Starting to think manual landings are more affective than mechjeb.

[Wallygator]

Well said V.

I've not used mechjeb at all in any of my missions - so far... I've played around with it in sandbox and think that as my vehicles get larger and more cumbersome I will likely start using it to do some of the tedious work. But I think I'll keep the landings as they really are a good part of the KSP thrill.

From a pure game (my own) play perspective I would characterize mechjeb as a potential efficiency improvement relative to my available time. I think it will allow me to focus my attention to the elements of my mission that are most interesting to me at the moment and allow me to choose specific mission events for automation when I see fit.

[Jouni]

I guess I'm kind of lazy, because I've never bothered to spend the effort to learn to use MechJeb autopilots. They become available so late in the career mode that if it's the first time you're playing, you've already learned to fly, land, and dock by yourself.

For me, MechJeb is about information and control. A few windows for the information you're probably going to need, maneuver planner and maneuver node editor for setting up and tweaking maneuver nodes, and warp helper to avoid accidentally time warping past the point where you're supposed to do something.

[Claw]

Today I was landing my thor on the surface of the mun, and mechjeb started jittering about, I took manual control and landed it just fine.

After that I took off using mechjeb and met up with the return module.

So, mechjeb is good for anything but landings.

My missions are generally extremely complex in order to get the maximum amount of science I can, and I don't like taking risks.

Generally my dockings, orbits, launches, and de orbiting is done by mechjeb to ensure maximum survival.

I generally do manual landings.

I think I'm abit overdependant, but I'm not a rocket scientist.

Yes, I find that MJ does some silly things from time to time. Sometimes wastes RCS fuel for no reason, or chases the last 0.5m/s of a burn while the node guidance races off to the side.

It does okay, but always be ready and never be afraid to take control, like you did. It's an aid, so use it when it's useful and ditch it when it's not. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing deal.

If you are concerned about survival but still want to experiment, perhaps you don't know about F5 and F9. If you press F5, it will quicksave your game right where you're at. If some time later you press F9, it will reload your game at that last save spot. So if you quicksave right before a docking attempt and it goes poorly, you can quickload the the previous spot and try it again.

[juanml82]

I use mechjeb landing thing when I need to land in a precise location. Say, next to a kethane miner. And it is also useful to predict the orbit after an aerobreak instead of quicksaving, finding out I've aimed too low and I'm landing, reloading and trying again.

Other than that, landing in a general area doesn't require that finesse and using an autopilot too much means you aren't playing. That said, I'd love to have some sort of maneuver node for landing, specially when I'm short on fuel, so I don't have to guess when I should start to break and to be able to select a landing spot with precision without using an autopilot

[biohazard15]

MJ can't pilot a ship which isn't "normal" in some way. Jet-powered lifters or landers, space shuttles, asymmetrical constructions, uneven weight balance, landing on Gilly - things like these can be done only under manual control.

[merendel]

I personaly find MJ a tad riskier than landing manually to be honest. Oh when it works its amazing putting me down withen 20m of where I asked it to. Its amazing for routine manuvers such as the 10th time you've landed the same tanker at your kethane mining rig. Even with that situation however I often go manual for the final 30s to landing as MJ will quite happily land directly on the rig. That said however I've had MJ inexplicably tweek out for no apparent reason and just crash, sometimes without even trying to fire the engines.

Prety much I can always land in one piece asumeing the craft is in a landable condition (enough dV enough TWR and such) My accuracy can sometimes leave much to be desired if I dont have a target on the ground to aim for but I can normaly at least get close and burn some extra fule to correct. MJ might do a perfect landing, it might decide to lithobreak, or it might decide to go around for another orbit to save .5 m/s dV when any sane pilot would just go for it. That and theres some craft I've made that MJ just can not fly under any conditions. If it wobbles MJ will just overcompensate and make it worse till the craft folds in half.

[WindShieIds]

Mechjeb is very good for pre landings and such, but certainly not the last thirty seconds I must agree.

If your lander is complex and filled with scientific equipment like my thor, then you'll find it's slightly unbalanced.

Even the tiniest unbalance in such a light vehicle makes it bug out horribly, it's incredible how easy it is for mechjeb to fail like this.

