Help with the docking tutorial.

[W-I-L-D W-E-A-S-E-L]

Hi, im pretty good in the game so far, I've made many saves and even a good replica off the Saturn 5 and have performed multiple moon/ minmus landing. I decided to try and learn to dock to perfect Saturn 5 missions. i understood everything in the tutorial until the breaks part. where you have to slam on the breaks. Help me please.

[valenti_scott]

A few pointers: When the navball is in target mode, you see your relative speed to the target.

The prograde marker puts you parallel to the target. So you can use your RCS thrusters to slow down and reduce your relative speed.

If your craft is pointing backward, you can even use the rocket engine to slow down (point at the retrograde marker). Hope this helps.

[W-I-L-D W-E-A-S-E-L]

How ive learned all of this already. My mun mission and minmus missions. My main problem is after the orbits intersect.

[valenti_scott]

Have you got your relative speed to zero? Please be more specific about the issue, ok?

[W-I-L-D W-E-A-S-E-L]

No i dont think so.

[valenti_scott]

Are you having trouble performing the actual docking maneuver? Have you tried using locked view? Can you use the RCS thrusters?

[koimeiji]

assuming you know how to get a good intercept (sub 1.0 kilometers, preferably in the range of 0.1 to 0.3)

just timewarp until about 30 seconds from intercept. make sure navball is set to target mode, and point retrograde. burn main engine until speed is almost exactly 0 at about 5-10 seconds from intercept

then its just a simple case of pointing your rocket towards the target and doing a slight burn until you're moving about 5-30m/s towards it.
point retrograde, and slow to 0 when you're about 10-50 meters away

if you want to dock, switch to the target craft. (henceforth craft 2)
select docking port, switch to "control from here"
target the original craft (henceforth craft 1)
target craft 1's docking port (you should be close enough to right click it)
point at target with navball

switch back to craft 1
control from docking port
target craft 2's docking port
point at docking port
burn at 1-3m/s towards it


RCS can make this easier but it's nowhere near necessary, as the way i described should land you a perfect dock every time.

[Salticus]

-Make Sure your Navball is in target mode
-Point Retrograde
-Wait until you are close to your target
-Burn until your relative Velocity is 0