A rant about KSP

[thunderstar]

you have problems to only docking or to rendezvous?

i have been playing ksp since 0.13 and i just learned how to dock in 0.21 so it was a long way, first i couldn't even rendezvous the ship kept flying away, then i tought "that what if i kill my velocity in realtion of my targe at the interserct?" then i after some tries i learned how to rendezvous, but it took me some more tries to learn how to dock

the key is be patient and try over and over again, just like everything in ksp

[Dimetime35c]

i use mechjeb myself but im starting to use the planner rather then the auto pilot. the planner basically does what the auto pilot does but instead of it doing the flying you can hand fly the whole sequence. its actually a very good teaching tool. and if you get off track at any point you can just turn on the auto pilot till you have your bearings straight then turn it back off and resume hand flying the docking yourself

[Tank Buddy]

I am going to respect that suggestion, but I don't see that as a solution. To me it seems that most of the people who install Mechjeb and don't know what they're doing if the first place never learn how to play the game manually. They never gain skill or practice when a program is flying for you, so I would recommend practice and watch more videos. I learned that you can burn towards the Mun when it rises over the horizon to get an intercept easy, and have mastered the maneuver node system through videos and testing.

[NeoMorph]

Lol, when I first saw this I thought you meant attitude as in the direction a ship is pointing, rather than behavior. God, I am a giant nerd.

Sounds like a translation problem to me (that's translation in the language instance and not translation in orbital mechanics instance - English sure is weird).

See, I'm an even bigger nerd heh

[Tygroux]

what some people forget, is that some other peoples are simply not interrested in piloting, or doing math. On some missions at least, we may all have fun trying to fly that kiloton lander.

But some people take more fun in dreaming, designing, planning, then clicking "launch" and watching that fully-automated interplanetary science mission going on rails, perfectly as planned, and doing eveything without you needing to click anything past the first mission programmation.

And if things go kerbal...

*desactivate autopilote*

*put on sunglasses*

"Mission control, Jeb speaking. Overiding autopilot to manual mode. Put on your seatbelts, kids."

[bwheatley]

Mechjeb's really not all that good at docking. It works okay if you're just docking a command pod by itself, but for anything more complex than that it tends to waste RCS fuel, constantly overcorrect itself (especially if your RCS isn't perfectly balanced and translation causes some rotation), occasionally try to shift axes way too fast and smash into things, creep toward the port way too slow, drift off the axis then panic and unnecessarily kill and restart forward inertia, etc etc.

I'd love to use it for resupplying my station, as repeatedly docking at 3 frames per second gets very tedious, but I end up having to babysit it the whole time and often do the final approach myself.

Honestly, the docking camera mod makes docking much easier than MJ does.

As someone who now has only docked successfully 2 times out of hundreds of launches...i agree 100% docking cam has been much more helpful to dock. I will say the days of utter frustration melt away when i finally reload for the 1001st time and manage to dock. It feels really good when you do it.