Is it possible to dock two large stations without Mechjeb?

[Fendleton]

Another possible option if all else fails when trying the final line-up is to use Claws for docking. Obviously this doesn't work well if you are:

A. Trying to build a mothership

B. Wanting to move the station without it spinning wildly

C. Overly concerned about future structural integrity

D. Unable to intercept at under 100m/s.

But as a quick and not-very complex way of handling it, it might be worth a try. The results will be interesting, at least.

Note: I've never actually done this, except for de-orbiting large bits of debris. I'm pretty good at rendezvous and docking stuff now.

[Kasuha]

This is what I'm currently working with. No matter how much I thrust towards or around that target prograde vector to center my own prograde vector over it, I always end up with entirely too much speed and overshoot it. RCS can't make changes fast enough (due to the size of the ship) to be much use.

This is just leagues harder than the tiny practice ships I used. I think the big fuel cans used to get it up here are part of it but none of the smaller engines will have enough thrust to push it.

The important thing is, you don't thrust towards your target. You need to keep this:

on this:

And to achieve that, you may need to thrust in directions perpendicular to where your target is.

In your image, the prograde marker is not even visible and retrograde marker is in upper right of the navball. That means you are already moving perpendicular and a bit away from your target. And you need to thrust up and left to stop moving perpendicular and then a bit forward to start moving towards it. This positioning is usually done using RCS.

Edited June 16, 2014 by Kasuha

[Shiv]

Yah that wasn't the best image. I was trying to coax the prograde vector onto the prograde target vector in it and failing.

What I ended up doing was just scrapping that entire thing (5 kerbals lost their lives in that great firey explosion in the sky), grabbing some new (albeit reluctant) volunteers to send up another ship, this time with a much smaller secondary engine. I ended up burning about 10 seconds of the new engine and the rest was just RCS. It was so much easier to handle once I jettisoned the big orange cans that the docking was almost as easy as with the really small ships (because, well it was one by the time I got rid of the gas can).

[Kasuha]

I really wonder what were you fighting there. Your orbit is "safe", you should not be getting any phantom forces. Maybe you were just still too fast and needed to slow down more?

[Wooks]

I´m betting on "not enough RCS thrusters", big heavy ships needs them all over the place.

[Oafman]

Yah that wasn't the best image. I was trying to coax the prograde vector onto the prograde target vector in it and failing.

What I ended up doing was just scrapping that entire thing (5 kerbals lost their lives in that great firey explosion in the sky), grabbing some new (albeit reluctant) volunteers to send up another ship, this time with a much smaller secondary engine. I ended up burning about 10 seconds of the new engine and the rest was just RCS. It was so much easier to handle once I jettisoned the big orange cans that the docking was almost as easy as with the really small ships (because, well it was one by the time I got rid of the gas can).

Fair enough. It sounds like there was nothing wrong with your RV & docking techniques. It was just that your ship sucked

[asheft]

Once a space station hits a certain size, the built in alignment indicators seem to bug out. It's a documented issue - but while people report it "rarely" occurring, I seem to have to deal with it on nearly everything I built, where you get up close and find pointing directly the pink target marker has you pointing right at an engine or something nowhere near the docking port.

I wasn't aware of that-thanks for the info.