Docking with no RCS

[Kruleworld]

Arriving in orbit at my space station i realized i didn't have any RCS to complete the docking manouver. No worries, get Jeb out to push!

and it worked!

[Vanamonde]

Well, Jeb used his backpack RCS, so technically...

[The Destroyer]

Why jeb? Why not go ULTRA HARDCORE and no RCS at all, just the engine

[Tripzter]

My first docking was a no RCS docking.. Didnt even know what the markers meant.. spun around quite for quite a while but eventually i got it.

[Palleas]

Why jeb? Why not go ULTRA HARDCORE and no RCS at all, just the engine

It's not hardcore. It's a crash.

I want to see Scott Manley docking without RCS at all. I'll then review my opinion.

[The Destroyer]

It's not hardcore. It's a crash.

I want to see Scott Manley docking without RCS at all. I'll then review my opinion.

Crash? It's easy. Point at docking port. Thrust. use magnetizim to line up. It's quite easy, I've done it many times.

[merendel]

It's not hardcore. It's a crash.

I want to see Scott Manley docking without RCS at all. I'll then review my opinion.

I'm prety sure he's done this. Cant remember if it was the Eve or bust serries or the reuseable spaceprogram but I remember seeing him do it in one of his videos.

[CalculusWarrior]

I'm prety sure he's done this. Cant remember if it was the Eve or bust serries or the reuseable spaceprogram but I remember seeing him do it in one of his videos.

I can support this; he has definitely docked without RCS at least once. However, I cannot remember specific episodes either.

[Superfluous J]

I dock a lot without RCS in my series. I think it's a necessary skill that you should never have to do. Like parallel parking

They're never particularly good docks, but they are possible. The bigger the ships, the harder it is. My "tiny tug" ships can dock without RCS first try no problems, so long as the target ship isn't rotating.

If you don't think F5/F9 is cheating, a tip is to get them lined up nice, hit F5, and then you can try over and over under reproducible conditions. However, just get in front of the docking port of the target ship, get *ZERO* relative velocity, aim the other ship at you, aim you at the other ship, and go in SLOW (Like 0.1 m/s) and you should be fine.

If anybody's curious I can find some specific videos. I know for a fact that the ship I sent to Moho had no RCS. And I really hated the docking part.

Edited March 12, 2014 by 5thHorseman

[SkyRender]

For a time I did all of my docking maneuvers without RCS. As long as your TWR is low enough and you don't try to maneuver the way you would with RCS, it's actually not difficult at all. It helps that KSP's absurd torque allows command pods to shift in any direction at a pace that puts real spacecraft to shame.

[BagelRabbit]

I don't think that some of you will be satisfied without a video, so here's an RCS-less docking from my own archives!

[Edit: If you don't have time to spare, fast-forwards to the last two minutes of the video or so.]