Asteroid orbiting help?

[demian_travis]

Well, I can build ships that come and go bringing my kerbals safe and sound. Managed to go to quite a lot of planets and moons. I managed - ONCE - to stick my ship into an asteroid, just to find out that it was a tad too big for my engines. I am trying again to do that, this time with a better ship. Problem is... I really can't really approach the asteroid on a manageable distance, like I do when I build huge ships with docking ports. I always end up with humongous distances between ship and asteroid. I usually use protractor to reach planets and moons, and trial and error on my space builds - If I mess it up the orbit will take only a few minutes.

Is there an easy way to reach the asteroids?

[Vector]

I usually go for them outside Kerbin's SOI.

Within Kerbin's SOI, look at where the asteroid is relative to Kerbin. Go in that general direction, costs about 1000 m/s delta-V to get out of kerbin's SOI. Don't spend too much delta-V, just enough to get out of Kerbin's SOI. Once in solar orbit, you have plenty of time to optimize your approach.

Just outside Kerbin's SOI, I aim for an approach of about 10,000 km. Then a couple days away from approach, make finer adjustments to get within 100km. Then just watch your retrograde marker and the pink target indicator to follow it the rest of the way in.

[demian_travis]

I managed to get 600 km of separation. Fast forwarded to a few days from the approach... and the distance was at 30.000 km. Tried to adjust it again and the closest approach just disappeared.

If I manage to capture an asteroid... could I actually bring it to Kerbin, with a lot of ships with parachutes stuck into it?

[Vector]

Were you inside Kerbin's SOI or outside?

When within Kerbin's SOI you have to be very careful with time warp because the SOI intercept calculation (in this case the asteroid intercepting Kerbin's SOI) is very sensitive to time warp. Asteroids seem to be even more sensitive than when your own ship crosses a SOI. This is part of the reason I now do all my rendezvous in solar orbit.

[demian_travis]

Outside... I tried to reach an asteroid with a fairly circular orbit. :C

[Sirine]

I managed to get 600 km of separation. Fast forwarded to a few days from the approach... and the distance was at 30.000 km. Tried to adjust it again and the closest approach just disappeared.

If I manage to capture an asteroid... could I actually bring it to Kerbin, with a lot of ships with parachutes stuck into it?

You can wait for protractor (two) for asteriod capture purpose.

Or learn it the hard-way...learn to rendezvous manually, and learn to read and fully UNDERSTAND the Navball.

[Vector]

If you click on the green text above the nav ball, you can switch between Orbit, Surface, and Target, and you can see your velocity relative to the asteroid regardless of how far away you are. This can be helpful to start your docking maneuvers very early, i.e. lining up the velocity vector with the direction to target even when you are far away. The orange and purple indicators can sometimes get you in the right ballpark but they are somewhat glitchy when going for rendezvous in solar orbit with an asteroid.

[demian_travis]

If you click on the green text above the nav ball, you can switch between Orbit, Surface, and Target, and you can see your velocity relative to the asteroid regardless of how far away you are. This can be helpful to start your docking maneuvers very early, i.e. lining up the velocity vector with the direction to target even when you are far away. The orange and purple indicators can sometimes get you in the right ballpark but they are somewhat glitchy when going for rendezvous in solar orbit with an asteroid.

I use those quite a lot. The thing is that I tried to reduce the speed between me and the asteroid so we would have similar orbits... and the orange and purple markers disappeared.

[demian_travis]

You can wait for protractor (two) for asteriod capture purpose.

Or learn it the hard-way...learn to rendezvous manually, and learn to read and fully UNDERSTAND the Navball.

Will there be a protractor 2? Also, I can do rendezvous around kerbin quite well - managed to build some pretty impressive motherships.

[Sirine]

Will there be a protractor 2? Also, I can do rendezvous around kerbin quite well - managed to build some pretty impressive motherships.

Most probably, due to high demand.

[Vector]

I use those quite a lot. The thing is that I tried to reduce the speed between me and the asteroid so we would have similar orbits... and the orange and purple markers disappeared.

Try waiting until you are closer before matching speed. When you reduce speed the time to intercept gets proportionally longer, and if the intercept with Kerbin's SOI is sooner than your rendezvous with the asteroid then you are going to have problems.