Can't dock?

[giddonah]

So I have two craft. They both have clamp-o-trons. I've bounced one craft off the other now 5 or so times and the two docks won't connect. One is a ship file I downloaded of that massive tanker that takes 15 minutes to get into orbit (can't find the link). the other is one I made. I've docked mine with another ship and dumped the fuel, now I'm trying to dock with the tanker so I can refill my fuel shuttle and keep refueling the main ship.

Anyone ever have this happen where two docks just don't dock?

[Claw]

Yes, this is a someone common problem.

Assuming that you confirmed the docking ports are the same type and that the attached to the craft facing the correct direction (these are more common problems than you'd think), then you can check out the link below. Sometimes docking ports aren't "ready", and the link below contains a fix for resetting your docking ports.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/78863-FIX-Dock-Undocking-Bug-in-0-23-5

Cheers,

~Claw

[giddonah]

Thanks for the reply, but it makes me want to just abandon the ship. When I hit F5, my quicksave file doesn't show the current date as the date modified, so I don't think that's working. And the latest file, the persistent.sfs, is WAY too big to find this dock. I searched for "state = Disengaged" and it found nothing. I don't think I'm fixing this one.

[Zylark]

I know, this is not helping for the OPs current situation - it's more a tip for future reference. Most these problems arise from the Docking Port having been placed in such a manner that it spans two or more parts, for example if its' been placed by the joint of two Rockomax 32 Fuel Tanks for instance. Also other parts placed in such a manner that it clips into the the docking port can cause problems, like say strut end-points and such.

I've not had this particular problem since starting to take great care in how and where I place my Docking Ports to ensure nothing interferes with them or overlaps.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Zylark

[Taki117]

Thanks for the reply, but it makes me want to just abandon the ship. When I hit F5, my quicksave file doesn't show the current date as the date modified, so I don't think that's working. And the latest file, the persistent.sfs, is WAY too big to find this dock. I searched for "state = Disengaged" and it found nothing. I don't think I'm fixing this one.

you're searching for the wrong thing the wrong way. Don't worry about what the save file says for date modified, assuming you have quicksaving turned on (From the difficulty menu) then it will save. What you want to look for is the name of the craft you are currently flying using the search funtion, then look for the docking port part (I believe it is moduleDockingNode) from there you want to find "state = " (should be pretty close to the top) and make sure it says "state = Ready" with both sets of numbers after it set to 0.

Repeat the process for the ship you are trying to dock with. The easiest way to ind a docking port on a ship that has multiple ports is to disable crossfeed, and then you can search by "crossFeed = disabled" (Not sure if it's crossFeed or xFeed)