Fun (and frustration) with docking!

[AphelionHellion]

Ok
I've looked for this info all over and I'm sure it's out there somewhere but I was hoping someone could help me out:
How do you select docking ports on a vehicle with multiple ports? For instance, on the Doradus, how do you choose
which port to undock?
The big one I'm having trouble with, though, is those 6-way hub cubes from the stationbuilder add-on. They're quite
useful to stick two or more things together when you place them right, but I've had little luck undocking them in most
cases. I believe the default port (whatever that is - 0?) is not docked to anything when I have this problem, and so
when I CTRL-D to undock, nothing happens.


Any info would be appreciated

[AphelionHellion]

The reason I ask about this is I've been having fun with Voyager's station module packs (there are two of 'em). I
highly reccomend you pick them up at Orbithangar! Very cool stuff. Besides the usual hubs and modules, there are
metal trusses of various lengths and port configurations, as well as radiator and solar panels, a nuclear reactor, 3
kinds of tank racks, and other stuff. You can build the station of your dreams with this add-on

Of course what I've been doing is torturi- er... "enhancing" the Vespucci
I believe I can dock a couple Doradus transports to her using the trusses and escape pod dock modules. I'll post a
screenshot when I have the right combination figured out

[DocHoliday]

Heh, the only instances where I have seen the docking ports "user controllable" are the FuelMFDs, the Vespucci and
the TTM34H addons.. You might want to ask the authors of those, because I have a sneaky feeling the things are
currently only programmatically accessible.

Maybe one of them could take a shot at upgrading the DockMFD, lest we will be stuck with that

[AphelionHellion]

Doc: I was afraid of that
I could have sworn I saw something somewhere about hitting ctrl+D+PGUP or ctrl+D+# or something like that to
change active docking ports.
Though come to think of it it may have been the documentation for TTM24H

Anyway if this is in fact the case and there is no way, currently, to select active docking ports for undocking, I certainly
hope the next version of Orbiter changes this... There's just too much cool stuff you can do with multiple ports

[DocHoliday]

Also it might have been that shortcut to select the target's docking port (like Hammer 4)

But keep looking, you might have something there There is a small bell ringing in my head too

[tjohns]

Switch to the Docking HUD (not MFD) and press CTRL+SHIFT+R

You can them type the name of the target vessel (also works with stations - no need for a radar dockng frequency at all) and
then the port number (used to start at zero, now starts at 1 I believe). Something like this:

ISS 2

Trevor Johns

[DocHoliday]

You can them type the name of the target vessel (also works with stations - no need for a radar dockng
frequency at all) and
then the port number (used to start at zero, now starts at 1 I believe). Something like this:

ISS 2

Yup, you have to use the "realistic" docking port number instead of the "logical" one

BUT this is not what we are having a problem with.. The problem is how to identify/select the docking port of your
vessel with which you wish to dock. For example, you are trying to dock vespucci someplace. Now the default (or
rather hardcoded) port for docking (used by DockingMFD) is 0, or the one on the nose of the vessel. What if you
wanted to dock Vespucci using another dock (say one of the ports on the collar - okay, maybe not the best example,
Vespucci). You cannot really tell DockingMFD to use another port for the targeting display. Or can you? This is what's
been bugging us Another example is Dorado. You can dock with the frontal port, but sometimes, you'd want to
dock it sideways to one of the many ports it has..

Of course the alternative is always to switch focus to the target vessel, and dock IT to the Vespucci. But again you
are limited to that vessel's 0 docking port.

The only addons that FULLY support default docking port switching AFAIK is the TTM24h, where you can switch
between upper, front and back docking ports, depending on mission phase. The Vescucci only support UNDOCKING of
target vessels from the Vespucci. Dorado on the other hand has no custom panel yet. Maybe the guys might develop
this function if someone asked

Cheers,