Do you use mechjeb anymore?

[idamoofus]

I don't trust it. It'll be a cold day on Moho before I let a machine do a Kerbal's job.

[Vanamonde]

Stick to the subject of the thread please, people. If that subject does not appeal to you, please simply skip to the next thread rather than post to mock the people who are interested in the subject. 

[rdwulfe]

I use MechJeb for repetitive tasks, when I am tired of doing a million launches of a particular type. When it becomes routine, MechJeb can handle it. I can rendezvous, dock, hohman transfer, and so on without much thought. They're tasks I've done so much. MechJeb can do then without getting bored of them, allowing me to focus on the bigger picture of my missions.

[GoSlash27]

1 hour ago, JAFO said:

What we don't have, are your spreadsheets.. are they available anywhere to download?

JAFO,

 Sorry, no. If you peruse my threads in the tutorial section, I give information on how to build one. I don't want to release mine and then worry about keeping it updated for others.

Best,
-Slashy

2 hours ago, foamyesque said:

The point is, KER lets me do it in a lot less than an hour

An *hour*?? Yeah, no thanks. I can plan out an entire mission and iterate all those alternatives in a lot less time. Doing it manually in the VAB gives a lot more flexibility, but it's not any more precise and takes a whole lot more time. Plus, you can only use it when actually playing KSP, whereas I can design entire missions on my lunch break.

 To each his own...

 Best,
-Slashy

[foamyesque]

2 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

An *hour*?? Yeah, no thanks. I can plan out an entire mission and iterate all those alternatives in a lot less time. Doing it manually in the VAB gives a lot more flexibility, but it's not any more precise and takes a whole lot more time. Plus, you can only use it when actually playing KSP, whereas I can design entire missions on my lunch break.

 To each his own...

 Best,
-Slashy

 

An hour was your estimate, man, not mine. I'm saying it doesn't take that. Rejigging that stack took maybe five minutes, most of which was faffing about with the offset tool

 

S'far as precision goes, uh. We've already found your spreadsheet has errors, and not to put too fine a point on it, but it neglects actual mission-critical components and overhead in its estimations, which I'd call a loss of precision.

[GoSlash27]

8 hours ago, foamyesque said:

S'far as precision goes, uh. We've already found your spreadsheet has errors, and not to put too fine a point on it, but it neglects actual mission-critical components and overhead in its estimations, which I'd call a loss of precision.

There's a difference between "inaccuracy" and "imprecision". The inaccuracy in my model is due to an error on my part, which is correctable. How many times have we seen people led astray due to false assumptions in KER and MJ that left them stranded? At least by my method, the current inaccuracy is toward the safe side. If my model suggests a design, it *will* work 100% of the time.

 The big differences between our two approaches are 1) you have to actually build a stage to ascertain what it will do and 2) you can only build 1 stage at a time. I am not constrained by such limitations. All I have to do to model a stage is enter the parameters of the job. It will construct stages using all engine types simultaneously, allowing me to cross- compare mass, cost, and complexity at a glance.  And frankly... I find "faffing about" in the VAB tedious. If you enjoy that approach, more power to you.

 As I said earlier... to each his own.

Best,
-Slashy

 

Edited October 20, 2016 by GoSlash27

[RX2000]

Finally installed Mechjeb last night & had it take my rescue craft to LKO & rendevouz with a stranded Kerbal. I felt so dirty afterwards that I had to take a shower.

[eddiew]

59 minutes ago, RX2000 said:

Finally installed Mechjeb last night & had it take my rescue craft to LKO & rendevouz with a stranded Kerbal. I felt so dirty afterwards that I had to take a shower.

Feel free to spend 3 hours faffing around doing it manually if you prefer. But you didn't have to let it do the whole thing. You could have launched, circularised, and just had MJ plot the rendezvous manoeuvre (usually the hardest part) and executed the burn yourself. Letting it do flying all the way was entirely your choice.

[Wahgineer]

Only reason I'm using MechJeb right now is because KER isn't updated yet.

[Mystique]

16 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Feel free to spend 3 hours faffing around doing it manually if you prefer. But you didn't have to let it do the whole thing. You could have launched, circularised, and just had MJ plot the rendezvous manoeuvre (usually the hardest part) and executed the burn yourself. Letting it do flying all the way was entirely your choice.

People are getting kinda extreme about MJ  I use it for automation, like it above example, I make nodes (usually several of them if needed), click "execute all nodes" and go make myself a tea. Also, I really like MJ's configurable info windows (yes, I know that KER is also configurable and has an overlay, but MJ's looks&feels just better for me). Another useful options are porkchop interplanetary transfers (when I get bored calculation ejections angles and transfer windows) and vertical speed control (though I replaced this with TCA recently for VTOL and lander/hopper designs).

