How long did it take you to dock ...

[StainlessSteelRat]

The first time? Good grief I've been trying for months. I've watched the videos, people make it look so easy. I managed to get within 6km one time! hah! I'm not cheating, or using Mechjeb or any other tool. I guess that's my problem.

[Sof]

The first time? Good grief I've been trying for months. I've watched the videos, people make it look so easy. I managed to get within 6km one time! hah! I'm not cheating, or using Mechjeb or any other tool. I guess that's my problem.

No cheating until you can do it by hand once at least.

Are you just having trouble with the rendezvouz? Fiddle around with the nodes some more, they are really useful. 6Km isn't far off, you just need to know how to use the Navball. When you're that close, switch to target velocity (if it hasn't done that for you. You are setting the other ship as a target aren't you?) then burn retrograde until your relative velocity is 0. Then turn to face the other ship (its the pink circle on the navball) and burn. Repeat until you are within a few hundred meters and then switch to RCS. Set the camera in chase mode.

[Johnno]

You don't need mods to learn the game, I myself played for ages before even considering mods. Following the natural learning curve of the game/spaceflight should take you to docking in your own time. I've seen a lot of people post in frustration because they've skipped ahead and just want to get to X without doing the alphabet first. My advice would be to just take your time, different people learn at different speeds.

According to screenshot timestamps my first docking was roughly 48 hours after purchasing the full game (played the demo for 4 hours before that).

[unWinged]

For me it's rather easy but takes patience.

My first dock was before it was implemented in stock, I used ORDA mod. First was close randevous (something like 5 meters or so... but that ships didn't have docking ports) than proper docking.

If I do it slowly and carefully it works great, If I rush thing I fail...

[RatBeer]

took me about half an hour. this was in .17 when the only way to dock was with mods

[tiberius_solus]

The first few times I tried to rendezvous (not even dock) I neglected to bring any RCS along (Doh!) and spent a good 35 minutes once trying to just get closer than 5km before I ran out of fuel. Mind you this was in a version before maneuver nodes and official docking implementation (I don't recall which version exactly). Today I can regularly dock without issue within 10 minutes using time warp between nodes. Practice will eventually get you there, and one you figure it out it will get easier to accomplish.

[Evrion]

Docking was the hardest thing to learn for me in the game so far. I think that's because it requires cooridnation and physical skills that other parts of the game don't, well, maybe landing in no atmosphere.

In any case, the biggest hint that helped me: go to the other ship, get it's port lined up, then go back for approach. And make sure you have ships you can control well without spinning out. Trying to slip sideways and spinning out at the same time makes it hard!

Edit: I don't use mods

Edited July 7, 2013 by Evrion
I don't use mods

[Sof]

Pro tip to make docking easier. Point one of the ships north and the other one pointing south (180 degrees). This way, their relative orientation won't change due to their orbits. Once that is done and you are close enough, you don't have to worry about rotation, and can get by just using up, down, left, right and forwards and backwards.

[Kadaster]

i never found docking to be that hard, when docking was introduced in .18 i was able to dock two ships within the hour. now i do it in a few minutes.

and i have never used mechjeb, i dont like addons that play the game for you.

[Tw1]

For me, I only docked things the slightly larger than a mark 1-2 capsule, with assistance from mechjeb. Anything larger, I'd have to let ORDA do it. But just last night I docked my Dres lander to its return module entirely manually. 'Twas the cause of much celebrating.

[rryy]

I tried to rendezvous in 0.17, but I failed because, once I got close, I burned straight towards the target instead of killing relative velocity. When 0.18 came with all of the rendezvous and docking aids, I could rendezvous and dock no problem.

[oberlerchner123]

I learnt docking by doing it with a SSTO plane first. (That was my second try, I tryed a rocket first and failed pretty hard. lol)

I found the shape of it made it much easier for me to keep track of what is going on in both the picture and the nav ball at the same time,

and getting a feel how they relate to each other while coming in to dock.

Same thing probably goes for rockets, I would make sure they aren't shaped like just a cylinder when you're trying to learn it.

Definitly get RCS, try to keep it small for your first docking craft for quicker response, set the other docking port as target and switch the nav ball to target mode.

