Am I the only one who doesnt use mechjeb?

[Monkeh]

It's not that hard to land within 2km of your objective piloting manually (and that's a pretty short rover trip, all things considered). I do all of my Duna landing manually (because MechJeb wants 4km/s of delta-V to do it) and I can generally get within that margin even using a craft with parachutes. I don't even bother with braking predictions from MechJeb.

It's the dark side landings that will be hardest for me I think. At least with some sunshine I can aim for some landmarks. Actually aiming for a particular point is way beyond me for now, I need to go do some reading I think, work out how to aim for a particular set of co-ordinates properly instead of just lining up-ish on the map.

The knowledge journey continues...

[Specialist290]

I didn't use MechJeb all through 0.20 and a did a lot of things without it. Then 0.21 came along, the SAS got messed up, and my ships couldn't hold a heading worth a damn. So I started using MechJeb. If the SAS ever gets un-messed-up I might drop it again, but it has some nice time-savers.

This is a bit off-topic, I'll admit, but do you think you could describe what was giving you trouble? It took me a while to get the hang of the changes myself, but now that I'm used to it, I find the new SAS to be quite helpful.

[regex]

This is a bit off-topic, I'll admit, but do you think you could describe what was giving you trouble? It took me a while to get the hang of the changes myself, but now that I'm used to it, I find the new SAS to be quite helpful.

The SAS has reversed functionality for me. It is brilliant for airplanes, docking, and landing, it is completely useless for holding a heading.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/42470-0-21-1-SAS-does-not-hold-heading-during-burn

If burns are spoiled by a single off-center parachute then it is not a useful system for me. I do not consider it "challenging" either, I consider it a defect. If the SAS works on your computer, cool story, it does not work on mine and hasn't even with reinstalls.

[J.Random]

OP, no, you're not the only one who doesn't use MJ. Also, you're not the first and, most probably, not the last one creating stupid topic about MJ. In short: there is no (and may not be) cheating in a single player game, moreso in a single player moddable sandbox.

[Monkeh]

OK, so here's how my mission went, without MJ.

So I get reasonably close, I think, to my first anomaly

This shot shows the big crater we headed for with the red dot on the Northern edge on the map, the lander very close on the Mun view.

Now to head East.

So I tried to use the buggy to get there, it was a bit far and difficult so I thought, "no problem, let's go re-attach the rover and fly there..."

Turns out the lower gravity of the Mun means the lander doesn't sag as much under it's own weight and the docking ports are no longer close enough to each other to re-attach as they do on Kerbin. Dammit!

Flying over to the anomaly with the brave Kerbal clinging onto the ladder, for funzies thought I...

He fell off though...whoops!

Nevermind, sacrifices have to be made in the name of science. Here comes the arch!

Jetpack to the top for a nice photo.

Then fall off.

It turns out mysterious Munar arches are a bit slippy.

Then the game crashed. Yet I still love it so much.

If I'd used MJ then I wouldn't have had the lols of the fun short trip to get closer and the falling Kerbal, which amused me no end when I noticed him slipping down the ladder and eventually dropping off the back.

This has just proved to me that I'm having more fun without using MJ, it would have been a bit too easy and a whole lot less enjoyable had we come down smack on the arch, not to mention a lot less tense and exciting, as well as being a lot less of a challenge.

Each to their own of course, but no question for me, no MJ means more fun.

[regex]

This has just proved to me that I'm having more fun without using MJ, it would have been a bit too easy and a whole lot less enjoyable had we come down smack on the arch, not to mention a lot less tense and exciting, as well as being a lot less of a challenge.

Looks to me like ISA Mapsat killed the fun there; exploration seems to be over-rated, but to each their own, right?

Nice work on the landing.

[AlamoVampire]

I found I had made my own challenge that even MechJeb could NOT overcome!! Prior to 2 additional modifications, one being Procedural Fairings and the other being me adjusting where I stuck things and the shut down of stage 1 thrust vectoring...okay so 3 mods XD, THIS was a machine that could not fly:

[AceofPengwins]

Yeah, so I never got Mechjeb to work very well with my rockets. but then, my rockets back then were pretty bad... and now there's not really much (except I suppose precision landings on worlds with atmospheres) that it does that I can't do about as easily, I can rendezvous in 1-2 orbits now generally if I try, etc, so I just use KER for the readouts. I have no objection to it though, hehe.

[Monkeh]

Looks to me like ISA Mapsat killed the fun there; exploration seems to be over-rated, but to each their own, right?

Nice work on the landing.

Nah. Designing and building the mapping vehicle and flying it. Watching the map slowly resolve. Inclining the orbit incrementally. All of those things were fun. Drifting aimlessly around and around at 10 km hoping to see something sounds very dull.

