Someone Needs to Create an Easy-Mode Mod

[LuckySl7vin]

I have been trying (and failing) for the past two weeks (30+ hours) to successfully dock with a space station in order to attach fuel tanks in hopes of creating an orbital refueling station. I have thoroughly enjoyed the game thus far. My excitement at landing on the Mun was (I am sure) almost as sincere as NASA scientists watching their Apollo mission do the same. But, I have reached the point of frustration with KSP that is now ruining the game for me. Perhaps I am too stupid to figure out how to do this. I have watched every Scott Manley video known to mankind many times over and can still not master the seemingly simple act of syncing orbits and docking. I would really like either the Devs or a fan to develop a MOD that allows auto-piloted controls to conduct tasks like orbital sync and docking or at least get me in close. Seriously if I concentrate any longer on how to sync and dock I think my head might explode.

Does anyone know of any MODs in development or out there that can do this? Please help this noob!

[Boffinbox]

in order of easiness

hyperedit

build the entire space station on the ground and then edit it up - absolutely no skill required

http://www.kerbaltekaerospace.com/

mechjeb

if you don't want it THAT easy, you can get mechjeb to do the orbit sync for you and then you can do the rest yourself (unless you want mechjeb to do that too)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/12384-PART-0-21-Anatid-Robotics-MuMech-MechJeb-Autopilot-v2-0-9

ask someone to do it for you

you could prolly ask someone to do this in the spacecraft exchange

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forumdisplay.php/20-The-Spacecraft-Exchange

laser docking cam

if you can sync the orbit, this will give you a lot more information than plain ol' docking

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/9923-0-21-Lazor-System-v29-(Jul-26)

all you have to do is look around the forums a bit and the answers to your problems are there

don't give up

[regex]

You could try using MechJeb to help with rendezvous, but I've heard it has problems with auto-docking. Best thing to do, though, is to keep trying to dock those craft. Practice with smaller stuff because docking big stuff is exactly the same, you just have to have more patience.

[Camelotking524]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agena_target_vehicle

Set one of these up and practice, practice and practice.

Or you could always try ORDA. Its magical computer will automatically bring you into 80m of your docking target.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36379-Plugin-Parts-0-21-0-Orbital-Rendezvous-and-Docking-Assistant-(ORDA)-v1-0-8-1?highlight=ORDA

[Sandworm]

If after 30-hours of trying you still cannot dock, then you have missed some crucial steps. There is some fundamental flaw in your procedures. Exactly where are you stuck? The final docking? The orbit intercept?

I also suspect you have jumped several steps by trying to dock heavy fuel tanks. Start small, very small. And high. Intercept and docking is far easier far away from kerbin. Start with a couple 1-meter probes in a 4000km orbit, not a full fuel tank at 85.

Many "gamers" have real trouble with docking because they are not used to player/ship movement independent of camera perspective. You have to get out of the fps mindset and into the simulator mindset whereby the camera is a fiction unrelated to the movement of the craft.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Sandworm

[DChurchill]

I learned to dock before I even knew there was a MechJeb. I tried the auto-dock once and wasn't that impressed. Now I just use Lazor Docking Cam and Smart A.S.S.

My trick is this, and you don't NEED MechJeb for it, but it's far more painful without it, if you know how to circularize an orbit and change it's inclination, you can rendezvous this way.

What you want are the two craft in circular orbits one between 2 and 5 km different in radius, say 100 km and 105 km, and co-planar (within 1/10 of a degree is close enough). The actual altitudes make little difference, just the difference between the two.

The ship in the lower orbit is going to catch up to the one in the higher orbit. So, if you want to fly ship A to dock with ship B and A is behind B in their orbits, then A needs to be lower than B. If A is ahead of B then it needs to be higher.

At any point in your orbit, burning prograde or forward will raise the orbit on the other side of the planet. Burning retrograde or backward will lower the orbit on the other side of the planet. So you use that to adjust the orbital altitude. Keep in mind that once your orbit is non-circular, it will be very important where you burn to raise and lower your orbit.

If you can get those circular orbits within a couple kilometers of each other, then you will eventually get close enough to rendezvous.

