Any good mods to simplify rendezvous?

[Cake for Mumm-Ra]

Hundreds of hours in KSP and KSP2 and I still can't figure this out. I've watched so many videos, followed guides. I just can't get it right.

It'd be great if the game provided a tutorial for this, but I'm willing to cheat or do whatever is necessary to get over this hurdle.

[Torgonius]

For KSP1, MechJeb is one of many that can help you with rendezvous and docking.

I've not played with KSP2 mods, so I can't help you there.

In KSP1, MechJeb will help you get your orbit aligned, find the best maneuver to get you to your target in the next half orbit, a tool to fine tune your arrival distance, and a tool to match velocities with you target on arrival.

[Skorj]

Originally posted by Cake for Mumm-Ra:

Hundreds of hours in KSP and KSP2 and I still can't figure this out. I've watched so many videos, followed guides. I just can't get it right.

It'd be great if the game provided a tutorial for this, but I'm willing to cheat or do whatever is necessary to get over this hurdle.

If you can't get a close encounter, that's almost always the orbit inclinations don't match. If the orbits aren't on the same plane, trying to connect will be maddeningly frustrating. If you're able to approach within a couple hundred meters, but can't make it from there, that's just practice.

Oh, and make sure you don't have RCS thrusters enabled for roll, pitch, or yaw, only translation. Otherwise it's hopeless.

[TargetLost]

Rendezvous is though especically with a heavy vessel.
So try with a small nible one first.
Make sure your target is in a close to perfect cirular orbit
Put your vessel into a circular orbit 1/3 above or below your taget orbit.
Just not to close on the same orbit.
Select your target as target.
then the first thing you do is put a manoever on the inclination point correct the inclination only so that both orbits are on the same plane
then put a manoever node 1/4 in front and reduce or increase in flight direction till the orbit touches the one of the station.
next is to move that manoever node on the orbit till you have the two 1 ons and/or the 2 number 2 on each other.
Depending on yur position relative to the target you might have to time pass pass several full orbital circles till that is possible.
Select if you want to go to 1 or 2. I usually go to 1. Fine tune your forward backward manoever speed that you get in a rrendevous ange of lower than 2km to the target. Best lower than 1 km.
Remember that closest distance.
execute the manoever.
when you are close turn the vesell into reverse releative flight direction. (green crossed cricle on navball when you have the navball on target mode.)
Time your braking with retro trust to be at the closest distance when your relative speed to the target comes to zero.

then the docking phase starts.
if you are far direct your vessel directly to the target and accelerate to 10 m/s
retro break again to zero when you are closest to the station or at the best position to the doking port.

then select that docking port as target.
orientate your vessel to match the targets station orientation the way that if you were at the correct position you werealigned with the docking port without haveing to rotate anymore.

now switch to docking mode
enable RCS if you haven't already.
give a slight forward movement. maybe 2 m/s

now you have 3 important dot's on the nav to observe,
the withe wing dot your vessel.
The circle dot your target doking port
And the green circle dot your relative movement vector.

imagine the target white dot circle point as a mirrow point mirrowing your vessel vector wing dot.
That's where you have to move the green circle dot to. It shoul dbe equal away of the target dot circle oposite of your vessel dot point.
this is all done with rcs translation doking mode thrusting.
Also forward and backward movements (e forward, q backward) should be done with the rcs thrusting. You can also increase or decrease your relative speed a little which will shorten or length the relative speed vector grren circle dot to the docking port vector white circle dot.

if you do well you will have all the 3 vector indicators over each other before you docked.
then you can just wait or work with the forward and backward speed alone.

most important..do one thing at a time.

Oh and KSP" seems very tollerant about the docking angle. So if you are 30 degree wrong orientated don't bother.,. therefore on ksp2 you can move in for the docking as described. You can even simplify it by directly pointing your ship to the docking ports (white wing dot over white circle dot ) and move the green dot circle directly on this too with the rcs translation thrust if your orientations isn't that bad by diretcly pointing to the docking port.

good luck

p.s. and pay attention to always have enough electric.

