What did YOU feel like after your first docking?

[PhaserArray]

My first docking was more of a rescue mission for the failed asteroid base (FASA asteroids) crew. which actually became an awesome space station with the appropriate name of 'Totally not an accident'. To be honest, the rendezvous was more complicated than getting the docking ports aligned, and then ramming the other port.

EDIT: I was quite happy about finally mastering the two final skills of KSP (for me).

Edited March 27, 2014 by PhaserArray

[SollyK]

It took me forever and when I had finally connected a very large amount of my monoprop was gone. I actually had to use the core to dock to the fuel tank as the fuel tank was out of monoprop.

Here is the moment after:

This is what my station ended up as:

[SlyReaper]

Felt like an absolute boss. Now I have the hang of it and can do it quite easily, but that first time was incredibly hard.

[cesarcurado]

A feeling of accomplishment never witnessed by me before

I actually docked pretty easily on first try, my only problem was rendezvous, which is something I know how to deal with now

[pauix]

It took me a few quicksaves, a few hours and a lot of swearing (specially when the lab ran out of RCS), but it was totally worth it. The whole maneuver took at least one hour IRL, and I still keep a link to the album as a memento:

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/vNWr3/embed"></iframe>

After docking, I felt like a lot of possibilities opened in front of me, and I've started building bigger. I've already

[Thomas988]

My first docking mission took what I think is about one hour of real world time. Not sure, but it was definitely a long mission.

But when I was docked, I literally remember clear as day jumping out of my chair screaming in joy. Ah, memories.

[smysha]

It took ~3 hours to make it. And when it finished...

My emotions: "FINALLLY! I will never, never, NEVER try this again!!! OMG..."

Day later: "Huh. Pretty easy docking. I think."

[Kialar]

I felt like this:

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

My first docking felt like: meh. Turned out I was lucky and docked more or less by accident... what are the odds of that!? After that, it took me quite some time to get it right. When I finally understood the mechanics I felt elated.

[merendel]

Myself the docking itself wasnt all that hard although I have to admit I'd watched a few videos so I had an idea of what I was geting into. For me the hardest part was geting the rendezvous setup. It took me a couple hours real time and dozens of horribly botched attempts to even get into physics range of the other ship. Once there however it wasnt bad. My craft had good RCS ballance so after a fair bit of camera jockying to check alignment (that I dont even need these days) the act of docking was prety much Wam, Bam, Thank you Mam.

Now haveing a better understanding of orbital mechanics its much easier to setup that rendevous and navyfish's moniter makes it very easy to dock very quickly as long as the RCS ballance of the craft isnt too bad. Trying to dock an orange tank with just a docking drone for controll attached to one end still takes a while though.

[Felsmak]

It was kind of like that feeling you get after a successful waste expulsion. You know, when everything goes wrong and the system just jams, but against all odds you still manage to pull through and finish the procedure according to plan.

[SuperBigD60]

Man, I thought I was sweating bullets, but I guess the first time it was more meh.

It wasn't until I started using docking as a mission critical procedure or until I started docking 100+ ton craft w/o rcs that I started getting nervous.

[Dooz]

Omg i Just Docked! Thats how i felt

[razark]

My first docking felt like: meh. Turned out I was lucky and docked more or less by accident... what are the odds of that!? After that, it took me quite some time to get it right. When I finally understood the mechanics I felt elated.

This is pretty much how it went for me. I launched one ship, then a second ship. The rendezvous was effortless, and then the two ships docked so very easily.

The second attempt was a complete disaster, one ship ended up plunging into the atmosphere. Maybe ten attempts later, something finally clicked and I understood what to do.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Finally!

That's how I felt

[Tex]

When I docked for the first time, I cheated and used the Sr. Clamps XD

It was actually pretty amazing for me, because docking was the most difficult thing in KSP I had attempted up until that point.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Maximus97

[Bandock]

My first docking experience felt awesome and thanks to watching the livestreams before 0.18 was released, I was already armed with some knowledge. Plus, training with orbital rendezvous during 0.17 had paid off for these particular missions. One thing though, it is easier to dock with another object that is manned (or controlled for unmanned) than with something that has no control and rotates pretty fast.

Yep, it is definitely more challenging trying to dock with something that has no control whatsoever. However, I have done it before a few times (even back in 0.18 when I was trying to dock with my first module with another module for my first space station that completely had no control and succeeded with a few tries!).

[Alymon]

With mechjeb: Relief that I could finally do something new.

Manual, after a mechjeb rendezvous: Excited and accomplished, both at doing it MYSELF, and for having done it better, quicker, and more efficient than mechjeb.

Very much this. MechJeb did all my rendezvous and docking manuevers for a while. I finally did my first completely stock, unassisted rendezvous and dock yesterday. I nearly fell out of my seat I was so excited.

Thank you, Specialist290, for pointing me to The Drawing Board which led me to myKSPcareer which helped me understand how to do it.

