Docking Frustration

[Lohan2008]

I can get within 15 m but my craft will not "kiss"...

Gahhhhhh !!!

Wish KSP had a head cam for the front...

[Securus]

Yeah, docking is one of he more difficult aspects of KSP, but also one of the most rewarding. If you're getting to within 15m then one of the things you need to make sure to do is be patient. For a docking cam, use the Lazor System Docking cam: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/lazor-docking-cam/

Also make sure your rcs is balanced on center of mass and to use fine controls.

[Tex_NL]

And make sure to use matching docking ports. Jr's only connect to jr's. Sr's only connect to sr's.

[Wayfare]

15 meters is really close already! If you can rendezvous that close, you're three-fourths of the way to a good dock. Hit "V" a few times to enter chase cam mode, this will keep your up up and your forward forward. Make sure you set the other craft's port as target and use the navball for guidance. Then use a gentle hand on the RCS translation controls to guide your ship in. Docking shouldn't be rushed, that's what time warp is for

[EvilotionCR2]

I cannot understand why people can't do it,I did it on my first attempt.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I did docking on my first attempt, it didn't give me the same buzz a mun landing did.

I found getting to Minmus for the first time was 100 times more difficult then docking.

I advice learning the translation controls so you can use them without looking and don't over think things.

Renember, the longer you take station keeping, the further the two crafts will drift apart!.

[m1xte]

Kill all relative velocity.

Switch craft and "control from here" at the docking port.

Select the docking craft as target.

Face target market at navball.

Switch craft again.

Select "control from here" at the docking port.

Select the craft you are docking as target.

Face target marker.

Give little gas (~0.3m/s)

Wait.

Profit.

Ps. Dont bother with off center docking ports.

[Captain Sierra]

Docking to me is the easy part. It's the rendezvous that is a pain (then again, that is less true since I have taken to spacing my orbits out farther). If you can rendezvous to 15 meters, you have already done the hard part. My two cents:

make sure you click the port you want to dock using and set control from here.

Set the target docking port as the target to get more accurate distance, speed, and nav-ball indicators.

Lazor Docking Cam, get it. It is the greatest tool for being certain you are lined up.

[lazarus1024]

I cannot understand why people can't do it,I did it on my first attempt.

I spent 30 minutes on my first attempt about an hour after .18 came out before I gave up and hopped on the boards.

It took an hour or two to hash out since docking was brand new. Turns out I was using a JR to Regular docking port, so no bueno. After that I docked within 2 minutes of trying on my second attempt.

I had been practicing rendezvous in .17 a fair amount, before we had manuever nodes even.

These days docking is rarely a laborious process. Rendezvous often takes a lot longer simply because docking on lower kerbin orbit often means getting limited to only 50x timewarp and it might take 3-8 orbits to get effective rendezvous depending on launch profile.

I only struggle with really akward ship designs and/or poor/no choice in placement of RCS thrusters.

[Kerbart]

Kill all relative velocity.

Switch craft and "control from here" at the docking port.

Select the docking craft as target. Make sure you right click the docking port of choice and set it as target.

Face target market at navball.

Switch craft again.

Select "control from here" at the docking port.

Select the craft you are docking as target.

Face target marker.

Give little gas (~0.3m/s)

Wait.

Profit.

Ps. Dont bother with off center docking ports.If you select the docking port as the target and not just the vessel, off-center is not a problem

There, I fixed it.

In addition, once you've marked the target you will notice that the velocity marker shows the relative speed on the nav ball.

If your velocity is horizontally aligned with the target marker your height is good

If your velocity is vertically aligned with the target marker your sideways position is good.

But forget about the above two and think two steps further.

1) If your velocity marker matches the direction of the target marker it means that you're closing in on the port in a straight line. Once you've lined up your speed marker and your target marker on the same diagonal (and that's just a matter of adjusting either horizontal or vertical speed) move to step 2:

2) If your (positive) velocity marker is on top of the target marker it means that your moving towards the docking port at the same rate as you're converging to the center. In other words, when you reach the docking port you'll be right on top of it. Assuming you got the first part right (matching horizontal and vertical speed), increase/decrease forward speed until your velocity marker is on top of the target marker. Now it's just a matter of waiting until you hit the docking port.

