im not getting it

[readytospace]

Hey all,

fairly new to the game. I've been running through the how to videos about a hundred times, trying and re watching. I haven't gotten very far and I have been stumped for what is turning into a long while. My problem is figuring out docking. Darn, I have made it to other planets but I cannot figure out docking. Specifically I am having trouble matching my vector to the space craft to be docked's vector before or during the time we are intersecting. I see the videos pulling retro grade and what not to the desired path but can anyone explain this? I mean I'm trying to calculate not the direct route to the path but more adjusting my path to parrallel the other.

Any help or a nudge in the right direction would be great. Made it a good while without posting, but I'm braking down haha.

Thanks a ton in advance.

[Tristavius]

I think I know exactly the problem you're having. I'm at work but will take some pictures tonight that should help if someone doesn't beat me to it first.

[Panichio]

So you can get to your target, but just not get yourself parallel to it? Well, that part isn't hard. If you set the docking port on the other vessel as your target, the purple icon on your nav ball will show the direction of the targeted docking port. Use that to get as close as possible, and then just eyeball it to get it parallel. The magnetic force of the docking ports is strong enough so that you don't actually have to be perfectly parallel to the target.

[Atanar]

I think the important part to understand is how the markers on the navball change when you select something as your target. Your prograde and retrograde markers switch to your relative velocity of your target. If you get halfway close to your target you can use these. If you get the round target marker exactly over your prograde it means the speed that is displayed moves you directly to it. Do that and turn and burn retrograde to a velocity of ca. 0 if you are close to your target.

[Gniuz]

What Pan said, if you can get close then the hard part is done. Set the docking port you wish to connect to as your target and slowly move in for the kill. The docking cam mod might help you as sometimes the whole keeping it aligned can be a pain.

If all else fails you can get MechJeb 2. Get to the point you can do own your own then save (F5) next use mechJeb and watch what it does. Then load (hold F9) it and try do the same thing. That way you will have a good idea of what you need to do and get that great feeling of accomplishment when you finally do it.

Good luck.

G.

[Rune]

I put a sort of a docking tutorial on my video for the Gladius. Watch it form the middle onwards, and you will see me explain how I do the rendezvous and dockings. The "getting a close approach part" I fumbled a bit, but the explanation of how to use the navball to get to your target and stop when you are there is pretty decent. Prograde markers, retrograde markers, herding your vector around, controlling approach speed... it all explained there, and visually, which is much easier to understand.

[capi3101]

There's a good tutorial that goes over how to rendezvous and dock on the wiki, the Gemini 6A/7 Tutorial. Someone a little while back also posted a ship design whose purpose was solely to practice docking; I don't remember where that is and I'm hoping it didn't go down in the Great Coffee Spill last month.

[Xenophobe]

I followed Pebble_Garden's "Orbital Mechanics 101 Guide" in the "How To" Forum. He has a tutorial series called "The Phoenix Project". Not only walks you through step by step how to orbital rendezvous and master docking, but shows you how to build a stable orbiter and rocket to do it. For me, docking had by far the steepest learning curve.

[TaranisElsu]

Have you watched the Phoenix Project tutorial from pepplegarden? This is the first part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5fHnNRbKME. He did a really good job explaining how to rendezvous and dock, including explaining how the navball helps when you get close. As Atanar said, the navball helps a lot when trying to match velocities with another vessel.

When in target mode, the prograde and retrograde markers indicate the direction of your velocity relative to the other vessel. Burn towards the retrograde marker to zero out your relative velocity.

Also keep in mind that because of small differences in gravity forces over time, you will not stay in the same relative position unless you dock.

EDIT: ninja'd by Xenophobe

[readytospace]

Wow thank you all so much! Second post down nailed it.

You can tell me what to do all day. Point the point at the point and thrust.

Ok :S

I want to know why. I now know in target mode retro and pro grade now align to target. That's huge.

And so I can get these buddies close within 10km. I can see them together.

But I am using this method:

Got a buddy with docking port circularily rotating kerbin @ 400km

I launch buddy2 with docking ports at a 150km circular orbit

Then manuever mode an intersect to match perioapsis to buddy1 when they are close

I've tried from that intersect many times and cannot get my apoapsis to match the buddy1 vector on the other side.

