How many people know how to dock?

[Bshow]

I'm trying to learn how to dock and i want to know if it's so difficult only for me or it's a thing, and eventually some tips and advices.(just don't link the Scott Manley video)

[Kerbart]

The Tutorials Section has a lot of information on docking.

What's wrong with the Scott Manley video?

[Liowen]

I have been playing since the end of October and I am just starting to get the hang of how to do them. Depending on what part of the docking you are having issues with it could be an easy answer or more difficult. There is a video in the Q/A section that helped me with the rendezvous, although it is not efficient it does work for getting close to your target without too much jargon (no offense to Scott Manley but I did not study physics LOL). If all else fails use Mechjeb until you get better at it, heck that is what I have been doing while practicing on the side.

[stevism]

docking is very easy once you understand the concepts behind it, and how to use the prograde/retrograde/target markers on your navball correctly.

don't give up

[DisarmingBaton5]

I can dock, but I do not do it much.

[Dust]

Practice, practice, practice. Build probes or capsules with docking ports on their noses and RCS thrusters and tanks. Take them up into orbit and just try, try, try. After 5-10 tries you'll begin to get what it takes to dock successfully and how to build a dockable craft.

[MiniMatt]

1. Set target.

2. Get into higher orbit if you're ahead of your target. Get into lower orbit if you're behind your target.

3. Observe map screen and complete orbits till your separation distance is predicted to be <5km or so.

4. Click the speed readout above your navball until "Target" is displayed - this is your velocity relative to your target.

5. Point your craft to pink prograde (little circle with a central dot)

6. Accelerate a bit.

7. When getting too close or too fast swing your craft around till it points to yellow retrograde and burn to reduce relative velocity.

8. Repeat steps 5-7 till you're within a couple hundred metres.

9. Set target as the specific docking port you're aiming for, click your active craft's docking port and select "control from here".

10. Fine tune movements specified in 5-7 using RCS.

11. Aim to dock as slow as poss, ie. 0.1m/s relative velocity or so. At this stage you want your yellow prograde and your pink prograde markers to be on top of eachother

The yellow/pink thing is really crucial to get your head around. Pink prograde is the direction to your target. Yellow prograde is the path your craft is actually flying (relative to the target). Thus the swap from pink prograde (accelerate toward the target) to yellow retrograde (whatever direction I'm flying, I want to slow down by burning in the opposite direction).

Edited March 4, 2014 by MiniMatt

[Liowen]

The Tutorials Section has a lot of information on docking.

What's wrong with the Scott Manley video?

There isn't anything wrong with his videos, I believe what the OP is getting at is that many poster will just blindly post the link thinking that will answer all the questions....and it might for some others it gets a bit overly complicated at times. I found one on here here that gave the basics for rendezvous in a very easy format to follow, I am not looking to be a perfectionist at docking I just want to learn how to do it first then move on to making nearly perfect.

[morph113]

Before I did my first attempts, I informed myself about it and used the step by step guide from the Wikia:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Basic_maneuvers

With this I successfully docked on my very first attempt, but it took me around 3 hours. But learned a lot about docking during that attempt, and in my next attempt I did it within 1 hour. Now It maybe takes 15-30 minutes or so. Speaking about docking in a low Kerbin orbit fo course. I didn't use any mods at that time, so I think it's a good point by point guide for first docking attempts using only the stock/vanilla version of KSP.

Edited March 4, 2014 by morph113

[jwenting]

docking is very easy once you understand the concepts behind it, and how to use the prograde/retrograde/target markers on your navball correctly.

don't give up

no it's not. I understood the basics before I ever started with KSP. A year playing KSP on a near daily basis and I still can't dock.

Lack of fine motor controls, no sophisticated programmable joystick, etc. etc. all make it a lot harder to impossible.

Replies like yours are less than useless, they are intended (or if not come across as such) to make people who don't find it easy feel like we're useless idiots who can't even do the simplest of things.

[Trann]

1. Set target.

2. Get into higher orbit if you're ahead of your target. Get into lower orbit if you're behind your target.

3. Observe map screen and complete orbits till your separation distance is predicted to be <5km or so.

4. Click the speed readout above your navball until "Target" is displayed - this is your velocity relative to your target.

5. Point your craft to pink prograde (little circle with a central dot)

6. Accelerate a bit.

7. When getting too close or too fast swing your craft around till it points to yellow retrograde and burn to reduce relative velocity.

