![]() A marker at the edge would be fine for doing the roll orientation, but you don't need that to dock. The problem with using a marker on the edge is that it's only capable of displaying one rotational degree of freedom and, in order to dock, you need at minimum two rotational degrees of freedom to line up with the docking port axis 3 would be nice so we could get the roll stuff lined up as well, but strictly speaking it's not necessary to do that to dock successfully (and it's also not what we're talking about). I feel that's a bit confusing (and I would argue that it might even be an easy thing to miss), but it does avoid the "3 things" complaint. But putting that aside I'm reminded of previous suggestions to have the navball horizon align itself with the target docking port. And, the typical docking procedure would be to first line up the direction you're pointing with the orientation marker, so most of the time it's not something you really have to pay attention to. I disagree with it being too crowded since there's only 2 things on it when you're docking and the goal in this case would be getting them all lined up (which kind of reduces it to one "thing" on the navball when your alignment is good). If it's at 5, you'll need to roll over 30 degrees. When it's at the 12 o clock position you know your port at the target port are aligned. ![]() Another indicator on it is not necessary, just a little marker on the edge, which moves around along the outside edge. Having to reorient all my docking spacecraft because the interface is lacking a basic feature isn't really that fun. If I have to line my docking ports up with orbit normal (which as I pointed out above is not always trivial to find), then there's 3 different orientations I have to put the station in to attach the various pieces. For example, when I'm building a space station I usually launch up that 6-sided hub first. The problem I have with this is it makes things more difficult than it needs to be. Their reference direction flips from east to west and vice versa each time you cross a pole, so orientation is workable there, but it gets wonky at the poles. I mentioned polar orbits earlier and that's because they're a somewhat degenerate case here. In between those points your normal direction will swing through north or south. There's exactly two spots in your orbit where orbit ±normal will be 30 degrees from north and that's at the ascending and descending nodes and at one node you'll be pointing east of north and the other will have you pointing west of north. If you're in an inclined orbit, there is no one reference spot on the navball for orbit normal, you kind of have to guess by watching very closely for when the prograde and retrograde markers switch sides (this can be tricky because they're mostly hidden by the edges of the navball).įor example, you can't simply aim 30 degrees east of north if you're in an orbit that's inclined 30 degrees from equatorial. In an equatorial orbit, pointing north along the horizon on the navball is orbit normal. The problem is, there's no clear indication on the navball of the normal direction except in equatorial orbits (and to a slightly more limited extent in polar orbits as well). Typically when docking you point everything in the north-south direction, because that's orbit normal and anti-normal (so it doesn't change throughout your orbit, whereas the radial/anti-radial and prograde/retrograde directions rotate as you move through your orbit). AFAIK there is always a 'right way', which is pointing to the orbit normal. Doing all this in a non-equatorial orbit seems to my limited understanding to be the very same, just at an inclination (making the navball harder to read, but I don't see how any ambiguity would come into it, making it impossible). Docking like this is perfectly achievable just looking at the current navball, and I guess with a bit of practice it's possible to do the approach this way too.). ![]() I suspect you could calculate the rotation of the docking port by where you are in the orbit. But I think that as long as the target port is pointing to the orbit normal, and you approach from there, oriented towards the orbit anti-normal, it's a matter of translating so you line up the pink target on your nose and then close the distance. I've been trying to avoid external views and use mostly IVA for approach and docking, and I think I'll get it eventually (I'm sticking to equatorial orbits at the moment tho). If you're not in an equatorial orbit, there is no "right way".Ĭould you elaborate on this a bit? Why is a non-equatorial orbit any different, doesn't it just tilt everything to the inclination?
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