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On May 04 2014 03:07 Epoxide wrote:Why didn't you build from one side to the other :D? That just seems unnecessarily hard 
Order of launches was sub-optimal. Also, from previous dockings, I think I became a masochist.
Best part? The entire ship was too unstable to burn in a single direction - CoM was off, and the docked landers may have interfered with the thrust from the driving nuclear engines.
The concept was sound, the execution failed. Horribly.
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Magic Woods9326 Posts
Put a station core above the moon in one launch!
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Magic Woods9326 Posts
It fits in a KW Rocketry fairing too :D
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So, maybe i don't get it, but how do you guys effectively dock anything?
I tried it once, having a seperate lander and a transport ship on my minmus landing, and it took me ages and probably more fuel then getting back to Kerbin to get the two things together, it appears to be incredibly fiddly to get something to within a few meters on an orbit even using the control thrusters. Once i got it done, i saved the game. Then it broke for some reason, so i reloaded, and the two parts started flying into opposite directions for no apparent reason. Once i got them back together, it turned out that apparently the docking apparatus somehow broke in the process.
So basically, after spending a few hours on that utterly failed experiment i didn't dock anything anymore. You guys make it seem like docking is something you can actually use to some effect.
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Magic Woods9326 Posts
On May 13 2014 08:12 Simberto wrote:
So, maybe i don't get it, but how do you guys effectively dock anything?
I tried it once, having a seperate lander and a transport ship on my minmus landing, and it took me ages and probably more fuel then getting back to Kerbin to get the two things together, it appears to be incredibly fiddly to get something to within a few meters on an orbit even using the control thrusters. Once i got it done, i saved the game. Then it broke for some reason, so i reloaded, and the two parts started flying into opposite directions for no apparent reason. Once i got them back together, it turned out that apparently the docking apparatus somehow broke in the process.
So basically, after spending a few hours on that utterly failed experiment i didn't dock anything anymore. You guys make it seem like docking is something you can actually use to some effect.
Are you having more trouble rendezvousing or actually docking?
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Well, i did it once. The rendezvous was annoying, but doable. The docking then was even more annoying and about half an hour of me being 1-2m off in some direction, trying to correct, but not knowing if ijkl is the right direction because i fly a symmetric ship and have to turn the camera constantly to get the right idea of the 3d space, that means a lot of bashing random keys to see which direction the ship goes in. Then getting close again, but having to correct over and over again until you finally get those 2 small parts of 2 ships which are IN ORBIT AROUND A FUCKING PLANET to actually get to within a meter of each other. And then you get rewarded with a wobbly connection that probably breaks on acceleration anyways.
Meanwhile we have guys with stations build out of 20 different docked parts here. It just makes me think that i must be doing something utterly wrong. And at this point, i am pretty sure that i spend more fuel trying to get a lander to rendezvous with a carrier ship than i would just landing the whole thing and taking off again. I just have to make everything bigger at the original launch. I managed to land a guy on Duna and bring him back to Kerbin without docking, because quite honestly it is just so fiddly to manually get those parts so close to each other after already spending shitloads of fuel to get them into a similar orbit that i dont wanna do it. Spending half an hour to try to finally get those fucking docking shits to attach is not a lot of fun. Maybe i am still a bit annoyed at how it then EXPLODED into different directions in my quicksave after i finally managed to do it for no apparent reason (It didn't do that in the original attempt where i somehow failed my landing on Kerbin), and then i spent so much time trying to get them back together until i finally realized that the docking clamps no longer work for some inexplicable reason. Then i just flew the lander back to kerbin itself from minmus, and left the transport ship in orbit around minmus, and never bothered to build anything that involves docking ever again.
So is this really how you have to do it?
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It sounds like the rendezvous is an issue - and that's always going to take some work, especially if you launch to orbit at a bad time. Docking itself... well, it can be fiddly (check my twitch highlights, same name) but more often than not it is pretty straightforward. It takes some practice - making sure the ports are lined up, that kind of thing - but isn't too tough. Takes some patience, because if you are going too fast you'll just bounce off (if not outright explode) and you can stress the magnetism of the docking ports (or connected parts) to breaking points with strange wobbles or rotating the ship quickly. (Example - docked like "T", the stress on the joint is pretty considerable if you try to move too fast.)
And, of course, it's possible there was a null ref somewhere. The game still is in active development, so sometimes things happen.
Still, if I can get a decent rendezvous with my target ship (say, matched orbits around 200-500 meters apart) I can usually dock okay using the "control from here" on the docking port and "target" the docking port I want to connect with. (I have, actually, used The Claaaaawwwww to forcibly latch on to a ship I forgot to put docking ports on for a fuel transfer, but that is a mess - the target point was nowhere near where I wanted to grab. Took two loads from quicksave and I still used most of a large monopropellant tank.)
But... practice. And take it slow - if you can get close enough, the docking port magnetism will bring you in. The biggest thing is being pretty stable as you approach and not make large corrections if you can make smaller ones further out.
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I was on a matched orbit and very close to the target. I guess most of what i remember might just be trying to rendezvous with a ship with broken docking thingies. Which i am pretty sure broke because of some bug in saving after docking. I remember spending most of the time within 10 meters of the target trying to get the ports to actually match up.
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On May 13 2014 09:16 Simberto wrote:
I was on a matched orbit and very close to the target. I guess most of what i remember might just be trying to rendezvous with a ship with broken docking thingies. Which i am pretty sure broke because of some bug in saving after docking. I remember spending most of the time within 10 meters of the target trying to get the ports to actually match up.
What kind of docking ports were they?
