Stupid Docking.

[TerabyteSPAAACE]

Why is docking always such a long, boring pain in the ass? It's laggy as hell, too.

[Guest]

Docking in real life is a slow, cautious procedure. No different in KSP. Practice and be patient. It's not a race.

[TerabyteSPAAACE]

Docking in real life is a slow, cautious procedure. No different in KSP. Practice and be patient. It's not a race.

I know what you're trying to say, but it still is really annoying.

[Guest]

Here's a few tips that may help. I don't know your level of experience, so please don't assume I'm being condescending.

1. Make sure your RCS is balanced against the vessel's centre of mass. This will minimise rotation when trying to translate.
   
2. Use only the number of RCS jets you really need. More RCS does not mean more control.
   
3. I recommend using the Lazor Docking Cam mod. It provides useful data and the precise view you need to make docking easier.
   

Happy flying!

[sanity]

laggy?, you must be using large ships if its laggy, if your just learning try practicing on the small vessels, theyre more maneuverable and easier to learn on, same principles apply to the big ships as the small ships but you need to be more careful and deliberate in your movements so smaller is always better when learning

if your already an expert and just complaining then im with you, i hate docking stuff to space stations with a lot o junk hanging off them, thats why i like the minimalist stations, minimum needed to function no flash or decoration

[Gary_P]

And if you just get so fed up that you can't stand it, use Mechjeb, but get the 2.x version. It totally rocked my world on docking.

Computers are much better at docking 2 ships then I am.

[AustralianFries]

Heh, I never found docking difficult at all. If you need any help, feel free to PM me if you'd like.

[Brotoro]

Stupid sexy docking.

[AceMgy]

RCS balancing is a must for quick, painless docking. This thread changed docking forever for me, try it. It's the unwanted translations / rotations that make docking annoying and time consuming.

And the lag just means you have too many parts (building a big space station, huh?). Either do more with less or just learn to deal with it, no way around it.

Edit: Oh and align your docking ports normal + and normal - (on the navball, where the North line crosses the horizon, similarly for the South). Those are the only two points that won't move on the navball, that way you can be assured you have perfect alignment and can concentrate on translation.

Edited June 30, 2013 by AceMgy

[sierra_seven_]

And if you just get so fed up that you can't stand it, use Mechjeb, but get the 2.x version. It totally rocked my world on docking.

Computers are much better at docking 2 ships then I am.

Aye, I've had a look at the autodock system on Mechjeb 2.0, but it's pretty wasteful on RCS. Using Smart A.S.S is actually a lot faster and RCS-efficient if you're willing to practice docking Also, with the lag, I tend to approach docking looking out into space, rather than down at Kerbin. Because it takes a lot of resources to render the planet, looking away from it almost doubles my framerate. Also, if you're having a lot of trouble docking because of lack of control or over-ambition, try scaling down each module and just carrying out more dockings. Worked for me!

[entaran]

No offense but you must have an incredibly old computer if rendering Kerbin is lagging you out :/

[sierra_seven_]

No offense but you must have an incredibly old computer if rendering Kerbin is lagging you out :/

*shrugs* It's certainly not a gaming rig. Strangely, I can visit any other planet on max settings for everything and be fine, but Kerbin gives me a lot of the problems. Huh.

[SDIR]

When attempting to rendezvous and dock, put a lot more effort into the rendezvous than the docking. For example, try to get you inclination (angle between the two orbits) to read either 0.0 deg or NaN deg, that guarantees that there will be very little vertical translation needed. And when rendezvousing, try to get the closest approach under 1 km distance, most of mine are 0.6-0.3 km and occasionally a 0.0 km closest approach is good too! And finally, if you find you are spending too much time just getting close to the other vehicle, then just use time warp to speed up every now and then, and make corrections and then time warp again.

[Fel]

You could also just open up your save file in notepad and manually dock the two ships.

*Cannot remember off the top of my head, but after seeing it again I could probably reproduce it.

[Sir Nahme]

Once you've gotten the hang of it it goes very quickly.