Thanks. Hoping to do better next time

[Nuke]

there are people who play small and people who play big. those who play small like to build individual craft (which have complex stage configurations, every action group is used, and there is a complete flight plan in your head) and then fly them them. those who play big build massive starships, colonize planets, and build transportation networks. if you want to play small, mechjeb kinda ruins the experience by doing everything for you. if you play big on the other hand mechjeb is a real time saver. ksp is a time intensive game, you can easily waste an entire weekend building and flying a single spacecraft. if you use mechjeb then you can save time flying your ship. so you can do more in less time. granted you can play big manually, but there are some of us that dont have the time for that.

[vetrox]

I use mechjeb all the time.

I have a craft i want to put into orbit? but i also have a hankering for a hot chocolate? Pop on the mechjeb autopilot and go make a brew. 9 times out of 10 the launch is still happening when i get back.

I also quite often use it to fly my nodes for me. If its a tedious mission such as flying several new fuel tanks up to my space station then i really cannot be bothered to fly every single flight into orbit.

The deltav calculator is extremely usefull as well as the intake control for space planes.

Dont get me wrong i could do these things myself but sometimes...i just cannot be bothered to repeat the same launch over and over when i could infact have ksp running in the background whilst i make use of my time elsewhere...like coming onto the forums and getting inspiration!

No one has to use mechjeb, but if you enjoy the game more using it then go nuts!

[DChurchill]

Nah. Designing and building the mapping vehicle and flying it. Watching the map slowly resolve. Inclining the orbit incrementally. All of those things were fun. Drifting aimlessly around and around at 10 km hoping to see something sounds very dull.

Thanks. Hoping to do better next time

Delete your hilo.dat file. The planet changes from .20 to .21 is what's causing those big white areas.

[Psycix]

The first 100 times I performed a launch, rendezvous, transfer, docking or landing I did them manually.

But when sending yet another run-of-the-mill rocket up to orbit, I will use the autopilot.

When I have to execute a simple maneuver, I will use the autopilot.

If this is cheating, so be it and I hope you enjoy your grind.

However, I do all my dockings manually, simply because I can dock faster and easier than the autopilot which blasts RCS everywhere.

Actually, I recently started preferring to dock crafts together without using any RCS, saving weight and parts.

Also, when I build a rocket, the deltaV and TWR statistics help me build a more advanced rocket. This allows me to actually do rocket science instead of slapping parts together until it works.

Without these statistics rocket building is trial and error aided by overkill. With the statistics, a rocket becomes a math problem, taking the game to a higher level and revealing all sorts of new interesting aspects you can try to solve or optimize.

Summary:

I use MechJeb a lot. Not because I can't fly, but because I can focus on the interesting stuff instead of performing dozens of repetitive operations.

[WinkAllKerb'']

mechjeb allow me to eat some chips while playing; kinda the same with thread about mechjeb ...

(oops i contributed in one mechjeb thread after resisting almost two month, shame on me ...)

[vetrox]

I also think mechjeb is kinda similar to a calculator. Sure i can do stuff in my head or write it down. However a calculator saves time. I can still do stuff wrong with a calculator but at least i managed to do it wrong quickly without ruining a perfectly good piece of paper.

Why, just the other day i was adding up all my ebay invoices. I used a calculator? Does that mean i cheat at life? Isnt the whole "playing ksp because i cant be a real astronauht" kinda cheating at life? I know its not that simple but think about it. I could go and learn how to be a rocket man and actually go to outerspace. Or i can pretend goto outerspace.

[Monkeh]

The first 100 times I performed a launch, rendezvous, transfer, docking or landing I did them manually.

But when sending yet another run-of-the-mill rocket up to orbit, I will use the autopilot.

When I have to execute a simple maneuver, I will use the autopilot.

If this is cheating, so be it and I hope you enjoy your grind.

You make a very persuasive case to be fair but I honestly do enjoy my grind, I also appreciate that is exactly what it is as well, yet I am one of those 'small time' builders mentioned above for now and I really do enjoy the small stuff still. My opinions on things have been known to change and I can very easily see a time in the future when I shall indeed utilise MJ, I am no plastic brain defending a point for the sake of it.

Also, when I build a rocket, the deltaV and TWR statistics help me build a more advanced rocket. This allows me to actually do rocket science instead of slapping parts together until it works.

Without these statistics rocket building is trial and error aided by overkill. With the statistics, a rocket becomes a math problem, taking the game to a higher level and revealing all sorts of new interesting aspects you can try to solve or optimize.

I already use the Engineer Redux and would feel lost and terrified it were to be removed form me. This may, or may not, be an exaggeration.

Delete your hilo.dat file. The planet changes from .20 to .21 is what's causing those big white areas.

Could anyone point to where this might be. A search of my KSP folder gives no results. Also, thanks

Edited October 2, 2013 by Monkeh
forgot an '/'

[DChurchill]

Could anyone point to where this might be. A search of my KSP folder gives no results. Also, thanks

Gotta be there somewhere in the ISA directory. Are you using 3.3.4 or r4x1?? I would think a windows search would find it.

