Signs you've mastered the art of docking

[Kerbart]

• Being annoyed at MJ's ability to dock efficiently. Only mildly annoyed. It's not like it's a lot of work, anyway.
  
• “Always place your RCS thrusters at COM.†*Snicker* Really? Why? I like attaching clean Jumbo tanks to my fuel station, so I’d rather dock them (loaded with fuel) with the RCS thrusters all the way at the back where the delivery ship is, thank you very much.
  
• Career mode: not having access to the large solar panel arrays. Well, I can make them using the M200 I-beams. Of course they're sticking out at launch. So I'll just send those in afterward and just dock 'em. In the right orientation, too.
  
• “30 minutes before we leave to visit the inlaws. Good, that gives me just enough time to launch, rendezvous and dock another solar panel arrayâ€Â
  

[Lalwcat]

Doing clean docking without RCS nodes all around is the reason I learned how to dock without RCS. I hated having to attach RCS thrusters to parts I didn't want them on the final aesthetics of the ship.

Now everything is docked via liquid fuel. Line up at 250m or so, lock both vehicles to point at each other then give it a tap of fuel. Abort if not lined up but if you drift in 5-10 m/s or so it works very well.

[Guest]

Being annoyed at MJ's ability to dock efficiently. Only mildly annoyed. It's not like it's a lot of work, anyway.

I don't think I've ever once let MJ dock some ships for me. Might have to try it just to see how bad it is...

Also, RCS thrusters at COM, yeah, especially where four extra parts on the station just isn't needed. Bonus points if you pulled that with the pre-0.21 ASAS and watched that fuel tank you were delivering flop around like a rubber dong.

[Starwhip]

"Alright, my massive spaceship building station is complete."

"Oh, holy c***, that only took 45 minutes?!"

[Psycix]

I don't think I've ever once let MJ dock some ships for me. Might have to try it just to see how bad it is...

Also, RCS thrusters at COM, yeah, especially where four extra parts on the station just isn't needed. Bonus points if you pulled that with the pre-0.21 ASAS and watched that fuel tank you were delivering flop around like a rubber dong.

I let mechjeb dock a capsule once.

ONCE.

It basically spews RCS out of all ports during the entire operation, which is extremely slow. I had a single 3man pod use an entire large RCS tank to dock.

About the extra parts, I also try to avoid that. Generally I try to dock RCS-less, and simply rotate my entire space station towards my craft.

To make it even easier I am considering to make a space station with actiongrouped bipropellant engines for translation.

[blizzy78]

[MechJeb] basically spews RCS out of all ports during the entire operation, which is extremely slow.

Sadly, this is true. The problem is that it tries much too hard to keep exact velocity. So it thrusts in one direction, recognizes it is going too fast, thrusts in the opposite direction to slow down, recognizes it is going too slow, then repeats the whole process. This way it is eating monopropellant like candy. Now I'm really no expert when it comes to PID controllers, but I'm pretty sure there is room for improvement.

[VirtualCLD]

Doing clean docking without RCS nodes all around is the reason I learned how to dock without RCS. I hated having to attach RCS thrusters to parts I didn't want them on the final aesthetics of the ship.

Now everything is docked via liquid fuel. Line up at 250m or so, lock both vehicles to point at each other then give it a tap of fuel. Abort if not lined up but if you drift in 5-10 m/s or so it works very well.

I've always used RCS because I've needed them to over come the inertia from the sheer mass of everything. How do you rotate large ships? I've tried adding more ASAS modules (particularly near the CG), but that doesn't seem to work very well. Also, I sometimes need to dock objects that have no remote pilot or command capsule which means I can't easily point both ships at each other since I can only control one of them (this is using a "space tug" method of orbital assembly).

[KerbMav]

• “Always place your RCS thrusters at COM.†*Snicker* Really? Why? I like attaching clean Jumbo tanks to my fuel station, so I’d rather dock them (loaded with fuel) with the RCS thrusters all the way at the back where the delivery ship is, thank you very much.
  