[sandynathan/snake-plisken]

I genuinely learned in KSP1 with mechjeb, watched how it did it. The comment above is a really good explanation so definitely read that. Its hair-rippingly frustrating at times. My 2p worth would be to find out whether you prefer lower or higher orbits to rv. Remember lower orbits means youll catch up and overtake your target. A higher orbit will mean youll be slower.

as people say, have fun, take a deep breath and practice, practice, PRACTICE

:P

[chollman82]

You don't need mods for this, you need to learn to do it right with a properly designed craft. One mistake I made when I was just starting was slapping RCS thrusters any old place without regard for center of mass. If you only put one set of RCS thrusters and they are not in-line with your center of mass then any attempt at a linear translation will ALSO result in a rotation... making docking very difficult. You can either put one set of thrusters (3 or 4 with radial symmetry) that are in-line with your center of mass or, for better rotation rate, you can do that AND another two sets of thrusters far away from your center of mass (one at the top and one at the bottom) OR a sufficiently strong reaction wheel.

To summarize: To be able to translate your craft correctly you need a set of RCS thrusters that are lined up with your center of mass. Then, for better rotation, either add a reaction wheel or 2 more sets of thrusters at opposite ends of your craft. If you want to omit the thrusters in the center then be damn sure the two at either end are balanced... otherwise like I said any attempt at translation will also result in rotation.

[chollman82]

Originally posted by Skorj:

Oh, and make sure you don't have RCS thrusters enabled for roll, pitch, or yaw, only translation. Otherwise it's hopeless.

Nah I always do it with full control, you just have to make sure your thrusters are balanced on your center of mass, otherwise translation will also result in rotation like I explained above.

[WhateverCheetah]

K2D2 with Flight Plan, I just started using mods with KSP 2 and closest thing to MechJeb probably. Both worked very well with each other, had few user error mess ups the first few times but did not take long to iron it out.

[baldrick]

Occasionally when I try to dock the docking ports don't engage with each other. They just bounce off. It happens less frequently than it used to but still think there are some bugs with docking ports.

[baldrick]

Re. placement and use of RCS, you can disable "Pitch" and "Yaw" on them. This should reduce any rotation effects.

[TargetLost]

Originally posted by TargetLost:

now you have 3 important dot's on the nav to observe,
the withe wing dot your vessel.
The circle dot your target doking port
And the green circle dot your relative movement vector.

Here is a picture of the 3 dots on the navbal.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3165916356

Basicly you move the green vector around with your transversal RCS thrusts. With this over time you move your vessel exactly over the target docking port.

ONe Important thing i just discovered again.
If you get within range (some 100 meter) of your target station you should briefly switch to to controlling the station and enable SAS there to keep stabilise the station orientation.

For some wired (bug?) reason whenever I get near the station KSP2 loses the SAS active and the Station orientation. It starts tumbling which makes any attempt of docking futile.

Just because it is a good picture. That's after decoupling and preparing for the return:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3165914151

dang I started to play KSP(2) again.

[Skorj]

Originally posted by chollman82:

Originally posted by Skorj:

Oh, and make sure you don't have RCS thrusters enabled for roll, pitch, or yaw, only translation. Otherwise it's hopeless.

Nah I always do it with full control, you just have to make sure your thrusters are balanced on your center of mass, otherwise translation will also result in rotation like I explained above.

Center of mass changes as you burn fuel. Using RCS to rotate your craft almost always gives some lateral thrust, which is extremely confusing to a new players. You don't want to give expert-mode advice to new players. Agreed though on using 2 sets of thruster clusters fore and aft.

Of course, once you're good at docking, you don't bother with any sort of RCS. You just come straight in and dock. But that's a matter of many hours of practice, and explaining the techniques would only confuse new players.