8. Repeat steps 5-7 till you're within a couple hundred metres.

9. Set target as the specific docking port you're aiming for, click your active craft's docking port and select "control from here".

10. Fine tune movements specified in 5-7 using RCS.

11. Aim to dock as slow as poss, ie. 0.1m/s relative velocity or so.

I came to this thread when it was 1 minute old, wrote something much like this, previewed my post, and saw MiniMatt posted before me. 8) Damn, I'm slow.

My only clarifications/suggestions:

- familiarize yourself with the navball icons

- ensure the orbits are same inclination: you'll go nuts trying to catch something that's only close enough at orbital intersections

- before burning target prograde (pink), burn vector retrograde (yellow) to get 0.0 relative velocity between you and your target; use translation RCS (HN,IK,JL) to burn reverse (N) if you overshoot 0.0 rather than spin around

- when burning towards your target, go slow and use time warp: saves fuel, and saves collisions when you burn retrograde and can't stop in time

- if your angle is off, let the target and vector indicators get to 90 degrees of separation then burn retrograde to stop: this way, you're essential getting as close as you can each pass

[KvickFlygarn87]

no it's not. I understood the basics before I ever started with KSP. A year playing KSP on a near daily basis and I still can't dock.

Lack of fine motor controls, no sophisticated programmable joystick, etc. etc. all make it a lot harder to impossible.

Replies like yours are less than useless, they are intended (or if not come across as such) to make people who don't find it easy feel like we're useless idiots who can't even do the simplest of things.

He didn't say it was easy overall, he said that once you learn it, it's easy.

[morph113]

no it's not. I understood the basics before I ever started with KSP. A year playing KSP on a near daily basis and I still can't dock.

Lack of fine motor controls, no sophisticated programmable joystick, etc. etc. all make it a lot harder to impossible.

Replies like yours are less than useless, they are intended (or if not come across as such) to make people who don't find it easy feel like we're useless idiots who can't even do the simplest of things.

I think he was half right. I think it's very vital and important to fully understand how to use the maneuver nodes on the orbital map and the markers on the navball to meet up with another object. Once you have a full understanding of what everything means and what's the difference on your navball between your orbital, surface or target velocity, then docking is indeed very easy. In my first attempt for example, which was successfull, but took very long, I made the mistake of not checking my target velocity on the navball and thus never reaching the exact same orbit, or at least it took forever. Only such a simple thing of not using the full information provided to you may lead to not being able to dock. I don't claim you have done this mistake though, but probably another mistake.

[Nepos]

I sure can dock. One day I will remember to bring some RCS with fuel until then I will keep docking with main engine only.

Just FYI I normally do it with only Keyboard control and no mods. To be fair it took me about an hour to dock the first time with all the pausing re-reading post and re-watching youtube tutorial like the ones by Scott Manely

Edited March 4, 2014 by Nepos
more clarification on what I use

[MiniMatt]

Lack of fine motor controls, no sophisticated programmable joystick, etc. etc. all make it a lot harder to impossible.

Joystick certainly not necessary - I don't have one*, and trust me I destroyed *SO MANY* space stations (and still occasionally do) when learning to dock.

Fine motor controls - not sure here if you're talking of a limitation of the game or of your fingers. If the latter then I apologise, my (subjective) opinion is that docking doesn't require a whole lot of fine motor control but if what it does require is more than you have then that must be a world of hell.

Can I ask what area you're struggling with, I'm going to hazard a guess and say you've got the initial approach down to a tee but the final docking moves are still causing problems?

*not entirely true - I have two joysticks. One has a gameport interface (remember them?). The other has a Kempston interface - and if you remember those you'll have a similar number of wrinkles as I do Neither have ever been used in KSP (or indeed any computer I've owned in the last decade.

[Scotius]

Am i the only one thinking that best place to learn docking might be Minmus orbit? Orbital velocity is low, which lowers dV requirements. Also it leaves more time for reaction. I noticed this docking my multi-use lander to science station around Minmus - maneuvering seemed easier and more relaxed there than in LKO.

[MiniMatt]

I came to this thread when it was 1 minute old, wrote something much like this, previewed my post, and saw MiniMatt posted before me. 8) Damn, I'm slow.

Type faster!

