSP2  has it out for you.

Probably.  It is what it is at this point.  I think maybe I'm just that one weirdo the devs didn't plan on having and I'm coming up with the ideas that break their stuff.

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49 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Probably.  It is what it is at this point.  I think maybe I'm just that one weirdo the devs didn't plan on having and I'm coming up with the ideas that break their stuff.

Thing is I have built things using similar construction methods as you and don't have near the problems. I've had problems with the docking ports but only when disconnecting them from decouplers via staging. I've been able to attach them to each other as well as attaching parts directly to them and then undocking to separate.

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