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This game is kicking my butt so much. I've been playing for 10 hours and all I've managed to do is crash land into the moon a few times. How I'm ever going to have enough fuel to land safely and lift off to come back is beyond me. Loving every minute of it though.
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I have no idea, it was a while ago. As i said, i didn't dock anything afterwards because the whole thing just felt entirely shitty and not useful in any ways whatsoever.
But in this thread apparently everyone always docks everything, so i get this feeling that there must be some use to it that justifies the utter fiddlyness and all the annoyance it leads to. I mean, i tried a simple docking procedure to use a lander, and it took ages and was very, very annoying, then it didn't work and the savegame completely broke it. Meanwhile people apparently built ships out of many parts in orbit. Doesn't that take 10 hours or something to even get started?
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Canada8036 Posts
Docking is indispensable because it allows you to build huge structures somewhat more efficiently. As you've probably noticed, the bigger (and heavier) your structure gets, the more rockets you need to strap onto it to lift it into space. And those rockets have mass, so you need even more rockets, and so on...
Basically, it's far easier to assemble something in parts because you're lifting less stuff at one time.
Docking is also useful for interplanetary missions. If your intent is to land on a planet, then take off and return home, you don't want to take the the fuel you'll use in interplanetary flight down to the surface, because you'll just have to lift it back up again. It's much more efficient to just take what you'll need to land and reascend.
There are mods to aid the rendezvous and to aid in docking. They range from mechjeb automating the whole process to subtler mods which just help you line things up.
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On May 13 2014 09:16 Simberto wrote:
I was on a matched orbit and very close to the target. I guess most of what i remember might just be trying to rendezvous with a ship with broken docking thingies. Which i am pretty sure broke because of some bug in saving after docking. I remember spending most of the time within 10 meters of the target trying to get the ports to actually match up.
Did you have at least 4 RCS ports and were they placed on the center of mass? If that isn't the case, then it becomes really hard to control. If you lose mass before the actual docking, you may have to take that into account too. You can simply add more RCS ports (evenly spaced from the center of mass) to make it easier to control, even if the center of mass shifts a bit. Other than that, you just need to practice, practice, practice. My first docking without any Mechjeb help took me something like 30minutes and I needed ridiculous amounts of RCS fuel.
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Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
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Magic Woods9326 Posts
Docking doesn't take long for me so I don't really care
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On May 13 2014 21:04 Simberto wrote:
Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
Spazer linked this great addon: http://kerbalspaceport.com/dock-align-indicator/
It makes lining up the docking port and knowing which direction to go a lot easier. I also posted a way of doing it without any help from this addon a few pages back:
For docking everyone has their own method to help them. In the beginning I just watched MechJeb and learned from there. Basically, you want to find as many ways as possible to make it easier when you're still learning.
How I made it easy for me:
1. Point the target docking port south, this has the advantage that the direction will never change
2. Get close to and underneath the target, with RCS or without
3. Point north and check where the target is shown on the navball
4. Use RCS controls (I-J-K-L) to move the target north on your navball. You know where to move via navball. For example, the target is to the top right of north on your navball, press K and L until your prograde marker is even more to the top right than your target. It will "push" the target on your navball to the north marker. Adjust the prograde until it is pointing north along with the target. This allows you to ignore the relative rotation, just the direction on the navball is important.
5. Use H (N to slow down) to move straight to the docking port. IRL docking happens at 3cm/s, in the game you can dock at 1m/s without worries.
You should of course do what's fun for you, but I recommend not to give up docking entirely. Learning it is worth the effort in my opinion.
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Imho, you can't really play ksp without docking. Everything "later" is pretty much dependant on that.
What helped me, was watching Scott Manley. Learned alot, especially regarding docking etc, and RCS placement (he doesn't really explain, but you can see). If you really have trouble aligning docking ports, it's most likely due to bad RCS placement.
Learned that the hard way when i was trying to line up a small "communications part" for my space station, with only 4 RCS on one end, none on the other.
In fact, there's an addon that helps with RCS placement somewhere, maybe that'll help. Then there's the docking alignment mod, and also, there's a camera-mod, which basically lets you play from the docking port in ego-perspective. I use that, since it looks more "realistic" than the aligner.
edit
Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
.. yet. In fact, there's a mod (mission command or something like that), which "fixes" that. If you look closely, there is already prices on items, it's just that the economystuff isn't in the game yet. Since they said that they're slowly wrapping up the campaign mode, my bets are on 0.24 or 0.25 adding currency.
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Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_>
Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time.
Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships.
For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
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Canada8036 Posts
On May 13 2014 21:04 Simberto wrote:
Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
FYI, the inability to time warp during acceleration is a game engine limitation. The way time warping works is that your ship is essentially frozen in space and just moved forwards along its current trajectory. During this time, no physics calculations are done because it'd be too computationally complex. This is also why you lose all rotational momentum (if you had any) when entering time warp.
So yeah, it's a rather unfortunate limitation of using ions and nukes, but unless Squad comes up with a clever workaround, this isn't going to change for a long time.
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On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote:Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_> Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time. Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships. For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
If i might suggest, if you want to have fun with spaceplanes, install KAS as well. IR got updated to .23.5 as well, so that might be an option as well, especially for payload (on a hinge, good for tug-based spaceships as well). You could also look into "KSP Interstellar" for interplanetary stuff, couple of nice engines and new "economy" (need for special ressources, like anti-matter, thorium etc) - and some "speed bumps" in terms of wasteheat, stuff like that.
FAR and DRE don't make it troublesome, but fun. 
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EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Epoxide/Various/MoonOperations.png)
