How did I suddenly get so good at rendevousing?

[LostElement]

I have no Idea. Before this week, I spent 3 hours trying to rendezvous one ship to another! And now I have seem to have mastered the art of rendezvousing. It's as easy as getting to Jool, (Which is insanely easy to do)

Have any of you guys had something similar? Suddenly being good at docking, Interplanetary transfers, etc?

[MajorThomas]

Yes pal, you've come over the top of the learning curve. All downhill from there!

[astropapi1]

It's easy as pie.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

Docking was one of the hardest things for me to learn, no matter how many tutorials I watched or read I just didn't get it. I've had hundreds of failed attempts, but all of a sudden the tables turned and I understood how the mechanics actually work. Now, I dock like a pro... never miss. I think it was the hardest thing I ever had to learn in a game... yet so simple (if you know what you're doing).

[lajoswinkler]

Same here.

I kind of miss that feeling of not knowing what am I doing. Oh, the tragedy of human kind. Never at rest, never satisfied.

[MajorThomas]

KSP: While you play, you gradually learn rocket science.

[ArmchairGravy]

Absolutey. I have sympathy for the long-time vets as the things like interplanetary returns are old hat for them, and still a white-knuckle challenge for me. I'm at the point where I can do aerobrake insertions, where before I was happy just to get a rendezvous.

[rasheed]

Agreed. My first attempt took me 3 hours, 2nd 1, 3rd 30 min and after on about 5-10 min.

Its so hard its simple.

[LostElement]

rendezvousing takes me about 1-3 minutes to do. I have accomplished everything. I can do every planet and back, Docking, and other things so easily.... when currency comes out, I will need to learn how to be conservative.

[SkyHook]

I think it starts with a good craft. The craft that many people use to play ksp are a tad bit too wacky and poorly-designed. I'm not judging anyone's aesthetic of functional tastes, but good craft design just makes everything easier

[SkyRender]

Once you learn to read the markers and time your launches properly, rendezvous from the surface is a complete afterthought. Get yellow X to align with pink X-like marker. Adjust as you come in and slow down as necessary. As long as you started out when your target's position in its orbit is relatively close to you, you'll have no problems.

[A Fat Pokemon]

My first attempt was in .15 I believe, and didn't take me too long either... managed to 'dock' two crafts together using landing legs.

[barrenwaste]

I'm fairly good at docking with planets at high speeds, nod nod nod...aw, who am I fooling, I just crash a lot. Course, they call it landing if you gots wheels and the plane don't asplode, same thing really.

[MockKnizzle]

As soon as you realize that lower = faster and higher = slower, rendezvous becomes a walk in the park.

[jchad]

I can dock pretty well....but getting out to other planets lets just not go there. Once I leave Kerbins SOI its all downhill from there. And downhill usually leads to a stranded ship soon to be terminated.

And crashing. Im good at crashing

[Kasuha]

Rendezvous and docking was always easy for me. I did my first rendezvous during a few days I was playing demo before I bought the game, I did my first docking the very first day I bought the game.

Landing, on the other hand ... I still have problems with that. Not that I couldn't brake my fall. But I can never see the slope below me, so I have to build short, wide "crabs" instead of nice looking rockets to be able to land them on anything I fall onto because I still haven't figured out how to find out if the slope below the ship is acceptable for landing or not.

[Duke23]

I'm with you on this. My first attempts at rendezvous and docking were riddled with near-misses, running out of fuel, accidental atmospheric reentry, flat out crashing into the planet... And took me oh god an hour or two to even do that. Now with the right conditions (something I put in a specific orbit to be docked with, I guess) it takes me about 10 minutes from launch to docking and the whole process is just so smooth now. After I got good at it I checked out the Docking Alignment mod, it's very helpful with getting things right the first time. I've been to Minmus and back with a fairly large (for me) ship + lander + rover thanks to docking and orbital construction. Well I didn't come back with the rover but I didn't plan to. I also didn't plan to crash it due to the low gravity plus me forgetting to put any kind of SAS on it, but that happened... (Minmus mission details)

Interplanetary stuff though, I'm still scared to try it. Going to the Mun manned is getting to be routine for me now and I can handle Minmus but I've only done it manned once. However I'm fairly certain that with a couple more pieces I could just fly my refueling station out to another planet if I wanted to, lol (not the one pictured in the Minmus mission, this one). Not long ago just getting a Kerbal to the Mun and back without having to mount a full scale rescue mission was a big deal for me, so progress is progress and I'll get there. Now that I can assemble gigantic ships in orbit, nothing is out of reach. *evil laugh*

Edited December 25, 2013 by Duke23

[jaredkzr]

I had a similar experience for me but with interplanetary transfers. I went from having no idea what I was doing to setting up aerobrake manuevers in Jool's atmosphere in just a few days. Something 'clicked' and I just got it from there on out. It was a great accomplishment for me. It's funny because my first interplanetary vessel was a massive ship I assembled in orbit with over 15,000 m/s of delta that I was able to just barely get to Jool. Now I can do it with about 1,000 m/s of delta-v from orbit.

Don't you guys just love how this game teaches without actually trying?

[Duke23]

Yeah, once you figure out what works you can tune it in and make it efficient. Personally I had to learn early on that just taking more fuel with the same number / size engines to try to go farther was a no-no (duh). There was a point where I was back to struggling to get things into Kerbin orbit just because of horrible TWR.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Ugh... dont get me startet. I was getting so upset when I tried docking 2 small ships together the first time and was unaware of the navballs magic at that time. I could only make it by watching scotts docking tutorial over and over again. but it took me days do figure it out.

Right now it is quite easy

[KvickFlygarn87]

Docking.

First try: 90monoprop

Second try: 30 monoprop

Now: ~3 monoprop

Like a bass.

EDIT:

My first attempt was in .15 I believe, and didn't take me too long either... managed to 'dock' two crafts together using landing legs.

Docking come out in .18.

[Superfluous J]

My favorite part of the game is setting out to do something that my many hours of hard-fought experience has caused me to assume will be easy, only to find out that I've hit some sort of unique case that I'd never encountered or anticipated before.

This game is complex enough that that sort of thing happens all the time.

Another love is when I find out that something I've perfected is actually not the most efficient way to do it, and I have to re-learn. This also happens a lot.

So much to learn (and re-learn), so little time!

Oh who am I kidding, for this game, I've got TONS of time

[FenrirWolf]

Docking.

First try: 90monoprop

Second try: 30 monoprop

Now: ~3 monoprop

Like a bass.

EDIT:

Docking come out in .18.

Which is why he did it with interlocking landing legs instead.

[Superfluous J]

Docking come out in .18.

Which is why he put it in quotes, and mention he did it by intertwining landing legs.

[Luckless]

I'm still rather bad at timing my launches to get a close approach. I'm a little bit better at dealing with docking if I'm coming in from a transfer orbit, such as docking around Mun or Minmus. The extra travel time means I can usually nudge the orbits around to get the approach I need, burn to sync orbits up to within a few hundred meters of each other, and then begin the docking close approach.

Personally I like to use a docking indicator rather than trying to eye ball things. Just makes more sense to have logical instrumentation rather than trying to do it from a badly controlled over the shoulder view.