Try to make sure your orbit isn't massively different than the target orbit. A close encounter won't help you much if you're zooming past at ridiculous speeds.

Try the chase camera and move the camera around to get the view from different directions as you're coming close.

That's all I could think of.

[DChurchill]

Once I figured out the relative velocity markers on the nav ball, it was actually pretty easy. And once I figured out that once you get close and at near zero relative velocity, your orbits are the same, then it got easy. If you get both in a circular orbit and on the same plane and then set the orbital altitude to 1 km apart, eventually you can't help but get to within 1km. Also, well balanced RCS is key. Try this thread. Docking wobbly stuff is a giant pain. I still only use MechJeb to quickly orient my craft and for the great information it can give you. I don't auto-dock it or anything. Docking is too much fun. Try the Lazor Docking Cam mod. It really added to the fun of docking for me.

Edited July 7, 2013 by DChurchill

[Somerled]

Took me a couple hours back in 0.15; I think, whichever version introduced folding landing struts, i.e. soviet docking clamps.

Most of the time was spent within 1km, lining up and approaching the two craft just so. There was no targeting assistance, no magnetic dockotrons, and the craft not being piloted would always tumble ever so slightly. The last of a handful of failed captures ended up with a landing strut spinning away ... so I declared "Mission Accomplished" and made a grand fireworks show in the upper atmosphere to honor the heroic Kerbonauts (shame they didn't get to see it).

[Vohjiin]

I played the demo for 16 hours, it then took me around 75 hours to successfully dock 2 craft. Though a main focus for me was mostly probes and I had just started with rovers as I was getting into Manned missions and docking. The very first time I dock, I docked a refueling rocket to my first section of a refueling station. I had it in such a nice orbit around kerbin, until the kraken saw fit to fix that for me...

No mods thus far, I wanted to feel accomplished in the game before expanding it with any mods.

[Giuiba]

About an evening of attempts. But I'm advantaged, I study rocket science

[StainlessSteelRat]

Well, I'll keep trying. At some point I'm bound to do it. Thanks for the tips.

[ASnogarD]

Rendezvousing was easy for me... could get to 63 m on main engines relatively easy, it was when I switched over to RCS to finish the dock all hell broke loose (initially I turned off ASAS as it often goes mad and blows all your monoprop in normal manoeuvres) , translations would seem to veer off heading , would seem to be speeding away from my target and mad attempts to sort out the relative velocity would often have me much further away from the target than I was when I first started using RCS.

I got the trick of making each craft face a common direction, and switched on ASAS to help with docking so its not as bad as it was...still a slow process.

My first successful dock : 20 odd minutes to rendezvous (63 m to target) , about 2 hours to actually dock (at one stage I was over 100 m from the target).

[nimbim]

Mechjeb is a good learning tool, I dunno why people here claim otherwise. Humans learn by imitating, watch Mechjeb and over time you will be able to imitate (and improve upon of course) whatever mechjeb does for you.

[Coneshot]

Be sure your RCS is balanced or docking will be much harder, as for rendezvous you already mentioned you had watched youtube videos (which was my next suggestion)... Keep practicing and good luck :-)

[manatee321]

somehow I was able to do it on my first try, I put up one spacecraft designed for docking to a future planned station. Then sent up another exact copy, and docked them. it maybe took 1.5 hours, and it wasn't as bad as a though it was going to be.

and this was all stock/vanilla

[Aragosnat]

Docked manually without aids. Did take a few hours due to manuevering a pig of a ship as well cheated in more RSC fuel (did not want to spend time getting another ship there) . Best place to try it was around Minmus so I could have smaller orbits at lower orbital speeds.

[Vanamonde]

StainlessSteelRat, it may help you to practice at a higher, slower orbit. It takes longer to bring the ships together, but the speeds involved are more manageable.

[benjiful9000]

[closed]

Edited July 4, 2021 by benjiful9000

[Flixxbeatz]

Takes me around 10-15 minutes average from rendezvous burn to docking now, already including timewarp, since I tend to do it slowly to prevent overcorrecting. And I always do one everytime I play (refuel mission, other stuff) MANUALLY.

My first docking attempt took me around 30+ minutes due to a number of errors and overcorrections

Edited July 7, 2013 by Flixxbeatz