Docking in the dark?

[Thomas Cook]

Hello fellow Kerbonauts.

I've been playing KSP for a few weeks now and start to get the hang of it more and more.

Also docked about 10 times and it goes better and better every time I do it.

However, there is one issue I can't resolve, and that is docking on the dark side of moons or planets.

When I got both ships between a few meters apart from each other I set both ship to a north / south orientation.

At least I know then, that the heading is correct. After that I RCS my way around till docked.

But on the dark side of the planet I always end up keeping both ships pretty close together till the sun comes up again.

I have seen videos of people being able to dock with just the navball and even without RCS, but I can't seem to grasp the concept.

Can someone help me or give me advice how to help me dock at night?

I have searched the forum for this question since I have a full confidence someone asked it earlier. I just couldn't find any threads.

A link to an earlier thread would be helpfull as well.

My thanks in advance.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Thomas Cook

[Skorpychan]

Put lights on your ships?

[Richy teh space man]

Try moving the camera around a little bit, you may get enough from a silhouette from the stars to navigate with, or wait for sunrise and do station keeping to stay close in the mean time.

Failing that just put lights on your ship next time.

[Thomas Cook]

LOL, I agree that's a great answer. Emberassing how noob I feel now.

That will work indeed. However I would like to understand the concept of docking using practically nothing but your navball and the distance between the ships.

I've seen players using that and it seems so easy. However I just do'n't get the hang of it.

[LameLefty]

Unless you're using mods like docking cameras or something, it can be very hard. If you have each ship set the docking clamp of the OTHER ship as its rendezvous target, then it's possible to dock completely in the dark, just by making sure your velocity vectors of each ship always point toward the target (e.g., the other ship's docking clamp). I can't do it, personally. I put a set of lights around the docking clamps of all my ships and assign them to a custom action group. I've lately also started using the Aviation Lights mod to add standard aviation/naval station keeping red/green/white lights to my ships. They don't consume much power but sure do make it easier to keep a solid visualization of what's going on during the night side of each orbit.

[karolus10]

Put lights on your ships?

This would not hurt .

You can use this mod too:

It takes away a log of guesswork without loosing a challenge .

Spaceport link

[Thomas Cook]

This would not hurt .

You can use this mod too:

It takes away a log of guesswork without loosing a challenge .

Spaceport link

Thanks for the answers everybody. Lights are on from now on. I've tried to install the Lazors Docking Camera but something glitchy happended and my docking ports didn't want to attach to my spaceships.

So I uninstalled it. I'll definitely try the mod Karolus10.

[King Arthur]

Unless you're using mods like docking cameras or something, it can be very hard.each orbit.

Not at all, you have all the information you need for full instrument docking in a stock environment:

* Relative velocity to target.

* Distance to target.

* Angle, orientation, and your vector relative to your target on the navball.

Basically, line up your ship so that it is parallel to your target docking port, line up your target reticle and your prograde vector, keep speed under 0.3m/s, and go in for docking while performing minor RCS thruster burns to correct any deviations along the way. I've gotten to a point where I fly by the navball even in complete daylight, trying to eyeball everything visually is just too inaccurate.

[RoboRay]

Actually, there is no stock instrument which provides orientation to target docking axis. You can approximate one by setting both craft to a known common orientation individually (preferably the orbit Normal to mitigate any orbit-induced apparent pitch or yaw drift), but that's not the same thing as the game providing orientation to target information. Even the Devs have said in the past that they want to add orientation alignment cues to the NavBall at some point, but haven't gotten to it yet.

The Docking Alignment mod instrument shown above, however, does provide it (along with redundant information from the NavBall so you don't have to keep looking back and forth between them).

It also provides precise roll alignment information, if you're anal-retentive about having your station modules all oriented perfectly.

In any case, the simple solution to docking at night or whenever the target port may be shadowed is, of course, a light or two.

Edited August 13, 2013 by RoboRay

[DChurchill]

Lights are the way to go. You can get away with using just the Aviation Lights mod and not have giant spotlights on your ships.