Between the occasional "what the kerb is he doing there" while watching youtube videos there are always some special moments that lift some big grey animal sitting on my eyes and brain and I will learn something:

Camera in flight is centered on the COM, zoom in, align COM with docking port, rotate, thrust, dock - even with an RCS-tug at the far end of the station/ship/cargo part.

I think true mastery begins at the point where you stop building big and just go ahead through the process of rendezvous and docking, calmly, without cringing at the mere thought of it.

[Anton P. Nym]

I noted my ~600-part mothership heading for Jool was running through fuel faster than planned, so during a planned pause I launched a tanker, set up a rendezvous at the mothership's next periapsis*, matched orbits at ~3000m/s around Kerbin and docked with the timer showing red, refuelled, and deorbited the tanker so that it hit atmosphere at about 4000m/s.

Once upon a time I hated docking. Now it's fun.

-- Steve

* thank you, Kerbal Alarm Clock rendezvous plotter, you save me a lot of grief.

[Madrias]

I've only ever used MechJeb to get me my closest approach. After that, I've just docked manually. A good autopilot might do the job, but it's no match for a pilot's instinct.

[PDCWolf]

6 launches.

1 for Lanya (Zvezda mockup)

1 for Spalnya (Zarya mockup)

1 for Unity

1 for Pirs

1 for Poisk

1 for Rassvet

Gif is pre-pirs/poisk/rassvet

[kookoo_gr]

When you only need either one FL-R10 RCS Fuel Tank or Stratus-V Roundified Monopropellant Tank (2 if you want to have things symmetrically) and even then you only spend a fraction (less than a quarter) of the monopropelant you have on board.

[Whackjob]

When you do a perfect seven port dock.

[Kasuha]

When you dock a wildly spinning fuel tank with no control module without resorting to time warp.

[kookoo_gr]

Docking to a target directly from launch without establishing a parking orbit

[Dun Kirk]

*thinking about doing a docking tutorial*

[blizzy78]

*thinking about doing a docking tutorial*

As if there aren't any

[oggylt]

actually with new sas you can have your rcs ports slightly off the COM, or you can add additional weight to pull the COM backwards

[KvickFlygarn87]

Docking with less than 5 monoprop.

[El wonso]

If you want your parts to be "clean", just put rcs blocks on radial decouplers.

[ComradeGoat]

Camera in flight is centered on the COM, zoom in, align COM with docking port, rotate, thrust, dock - even with an RCS-tug at the far end of the station/ship/cargo part.

I think true mastery begins at the point where you stop building big and just go ahead through the process of rendezvous and docking, calmly, without cringing at the mere thought of it.

No. True mastery is when you do that, with a docking port that is not inline with the COM.

[Stranded]

I built a ship with two capsules stacked and docking ports, etc. Then sent it up just to practice docking. Put a guy in each capsule got it into an orbit and then used that to build my skills. Now I am no where near even good at it, but at least I don't have to go chasing down another object in orbit to practice. Funny part is, when I was unsuccessful docking once, I ended up EVA'ing the Kerbal and then practiced jetpacking him over to the other capsule with the engine still attached so he wasn't left out there in orbit. Was a proud moment for me. Baby steps..

[[email protected]]

Yes, and....

When your circularization burns consistently put you within 1000 meters of your target-simply by eyeballing it.

When watching Scott Manley dock becomes painfully unbearable.

When you find Debris floating near your station and use a fuel tug to deorbit it.

[Joe32320]

Thing with MJ is not to go crazy with putting RCS thrusters all over, I normally only put 4 RCS thrusters on a ship 2 at the top/near the top and 2, 90 degrees to the top 2 at the bottom. If you put too many thrusters on it then MJ spends the whole time over-reacting to being slightly out of line, whilst having less means it has time to actually correct the movement...it still eats alot of propellant but it does at least mean it dock without eating tanks of the stuff.

[nhnifong]

I would feel like I'd "mastered" docking when I could hockey stop at the space station and dock in a few seconds.