[Technical Ben]

I played a lot of 0.3 and onwards without mechjeb. So anything beyond the mun is new territory. Anything before, is better automated as I've done it hundreds of times. I'll fly "flying" craft myself. But launch craft are, by their nature, automated.

[Monkeh]

Gotta be there somewhere in the ISA directory. Are you using 3.3.4 or r4x1?? I would think a windows search would find it.

Windows couldn't find but I managed to. Yay, I'm better than windows.

Thanks again.

[Quantum Jim]

I kinda feel MechJeb should be built into the ASAS, to distinguish it from the SAS. It is a flight computer, after all. In career mode, having ASAS as a late addition would teach you to use KSP, then introduce the flight computer after you learn to do all it can do. I really like the information windows. I rarely use it for docking now, but it really takes the tedium out of launching and rendezvous, so I can concentrate on experimenting with different ways of building launchers or spacecraft. KSP takes too much time to test spacecraft manually. Without MechJeb, I would've quit long ago. I don't have as much free time or as nice a computer as some of you.

[Sauron]

I'm really not fussed by using MJ. I've done pretty much everything manually at this point. I don't need to launch rocket #1000 manually. But I have some best practice guidelines:

-No landing autopilot. Ever.

-Outside of Kerbin's SOI only for making fine tweaks to maneuvers and cleaning up orbits (which is really a waste of my time at this point. I have a job)

-Any launch vehicle I automate has to make orbit manually first. Generally I'm a better pilot than MJ when it comes to wibbly-wobbly or badly balanced payloads, so it's really not a huge issue.

But for what it's worth, if Mech Jeb is cheating, maneuver nodes are even worse. It doesn't particularly matter whether it's you or the computer making the burn--it's not as if pointing the nose at the blue crosshair is terribly difficult (seriously?). Being able to see the results of your burn and your encounter nodes in advance takes a lot of the challenge out of the game.

[Dingbat1967]

I use Mechjeb mainly for the information display (orbital information, ground information & Delta-V information) and Smart ASS. The rest I pretty much do without. The autopilots aren't that interesting and have often made situations worse than better. If someone would make a MechJeb "lite" with just the info displays and Smart ASS, I'd be roaring happy. Otherwise I do everything else manually.

I also use Kerbal Alarm clock which is just plain awesome. The Kethane mod adds a whole new aspect to the game. Being able to refuel at the destination just makes the game much deeper and makes exploration usefull.

-- Dingbat

Edited October 3, 2013 by Dingbat1967

[Leberschnitzel]

I don't use any addons, even the ones I think would be awesome ingame (improved navball, docking struts, lazor docking cam...)

Since it is not released yet, I want to play it as it is intended by the developers to find bugs and problems which relate from the game or the design. I don't want addons to interfere with that, so I just use the plain game.

Later, if it is released and some of the usefull addons aren't in the game from the start, I will possibly add them.

An Autopilot would be nice, but if it is not in the game as part of a tech tree, I won't ever use it. Reason is: If I'm good at headshots it doesn't mean I can use a aimbot since I would hit anyway.

[DChurchill]

I don't use any addons, even the ones I think would be awesome ingame (improved navball, docking struts, lazor docking cam...)

Since it is not released yet, I want to play it as it is intended by the developers to find bugs and problems which relate from the game or the design. I don't want addons to interfere with that, so I just use the plain game.

Later, if it is released and some of the usefull addons aren't in the game from the start, I will possibly add them.

An Autopilot would be nice, but if it is not in the game as part of a tech tree, I won't ever use it. Reason is: If I'm good at headshots it doesn't mean I can use a aimbot since I would hit anyway.

Honestly, you're doing yourself a disservice by not using mods if you really want to. For what it's worth, you can run KSP from anywhere. I have two copies, the Steam copy that's modded like crazy, and an unmodded copy on my desktop. There are no registry entries or anything like that so windows isn't going to care where it's running from. And this far after release of a version (.22) the bugs have pretty much been identified. A lot of guys will run unmodded for a little while after a new release to do exactly what you're saying, which is enough I think to catch bugs. KSP is mod-friendly because Squad made it that way. They use their own resources to host mods. Not to mention you could also help mod developers test their stuff, too.

[sharpspoonful]

While I know how to do a proper transfer and docking, I use Mechjeb to do it anyways. Most of my payloads are balanced by design, or pieced out in multiple launches. Making orbits manually are fun for unique projects, but for test flights (because if my payload/craft is so unbalanced or poor in design that not even the automation can handle it, my mediocre piloting skills won't fair much better) and routine launches, I let mechjeb do it's share. I also use it to assist with with maneuver planning and the vessel info.

Some of us have more fun building and engineering than doing the actual flight, so its rather unfair to say that mechjeb is "cheating". As of right now this is a purely sandbox game, and saying that a certain mod or plugin makes anyone not as "skilled" at the game in pretty immature. this isn't pointed at anyone directly, it's just more so a general thought on the subject. And as it's been pointed out earlier, not everyone uses every bit of mods and plugins.