Now here's the part that will take some practice, and again you can do it without MechJeb of you want to learn without any help. You have selected the ship that you want to dock with and your orbits are where you want them. Accelerate time until they're almost even with each other in their orbits. It will happen if you did the first part right. Once you're close enough, you want to point your ship right at the other ship and burn. The number display right over the nav ball tells you surface, target or orbital velocity. Make sure it's set on target. Your relative velocity should be pretty low, probably less than 10 m/s. Your range will diminish slowly. You don't want to get too fast here. At some point, you'll want to null your relative velocity. When you're in target mode, the yellow marks on the nav ball are your relative velocity markers. Put your nose on the "anti" marker, the one that's NOT the yellow circle but on the opposite side of the nav ball from that. Now when you burn your engine, your relative velocity should go down. When it hits zero, then you're not moving in relation to your target. Then repeat the process until you get closer and closer. Burn at your target, then in the anti-relative velocity direction and make your velocity zero. Keep your eye on the range to target, too. When it's going up, you're moving away, so you want to burn toward your target again. In that case, your relative velocity will go DOWN. Let it pass through zero and go back up to 5 m/s (lower if you're closer). You'll notice that in general terms, the prograde velocity marker should generally be near the pink circular target marker on the nav ball. Your velocity vector is pointing toward your target.

Found this in Google image search:

You'll realize that as you do this process, the orbits of the two ships get closer and closer until they're identical and you're close enough to dock. You don't have to think about it, it just happens.

Can't really help you much with docking. That's almost all practice. I always found that getting them close enough to dock was the hard part, anyway.

Now if you get MechJeb, you get all sorts of cool tools that you can use to help you dock. There is a rendezvous panel that has great info on relative velocity and how close you will actually get to each other before you start to move apart, stuff like that. PLUS you get a tool called Smart A.S.S. that will do all of that pointing at prograde and retrograde crap for you. Or you can just have it dock for you. Your call.

For me, it was a lot more satisfying when I learned to do it by myself. Not that I was uber at WASDShiftCtrl, but that I knew for myself how it worked. What happened when I burned prograde or retrograde to the relative velocity vector, etc. But if you've had enough, I can see wanting to have MJ do it for you. I'd probably feel the same way.

Edited August 9, 2013 by DChurchill
Spelling

[KhaosCorp]

You could try using MechJeb to help with rendezvous, but I've heard it has problems with auto-docking. Best thing to do, though, is to keep trying to dock those craft. Practice with smaller stuff because docking big stuff is exactly the same, you just have to have more patience.

90% of the 'mechjeb docking issue' come from craft not properly balanced, and RCS systems not spaced properly. MechJeb is a little over-touchy in these areas when it comes to docking autopilot.

A great mod for docking is HydroTech, though im not sure if it was updated for 0.21+

[DerekL1963]

If you're going to use MechJeb for docking... try the No RCS Method:

. I usually don't need the docking autopilot at all.

Otherwise, yeah, what they said about starting small. Even with MJ, you need to understand the basics to use it to maximum advantage.

[regex]

90% of the 'mechjeb docking issue' come from craft not properly balanced, and RCS systems not spaced properly. MechJeb is a little over-touchy in these areas when it comes to docking autopilot.

In other words, don't use it because a human pilot will always be better piloting human-built craft. I don't even let MechJeb look at my controls when I come in for docking, no matter how balanced my craft is.

[DChurchill]

In other words, don't use it because a human pilot will always be better piloting human-built craft. I don't even let MechJeb look at my controls when I come in for docking, no matter how balanced my craft is.

I still use Smart A.S.S. but I'm not all that impressed with auto-dock.

[regex]

I still use Smart A.S.S. but I'm not all that impressed with auto-dock.

I use the 0.21.1 SAS. It can't hold a heading to save its life under thrust but it is brilliant for docking. Very conservative on the resources. If the craft is balanced, I can just toggle Smart A.S.S. or SAS to stop rotation and head in myself; no need for aids.

But then, I rarely fly perfectly balanced craft.

[DChurchill]

I get it all set up then use kill rot to hold my roll angle. I find that nothing else will do it with out sliding off. Lazor docking cam has numbers for angles and distances so I can usually dock within .1 degree. I'm only that OCD with stations. Otherwise SAS is fine.

[regex]

I get it all set up then use kill rot to hold my roll angle. I find that nothing else will do it with out sliding off. Lazor docking cam has numbers for angles and distances so I can usually dock within .1 degree. I'm only that OCD with stations. Otherwise SAS is fine.

Docking cams unman you. My OCD just doesn't scream that much, even on stations. Within 5 degrees and I'm good.

The point being, I guess, that there are tons of aids out there already to help with docking, it all comes down to what works best for you. OP is asking for something that already exists.

[DChurchill]

Docking cams are really fun! They look like videos from the real thing.

[KhaosCorp]

I still use Smart A.S.S. but I'm not all that impressed with auto-dock.

MJ2 docking auto pilot works great...IF your craft has perfect symmetrical balance, your RCS thrust is ALL perfectly balanced in relation to your CoM.

If you got robots making your ships MJ2 docking is awesome!!!

This is the main issue with MJ2...keep in mind this is how I see the situation.

I think MJ1 was more of an autopilot 'lemme do that for ya' type system. It seems that MJ2 tried to get away from that, as such MJ2 is best used as a navigational computer rather than an autopilot. And i think alot of the "i has MJ2 problems' posts come from people used to using MJ1 and trying to use new versions in the same way.

Course thats just my opinion on the situation.

[DChurchill]

Honestly I never gave it much of a chance cause I like docking too much.

[Sandworm]

What you want are the two craft in circular orbits one between 2 and 5 km different in radius, say 100 km and 105 km, and co-planar (within 1/10 of a degree is close enough). The actual altitudes make little difference, just the difference between the two.

Altitude can make a huge difference. No two object can follow identical orbits (think 4-dimensionally). Unless their center of masses are perfectly behind one another on exactly the same orbit, they will drift in relation to each other. Two object beside each other will appear to orbit one another in a slow circle. This causes headaches for noobs while docking. You may be perfectly aligned at one moment, only to drift off axis over time even without any input.

This effect is greater the lower the orbit, the tighter the circle. At much higher orbits the effect is greatly diminished. Things happen much more slowly. So I recommend that anyone with problems try to work them out at 3000km plus.

[KhaosCorp]

This effect is greater the lower the orbit, the tighter the circle. At much higher orbits the effect is greatly diminished. Things happen much more slowly. So I recommend that anyone with problems try to work them out at 3000km plus.

To expand on this a bit...

Unless your the friggin Chuck Yeager of KSP docking you really shouldn't even consider putting an orbital station at less then 800km or so for Kerbin.

If your just learning best way is to make a couple craft bit bigger than typical lander. Fly those out to 3000km and practice. Once you have docked a few times move in, practice at 2500km....rinse, repeat.

[regex]

Docking cams are really fun! They look like videos from the real thing.

I tried the Lazor cam in 0.20 and found it was just really distracting. It also messed up my flights, had to end process on KSP to get out of the game.

I much prefer the navball and eye-balling the approach. Most of the time I don't even bother setting a specific docking port target. It's all personal though, and my way of doing things doesn't make me any better, but you knew that.

[Rassa Farlander]

Chase cam for the win!!!

[esinohio]

Yes! I love having ol' Jeb around for the mundane tasks I've grown exceptionally tired of doing over and over. But when it comes to docking, there is nothing like flying in on manual and getting that link up. Its so much fun!

[HeadHunter67]

When you're in target mode, the yellow marks on the nav ball are your relative velocity markers. Put your nose on the "anti" marker, the one that's NOT the yellow circle but on the opposite side of the nav ball from that.

Wait a second... you mean relative to the target? So perhaps my issue is that I've been misunderstanding the info I've been given. I was taught to burn off my RVEL by the purple retrograde marker. If that's not the case, it's no wonder I sail by. So, tell me then, what are the purple icons good for in target mode? And in that mode, what shows my orbital pro- and retro-grades if I need them?

[DChurchill]

Wait a second... you mean relative to the target? So perhaps my issue is that I've been misunderstanding the info I've been given. I was taught to burn off my RVEL by the purple retrograde marker. If that's not the case, it's no wonder I sail by. So, tell me then, what are the purple icons good for in target mode? And in that mode, what shows my orbital pro- and retro-grades if I need them?

The purple targets, well the either look pink or blue on my screen. The ones I'll call pink are where your target is. The blue ones are the maneuver node. As for the yellow one, if you're in Target mode it's relative velocity, and orbit mode it's pro- and retrograde.

So point at your target, the round pink one, burn at it watching your relative velocity in the display over your nav ball. Don't let it get too high or you may not be able to stop before you smash into your target. Then rotate to the anti-relative velocity marker, the yellow circle with the X in it, and burn on that. Your relative velocity should go down. Then go back to the pink target and burn toward it, then back to the yellow X. Rinse repeat.

Once you move in to dock, you should see the pink circle and the yellow circle near each other. If the yellow is to the upper right of the pink circle, you're drifting up and right. If the yellow circle is right on top of the pink circle, you're moving right at your target. It's going to work similarly to that docking target mod but lacking some detail. You can then use RCS to adjust where the yellow circle is in relation to the pink one. If you're high and right, then move the yellow circle below and to the left of the pink one.

Edited August 14, 2013 by DChurchill