So usually I've set another maneuver to intersect on the apoapsis when we pass even closer.

But still.

Here's me at intersect:

Moves camera to target

Moving faster and ahead

I see my retro pro grade markers

I see targets markers

And I'm lost.

Push something, pull something to match up something then thrust at it then thrust away close gaps. I get the process. But alignment is my problem.

I'll be dedicating the next 8hrs of my day to docking. Thank you all got the tutorial help I'm watching them now. I'll let ya know if I get it. But any further explanation of what, how do I match vectors at intersect. What am I doing and why. Where am I pushing against to get to I guess is what I'm asking.

[readytospace]

I'm using a pebble garden orbital docking ship variant as the how to. I can get full orbit before detatching to poodle engine. And thank you all again for the help.

[capi3101]

Alright...so rendezvous isn't a problem; it's the actual docking.

Here's how I do it:

1) Close to within 20 meters. Bring the relative velocity down to zero.

2) Aim towards the target. Accelerate to 0.5 m/s and return to zero when you're at ten meters.

3) Switch over to the other ship. Target your first ship and turn to face it. Try to do this on command pod torque if at all possible; RCS may produce undesired relative velocity.

4) Switch back to your first ship. Make sure you're facing the target (again, do this on torque thrust if at all possible). When you're facing the target, accelerate to 0.3 m/s relative.

5) If it looks like you're going to miss, slow to zero and realign. Be patient.

6) When you get within a meter or two, the magnets will start attracting one another and pull the ships together (provided they're facing outward; also, shielded ports need to be opened well before you get to this point). At that point you just need to sit back and relax; it may take a while but the ships will finally settle down.

Other than that, all I can say is good luck and keep trying. Might try an F5 quicksave when you get to your final approach; if you screw it up, hold down F9 to try again.

[Specialist290]

Another tip that might help: When you're on your final approach, set your camera mode to Chase (using the "V" key). In that mode, your camera stays in a fixed position relative to the craft you're controlling, and if you set the camera directly behind the point you're controlling from, the RCS translation keys correspond to the up-down and left-right of your screen.

[Rune]

Wow thank you all so much! Second post down nailed it.

You can tell me what to do all day. Point the point at the point and thrust.

Ok :S

I want to know why. I now know in target mode retro and pro grade now align to target. That's huge.

And so I can get these buddies close within 10km. I can see them together.

But I am using this method:

Got a buddy with docking port circularily rotating kerbin @ 400km

I launch buddy2 with docking ports at a 150km circular orbit

Then manuever mode an intersect to match perioapsis to buddy1 when they are close

I've tried from that intersect many times and cannot get my apoapsis to match the buddy1 vector on the other side.

So usually I've set another maneuver to intersect on the apoapsis when we pass even closer.

But still.

Here's me at intersect:

Moves camera to target

Moving faster and ahead

I see my retro pro grade markers

I see targets markers

And I'm lost.

Push something, pull something to match up something then thrust at it then thrust away close gaps. I get the process. But alignment is my problem.

I'll be dedicating the next 8hrs of my day to docking. Thank you all got the tutorial help I'm watching them now. I'll let ya know if I get it. But any further explanation of what, how do I match vectors at intersect. What am I doing and why. Where am I pushing against to get to I guess is what I'm asking.

Ok, there's another piece of important information on your navball that you might be ignoring too much: velocity. When that marker read: "target" (click on it if it isn't), the relative velocity is what you have different in your velocity vector to your target. Ideally, you want that to be zero at zero meters, because by definition that puts you in the same orbit that the target ship, at the same place. In reality, you want to keep it as high as it wants to to get the encounter until you are close to the 2.1kms physics sphere, then bring it down to 10-50m/s, depending on skill, and then moving the markers around with little burns to make pink coincide with green, all the while keeping a velocity in the tens of meter per second, the slower the easier because you have more time to think before you zip by the target. When you are really close, like <1km, bring it down further, all the way to 0.1-0.5 just before docking.

Rune. It's not that trivial.