[Spuds]

My first docking took two hours. Now it seldom takes over 10 minutes. I'm proud

My first attempt ended in failure, when I accidentally flipped the docking port the wrong way, thinking docking required a male-female connection like a USB port. I managed to rendezvous and got myself aligned. When the magnetic force pulled the craft together, however, they did not merge. I quickly realized my mistake and tried to remove the two, but the parts clipped into each other and the force was too great to be overcome by my RCS thrusters. Needless to say, I didn't dock again until recently.

[Coneshot]

When I docked for the first time, I cheated and used the Sr. Clamps XD

It was actually pretty amazing for me, because docking was the most difficult thing in KSP I had attempted up until that point.

Oddly enough, it took lots of practice docking before I could get the Sr. clamps to connect. I always found the normal standard ones easier..

[KvickFlygarn87]

Well, that took a lot of RCS. (seriously, it took over 100 Monoprop)

[Nepos]

Last night I got they same feeling I did when I docked the first time.

I am use Better Than Starting Manned mod. There was limited Life support, Fuel and Mono propellant and I had to launched from the surface of Mun, Intercept the command module, dock with out running out of Life Support or fuel. To make matters worse during the docking I entered the dark side of Mun and could not use any light in order to save on electricity.

But I did and return safely to Kerbin. My heart was racing and I was so stocked last night!!!

[khyron42]

During orbit matching, I was smiling. There's an old sci-fi novel set in a breathable gas ring, orbiting a neutron star; gone-back-to-savage humans use flippers or wings to fly around on muscle power but have to think in terms of orbital mechanics to get anywhere. The culture has a nursery rhyme of sorts about it that was running through my head:

East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east. North and south bring you back.

I had that in mind and used it to figure out what burns would make an efficient rendezvous. That was back before maneuver nodes; things are much easier now.

After the actual docking, I was relieved and happy, about as satisfied as I am after a landing in a flight simulator - crazy fun, but doing it right takes a lot of patience and coordination (and a few go-arounds for another try!)

[Coneshot]

During orbit matching, I was smiling. There's an old sci-fi novel set in a breathable gas ring, orbiting a neutron star; gone-back-to-savage humans use flippers or wings to fly around on muscle power but have to think in terms of orbital mechanics to get anywhere. The culture has a nursery rhyme of sorts about it that was running through my head:

East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east. North and south bring you back.

I had that in mind and used it to figure out what burns would make an efficient rendezvous. That was back before maneuver nodes; things are much easier now.

After the actual docking, I was relieved and happy, about as satisfied as I am after a landing in a flight simulator - crazy fun, but doing it right takes a lot of patience and coordination (and a few go-arounds for another try!)

Lol! I too keep that saying in mind while doing orbital maneuvers, it's from "The integral trees" by Larry Niven

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Integral_Trees

[MonkeyFuzz]

My first docking was more of a capture. Back around 0.12-0.13 I'd had a flight stranded in Kerbin orbit without a parachute. Without having individual Kerbals that I could EVA to a rescue ship, the only resolution was to develop and launch a capture and retrieval craft. This craft was manned (as all ships were in the day). It used several structural pieces to create a circular platform that then extended up making a cage. At the end of the structure was a set of lander legs so attached as to create a closeable entrance.

Launch went fine. Interception took time to refine. This was were the whole notion of orbital interception has to be figured out. There were lots of crazy burns, but eventually I made a close approach. RCS fine-tuned the effort. I was thrilled to see the stranded capsule slowly glide into the capture bay. The landing legs closed and all was good.

I turned the craft to make my de-orbit burn and brought the periapse on down. Then I realized my first mistake. I time warped, before I'd understood the notion that craft were put on rails during time warp. I'd never moved anything close to each other before and to my consternation, I saw the captured capsule DRIFT THROUGH THE WALLS OF THE CAPTURE BAY!

I quickly turned off time warp, not fully understanding what the hell I was seeing. The ensemble stayed intact through re-entry (back before those lovely plasma effects were added).

Parachute deployment was the second trouble. Deploying the chutes, the drogue stage went fine. Everything slowed, somewhat as they should. Then when full deployment happened and the capture craft decelerated hard, the carried capsule punched through the lander legs, careened away, and smashed into the ocean, killing all aboard.

It was perhaps the most crushing outcome I've had, at least in the early game. Yet, I suspected that my technique had merit, so I launched a new craft to be deliberately placed in orbit and refined the capture ship, moving the parachutes about so that the legs would be the sky-ward facing section of the vehicle. After another full mission of rendezvous, capture, and re-entry, the parachute phase went perfectly. The two "docked" ships landed safely, demonstrating a first for my space program (and earning many groans from my friends for the overly complicated effort and time invested.)

/Unfortunately, I don't have the pictures from then on this computer otherwise I'd illustrate the endeavor.

//My ongoing lack of understanding about time warp physics led to later failed efforts at assembling a space station by using landing legs to grapple vehicles together.