Do you use mechjeb anymore?

[miketheveeg]

13 hours ago, KerbalKid said:

So... do you?  

in the beginning yes as i had no clue how to do anything. It taught me. For the last few years I don't use it.

[devikwolf]

I use MJ to aid in a few things, such as creating maneuver nodes for interplanetary missions or to achieve very specific orbits, as well as for certain orientation maneuvers like orienting to a node, since I've never found the stock tools to be useful for either of those. Using MJ is a quick and dirty way to give me an idea of a launch window well in advance of a launch date, and gives me useful information when planning for an interplanetary trip.

It's invaluable to my shuttle program: it holds stable nose-up orientation during most of re-entry, until it starts doing a dutch roll around 25km and I take over manual piloting the rest of the way. But it prevents several tedious minutes of tapping W and S to try and hold it just at the right angle.

[Starman4308]

5 hours ago, moogoob said:

Yes! I also do landings manually, once the first deorbit burn is done. Those are always fun, atmospheric or not. Even with low TWR.

You mean especially with low TWR, right?

4 hours ago, parameciumkid said:

What's this "anymore" business? I never used MechJeb!
At first I didn't know about it, then I didn't think I needed it, and then when I found out that apparently 96% of players depend on it, it became a matter of pride xD

I'd imagine most MJ users (like me) can do most of these maneuvers by hand, it's just tedious and not-very-fun for them, and we'd rather be posting on the KSP forums or something while MechJeb makes sure the burn cuts out at the right time, or keeps the rover wheels spinning, etc, etc.

[MaxxQ]

No.

At least, not until it's updated to 1.2.

[MaxPeck]

I use the heck out of MJ. Every automation feature I can squeeze out of it, I do. I also drive an automatic transmission, use power tools and when I fly (for real) I use the crap out of the autopilot. AP coupling is the BEST thing that ever happened to civil aviation. I also can't wait until self-driving cars are a thing so I can automate that drudgery as well. 

Automation. Mmmmm. 

Guess I just cheat at life. 

[Higgs]

Squad needs to make mechjeb stock. Like it or not, ker IS mechjeb sans autopilot. These style threads are attempts to justify one stance or the other. Make mj stock and end these. Please

[GoSlash27]

14 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

Spreadcheater!

Harry Rhodan,

 Heck yeah! I spreadcheat every chance I get. I worked out the math and programmed it myself, so I see no reason why I shouldn't let the computer handle the drudgery part for me.

 Under normal circumstances, I can mathematically zero in on an optimal design before I build and plan missions/ stages without having access to KSP (something MJ and KER users can't do), but this situation is an added bonus: I'm never left guesstimating when KSP updates.

Yay science!

-Slashy

 

[RX2000]

58 minutes ago, MaxPeck said:

I use the heck out of MJ. Every automation feature I can squeeze out of it, I do. I also drive an automatic transmission, use power tools and when I fly (for real) I use the crap out of the autopilot. AP coupling is the BEST thing that ever happened to civil aviation. I also can't wait until self-driving cars are a thing so I can automate that drudgery as well. 

Automation. Mmmmm. 

Guess I just cheat at life. 

Thats just it though. All of stuff you mention are actual things you do in life that could be a job (pilot) or just something dull you have to do every day (drive to work). If KSP is that boring or is drudgery, why even play it? Games should be played for fun right?

I guess I just have trouble understanding why I would want something to PLAY my game for me? I mean I understand watching other people play a game, a la Twitch, but if I am playing the game supposedly for fun, why would I want something doing it for me? I dunno, just doesnt make sense to me personally.

But like I always say, if MJ is your cup of tea then you do you man.

[Starman4308]

10 minutes ago, RX2000 said:

Thats just it though. All of stuff you mention are actual things you do in life that could be a job (pilot) or just something dull you have to do every day (drive to work). If KSP is that boring or is drudgery, why even play it? Games should be played for fun right?

I guess I just have trouble understanding why I would want something to PLAY my game for me? I mean I understand watching other people play a game, a la Twitch, but if I am playing the game supposedly for fun, why would I want something doing it for me? I dunno, just doesnt make sense to me personally.

But like I always say, if MJ is your cup of tea then you do you man.

Everybody likes different parts of KSP. He's perfectly within his rights to say "I am bored by spending five minutes tweaking a maneuver node to fine-tune the intercept, manually aligning the craft, pressing z, waiting until the burn completes, and then pressing x"; he may have had far more fun designing the craft, roving around the Mun, optimizing his boosters, and just find some parts of the game tedious enough that he has MJ go do it while he makes himself a cup of coffee.

To illustrate part of how this sort of thing can get tedious: imagine holding 14 degrees pitch for 6 minutes each time you want to launch a booster. Congratulations: you've successfully imagined my typical circularization above 6.4x Kerbin, with a hydrolox stage providing an initial 0.8G of acceleration to get me from roughly 2 km/sec (where my my first stage burns out) to 6 km/sec (LKO). If you're not seeing why I might not want to just press a button on Smart ASS to hold my heading while I start reading something to pass the time, well, I just don't know.

