What have you learned to do without an autopilot?

[Acet]

The likes of MechJeb sometimes really goes insane (like deciding that accelerating THROUGH a planet is a good idea). Other times, there are constraints that automatics can't deal with, for example a ship with a probe core but little electricity storage which can only manoeuvre under sunlight, or trying to dock with very little monopropelant left or even having to use RCS to return from an elliptic Minmus orbit after running out of LFO.

When this happens, it's pretty useful to know how to correct and finalise a failed manoeuvre yourself, divide a manoeuvre into multiple parts or simply how to use unusual forms of propulsion to achieve something.

That said, doing the 100th lift from Kerbin using a tried and true lifter subassembly with a payload below its max is something best left to automatics.

[Guest]

I have done everything without Mechjeb ... I don´t even use it.

[Zzabur]

I played a lot of versions with KER+protractor, and no MJ. I installed MJ later because KER was not available anymore, and now i use only MJ and not KER. I liked KER, because it shows you about the same datas than MJ, but without any autopilot, so i had to learn every maneuvers without autopilot.

After about 1000hours in KSP, i decided to install MJ, and now, i use the autopilot....for some maneuvers, because i became a bit lazy :

-I use maneuver planning to create my nodes, but i often rework them to get the proper inclination when entering the other body's SOI

-I use docking autopilot sometimes, for huge vessels, but anyway with some designs, MJ doesn't manage to dock when i manage to do it. Anyway, i am consuming far less monoprop when i dock myself.

-Never used taking off/landing assist so i can't tell if they're right or wrong. I often land using ScanSAT within a 20m accuracy (to dock ground stations together)

-I use a lot smart A.S.S. to keep the proper direction, because long burn are often boring (even while warping x2, for huge vessel i don't warp more than x2 while burning). Smart A.S.S. is an autopilot, but you have to tell him where to go. Now, i am using smart A.S.S. as vanilla commands and i know enough to correct some trajectories without any node planning (i use to meet the Mün or Minmus without creating any node, just burning prograde at the right time until i meet the body, if i am too far away, i manage to correct it on-the-fly without nodes too, just push target + and target retrograde )

I personally don't like to have some computer realizing a maneuver if i don't understand it myself. I think I should use autopilot only if i can realize the same maneuver without it, but that's my playstyle, i can't judge people using it for realizing maneuvers they don't manage to do.

[michaelhester07]

Everything except gravity assists as I don't know how to do those. I have yet to do one as I don't have mechjeb either.

Land at a specific location: depends on where...

Kerbin: no

Duna: yes within 5 meters... I had to land a power supply for a lander that fell over so it could get the base it was supposed to build operational.

Eve: no

Mun: yes within 1 meter (landed on top of a probe I used for a landing marker)

Minmus: yes

Gilly: yes... but it took forever

Ike: yes.. Ike tends to get lots of bases on it in my career modes.

I haven't had legit missions to other planets yet.

[rosenkranz]

It is ridiculous how much MJ has taught me by watching it do it's thing. It got better when it started making maneuver nodes. Then you could really see what it was doing.

Some things like docking or space plane landings since those are kinda hit and miss with MJ, I do manually just cause it is easier. Launches, I let Jeb do it cause it is just easier. Over 2-3 years now, i've manually flown to orbit enough times that it's kinda tedious to me. I'm currently trying to get into spaceplanes more but those have to be flown manually.

[Loligoat]

I've done everything on the list to some extent. The only gravity assists I've ever done was using the Mun to boost me Minmus and to escape velocity. I can land within a few hundred meters of a target on airless bodies, but I haven't quite mastered targeted atmospheric landings.

[Superfluous J]

Add to my personal list pinpoint landing (within 20 meters) on a world with an atmosphere, with parachutes and engine assist.

[Cerberus738]

All of them. I've never even installed mechjeb, let alone used it.

Same for me.

[Van Disaster]

All of them, and I regularily use Mechjeb, although only the ascent AP + node execution would be anything resembling an autopilot. I might try the autoland again if I have to regularily make the same landing over and over.

[RainDreamer]

All of the options in the post, with the exception of landing within 1km... I am not very good with precise landing.

[severedsolo]

All of the options in the post, with the exception of landing within 1km... I am not very good with precise landing.

Pretty much the same. I suck at precision landings.

MJ really isn't that bad, when you play on career you pretty much have to do everything at least once before you get enough science to unlock the module needed to fly automatically. The only "cheaty" thing IMO is that you can use Smart A.S.S. to bypass the "early probes don't have SAS" limit.

