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Most people use mods for that, I don't mod.
It would be nice to watch it being done by an automated system to ease in the learning of it, hopefully they add something like that in the future.
You could always turn on fuel cheats and spend a week trying to learn.
I kept practicing for another 40 tries always shifting the orbits a bit to challenge the rendezvous part.
It became second nature.
The practice came in handy when I borked a docking of a massive refuel ship onto a space station with way too much momentum. Too much Mass and velocity for the docks to acquire each other so I bounced off and went past and the station shifted orbit. But all the practice came in handy as I restabilized the refueling ship out at 25m. Realigned the ports and came in much slower.
Watch some videos. The ones that show you the mechanics of orbital rendezvous using nothing more than the nav ball. Once it clicks it’s like riding a bike.
Then just spend a few hours with two cheated craft into orbits to play with.
You’ll be glad when you get it.
also, pay attention to the nav ball, where is your prograde? and where is the target? if your prograde is pointing directly at the target, then that means you are going directly towards them
when you are way closer, you can set your own docking port as your point of control, and the other ships docking port as your target, then if your prograde lines up with your target, it means both your docking ports are on a collision course, AKA, they are gonna dock with each other.
It doesnt explain WHY it makes you come to a zero realtive speed at certain intervals. (50k, 20k, 10, 5k, etc) and then speed up.
Until I witnessed the effect from the map screen while doing this, it seemed somewhat dumb to me.
But in reality, what is happening is you are pointing Target Retrograde to slow down, which is the spot you need to point to come to what would be that moments relative speed to target of zero. If you look at the screen, your orbit would look hosed in some instances, but at the moment and in that spot you and the target are going the same speed and direction.
Then based on how far away you are from the target you aim for TARGET and hit the throttle. For instance, if I'm 50k away I'll increase speed to target by 150-250 m/s depending on how hard it is to turn the craft around for a retro burn.
Everytime you do this, go to zero relative speed and then burn to target you are correcting your orbit to match exactly the orbit of the target. By the time you get to 5k away your target indicator, your target prograde and your orbit prograde should all nearly be on top of each other.
These facts above didnt make sense to me until I witnessed it from the map screen a few times and then I knew I was learning some orbital mechanics. Things began clicking for me after that.
SAS to Target Mode (lowest left mode selection) and use [SHIFT] to accelerate to ~3 m/s OR LESS. Immediately after the burn to creep closer, select SAS mode to Target Retrograde (so that's making sure the velocimeter has Target selected, as well as the Retro SAS mode...)
As you get within ~50m, slow again to 0.0 relative to the target, turn on RCS ("r" key), SAS mode select Target again and using "H" key move toward target until you can determine its orientation relative to you - afterall, you must be pointed right at the docking port before you'll be successful.
You'll recall the "v" key activating different relative views and "LOCKED" goes a LONG way to preventing more confusion. After selecting that viewing, in this type of docking where I not only must intercept but align myself as well, I move the camera so that I am directly behind my ship or close enough to assist visual alignment because when you are close in and at "0" relative speed, you can use "ijkl" and sometimes "hn" keys sparingly to translate yourself in front of your target and use the "r" key to toggle off RCS so when you "spin" the orientation after translating you don't fire the RCS thrusters and add forces you did not desire into the maneuver. Then turn on "r" RCS again, translate some more, etc.
Finally, when close to aligned visually, you should see the target on your navball and tap "h" to close in at 0.3 m/s until docked. The closer you are both in longitudinal alignment and translational, the quicker the docking occurs. If you can be aware, as you get within 3m, press and HOLD the "f" key to temporarily disable SAS so the minor bump of touching the other ship slightly unaligned doesn't summon the Kraken and spin you or your target off into the ether...
The docking ports have a sort of magnetic attraction so as long as you're close, not too fast and turn off SAS before contact, they'll kinda wobble around and then finally join.
Good luck!
Thank you for the response :)
I do not have a problem with orbital mechanics. I can calculate all the parameters myself if need be (well, I am aeronautical engineer). But I have a problem with the tutorial. It is based on a "monkey see monkey do" approach - without explaining what is buried in the interface and without explaining the modes etc.
Example: landing on Mun - I failed so many times it is not funny following the tutorial to the letter. What wasn't told there - it the fact that the lander rotates by itself during braking burn, right up to the contact with the surface. Once I noticed that - landing is dead easy - but it does not reflect the reality (or maybe it does, but you need to know that there is a little helper buried in the game code that does it for you). So - the only input required is the thrust control. So why isn't this info given to start with ?
Ship orientation in space: the navball is simple enough (although strictly speaking it is correct only in circular orbit). So why not simply say: the coordinate system is located at your particular location in orbit. The 'normal' direction is defined by the plane of the orbit. The 'prograde' direction is is along the current velocity vector. The 'radial' direction is perpendicular to the 'normal-prograde' plane - and points outside of the orbit. Tthe above reference system uses equatorial plane as a reference. Fair enough.