This works so well that I've docked multiple times without even noticing it. I was just keeping my eyes on the navball and all of a sudden... Music, kerbals pop up on the videocam, etc... docked!

The docking port can adjust for quite a bit of directional misalignment (don't overdo it, but 5 degrees is not an issue and probably even more). However, that works better with the stabilizer turned off (as it's not counteracting the attempts of the docking port to line you up) so turn off the stabilizer once you get really close (and not intend to do any direction changes anyway).

As mentioned before: MAKE SURE YOUR RCS LINES UP WITH THE MASS CENTER OF YOUR CRAFT!! If I want multiple RCS trusters (better for large vessels) I put one set on the mass center, and then two pairs on equal distance at the far ends of my craft. Docking with asymmetric RCS is incredibly painful.

[Tripzter]

Learn your rcs translation keys.

[Rainbow-Dashie]

I just recently learned docking. For starts, it was difficult because I didn't exactly know what I was doing. But then I read a few guides, (which I kept tabbing out to while I was trying to dock) and I finally got a reusable shuttle to one of my ships! (Note: that reusable shuttle, is not reusable and is stuck on the Mun.)

[regex]

Kill all relative velocity.

Switch craft and "control from here" at the docking port.

Select the docking craft as target.

Face target market at navball.

Switch craft again.

Select "control from here" at the docking port.

Select the craft you are docking as target.

Face target marker.

Give little gas (~0.30.2m/s)

Wait.

Profit.

Fixed. Once you get docking down none of that is even remotely useful and just wastes time. In fact, learn to do it without taking all those steps and save some time.

Ps. Dont bother with off center docking ports.

Easy to manage once you've got docking down, just eye-ball your approach.

Best advice I can give you: learn to use the IJKLHN keys in combination with the WADS keys and don't bother with docking mode.

[Kosmo-not]

I had to dock a craft last night without RCS because I forgot to install a probe core on the ship that has the RCS. I docked it on the first attempt.

[daffy]

Docking opens a whole new level to the game, and it's a lot of fun once you get it. Patience. Translate, watch, counter-translate, and then some more patience. Good tune in the background helps out. I've learned that RCS thruster placement makes a TON of difference. (As close to center of mass as you can, remembering that it does shift as you burn fuel) It took me a while but was worth it.

[LameLefty]

Fixed. Once you get docking down none of that is even remotely useful and just wastes time. In fact, learn to do it without taking all those steps and save some time.

Yeah, but ....

Telling someone with no intuitive grasp of close-proximity orbital dynamics to just "eyeball" it is asking for frustration. They need to learn to eyeball it by doing it slow, steady and "by the book" a few times (maybe more depending on the person and how naturally it "clicks" with them) in order to get that feel so they can eyeball it in the future. Especially if you're trying to dock to an asymmetric or off-axis docking port, or something that's just really big, it's VERY helpful to switch focus to the target vessel and rotate the targeted port to face the incoming vessel. "Eyeballing" a fly-around in low orbit is just not something that most new players will get very easily.

[regex]

Yeah, but ....

Telling someone with no intuitive grasp of close-proximity orbital dynamics to just "eyeball" it is asking for frustration. They need to learn to eyeball it by doing it slow, steady and "by the book" a few times (maybe more depending on the person and how naturally it "clicks" with them) in order to get that feel so they can eyeball it in the future. Especially if you're trying to dock to an asymmetric or off-axis docking port, or something that's just really big, it's VERY helpful to switch focus to the target vessel and rotate the targeted port to face the incoming vessel. "Eyeballing" a fly-around in low orbit is just not something that most new players will get very easily.