[LameLefty]

Not at all ... (snipped)

First of all, I said it CAN be, not that it actually is (I was expressing empathy to the original poster). I've long since managed to dock whatever I want, whenever I need to, fully manually.

Second of all, as noted by RoboRay, docking axis is key. If you have asymmetrical docking ports or are using radial ports offset from the target vessel center of mass, you have to be pretty careful to be sure (as I pointed out in my post above) to set your targets to the other vessel's docking clamps. Additionally, it very much helps if you right-click each ship's docking clamp and set the "Control From Here" option, which ensures that the indicator's on each ship's navball actually points to the correct target while you're aligning the vessels and their vectors for docking operations.

Anyway, all of that said, while I can and do perform operations in the dark, I still prefer to have lights both for aesthetics ands screenshots, and because I like to glance at the vehicles as a "sanity check" for what the instruments are telling me (for example, ensuring I have in fact selected the correct docking clamp as a target or the "Control From Here" point). Hard to double check that stuff if you can't see your ship at all.

Edited August 13, 2013 by LameLefty

[Thomas Cook]

Not at all, you have all the information you need for full instrument docking in a stock environment:

* Relative velocity to target.

* Distance to target.

* Angle, orientation, and your vector relative to your target on the navball.

Basically, line up your ship so that it is parallel to your target docking port, line up your target reticle and your prograde vector, keep speed under 0.3m/s, and go in for docking while performing minor RCS thruster burns to correct any deviations along the way. I've gotten to a point where I fly by the navball even in complete daylight, trying to eyeball everything visually is just too inaccurate.

Thank you very much King Arthur. And with your answer I assume you set the target on the docking port?

I'm going to try this and get back to you. Visually eyeballing is indeed pretty inaccurate and inefficient.

I've had quite a few situations where I thought both ships were aligned, only to discover they were not as soon as I changed the camera angle.

[LameLefty]

Thank you very much King Arthur. And with your answer I assume you set the target on the docking port?

I'm going to try this and get back to you. Visually eyeballing is indeed pretty inaccurate and inefficient.

I've had quite a few situations where I thought both ships were aligned, only to discover they were not as soon as I changed the camera angle.

That still won't tell you if THE TARGET (call it "Ship 2") itself is oriented correctly toward the first ship ("Ship 1"). Here's how to do that: when you're <2.5 km from Ship 2, make sure to change your focus to Ship 2 (the [ or ] key on your keyboard).

Now, from Ship 2, set Ship 2's rendezvous target as the docking clamp of Ship 1, align the target marker with the velocity vector indicator on the navbal) then switch focus back to the Ship 1.

[karolus10]

Thanks for the answers everybody. Lights are on from now on. I've tried to install the Lazors Docking Camera but something glitchy happended and my docking ports didn't want to attach to my spaceships.

So I uninstalled it. I'll definitely try the mod Karolus10.

Lazor docking camera is kind of glitchy now and aliment indicator mod is IMHO most intuitive docking tool ever made for KSP.

With these indicator and (a bit of skill) NavBall, You can dock manually smoother than any auto-pilot can do .

Edited August 13, 2013 by karolus10

[Motokid600]

I avoid major translation. So its really easy. I just take control of both crafts and turn their ports to face eachother and close the distance. It's harder with stations because of their size, but again I just rotate the craft around and line up the ports. It's easy even in the dark. Just keep the prograde marker on the pink Target marker ( takes a little bit of translation ) and slow down the closer you get.

[Thomas Cook]

LameLefty and King Arthur, thanks for the input because it worked!!

I tried it three times now and it gets better every time I do it. Within two km's I slowly reduce my speed. Next I select the docking ports as control points and align both ships together. After that select one ship and gently RCS to keep the prograde of the ship with your own prograde. That did the trick. The first time I had some trouble fiddling with RCS in respects to the NavBall. But once you understand that, it get's easier everytime.

Docking Image <- Hope it works.

Funny detail. I added lights to the ships, but didn't need them.