The burn direction: I am still not sure what happens when the ship has arbitrary orientation and I do "prograde burn'. Selecting 'prograde' should either re-orient the ship automatically or give a mis-alignment warning. Otherwise the 'prograde' etc. terms have dubious meaning - like in Docking..
Docking: my intercept orbit usually places me within 5km from the target. And here things get totally confusing. At this point - I am not sure about the orientation of my ship. If the target is the reference - then this should be said and the navball should be replaced with the target. What is confusing - the tutorial says that I need to execute 'braking burn'. How come ? My intercept orbit puts me 5 lkm from the target - but with LOWER speed than the target. So - I need to perform a 'prograde' burn to match speed. Confusion - because the 'target' mode was already selected - what does it mean ?! How can I perform a 'prograde' ? In addition - when spedo is set to 'target' - it always shows POSITIVE value. How do I know whether or not I am catching up or not ? This, of course,is related to lack of info regarding the reference coordinate system.
It is a bit of a mess, unfortunately. Proper explanation of the modes and the reference systems is definitely in order. Right now - it is 'monkey see monkey do' type of approach - whit is a shame in otherwise awesome game.
Also note the three modes of the Nav Ball all have different markers.
Target Prograde and Target Retrograde are different than orbit prograde and orbit retrograde.
Hence, when you have a target defined, the target mode should be selected and pointing retrograde in that mode means retrograde to the course of the target. Your orientation, depending on where you are and how close to the target orbit you are may look weird, but its right.
The reason they tell you to do this so many times is, every time you target retro and prograde, your orbit changes to be more like the target. You need to get to target zero and then burn target
prograde to get that course.
Watch it in map view and you can see the effect.
BTW that lander swing you mentioned, if you noticed, and you are at retrograde during landing, at a certain altitude your nav ball switched from orbit mode to surface mode. Surface mode retrograde is always pointing rear end to ground. Hence your craft moves that direction.
Click on the center square of your nav ball where it says orbit/surface/target to switch modes. Target is only available if you selected a target.
So dealing with the mathematical side of our personalities, having nice clean definitions would be nice, but my experience is that there always seems to be an exception, and as long as you make liberal use of F5 and F9 in your career, along with this and other forums it's a rewarding journey.
From my experience, from 5km you're kinda getting toward the edge of "simple approach" because while it is typical to think of your vessel as traveling parallel to your target at the same speed you are still actually curving along a different orbit and so what starts as "going straight" to your target starts to drift away - these effects are minimal up to about 1.5 km but the effect is more pronounced (read: "difficult") as the distance grows. Don't forget that the original intercept can be re-performed again if necessary to get a little closer, zero out the relative speed and go from there.
Up to this point, vessel orientation is not too important - it's important to use the navball to orient yourself to the maneuver node, and the target's retrograde, and the velocimeter to determine how much burn. When you get within 200m or so of your target is time to get serious about the visual perspective, which is LOCKED (cycle the "v" key). It's fixed selfie-stick and you can MANUALLY adjust which angle will be maintained and the closest to being "in the vehicle" is swinging the camera so you are close to right behind your vessel, because when you turn on RCS with the "r" key, the location of the keys directly mimic what the vessel will do.
Even so, if you will take it slow (slow is always very good when learning this process) you STILL perfom most of the maneuver watching the navball and use the translate keys to move the prograde marker on top of the target marker, and the orientation of the markers on the ball always mimic the direction regardless of what view your camera is showing.
In fact, the only reason you need a visual and camera aligned is to swing your vessel to roughly align it with the target docking port.
Give it whirl and if I can point you further in the right direction, just post it out there.
And anytime you get to a point where it just stops making sense, post - I've been there and hopefully we all pay a little back for all the help we've received...
Once in close range to target....
Ship ONE: "Control from here" on docking port.... Target ship TWO docking port.... align ship to TARGET marker on NAV BALL... Set SAS to "STABILITY ASSIST"... SWAP SHIPS....
SHIP TWO: "Control from here" on docking port.... Target ship ONE docking port.... align ship to TARGET marker on NAV BALL... Set SAS to "STABILITY ASSIST"
BOTH ships should now have their docking ports pointed at the docking port of the other ship.
Pick the craft with the best maneuverability.
Target docking port of other craft.
SHUT DOWN ENGINES! Right click on engines and turn them OFF
Use RCS ("R" to turn on/off) and "H" (foreward) / "N" (reverse) to approach the other craft.
Sometimes craft are built lopsided so you MAY need "IKJL" for translation (Up/Down/Left Right) and "WASD" (To keep NAV BALL aligned to TARGET" or "QE" (for rotation) to get good contact.