[Rune]

Another tip that might help: When you're on your final approach, set your camera mode to Chase (using the "V" key). In that mode, your camera stays in a fixed position relative to the craft you're controlling, and if you set the camera directly behind the point you're controlling from, the RCS translation keys correspond to the up-down and left-right of your screen.

That, too. You can go by navball alone with skill, but that is very intuitive if you have played flight sims.

[readytospace]

Cool and thanks for the help. I am getting there. Have matched orbits now. Simply closing the gap is still difficult in where I need to aim. But I'm having a new problem. After I use time lapse my keyboard keys become inaccessable except for map and zoom. What's happening? It's screwin me up

[Specialist290]

Standard timewarp puts the simulation "on rails" -- basically, it tells the computer to turn the physics engine off and only worry about calculating trajectories. There's also a physical timewarp that goes up to 4x and lets you still control the ship, but I wouldn't recommend it for docking because it exaggerates any small adjustments or wobbling that's present.

Docking is a challenging skill that takes lots of practice to really get down pat. I've been playing this game for a few months now, and I still screw it up from time to time (and I have yet to develop any real finesse with it, such as wedging ships into tight spaces next to one another). Above all, it takes patience, focus, and sometimes an extra pair each of eyes and hands.

[readytospace]

free fidgeting a ton and a brutally slow and painful intersect. I managed to dock both my crafts together and share fuel. Wooooo! But more so the problem I am having is my keyboard literally locks except for zoom and change map. I can't press any buttons. This seems to happen randomly, the games hard enough without losing all my control for no reason.

[corvus2606]

free fidgeting a ton and a brutally slow and painful intersect. I managed to dock both my crafts together and share fuel. Wooooo! But more so the problem I am having is my keyboard literally locks except for zoom and change map. I can't press any buttons. This seems to happen randomly, the games hard enough without losing all my control for no reason.

Do you have batteries and solar panels? You will lose control of your craft if you run out of power.

[Rune]

free fidgeting a ton and a brutally slow and painful intersect. I managed to dock both my crafts together and share fuel. Wooooo! But more so the problem I am having is my keyboard literally locks except for zoom and change map. I can't press any buttons. This seems to happen randomly, the games hard enough without losing all my control for no reason.

It may be that you are seeing a lag spike when you cross into the 2.1 kms physics sphere, that can lock you out of control for a few seconds until things get going again. Or it may be as Corvus says, a probe-controlled ship (if there is a kerbal on board, who needs electricity?) running out of power in the dark. Also, though I don't recommend it either, you can activate physical timewarp out of atmo with ALT+. (to have control during timewarp).

[readytospace]

I feel like it is simply maybe the actual game running on my ubuntu os. It closes a lot too, like midway through ship build or halfway to orbit. Lucky creators this is the most amazing game its still got me hooked. Thanks again for all the help, everyone. The gladius guy,

Keep spreckin ze enhish, no Spanish.

Your guide helped a lot. However where I needed help was matching the yellow and purple vectors. During that point you say you guess and move em around till they work. That was the explanation I was trying for . But your tutorial from a different aspect certainly helped alot.

[readytospace]

Also you guys keep saying alt. Like alt transfers fuel but for me its the right shift key. Alt is a os controlled key for me. What do you guys run to use alt? Will this be a detriment to me?

[Rune]

I feel like it is simply maybe the actual game running on my ubuntu os. It closes a lot too, like midway through ship build or halfway to orbit. Lucky creators this is the most amazing game its still got me hooked. Thanks again for all the help, everyone. The gladius guy,

Keep spreckin ze enhish, no Spanish.

Your guide helped a lot. However where I needed help was matching the yellow and purple vectors. During that point you say you guess and move em around till they work. That was the explanation I was trying for . But your tutorial from a different aspect certainly helped alot.

Hahaha. Sure! But I've got to come up with a better name for the technique than "herd the vectors", and my english comes to its limit As to keys, I run it on windows, but just try "Whatever"+F12, and see what brings up the dev tools window, then substitute "ALT" thereafter in all my comments. It is really the best platform for PC games, if only because they are all made for Windows first if they are made for PC at all.