stumason

Aye, it does - I got by for well over a year without it and once I used it, it has made the game much less frustrating and I would recommend any new player to spend some time crashing their ships manually, then once they have got to grips with how they fly, get a hold of Mechjeb and give it a whir. I also may have double-posted - I didn't realise that forum posts were pended for Mod review...

Hmm, not sure what happened to my previous reply, it seems to have made an incorrect burn and gone off into deep space... In a nutshell, I was just chiming in about Mechjeb. I'm new here, but I've been playing KSP for some time now. There seems to be an argument over whether to use it or not, both sides of the argument seem to be an all or nothing. There is a 3rd way! When I first started playing, probably 18 months ago now, I used no mods and it took me an age to learn how to get into orbit, much less doing anything else. Through that though I built upon my pre-existing "knowledge" of space flight and I now understand exactly what Mechjeb is doing. However, last month, I downloaded Mechjeb (and several other mods like KAS, the graphics mod and others). It has made my life so much easier! But I don't use it to work out the manoeuvres, I do that myself, I just get Mechjeb to do the actual burn as I find it hard (especially on that first burn to orbit) to get it done in time, to hold my heading and control the burn. It is certainly a useful tool, but not one that should be relied upon as it can make a mess of things - surely, one of the best moments of my gaming on KSP came from a manual landing on the Mun, even if it did topple over and trap Jeb there - a rescue mission is planned, but it may be pushed back owing to a budget crisis..... I justify using it myself as this - it's not me in the spaceship and any modern spacecraft will use computers anyway to do the actual flying, even if the manoeuvre was planned by a crew member, so I don't feel like it is "cheating" in any way, in fact, it is more realistic.

Hi, I'm new around here but I've been playing KSP for quite some time. I thought I'd just chime in and say there is a middle ground with Mechjeb like this fellow alludes to above - I was a bit confused why there was a bit of an argument at the start of the thread about it. When I first started playing, I didn't use any mods at all. It took many, many failed attempts (and even more dead Kerbals) to even get into orbit, much less anywhere useful, but I learnt how to pilot my ship, even if I wasn't particularly good at it. I already had a reasonable understanding of how spacecraft flew, so I got the theory ok, it was just the implementation that caught me out. Then, a few months ago I installed KSP again, this time with several mods, including Mechjeb. Now I can get to orbit every time - I still plan the maneuver manually, but I just led Mechjeb orientate the craft and do the burn, which is something I struggled with manually. I always plan my burns manually, I just let Mechjeb carry them out - this is what I mean by a middle ground. As for landings, I mix and match, depending on how bothered I can be to do it. My first landing on the Mun was done manually though and it was a good feeling, even if my lander toppled sideways and trapped Jeb there forever..... A rescue is pending, but budgetary restrictions mean it has been put on hold, for now.