It's how I learned. Navball, some hotkeys, and my own two eyes. Didn't take all that long to get it down, after that it was all refinement. All those extra junk actions just waste time and can add extra confusion (believe me, I tried them several times, almost had a few collisions while doing all that swapping.)

vOv

Assume that YMMV and that everybody learns differently. All we can really do is suggest how to learn.

[blizzy78]

You might want to try out my in-game docking tutorial. (see signature)

[Tiron]

Yeah, but ....

Telling someone with no intuitive grasp of close-proximity orbital dynamics to just "eyeball" it is asking for frustration. They need to learn to eyeball it by doing it slow, steady and "by the book" a few times (maybe more depending on the person and how naturally it "clicks" with them) in order to get that feel so they can eyeball it in the future. Especially if you're trying to dock to an asymmetric or off-axis docking port, or something that's just really big, it's VERY helpful to switch focus to the target vessel and rotate the targeted port to face the incoming vessel. "Eyeballing" a fly-around in low orbit is just not something that most new players will get very easily.

Once you've managed a close rendezvous there's nothing to do EXCEPT eyeball it, though. Once you're close, orbital dynamics stop really mattering, and it becomes all about the relative motion.

The HARD part is thrusting correctly given the camera may not line up very well, if at all, with the way that the craft is oriented. That's what the 'chase cam' mode is for, though it has its own problems.

What I've always found funny is that I end up doing final alignment so slowly, that when the magnets finally kick in, they actually pull the craft together far faster than I'd been moving.

[Animal Mother]

I cannot understand why people can't do it,I did it on my first attempt.

The hardest part for me was the rendezvous in orbit, once I got to within a Km, it was easy work

[Levelord]

I'm having trouble relating to people that have trouble docking. It's really easy once you put the camera into chase mode because it locks your camera orientation to the Y axis of your ship. In essence you always know which is up and down, which also means 'I' Will translate down and 'k' will translate up consistently.

Then it's a matter of rotating the camera above and below to adjust for the X and Y deviations to the docking port and then thrust forwards for a dock.

tl;dr Put your camera in chase mode FFS

[Longsok]

It took me three attempts, first I couldn't rendezvous, then I put the thrusters wrong so I spent all my fuel spinning all over the place. The third time, perfect rendezvous, aligned my craft with the other, moved in, and presto, docked. No setting targets after the rendezvous, just some good old fashioned eyeballing.

[HeadHunter67]

Lazor Docking Cam, get it. It is the greatest tool for being certain you are lined up.

Not correct. NavyFish's Docking Port Alignment Indicator is a far more powerful aid for docking. A camera can't tell you which way you need to orient to get the port in sight, which way to intuitively translate to move your prograde dead-center, or most of the other things that the DPAI can do.

Honestly, a camera's not very useful for docking, because it only helps once you've already done most of the work.

[roosterr]

If you are getting 15 m and your relative velocity is close to 0.0, then the hard part is over (if it makes you feel any better ). What you may be missing is hit V to get into chase view. Sometimes chase view will start you by looking at the ship profile; swing the camera around to the tail. Set the target vessel as a target. SWITCH TO DOCKING MODE at bottom left corner button. Make sure SAS is engaged, as well as RCS of course. The rest you should know, just bring it in gently and be patient.

Sorry you are having trouble. Rendezvous and docking is the most time-consuming, sometimes frustrating, and difficult task to achieve in KSP. BUT is also one of the most rewarding aspects. Do it a few dozen times and it will be so routine you will forget these frustrations. I got lucky the first few times, and it then it got hard again. Go back and watch as many youTube videos on how to do it as you can. Someone may have a good video that will click in your head to make it easier. That is how I started out.

Good luck!

[bobcook]

Best advice I can give you: learn to use the IJKLHN keys in combination with the WADS keys and don't bother with docking mode.

This. I've never used Docking Mode, seems entirely too confusing to my brain to be useful. Two additional suggestions: (1) learn to switch into fine control mode; and (2) if you can't twist your brain to convert IJKL into the actual direction of your ship in its current state, rotate your ship until you can.