MechJeb vs non MechJeb

[Wallygator]

Every crew that has flown to space in real life has had some form of automated flight control system on board.

So... any complaints about having voluntary access to an automated flight control system in a sandbox game is without warrant.

[Endersmens]

^ yeah that's kinda my stance. Automation is more precise than flying by hand, we've known this since (good) automation was a thing.

I'd like to see an astronaut do a soyuz launch perfectly and approach and dock to the ISS with no automation at all.

[PDCWolf]

I can say I'm more efficient than mechjeb on everything, even launches. I enjoy flying everything manually and I don't even use mechjeb for the videos/webms I record.

[Nigeth]

Given that 90% of all day to day flight maneuvering on commercial airliners is done by the auto pilot system that makes all commercial airline pilots cheaters in the eyes of some of you I guess.

[DuoDex]

Personally, I really don't care.

I just don't. You've paid for the game, play it however you want.

[Mat2ch]

Mechjeb. If you've been to Minmus 20 times it becomes boring to adjust the maneuver nodes, warp to them and "burn" them. Landing on planets is much more fun. Or driving high speed rovers or building stuff or launching stuff. But then getting them into a proper orbit gets boring, too. Crashing them though....

[RocketBlam]

I would probably uninstall MJ if Squad did just a few things:

- gave me a way to see d/V and TWR in the VAB and SPH.

- Gave me some way to know when the launch window was good for each main planet.

[Randazzo]

Chocolate or Vanilla?

It's just a pointless old argument. Just stop.

[Glaran K'erman]

It's a game folks, PLAY THE WAY IT'S MOST FUN FOR YOU! Enjoy KSP in all your personal glory and feel free to share that glorious glory with no one! Or everyone! Whatever you choose!

[kiwi1960]

Why is Mechjeb cheating? Why is using any mod cheating?

Fact is, ALL space flights are automated. The only time a human takes over is when docking with the I.S.S. or when landing on the Moon (Manned flight)... last time, Armstrong saw that his landing spot was rocky so took over, when he did finally land the "Eagle"... he had about 8 seconds of fuel left. ALL probes sent out to explore are automated. They have to be. If a human took over because he saw on his monitor that the probe was slightly off course, it would be too late given the time lag between Earth and probe.

So... stop your accusations right there, buddy. You play KSP to whatever way feels good for you. If you don't like mods, then fine... if you do.. fine. Whatever tickles your fancy.

This thread should not be closed, a good question was asked, do you or do you not use Mechjeb.... if the purist holier than thou want to post in it, then fine....

But there if you do not like the thread, then don't read it, don't post...move on, find a thread you do like.

For me, with my double vision, I *need* mechjeb. That one Mod makes an unplayable game (for the disabled) playable...

Edited July 7, 2015 by kiwi1960

[jarmund]

Personally I don't get some of the mechjeb-hate I see somewhere. Mechjeb is far from easy-mode: There are many crafts and contraptions where mechjeb is of no help at all. In addition, mechjeb has a million uses other than automation.

Some perfectly valid reasons to use mechjeb that aren't indicative of belonging to a certain skill-level:

- Information display

- Porkchop selection for transfers

- On-the-fly change of conics mode and count

- Landing spot estimation

- Rover autopilot (Because unless you're undergoing the Elcano Challenge, you probably don't want to do the driving manually)

- Finer manoeuver adjustments

- Taking the drudgery out of routine stuff such as launching similar payloads many times (RemoteTech, anyone?)

[John FX]

Myself I have flown to every planet and moon in the system. I did it all stock. I also did it within a few months of buying the game to do what seemed like an interesting challenge at the time and get my `grandmaster` badge. I didn`t realise that was all there was to do or I would have waited.

I`ve docked spacestations without using RCS as I didn`t know about it then. Docking is pretty boring now TBH. I can dock mostly anything with about 5 units of mono.

Then I installed DRE and FAR and persistentrotation and RWsaturatable and RT and other mods in an attempt to make the game less easy than stock.

After that I did full IVA missions with RasterPropMonitors, which was very interesting, I would recommend it although it can kill your framerate if your computer is not up to scratch.

I feel I have my free pass to use mechjeb now. I have done everything except return from eve all stock then modded the game to make it harder, not easier.

