Docking (I'm sure this has been answered)

[gazzareth]

It's funny how many times people need to say 'the claw needs some speed to attach properly' before they realise others have already said it... Do people not read previous posts or something? :/

One thing with the claw: Were you controlling the ship that had the claw? The claw won't work if it's mounted on an uncontrolled vessel which you're trying to dock to, it has to be on the controlled vessel...

Worked for me mounted on an uncontrolled vessel, other than there being a ridiculous change in orbit once connected.

Although shortly after I was attacked by the Kraken, don't know if it could be related?

G

[Renegrade]

Worked for me mounted on an uncontrolled vessel, other than there being a ridiculous change in orbit once connected.

Although shortly after I was attacked by the Kraken, don't know if it could be related?

My HypeTrain would fall through the world if I docked with the claw on the uncontrolled side (ie car->engine, whereas the engine has the Claw).

So I'd have to say that docking with the Claw on the uncontrolled vessel is the cause of the Kraken attack there.

[G'th]

A little tip I have for docking (and even just using the claw) is to learn how to use the whole of the navball to figure out your relative movement. This will make docking 2000% easier and faster as you'll spend less time trying to eyeball it.

Say you have a docking port as your target. Now, find your prograde vector (or retrograde, if your docking backwards). Wherever it is relative to the target vector is how your ship is moving. So say you have a target right on the horizon line at 90 degrees, and your prograde is somewhere to the right and upwards. That quite literally means that you're moving upward and to the right. So to counter, you would fire your RCS in the opposite directions, using the relative velocity (which reads out as your target speed right above navball) as a guide.

Once your pro/retrograde marker is right on top of the target vector, that means you're following the same path as your target (IE, matched orbits). Once you reach this point, actually docking is quite easy. Just fire towards the target. Depending on how far away you are, you may have to fire RCS in whichever direction to keep your velocity and target vectors matched up.

[Random Tank]

Worked for me mounted on an uncontrolled vessel, other than there being a ridiculous change in orbit once connected.

Although shortly after I was attacked by the Kraken, don't know if it could be related?

Well, as you and Renegrade have found out, it does *work* in some cases, but it can cause major issues, so I just say completely avoid doing it. Just connect with the claw on the controlled vessel, and it should be much more stable... Well, as stable as the claw can be anyway