How to Dock

[Spartaneri]

I'm having trouble with the whole Orbital Interception with spacecraft. I can dock, but getting to craft together in orbit is seemingly impossible

HELP!

[Jean Deaux]

Scott Manly to the rescue! You need to become familiar with this guy's tutorials.

[TheFudge]

Hey there and welcome!

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Docking

I learned docking with this article. I found it hard at first, but now it's just that simple like getting into orbit.

Read it carefully and you should get it done!

What I noticed: Because of the early state of this game you should try to have a simple ship, not one with everything on it. so just simple things.

Greetings,

The Fudge.

edit: too slow...

[roosterr]

I'm having trouble with the whole Orbital Interception with spacecraft. I can dock, but getting to craft together in orbit is seemingly impossible

HELP!

Just FYI, a moderator will likely move this post to another section of the forums soon.

But maybe I can help.

Here are the broad steps:

1. While your chase vehicle is on the launch pad, click on the orbiting target craft in map view and "Set as Target"
   
2. Wait for target ship to be just overhead or slightly early before launching your ship. Launch
   
3. Get to an oribtal altitude around 10% lower than target, make sure you are on an even plane, no tilt in orbit relative to target
   
4. You should be "chasing" the target at this time, but at a lower altitude
   
5. Time warp until you are directly under the target
   
6. Now burn toward target which is the purple ring on the navball
   
7. Note on navball that the target location is the purple ring and your actual direction of travel relative to target is the yellow ring
   
8. Gently steer the yellow ring to the purple ring by steering your ship to the opposite side of the purple ring from the yellow ring. You should see the yellow ring start to adjust
   
9. Once the yellow ring is inside the purple ring, stop your burn
   
10. You are now headed directly at the target, although likely at a high rate of speed, note your speed to "Target" on Navball
    
11. If you have lost the to "Target" speed on the navball and it says "Orbit", or "Surface", click on that text (your speed) until it says Target again.
    
12. As you drift towards target continue to adjust the yellow heading ring into the purple ring
    
13. As you get closer turn your ship to the retro bug (yellow ring with an X) and slow way down. You will see how this affects the retro heading vs. retro target direction, adjust accordingly (hint, the retro movements are reverse of when you were burning to the target) You will figure it out.
    
14. Use your judgement as how much to thrust to slow down as you approach target. Keep retro tick inside the retro target direction as best as you can. It is VERY easy to overshoot target and this is very bad, so go slow and repeat the prograde/retrograde approach
    
15. When things have calmed down, look at the map view and make sure your orbit and target orbit look the same around the planet. But, dont get too carried away with the way the orbits look while you are deep in your approach, it will settle out if you follow the above steps. BUT, dont try to dock until the orbits are aligned.
    

There is more to it, and even though it looks like lots of steps, eventually it becomes a logical progression that you will figure out with practice. Hopefully this gives you a good start. The key is to drive the yellow ring (bugs, aka ticks) to the purple Target ring on the navball, without overshooting the target.

Good luck!

Edited September 24, 2013 by roosterr

[PrivateFlip]

Rendezvouz Tutorial by blizzy78,

explains the most basic principles

[lajoswinkler]

Hats off to Manley for his contributions, but his docking video will make any newb frustrated. I know it almost had no benefit for me, it only made me furious and more confused.

I don't mind about the time of the launch. After the launch, make sure your orbit looks similar to the target's orbit, but a bit larger or smaller, to facilitate future chasing. They should be close enough so you can see the approach markers.

Then adjust your inclination to match the target's orbit inclination. Orbits of matching shape and size will touch at maximum of 2 points if differently inclined, and it's more difficult to take care of it later.

After that, increase warp time and watch the markers tick around like clock handles in map mode. At their closes approach, enter live view and turn on the chase mode, click above the navball to set speed indicator to "Target". Burn retrograde until that number is close to zero. Turn towards the target and burn to start approaching. Don't do more than 20 m/s, it's not necessary and you can overshoot your target. Periodically check the map mode to see what happens. The approcach markers should show, on pointer hover, decreasing distance. Stop burning at the indicated minimum approach distance. Wait do actually come close, then retrograde burn to again slow down.

Repeat until you're at ~200m from your target. Pink prograde, yellow retrograde. That's basically all you need. And time.

Enter docking mode and start RCS approach and corrections.

Try docking small crafts first. Learning is harder with sluggish elephant sized tanks.

[roosterr]

Hats off to Manley for his contributions, but his docking video will make any newb frustrated. I know it almost had no benefit for me, it only made me furious and more confused.

I agree. I am a fan of Scott Manley, BUT his docking video confused me the first time and I found many others out there that were better. I learned from watching MANY rendezvous video's a noting all the common practices of each. Then after many attempts and dockings, I streamlined my method.

[AlamoVampire]

I would also recommend MechJeb 2.0.9 or later <if later exists yet lol> as it was for me atleast, VITAL to teaching me how to rendezvous and dock. Short of that, any of the 6 replies above me, contain everything I could possibly suggest Happy Exploring!

[shadowsutekh]

Yeah just a note for future reference, this is really more of a general gameplay question than a intro post.

That being said, welcome to the forums!