P.S. Though I really like MJ and would've spent much less time in KSP due to many boring routine jobs (like manual node burn, which really doesn't require all thos millions of years of brain evolution), I'm strongly convinced that any new player must play manually till at least first return mission from other planets, just to get feel of how things work; then routines are getting repetitive and it's time when MJ comes in).

P.P.S. Don't really understand people who totally don't want to have delta-v/twr/etc readout window in VAB/SPH and do it all manually. Maybe it's a good math practice, but kinda strange from gameplay point of view  

[Leafbaron]

Kerbal 1 designs rocket, Kerbal 1 builds rocket, Kerbal 1 flys rocket, Kerbal 1 Crashes rocket. 

Kerbal 2 builds MJ, Kerbal 2 tells MJ what to do, MJ flys rocket, MJ great success

Kerbal 1 calls kerbal 2 cheater. Snack fights ensue

 

[eddiew]

38 minutes ago, Mystique said:

People are getting kinda extreme about MJ

Fun isn't it?   I just don't like being looked down on for automating the long burns and the fiddly transfer planning... I wonder how many thousand hours people who insist on manual piloting at all times have really logged...

[XB-70A]

I use MJ Ascent Guidance a lot when the craft is some specific rocket since some times now, cause I have no more joysticks for years and gravity turns with keyboard annoy me more than anything else. Having to constantly tap the control keys for "not too much, now it's not enough, now too much again, tap tap tap, not enough, not enough! (flipping)", quickly became boring after a lot of launch failures the first days I played KSP.

The same thing happen in real life to me, onboard the old school "Skyhawk" SP our instructor just disconnect the (very primitive) AP onboard, as the VOR/DME and remove the GPS to be sure that we learn to navigate the old way, just the ADF was available. And it was the good thing to do. Then years after I went onboard a fresh ultra-light with an AP and dual EFIS screen, I was reluctant to use it for some months then once during a 3 hours cruise I decided to try it... can't make any long flight without it now, the amount of work to make onboard just fall like a miracle, getting time to look and analyze everything else while still keeping the eyes on the flight and without these stress impulsions we got before.

Edited October 20, 2016 by XB-70A
*Aurtografe

[NSEP]

On 18 oktober 2016 at 0:10 PM, Gamel0rd1 said:

I hate mechjeb it really feels like cheating. Mechjeb does everything for you from taking off to docking.

Pretty much everything from taking off to docking is automated in real life spaceflight anyways. Its not cheating, its realism.

[eagle92lightning]

does mechjeb really work I built a soviet style rocket (you know the ones where there is no center line engine all three engines are on little bulges) on the demo and I was able to control it on the gravity turn. Until it started to go wobbly and I jettisoned every thing.

[Diche Bach]

2 hours ago, eddiew said:

Feel free to spend 3 hours faffing around doing it manually if you prefer. But you didn't have to let it do the whole thing. You could have launched, circularised, and just had MJ plot the rendezvous manoeuvre (usually the hardest part) and executed the burn yourself. Letting it do flying all the way was entirely your choice.

Ohhh, MJ is "good" at finding the optimum rendezvous maneuver?

Given that fiddling with that crappy flight planner UI to find the optimum rendezvous is about as much fun as chewing on tacks, this alone is reason for me to wake MJ from its dormancy on my rig and begin installing the MJ modules on my vessels!

Much the way the "Fast Forward" button once saved us from playing through songs on a casette tape that we didn't wish to hear at any given point in time, MJ can save us from playing through parts of the game we might not wish to savor (yet again) at any given time . . .

No Quarter is a great song . . .

But it is a bit slow and sometimes you don't want to savor that. You want to jump straight ahead to THE OCEAN!

Skipping No Quarter so as to listen to The Ocean when you want to hear it is NOT CHEATING!

Contrary to some espoused beliefs, you can play your Led Zeppelin, or Beyonce, or The Chainsmokers songs however you want (as long as you are not selling them) . . .

Edited October 20, 2016 by Diche Bach
better youtubes

[p1t1o]

16 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Ohhh, MJ is "good" at finding the optimum rendezvous maneuver?

Given that fiddling with that crappy flight planner UI to find the optimum rendezvous is about as much fun as chewing on tacks, this alone is reason for me to wake MJ from its dormancy on my rig and begin installing the MJ modules on my vessels!

Much the way the "Fast Forward" button once saved us from playing through songs on a casette tape that we didn't wish to hear at any given point in time, MJ can save us from playing through parts of the game we might not wish to savor (yet again) at any given time . . .

