URMS words of wisdom for manipulating modules and building stuff

[ADSWNJ]

Looking for pearls of wisdom from expert station builders and module manipulators using the URMS. What techniques do you recommend?

Some things I find difficult:

1. Manipulating the grappled object to do a clean dock with e.g. a free-floating part-built space station. I find it easier to move the module to align with the vessel (e.g. pointing towards the nose of the XR-5, level in the three axes), and then manipulate the XR-5 to the right position with the target. But it feels like cheating, even if it works quite efficiently.

2. The whole target mode thing - do people use this? If so can you do a play-by-play walkthrough, as I can't figure it out. (I manually move each joint.)

3. Doing alignment in 6 degrees of freedom by dead-reckoning form the external camera view. Do people bring up multiple views in extern MFDs?

4. Controlling relative orientation and drift to a free-floating target. Do people use Attitude MFD or other MFDs for this, or just fight it by hand?

5. Grapple points? Is it the center of the object? I hate sticking the arm through the shell of a module, but I have long since rationalized that it's the only way to get a green lock with this arm. Is there a better way (e.g. picking up an airlock or a hab module).

Consulting the gurus please...

 

[Dantassii]

Looking for pearls of wisdom from expert station builders and module manipulators using the URMS. What techniques do you recommend?
...
Consulting the gurus please...

I've found that if you don't use the 'default' DX client that anything you snag with the URMS tends to slide around a bit while you manipulate it using the URMS. This gets worse the further you have to move the module. I've never seen this with DX7, but DX9 does it all the time. Makes it nearly impossible to use the URMS to align and dock modules.

My 'In Character' way to get around this is use the URMS to get a module to a relatively close holding position to where it is going, and then assume that astronauts using MMUs manhandle it into it's final position, including any additional rotation necessary to get specific ports docked together. 'Out Of Character' this astronaut manhandling is done using the Scenario Editor.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder