Can't immediately re-dock?

[giddonah]

So I accidentally undocked my rover from my transport when my Mun orbit was 30k. I wanted to drop that to 10k or so. So I turned off SAS and switched quickly back to the transport, turned on RCS and thrusted forward. It won't dock though. The two docking ports just sit there and snuggle like teenagers. Anyone experience this before? (the docking part, not the snuggling like teenagers part)

Edited August 13, 2014 by giddonah

[Imaginer1]

I've had this 'trouble' too, but I think it's just so that you don't accidentally dock things together when you're trying to undock. Just use the RCS to zoom around for a minute and go back to dock with it and it'll work.

[giddonah]

arg. this is my worst nightmare. I'm not so good at docking. "Zoom around" sounds like I'm going to lose a TON of fuel... hahahha

EDIT!!!!

Ok, so backing off to 3m distance and going back in was the ticket. One more little detail to keep in the memory bank I guess.

Edited August 13, 2014 by giddonah

[Imaginer1]

Well you just have to drift away a few meters and reset it as a target, you don't have to actively be accelerating

[OrbitusII]

Docking ports are funny this way. You need to back away a few meters to get the docking ports to re-enable after undocking. It's kinda funky with the huge capture area stock ports have but it makes sure you don't redock immediately after undocking. Otherwise, you'd never be able to separate docked craft.

[giddonah]

I didn't have to unset the target, btw. RCS, reverse thrusters to 3m distance, forward thrusters again. The angle started to get pretty bad, but it did capture and dock.

I do see how not having this feature would make the game insanely frustrating. Just another little thing that makes sense and isn't such a big deal, you know, after you've done it once.

[Kryxal]

There's actually another way to do it ... undock, quicksave, quickload, and you'll dock again ... it's handy when you need to rotate a badly-aligned connection.

[giddonah]

Neat! Might take more time than just thrustering out and back, but if I'm concerned with screwing it up I'll try this first. Thanks!

[Pondafarr]

I think I remember reading here somewhere that the dock reset distance is 1.5 meters.

[Sirine]

Simple.

1) Undock.

2) F5. (Within docking magnet distance).

3) F9.

4) Automatic re-dock.