[MeticulousMitch]

After getting the hang of it, docking is not difficult. It is still time-consuming, however. If you're launching station parts one at a time and docking them together, it can easily take 15 minutes of real time to get each component up there and attached.

[Fel]

After getting the hang of it, docking is not difficult. It is still time-consuming, however. If you're launching station parts one at a time and docking them together, it can easily take 15 minutes of real time to get each component up there and attached.

/me nitpicks about people saying "15 min of real time" is "time-consuming"

[Guest]

High part counts contribute to lag on my machine also. The way KSP draws oceans is also known to cause lag. See these threads for solutions to lag caused by oceans. :

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/32366-Lowest-settings-cfg-in-0-20

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/32832-Water-Fix

I remember another thread that clearly explained how to edit your settings.cfg to reduce lag caused by oceans but I haven't found it yet. Docking becomes easy once you establish a set routine. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Finding the way that's easiest for you is the challenge.

[Blaylock1988]

Lag, I can't help you with, but for docking, try this:

[Geschosskopf]

RCS balancing is a must for quick, painless docking. This thread changed docking forever for me, try it. It's the unwanted translations / rotations that make docking annoying and time consuming.

There's also a very cool little mod you can get that gives you graphic feedback on RCS placement in the VAB. Kudos to Elian Hanisch for making it!

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/rcs-build-aid-v0-2/

[Tom K.]

Why is docking always such a long, boring pain in the ass? It's laggy as hell, too.

I love it, don't know why so many people have trouble with it, my first docking went flawlessly.

... that sounded pretty ego.

[Yuming]

I love it, don't know why so many people have trouble with it, my first docking went flawlessly.

... that sounded pretty ego.

Yes, I spent so much time whining about how I couldn't do it, but when I actually tried, it went flawless and took 10 mins.

[Gargamel]

I dont know if this still applies, as I'm still using 19.x, But I use a combination of MechJeb (1.x) and HydroJeb. MechJeb gets me launched and close, then I manually rendevous within 100m (There's a really good Youtube tutorial here somewhere, was on the old forums, hope it survived the recent crash). After that, I let hydro jeb get me lined up, and then I manually dock using the cameras. I find HydroJeb frequently freaks out on the final approach, so It's almost manual.

And I too am using a computer below minimum spec, so I have to face away from the planets when docking. And yeah, with >1000 parts in the ship and space station, it does get pretty laggy.

[Gary_P]

Aye, I've had a look at the autodock system on Mechjeb 2.0, but it's pretty wasteful on RCS. Using Smart A.S.S is actually a lot faster and RCS-efficient if you're willing to practice docking Also, with the lag, I tend to approach docking looking out into space, rather than down at Kerbin. Because it takes a lot of resources to render the planet, looking away from it almost doubles my framerate. Also, if you're having a lot of trouble docking because of lack of control or over-ambition, try scaling down each module and just carrying out more dockings. Worked for me!

Yes, I found that too. Mechjeb uses a ton of fuel. When I use Mechjeb to dock I always make sure to overload my RCS fuel tanks with twice the amount of fuel. Yes this is a cheat but...

I use Mechjeb now for plotting courses to get my ships closer, then I dock myself. Stupid jklhn keys get me crazy. I'm going to hook up my joystick, or change them to the keypad.

[triffid_hunter]

And if you just get so fed up that you can't stand it, use Mechjeb, but get the 2.x version. It totally rocked my world on docking.

Computers are much better at docking 2 ships then I am.

Heh I find MJ2's rendezvous and docking autopilots are rather poor, I can generally do a better job myself..

with the rendezvous, mechjeb will burn off up to a couple hundred m/s dV even when it only needs maybe 5-10m/s dV. have a play with maneuver nodes, generally pretty easy to get it within 200m which is golden for avoiding the dreaded 'spontaneous disassembly on vessel switch' bug

as for docking, set Smart A.S.S. to PAR-, and just remember that the target sigil moves away from your prograde marker as you approach. I've successfully docked with no RCS at all before using this simple observation

I still use the docking autopilot sometimes if I'm some distance out, use warp to get in close without shredding RCS then switch to manual for final approach