My only clarifications/suggestions:

- familiarize yourself with the navball icons

- ensure the orbits are same inclination: you'll go nuts trying to catch something that's only close enough at orbital intersections

- before burning target prograde (pink), burn vector retrograde (yellow) to get 0.0 relative velocity between you and your target; use translation RCS (HN,IK,JL) to burn reverse (N) if you overshoot 0.0 rather than spin around

- when burning towards your target, go slow and use time warp: saves fuel, and saves collisions when you burn retrograde and can't stop in time

- if your angle is off, let the target and vector indicators get to 90 degrees of separation then burn retrograde to stop: this way, you're essential getting as close as you can each pass

The man spaketh the truth. Particularly the first couple of points.

[stevism]

no it's not. I understood the basics before I ever started with KSP. A year playing KSP on a near daily basis and I still can't dock.

Lack of fine motor controls, no sophisticated programmable joystick, etc. etc. all make it a lot harder to impossible.

Replies like yours are less than useless, they are intended (or if not come across as such) to make people who don't find it easy feel like we're useless idiots who can't even do the simplest of things.

ok sorry you got so offended over that...

playing for over a year, daily, and still can't dock is your problem, not the game's. I started playing in august and by nov/dec I could dock in my sleep.

replies like yours are even worse than less than useless, because all it does is project your own insecurities onto others to justify your shortcomings.

"a lot harder to impossible" = :D:D:D:D:D

He didn't say it was easy overall, he said that once you learn it, it's easy.

yes i agree with this. i had a lot of trouble at first, i think almost everyone does. but like a lot of things in KSP, once you surmount the learning curve, it's smooth sailing.

[LethalDose]

Dust is right: Its all about practice, but it helps to know what you're practicing, too. In my mind, what most people refer to as "Docking" is actually two separate maneuvers:

1. Rendezvous - get the two vessels in close proximity (a few thousand meters) in orbit AND zero out their relative velocity
   
2. Docking - using RCS to link up the two docking nodes
   

The Rendezvous was the harder of the two for me to understand. You have to understand what the game is telling you on the Navball and how to set up the maneuver nodes. The actual docking is conceptually easier, but takes a lot of practice with the translational controls to get it right.

I'd recommend starting with practicing getting two ships into a rendezvous. When you feel comfortable getting two ships in the same place at the same time going the same speed in the same direction, THEN you can start practicing your docking maneuvers.

Edited March 4, 2014 by LethalDose

[Guest]

Practice. Above all, be patient. Very patient. It's not a race.

[Stargate525]

The biggest thing that helped me go from 'I can dock and the ships might keep all their parts after their mating dance' to 'one touch ultra' was to learn to COMPLETELY ignore everything but the navball.

Now, when docking, I use the actual ship view for two things: one, to check my rotation, and two, to make sure that the navball is not obviously lying (pointing to the ship's COM instead of the docking port, for instance).

[Nepos]

Oh forgot to mention on thing that got me for about 10 mins as I tried to dock the first time was I had my SAS on. onces I turned it off I dock immediately.

[MiniMatt]

Quick extra tip for those struggling with the final stage - you don't want your target docking port moving around too much. To this end you want to orientate your target craft's docking port to face perpendicular to it's orbit vector. That sounds a bit wordy. Simply - if your target craft / station is in an equatorial orbit (ie. travelling east/west) then manoeuvre it such that it's docking point is facing north or south; this way, as it orbits around the planet the docking port will stay pointing in the same direction.

Imagine the craft below is your target craft, at the top is it's docking port, the arrow shows it's orbit direction

   ---
  /---\
 /     \
/       \
|       |
|       |      -------------->>
|       |
---------

[regex]

The biggest thing that helped me go from 'I can dock and the ships might keep all their parts after their mating dance' to 'one touch ultra' was to learn to COMPLETELY ignore everything but the navball.

Now, when docking, I use the actual ship view for two things: one, to check my rotation, and two, to make sure that the navball is not obviously lying (pointing to the ship's COM instead of the docking port, for instance).

This, pretty much. I don't get all the people who need to have things in "chase camera" mode (in fact, that screws me up) or can't dock without an add-on. Once you understand the navball, with a little patience you can dock almost anything in any orientation.

[costermonger]

Getting docking figured out was probably the hardest thing for me in KSP. I used a couple tutorials, finally nailed it, and then practiced it over and over for a while (building a station as I went). After I'd done it about a dozen times I was sending up orange tanks with docking ports on each end and not much else, getting an encounter within ~10km using the circularizing engine and then taking a couple of my symmetrical monoprop tugs out from the station, docking one to each end of the tank and returning them to the station for attachment.

Once you get it, you get it. Docking port alignment mods make the last 5 minutes of the process much, much less frustrating.