When all I had to do to launch was press `d` for 1-2 seconds roughly 2 seconds after launch to start the gravity turn then adjust throttle to get a perfect launch every time I let mechjeb take over the key press and the throttle and now I go have a coffee during launches.

I can think of nothing that would drive me from the game quicker than having to launch all my craft by hand now.

Also, no, it is not cheating.

EDIT :

Whoa, this thread is still here. I don't think kOS has been mentioned yet in this thread, so I'll mention it. Is kOS cheating?

Thanks for reminding me, I also programmed KOS to the point where I basically was reproducing Mechjeb. When I realised this I uninstalled KOS and started using Mechjeb again. I could do most of the things in KOS that I usefd MJ for most so I didn`t see the point in keeping my code up to date when there was someone (sarbian) already doing it.

IMO KOS is not cheating either.

That`s my 2m/s (I like the paraphrasing RIC, gonna use that one) and my bread is done so I`m going to have a nice chicken sandwich with freshly baked bread.

Enjoy the thread.

Edited July 7, 2015 by John FX

[mikeb30165]

Mechjeb uninstalled. I realized after about a month... it was having all the fun.

Btw Mike, you have forgotten one VERY important thing in your tirade. When all that electricity is gone, when those computers fry a transistor, when that data storage unit fails... one thing and one thing only will get that pilot back on the ground.

Flying by the seat of their pants.

And thank you, my pants fly better than Jeb's.

Bully for you. IRL, no astronaut flies by the seat of his pants. His arse would burn on re-entry

[RocketBlam]

I should point out that the most fun I had in the game was in the first month or so. This is for two reasons:

- I didn't know how to do most things.

- I didn't know there was a save feature.

So yes, for the first month, I flew all of my flights with no saves at all. And I think I landed on at least a couple of the Joolian moons doing that. Talk about nerve-racking!

[Fail-Man 3D]

I use MechJeb because it saves me time and effort.

I focus on designing stuff, not flying it; every minute of flight-micromanaging saved is a minute I can spend building my Tylo base.

Yes, this has severely crippled my ability to respond to emergency situations and control non-MechJeb-compatible craft.

The tradeoff became worth it (for me) when I started trying to dock stuff that could never have properly-balanced RCS (e.g. the outer crew tunnels on a "Mars One Crew Manual"-derived Duna mission).

Edited July 7, 2015 by Fail-Man 3D
Forgot some important stuff

[Albert VDS]

It's only cheating if you are breaking the rules.

So what are the rules for KSP?

[klgraham1013]

If you choose to play without it, its fine.

If you choose to play with it, its fine too.

Under one condition

You have to learn how to play without it first.

Why?

Because NOBODY should be allowed to drive a car without a license.

...but, what about self-driving cars? I see no reason a person should need a driver's license to ride in a self-driving car.

My answer still stands as well:

Nobody should be allowed to drive a car without a license.

I guess that's a difference of opinion. No hard feelings.

Ok...you've clarified through more posts, still disagree.

Edited July 7, 2015 by klgraham1013

[Seyvern]

Why would you use MechJeb for readouts when you could use KER?

Mechjeb. I've been flying KSP ships since 2011, and can pretty much outfly anyone. But it does get tedious, so mechjeb for boring launches. Also, I tend to use mechjeb in manual assisted mode (SAS) mode more than anything else. By this, i mean i'll do things like:

1) enter the pitch, heading, and roll and click execute, so that mechjeb holds it for me.

2) use mechjeb's prograde/retrograde/radial/.... buttons to do manuvers by hand (but that way I don't have to align the dots, i let hte computer do it for me).

3) enter maneuver nodes by hand, but then click the 'node' button so it aligns the ship. I do the burn myself tho.

Basically I use MJ to reduce the tedium a bit and improve the responsiveness of a ship (stock SAS controller is so squirrely -its not fun for me. Noone would design an actual ship to be as horribly over/under damped as the stock system).

MJ's interplanetary tool is also a must. If you want to compute good launch windows, you need to code it yourself, or use the standalone tool, or use the standalone tool that was imported into mechjeb.

-Seyv

Edited July 7, 2015 by Seyvern

[klgraham1013]

Neither, I'd rather have the rest of the highly trained crew keep their heads out of their butts and work through the situation like they'd rehearsed, with help from the competent people in mission control. The last thing I want is for some jerk to grab the controls thinking that the spacecraft has some sort of magical SAS or whatever other misconceptions about spaceflight they'd learned from playing KSP.