So yea, generally let mechjeb do the work until you think the time is right to take manual.

Mechjeb orbital stuff and such is really the useful stuff, landing not so much unless you've got a well balanced machine.

I'm a career player, so accuracy on landing in the right spot is a big thing for me to earn science.

[WindShieIds]

One time I set mechjeb to land at a speed of 2m/s and it landed at 9m/s causing the landing gear to do abit of a jig during my EVA, lucky it didn't go to crazy or my ride home would be gone.

[Daze]

From alla of the time i play i noticed that after v2 of MJ it become more inaccurate for landing... Before v2 it was extremely precise and rarely it failed

[ShadowDragon8685]

I find that the key to landing with MechJeb is "Trust, but verify."

Or in this case "Trust, but don't take your hand off the stick."

For instance, I went biome-hopping with an enormous thirty-ton Kethane-powered science lander on Minmus and later shot by the Mun for a quick stopover because I could.

Most of the time, it landed me where I wanted to go just fine. Mind you, because it was pretty tall, landing on a slope was tricky, and I often had to apply a lot of torque to keep it upright. On the Mun, it tipped over, slid all the way down a hill, and I had to rock it over up and down to get it back up. That wasn't really MJ's fault, though, I'd have done just as badly if not worse if I'd brought it down on a hill that steep.

Once, though, it went absolutely bonkers, started spinning, trying to correct those last few centimeters. Must have been a hell of a ride until Jebediah took manual control and put the darn thing upright.

I've never had it fail to fire engines....Though I do quicksave before I tell it to execute any maneuvers. Are you sure the engines were staged and active?

Anyway, when you're playing with MJ's auto-maneuver, you can set a margin of error. If you have a really big ship that's really hard to turn with a gigantor engine on the back, you might want to set this high, like .4 or even .6 m/s or greater. If you've got a light ship with fine controls, though, MJ is usually fine if you set it to .1, or even 0.

And always be ready to hit the abort button. You have final executive veto over anything MJ is trying to do.

[EndOfTheEarth]

There was a famous incident where one of the space shuttles tried to do an autopilot-guided docking with Mir, and the shuttle ended up impacting and depressurizing one of the sections of the station instead.

Actually, it was a Progress resupply ship, and a manual docking. Even though it isn't relevant to the discussion on autopilots, everyone here should watch it, as it really hits home with the point of not rushing while docking.

[Duxwing]

Today I was landing my thor on the surface of the mun, and mechjeb started jittering about, I took manual control and landed it just fine.

After that I took off using mechjeb and met up with the return module.

So, mechjeb is good for anything but landings.

Using MechJeb is a skill like piloting: practice makes perfect. I use not MechJeb because my burns usually are too short and few to necessitate electronic assistance.

-Duxwing

PS Change the thread title to 'effective' not "affective". "Affective" means 'of affect' or loosely 'of feelings' whereas "effective" means 'useful'.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Duxwing

[juanml82]

I'm a career player, so accuracy on landing in the right spot is a big thing for me to earn science.

Actually, for biomes you can typically use MJ to point the estimated landing spot and land manually, either by descending in an agle (using MJ to look to the landing destination) or kill your speed in orbit and fall vertically. IMHO, it's when you need to land next to something when accuracy matters. IE, landing next to an anomaly, a kethane mining rig, sending a tanker/rover to refuel your Moho lander because you've sent a small lander and used all fuel during landing

[Hodo]

Never used Mechjeb. I bought the game, I want to play it. Not watch it.

I used to think this, but then I downloaded it and gave it a try this version. And I find it useful for somethings but ultimately not used for most of what I do. It is great for launching satellites into a stable orbit at a set distance apart so you can have a working communications satellite grid in Remote Tech2, but other than a few minor things, it isn't that useful to the experienced player.

Honestly if all you use MJ for is the information read out, then KER is far better at that, and its memory footprint is smaller.

[rkman]

So, mechjeb is good for anything but landings.

MJ's landing autopilot is known to be buggy.

Still MJ's landing location prediction and the Translatron are quite useful for landing.

[thescientist]

Personally I don't use mechjeb for many things, because it's often worse than manual command and it makes the game much less challenging. The most useful feature is the "Dv stats" in the VAB.