Exactly. I fly the ascent (that part is fun), I do my own docking (also fun) and mostly fly my own landings. Things like manouvering my craft to face prograde. Then retrograde. Then prograde again. Then anti-normal. And prograde again. A machine can do that for me please?

And honestly, it would actually take some skill to use MJ for a whole mission without taking manual control once, I think that would be a cool way to play.

[Pixel of Life]

No. I learned to do everything manually before I heard about Mechjeb. I tried the autopilot functions a few times but it took a lot of the fun out of the game. At that point I was already so good at KSP that there was no point in using an autopilot since I could do things myself just as easily.

Nowadays I only use KER if possible. The only exception is Realism Overhaul as I don't know if removing MJ and installing KER will break things, but even then I only use the info screens and not the autopilot functions.

[eddiew]

31 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Ohhh, MJ is "good" at finding the optimum rendezvous maneuver?

Given that fiddling with that crappy flight planner UI to find the optimum rendezvous is about as much fun as chewing on tacks, this alone is reason for me to wake MJ from its dormancy on my rig and begin installing the MJ modules on my vessels!

Yup, you get a porkchop chart, whereby the blue-er the colour the cheaper the ejection burn. Choose your timing and travel time from it, and MJ will plot the node that matches. About 75% of the time it gives you a good intercept - the rest of the time you'll need to fine tune it en-route   But it takes a lot of the fiddling and guessing out.

That said, the blue-est part of the chart isn't necessarily the cheapest for the journey; just the ejection. You want to meet your target tangentially, if possible, to have the lowest injection burn. The true lowest delta-v for the whole journey requires a bit clicking around to identify it.

Spoiler contains the first google result for "mechjeb porkchop"  

Spoiler

 

[JonathanPerregaux]

I've relied on MechJeb more when the game was much slower and my 1000-part monstrosities were wholly uncontrollable otherwise. It taught me proper maneuvering techniques when I was a noob, so props for that.

Nowadays, I still rely on it, but mostly because I still build crazy-ass designs (a fairly accurate, but absurdly unflyable Star Destroyer comes to mind).

I use MechJeb for planetary encounters, but I always have to manually nudge things because it keeps missing my target. Probably because I seem to always have an ion engine as the final breakaway burn engine and it doesn't account for the extreme drop in ISP.

I also like to watch MechJeb land things because I find it fascinating for some reason. But in actual practice, a lot of times it pancakes or sidescrapes my landers against a cliff, so I have to go manual if I really want to land properly. Again, I'm talking God-awful, multi-legged, crazy tri-plane whirring screw propeller looking designs with steam shooting out and duck horns quacking here.

Edited October 20, 2016 by JonathanPerregaux

[regex]

2 hours ago, eddiew said:

I wonder how many thousand hours people who insist on manual piloting at all times have really logged...

Several, in my case, considering I've been playing since the beginning of 2013, roughly. I'm even considered "odd" in #RO because I insist on flying everything manually. It's just how I like to play the game.

[eddiew]

Just now, regex said:

Several, in my case, considering I've been playing since the beginning of 2013, roughly. I'm even considered "odd" in #RO because I insist on flying everything manually. It's just how I like to play the game.

Fair enough   I just feel like in many cases, the strongest haters of MJ are relatively new players to whom everything is new and exciting... Try as I might, I can't enjoy having to wait around for a 10 minute burn to complete and ending up off-course because I had an itch at the wrong time

It's legit to genuinely prefer manual even after all that time, but it does put you on the edge of the bell curve  

[regex]

2 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Fair enough   I just feel like in many cases, the strongest haters of MJ are relatively new players to whom everything is new and exciting...

No, they're trolls. 

2 minutes ago, eddiew said:

It's legit to genuinely prefer manual even after all that time, but it does put you on the edge of the bell curve  

There's a few of us out there, including some notable Youtubers. I don't know how many people play RO/RSS without MechJeb, but I know I'm not the only one. But it's all really about what you find interesting in the game,

[Curveball Anders]

49 minutes ago, CaptainKorhonen said:

At that point I was already so good at KSP that there was no point in using an autopilot since I could do things myself just as easily.

For me the point is that I find most of the 'flying' in KSP terribly boring.

So I dream, plan, build and decide on from where to where. Then I let MJ do the boring stuff (with mouse hovering over the abort button).

[Ty Tan Tu]

I still use it. I am not particular good at docking and it takes up a lot of my time when I am working on a larger mission where docking is just a very small part. Plus I have done it enough by now that it is not quite as thrilling as it was the first time I pulled it off by myself before I even install mechjeb. 

Sometimes I want to land at a very precise longitude and latitude where I don't already have a flag or other ship. Mechjeb is very good at that. I once landed on top of a Mun arch.