Exactly. KSP asks us to do in simulation what hundreds are required to do in real life. I'm fine with some automation of the process. Example: building ships akin to Lego as apposed to real manufacturing.

[Seyvern]

THIS!

Plus give me orbital information on a HUD so I didn't have to switch to map mode to see my peri/api, etc. Drives me nuts that harvester is so freaking unresponsive about this. They claim they want to make a game where you can pilot the ship in ship view so they don't put staging capability in map view (yes, good, well done!) and then refuse to acknowledge that any decent pilot needs to see orbital information. So instead we get at least 3 mods I can think of that provide it instead because its so critical (engineer, mechjeb, VOID)

I would probably uninstall MJ if Squad did just a few things:

- gave me a way to see d/V and TWR in the VAB and SPH.

- Gave me some way to know when the launch window was good for each main planet.

[klgraham1013]

Your poll is missing an option. "I really don't care"

These polls are always missing the third option.

[Thomassino]

I used MJ to learn KSP (how to rendezvous, land, ascent...) and now I use it mainly for info. Personally, I can't even imagine playing KSP without dV readouts, orbital and surface info etc. The only thing I am still using MJ's abilities on is docking. Especially with 400+ part ships

[Thomassino]

I usually overengineer stuff with IR moving parts, realistic looks and it ends with 5fps Kerbin Space Station

[KSK]

In 4 years of play, I've never touched MechJeb, KES, delta-v maps, launch window calculators, or any other 'easy-mode' mod. I'd argue that I've had a MUCH richer and rewarding experience than those who have. I frequently argue against using them for new players, for this reason - to help them discover the fun that I've had, doing it on my own with a little guidance/research on the forums.

3 reasons why I care whether anyone else uses them:

1 - I want other people to be lifelong fans of the game, as I am, so that it can continue to develop and be amazing for years to come. The easy-mode mods cheapen the experience, IMO, making my beloved KSP a more 'disposable' product, just like any other game that is played through and discarded.

2 - I don't want the developers to cater to the lowest common denominator in their player-base and cheapen this game to another mass-market piece of crap 'simulator' that requires no player skill whatsoever.

3 - I admit to taking a fair bit of pride in the skills and effort required to make an un-assisted trip to Minmus, or build a working SSTO without assistance. Seeing a few hundred new players bragging about dropping a massive base on Eeloo within a few weeks of starting has been irritating, to say the least - ESPECIALLY when they criticize others taking a much longer time to accomplish this without assistance. I admire seeing great things made by fellow players, but as soon as I see the letters "TWR" or "d/v" show up, I lose all interest in what they did - I know that it was snapped together and almost guaranteed to work from the start.

We are all playing our own game, yes, but we also belong to this community, and our feedback is heard by the developers. I've seen a number of game changes made over the years based on forum consensus, and we do have an effect on how this all turns out.

Oof - that's taking 'avoiding easy mode' to it's extreme. If that's the way you like it then fair play to you - you've certainly got either a lot more tolerance for trial and error or are doing a whole lot more pen-and-paper work than I am. I'm not getting drawn into the MechJeb debate (other than a passing raised eyebrow that the debate has popped up yet again) but I'll happily admit to using KER, delta-V maps and launch window calculators. Even before career mode, my games were 'career like' and I'm not a big fan of excess time-warping. End result - relatively few interplanetary journeys and the ones I do make, I prefer to get approximately right first time rather than revert them and lose the many months of game-time that have elapsed whilst my Duna probe (or whatever) was in transit. Similarly, the fact that I'm playing a lot of actual game (rather than time-warping) between interplanetary flights gives me limited tolerance for trial and error.

For my very first interplanetary flights, I looked up the delta-V requirements and phase angles but did the delta-V calculations myself and - literally- used a protractor against the screen to judge the phase angles. These days, I prefer to use KER and Alexmoon's calculator - having dates rather than angles for my launch windows is a wonderful thing.

If I'm playing easy mode then so be it.

Edited July 7, 2015 by KSK

[Lubo]

I use Mecjeb and KER, i get the cheating point of view, but for me the increase of figureing the game out and just have more fun(or lets say less frustrating moments) is worth it