Question about Construction in Space

[Indy]

I've tried docking at 100,000m in LKO, and I seem to have significant difficulty docking larger objects. Is there any way to make it easier? I've thought about going to a higher orbit, or even going to a low-g thus lower-speed area for construction, like 20,000m above Minmus.

Any tips from more experienced players/engineers? I'm kind of making this up as I go, so any advice at all would be useful. I just did a test of orbital speed at 400,000m in Kerbin orbit, and am about to test speeds at 20,000m Minmus orbit.

[Taki117]

Depending on the size of the parts you are docking you may need more RCS thrust (KW has a thruster block that provides 3kN of thrust) more reaction wheels (be sure to turn SAS off just before docking!) Or both. Also, depending on the number of parts you may incur lots of lag. I also highly reccomend both RCS build aid and Navyfish's Docking Alignment Indicator, both will help with making things flyable.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm not quite sure if the OP is referring to rendezvous, where you match orbit and speed with your target, or docking, where you actually connect the two docking ports. In either case, my advice is the same: start small. Build some docking practice ships with a docking port, RCS system, 400 unit tank and an LV-909 (with command pod and electrical system of your choice). Use these to practice in orbit around Kerbin. Try reading some tutorials or watching some how-to videos on YouTube for some pointers.

Once you have rendezvous and docking pretty much mastered with small ships, then you can start thinking about building bigger things in orbit with docking.

[Reactordrone]

During the final stages of a rendezvous and docking the relative speeds between the target and ship should be low so it shouldn't really make much difference whether you're orbiting at 2200m/s or 150m/s but practice makes perfect and patience is a virtue.

[weezl]

I'm not quite sure if the OP is referring to rendezvous, where you match orbit and speed with your target, or docking, where you actually connect the two docking ports. In either case, my advice is the same: start small. Build some docking practice ships with a docking port, RCS system, 400 unit tank and an LV-909 (with command pod and electrical system of your choice). Use these to practice in orbit around Kerbin. Try reading some tutorials or watching some how-to videos on YouTube for some pointers.

Once you have rendezvous and docking pretty much mastered with small ships, then you can start thinking about building bigger things in orbit with docking.

This ^^.

My first attempts at docking were extremely modest.. Two mark 1 capsules with clamp-o-trons/RCS/RCS-fuel/solar panels.. and staging to get me to 80,000 m with enough fuel to de-orbit. Do this a number of times and the rest becomes fairly easy. You'll learn about how docking goes.. Hohmann transfers... and properly locating RCS thrusters on your spacecraft so that docking is easy, even if your spacecraft stabilization is turned off.

If you know anything about the US space program.. I essentially followed the framework of that.. I learned how to put stuff in orbit and de-orbit reliably (Mercury), then how to rendezvous in orbit (Gemini), then dock while in orbit (Gemini), then did all the necessary steps to form a mission plan for getting to Mun.. first to orbit, then land and takeoff and get back (Apollo). Doing an Apollo style moon lander is really good practice .. since you must use all you know from all previous missions to make it work..

Following that mission plan is really the 'KSP Tutorial' as far as I am concerned.. at least on how to use the tools at your disposal to make missions that work.. and building a skillset for flying those suckers. The big hurdles as far as flying missions are landings on airless bodies and rendezvous/docking. Those skills are truly essential to everything you do in the game.

Edited July 1, 2014 by weezl

[O-Doc]

You will need special tools for the job.

First, put up a small part count tug to shuttle whatever you need to move around. I use SSTOs on most of my projects and a tug helps me bridge the 2.5km gap I need to leave. However it is extremely useful for retrieving parts which are parked in the same orbit but have drifted a long way away from your construction site. The tug should have a nuke and some RCS, that's the basic concept.

The second is your orbital spanner. A craft for attaching your bits to the project. This is particularly useful for when you are dealing with cumbersome components like heavy fuel tanks or long booms. Your spanner needs heaps or reaction wheels to provide translationless rotation and I have found it best propelled only by a big tank of RCS.

Both these tools need plenty of attachment points of all sizes with balance and centering.

Once you figure out the tools you will need for the job, the rest is just practice, practice and more practice until you can almost dock anything in your sleep. Note, I've always found long booms to be the hardest given you will have to make your docking without SAS due to self-reinforcing wobble. So, when easy docking maneuvers get boring flick SAS off for the practice.

[Sirine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhy18eKcvys

For your reference. Btw, LKO is 70,000m. (69,something actually)