So you see if you use your tools properly then DOCKING is as simple as BLINDFOLDED BRAIN SURGERY.... ;P
Oh yeah, once docked you can turn your engines back on if you want...
***************************
RCS Keys (Default)
"R" (Enable/Disable RCS)
"H" MOVE Forewards
"N" MOVE Backwards
"I" MOVE UP - (according to the CRAFTS control part positioning) Look at the NAV BALL the FLYING "V" points DOWN
"K" MOVE Down (This is where the FLYING "V" is pointing)
"J" MOVE Left (LEFT wing of FLYING "V")
"L" MOVE Right (RIGHT wing of FLYING "V")
"Q" ROTATE Left (Counter Clock Wise)
"E" ROTATE Right (Clock wise)
NOTE: All these DIRECTIONS are in relation to the CONTROL POINT of the craft.
If you place a docking port on the SIDE of your craft, and "CONTROL FROM HERE" on it all directions will be in relationship to that port. (Use the nav ball and the FLYING "V" to get your bearings)
PLEASE TRY TO PLAY THE DOCKING TUTORIAL AND TELL ME HOW YOU GO.
I tried several more times. I am coming to the conclusion that something is definitely amiss with the docking tutorial.
The process of docking is simple in principle:
1) Match the inclination of the orbits. Done.
2) Make prograde burn to rise to the target orbit. Time the beginning of the burn to match the two orange markers. Done. After this - I end up 2-3 km from the target.
3) Make prograde burn to match the target orbit. Done, we are now on very similar orbits and close to each other.
4) Switch to Target mode on the navball and burn toward the target using H/N keys.
Here is where all comes apart. It is impossible to approach the target using the thrusters.
IN addition - THE NUMBERS DO NOT ADD UP.
Here it is:
1) My ship and the target are in the same orbit (or as close as practical).
2) My ship is behind the target with velocity of 1397.5
3) Target velocity is 1392.9
4) Distance is 11932
5) Navball speedo shows 16.1
But the difference in velocity along the orbit is 4.6...
The only explanation is that the velocity vectors of my ship and the target are diverging.
So - let's do some numbers.
To make the difference of 16.1, a perpendicular component (in NORMAL or RADIAL direction) has to be 15.4 (15.4^2 +4.6^2 = 16.1^2)
Divide this by the average velocity of about 1395: 15.4/1395 =1.104E-2 rad or 0.62 deg.
BUT THE ORBITS ARE MATCHING - THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN INCLINATION.
So the difference has to be in the RADIAL direction.
Apapsis and periapsis are 1 050 010 and 750 011. The average 900010. The length of the orbit is approximately 2*Pi*900010 = 5 654 930.
The distance between my ship and the target: 11 932. In terms of angular separation on the orbit this is about 11932/5654930 = 2.1E-3 rad or 0.12 deg. NOT 0.6 deg.
In short: the numbers do not add up. So - what is wrong ?
Until someone explains this to me - I call bulls**it here.
(I have screenshot of the whole situation).
Yes it does :) Although I figured this out - because this is the only logical option.
Thanks anyway - any help is much appreciated.
you ended up 12km away from the target so the intercept was pretty inaccurate. so in practice your orbit probably has slightly different characteristics. compared to the target orbit.
the game uses a bunch of astrodynamic characteristics to describe the exact properties of orbits. tbh. i never bothered to learn all of that (actually not required to play the game) but i think that info is shown on some info panel in game.
to calculate the relative speed of two vessels on two different orbits you'd have to know stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_of_periapsis and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_of_the_ascending_node of the orbits and probably also other parameters. and then plug those numbers into some formula to get the result.
from a practical / in game point of view, you're probably close enough to eyeball the rest of the maneuver. you'd basically just point at the other ships, fire up the thrusters to approach it at 50m/s or so and once you get to within 1km or so, you'd kill the relative speed again and use finer thrusts (or switch over to RCS if your vessel has RCS thrusters and monoprop) and close the distance carefully. orbital mechanics are weird when stuff is far apart, but when 2 vessels are close to each other on practically the same orbit it becomes pretty intuitive again.
I understand. But all I ask is this: Run the 'Docking' scenario in Tutorial - and let's see what the result will be. I reckon it does not work.
BTW - my intercept orbit usually locates me within 3000m from the target. Then I match the orbital speed - which basically ensures that the orbits are identical. Then I burn toward the target - but no cigar...
The 12 km was just the example to show that the numbers do not add up. I do not care what is claimed in term of orbital mechanics in the game: but adding and comparing vectors is not a complicated matter. What I am saying is that the speed relative to the target does not match what might be expected based on velocities of the ship and the target (see example in my comment above). I have a good eye for this kind of inconsistencies
I'll be back in a bit...