How to cheat docking in Kerbal Space Program

kerbal-space-program

To make things clear, I know how to and can dock, CoM thruster placing, translation, RCS build aid, 'cotrol from here' etc inclusive. I've built a multi-piece orbital station that was assembled in orbit with a medium amount of anger.

Now I'm bringing some tourists to visit the station for a contract in a smallest ship imaginable (CommandPod, Bit of fuel, PoodleEngline, RCS thrusters @ CoM). Successfully dock this with a station, but because of a hilarious bug in KSP right after docking a piece of the station "exploded due to overheating". So I save-load and can't dock this thing for a few hours straight.

I usually use MechJeb Smart A.S.S. Target+ orientation aid on both ships for help when docking to a big station, but I was not able to re-dock again after the damn bugged explosion with or without using this setting.
I suspect this could be caused by constant woobling/rotation of the station.

I read here that there's a "TGT/PAR-" orientation setting for Smart A.S.S., – how can I enable that one?

But my core question is how do I cheat docking if not joining the ships 'full auto', but at least making the manual dock part as easy as possible.

Best Answer

For station:

  1. ALT-F12 \ Physics \ Thermal -> slide Radiation factor to maximum. Should help with heat issue.
  2. Use time warp to remove wobbling.
  3. Position station docking port closest to station CoM axis toward normal or anti-normal (magenta triangles). That way even if it time passes it will still point north/south instead of running away from your capsule.
  4. Time-warp again to remove residual wobbling.

For capsule with MechJeb:

  1. ALT-F12 \ Physics \ Thermal -> slide Radiation factor to maximum. Should help with heat issue.
  2. Get to different orbit, lower orbit will save Delta-V. Higher is preferable when target is below 80km due to atmosphere. (You probably can skip this step)
  3. Match planes with target. (Half of issues with docking comes from difference in inclination)
  4. Hohmann transfer to target. Yup, it works great for orbit rendezvous with crafts as well.
  5. Fine tune closest approach to target.
  6. Match velocities with target (at closest approach to target). Now you should be pretty much in same orbit, stable enough for spacewalk for long time.

With target docking port in stable position and orbits matched by MechJeb docking should be easier/safer than automatic. (MechJeb hates my solar panels >.<)

And remember, there is always The Claw.

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