I tried to fly an orbital rendevous following the tutorial on the wiki, and I just didn't get it. I spoke to a friend who told me I needed to hit within 100m if I wanted to dock, what I didn't get (and the wiki didn't make clear) was that I could just get in the right neighbourhood, and then get closer afterwards. MJ taught me that.

[RSwordsman]

Efficient ascent profiles for rockets and SSTOs, Mun/Minmus transfers, interplanetary transfers (barely), rendezvous, docking, orbital assembly, precision landings, reentries... I've never used autopilot and it's probably high time XD.

Edited February 25, 2015 by RSwordsman

[Hunter3081]

All of the stuff on that list, except for interplanetary stuff and gravity assists.

[problemecium]

I checked all of them, and I've done most of them without SAS (or in the case of docking, without RCS).

'Course if you poll on which we've done without using a quicksave, I'd have to uncheck a few xD

[InterCity]

I've done most of the above, except for docking, but that's because I always forget RCS.

But the funny thing is how I learned to do that: I've made MechJeb do it for so long that I finally could do it myself. IMO, MechJeb is not cheating, but rather the stupid way to do stuff. Good for learning, though.

[Dazpoet]

My generel method is to not have mechjeb do anything until I've done it myself first. After that I use it a lot because I find the engineering of vessels a lot more fun than acctually flying them and maybe to some degree because I prefer ions and doing 10+ minute burns isn't even fun the first time. So far interplanetary transfer was by far the most tedious thing to figure out of on my own but I did it a few times and from now on it's MJ all the way.

I've done a few gravity assists and I must admit I didn't even know MJ could do those. Things left on the list for me are landing on a specific location, something I'm bound to learn now that I have plans for a Karbonite base on Eve, and flying an aircraft.

[magnemoe]

I've done most of the above, except for docking, but that's because I always forget RCS.

But the funny thing is how I learned to do that: I've made MechJeb do it for so long that I finally could do it myself. IMO, MechJeb is not cheating, but rather the stupid way to do stuff. Good for learning, though.

mechjeb fails hard if you try to dock without rcs. had an funny situation with an mun lander/ rover who could land on Mun then go back to orbit dock with the transfer stage to refuel and land another place. However i only added RCS on two sides so it could move forward and back, up and down but not left and right, then I found the problem i was able to dock manually by rotating 90 degree.

[Overfloater]

Autopilot? Pff i learned all of those after countless times of using the quickload function, except for basic orbital maneuvers - that i learned from video guides.

[Henshaw]

Done everything but gravity assists and rendezvous. Could probably figure out rendezvous without too much effort, just cba

[Flixxbeatz]

Already done EVERYTHING on the list without autopilot, EXCEPT precision landing.

No, I never did precision landing using an autopilot - it's that I am yet to do one, and I will do it BY MYSELF.

And yea, I didn't started from auto then eventually going manual. I never even used an autopilot ever since (and will never be)

Proud stick shifter here!

[Alchemist]

I ticked everything, except for fly an aircraft. I have flown some successfully, but better don't ask me to do this. Maybe with new aerodynamics those will work better. In my current save there were few survey aircrafts, but with vertical takeoff and chute landing (and I lost 2 Kerbals this way).

As for precision landing, my record is landing on top of the anomaly on Vall. So anything up to Vall/Moho/Duna is a definitive yes, given craft with enough delta v. Not so much about planets with real atmosphere, although I've landed some spaceplanes on runway some time ago, but as I've said better don't.

As for MJ, I've tried it around 0.14-0.15 (because of some game on the forums). Got bored of it, haven't used it since. I'm contemplating trying kOS, but with principle "if I use autopilot, it'll be the autopilot I've configured".

[r_rolo1]

Haven't learned anything with a autopilot, in spite of having used mechjeb at a time. I don't know how good mechjeb is today, but back in the time I used it , it made some very bad assumptions about stuff, to the point that the mod maker told people specifically to not trust it outside of Kerbin SoI ... and that is not the kind of thing you want to have as a teacher

[Cirocco]

Everything except gravity assist, really. I've done a gravity assis or two, but only if chance decrees that a certain moon is in a proper position during a transfer, in which case I adjust the transfer burn to save some delta-V.

I haven't done any actual planned gravity assists though, so I didn't check it in the poll. Everything else is actually relatively easy to learn once you've mastered the basics of KSP.

EDIT: actually, now that I think of it I have done a few free-return mun missions. That's technically a planned gravity assist I guess?

[Robotengineer]

I use trajectories mod for precision landing, is that cheating? I did learn to do it before I got the mod on non-atmospheric bodies though.

[Kibble]

For me, learning to rendezvous and dock was a lot of fun, I still do it by hand.