How can I cheat docking in Kerbal Space Program

Solution 1:

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.

Solution 2:

Smart A.S.S. TGT/PAR- setting is (as of MechJeb 2.5.3) is ADV -> Reference: TARGET_ORIENTATION, Direction: BACK. Applying this orientation leaves you only with managing translation to align one docking port above the other and makes docking substantially easier.

My inability to dock itself was caused by a bug#1158 in KSP where a docking port became incorrectly marked as 'docked' after a quick-save. In this case port magnetism does not kick in and ports just stare at each other... Editing the save file and marking the corresponding port state = Ready re-enabled the docking port.

Steps above helped fix the issue and let me dock, though this doesn't help to cheat docking per se.