My thanks people. All I need to find out now how I set this thread to "Answered"

[HeadHunter67]

The nice thing about using lights of any kind for docking is this: If you place them in the same fashion when constructing both vessels (for instance, 4x symmetry on nadir/zenith/port/starboard, or 45 degrees off of each), then it's simple to use them for making sure you are properly aligned on the roll axis when docking (of course, the wonderful Docking Alignment Indicator plugin has a handy roll indicator anyhow).

And lights are helpful for more than just the docking itself - I find they help in the near rendezvous immediately prior to initiating docking. It's hard to set a port as a target (thus activating your docking plugin of choice) if you can't see the bloody target craft, right?

[RoboRay]

The first time I had some trouble fiddling with RCS in respects to the NavBall. But once you understand that, it get's easier everytime.

To make it easier sorting out your RCS translation buttons, put your view in Chase Cam mode. This orients the on-screen view in respect to your own craft instead of to the planet below you, with the result that the "up" key always moves you up on the screen, the "right" key always moves you right, and so forth. It eliminates all the "looking at the NavBall orientation to figure out what key to push to go in the direction you want" issues.

[bernierm]

I usually need to use a maneuver node to get my ship close, so I usually will locate that node just before the day/night terminator. After completing the maneuver, I'll be in docking range exactly 1 orbit later, which, if you placed your node just right, will give me a half-orbit of daylight to complete the dock. Note that you can cheat it a bit by putting it earlier, as it is likely that you don't need daylight for the first few minutes of the docking procedure. Also, you can cheat it even more, as the planet's rotation will advance that terminator as well.

[SpaceK531]

I never put lights on my ship so the way I combat this is I move the mouse cursor over where the ships are so that I can see where they are.

[esinohio]

Hello fellow Kerbonauts.

I've been playing KSP for a few weeks now and start to get the hang of it more and more.

Also docked about 10 times and it goes better and better every time I do it.....

I just love seeing this! Just throwing in my grats for your docking success! I hope others who might be struggling see this and get some inspiration. Could you expand a bit on how you practiced? Was it a specific tutorial that gave you that "ah ha" moment or maybe a forum thread?

[RoboRay]

I never put lights on my ship so the way I combat this is I move the mouse cursor over where the ships are so that I can see where they are.

If you can't see where they are, it's harder to put the cursor over them so that you can see where they are.

[maltesh]

To make it easier sorting out your RCS translation buttons, put your view in Chase Cam mode. This orients the on-screen view in respect to your own craft instead of to the planet below you, with the result that the "up" key always moves you up on the screen, the "right" key always moves you right, and so forth. It eliminates all the "looking at the NavBall orientation to figure out what key to push to go in the direction you want" issues.

The thing about docking with the navball is that those keys /always/ move your velocity vector and anti-velocity director in the same direction across the navball, regardless of how you're roll-oriented. and the target symbol on the Navball will tell you the direction you need to translate.

Shown above: A tanker translating to bring its docking port directly in front of a fuel depot's docking port, preparatory to moving forward to dock.

As a result, I tend to wind up considering almost everything /except/ the Navball to be a distraction.

[SpaceK531]

If you can't see where they are, it's harder to put the cursor over them so that you can see where they are.

the screen is only so big

and the active ship is in the middle of the screen.

and a pink nametag appears in front of a targeted ship.

Plus I'm pretty good at remembering where my ships are.

[Thomas Cook]

The nice thing about using lights of any kind for docking is this: If you place them in the same fashion when constructing both vessels (for instance, 4x symmetry on nadir/zenith/port/starboard, or 45 degrees off of each), then it's simple to use them for making sure you are properly aligned on the roll axis when docking (of course, the wonderful Docking Alignment Indicator plugin has a handy roll indicator anyhow).

I haven't even considered docking with my roll axis in mind. It was not nessecary since I only practiced docking maneuvers with the same ship shot twice in orbit. I guess I should learn it too, if I would like to make nice symmetrical space stations.