[Mjp1050]

I don't use it because I didn't really see any noticeable difference in my piloting vs. MechJeb piloting....

[foamyesque]

55 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Harry Rhodan,

 Heck yeah! I spreadcheat every chance I get. I worked out the math and programmed it myself, so I see no reason why I shouldn't let the computer handle the drudgery part for me.

 Under normal circumstances, I can mathematically zero in on an optimal design before I build and plan missions/ stages without having access to KSP (something MJ and KER users can't do), but this situation is an added bonus: I'm never left guesstimating when KSP updates.

Yay science!

-Slashy

 

 

Who says I can't? 

 

But I can iterate ideas and placements a heckuva lot faster with KER running than if I needed to handmath it all. It is particularly handy, I have found, for dealing with asymmetric designs; by-eye layout is rarely precise enough. At least, my eyes aren't.

As far as MechJeb goes, I used to use it but I haven't in some time. Most of my play is in sandbox and in trying one-off challenges, so there's no repetitive flights to automate; it's engineering and flight readouts are adequately replaced by KER (though I wish KER provided RCS deltaV ); and the actual use case I had for it, which was flying huge rockets when KSP was a slideshow, has largely been eliminated via game performance enhancements and larger parts.

 

[GoSlash27]

8 minutes ago, foamyesque said:

Who says I can't? 

 

But I can iterate ideas and placements a heckuva lot faster with KER running than if I needed to handmath it all.

foamyesque,

 The entire point of having a spreadsheet is that you don't have to handmath. As for whether you "can" or not, go ahead and try it. Without firing up KSP, what's the lightest upper stage for a 25t payload with 2,100 m/sec DV and minimum t/w of 0.7?

 My spreadsheet tells me that directly with a few clicks and I can use it anywhere at any time.
  MJ and KER won't tell you that. Even if you have them running and you're in the VAB, you can't be sure you've hit upon the "best" combo through trial and error no matter how long you try.

 This is the power of the dark side. Plus, we have cookies

Best,
-Slashy

 

[foamyesque]

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

foamyesque,

 The entire point of having a spreadsheet is that you don't have to handmath. As for whether you "can" or not, go ahead and try it. Without firing up KSP, what's the lightest upper stage for a 25t payload with 2,100 m/sec DV and minimum t/w of 0.7?

 My spreadsheet tells me that directly with a few clicks and I can use it anywhere at any time.
  MJ and KER won't tell you that. Even if you have them running and you're in the VAB, you can't be sure you've hit upon the "best" combo through trial and error no matter how long you try.

 This is the power of the dark side. Plus, we have cookies

Best,
-Slashy

 

 

I'd actually have to create the spreadsheet to do the comparisons, and I've not needed to since 0.8

Payload size doesn't justify a Rhino, and payload size in combination with TWR eliminates the Spark. So it's between Poodles, NERVAs, and Terriers for your engines, all of which will need more than one. The Poodle is awkward to place and doesn't increment well, so it's out; even on massless tanks two Poodles can't do the job (TWR spec) and three are overkill. On a short dV, high TWR spec like this I don't think nukes are justifiable.

 

That leaves Terriers. MR of 1.86 for the Terrier means you need a minimum of six (since the absolute minimum thrust target assuming massless tanks and engines is going to be 320kN). Those engines will, themselves, require another 40kN, which puts you just within that cluster of six, but doesn't account for the dry mass of the tanks, which is 2.8t without accounting for what's needed to lift it, which brings the total number of Terriers needed to seven.

Figuring 3.5t engine, 25t payload, you need 24.5t fuel, which has dry mass of 2.75t, which means you need another 2.35t of fuel to lift it, which has a dry mass of 0.25t, which needs another, call it 0.25t to account for further iterations. That gives 3.5t engine, 25t payload, 30t tankage (incl. dry). Conveniently, 7x -8 tanks more or less approximate this (31.5t).

Assuming you use the 7x -8s, the sancheck numbers are:

 

TWR: 420kN / 60t / 9.81m/s^2: 0.71;

DeltaV: ln(60t / 32t) * 300 s * 9.81m/s^2 = 2127m/s

 

The above numbers allow some room for clustering overhead or decouplers, too. KER, of course, tells me exactly what that overhead (or strutwork, or whatever) will cost me, much more responsively than dropping into a spreadsheet will.

 

Edited October 19, 2016 by foamyesque

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, RX2000 said:

I guess I just have trouble understanding why I would want something to PLAY my game for me?

No offense, but I think it's more like you have trouble understanding that MechJeb doesn't play the game.  It automates certain tasks, and executes those only when specifically activated by the player.  This whole "plays the game for you" is nothing but a gross mischaracterization and silly nonsense.

[KOCOUR]

First i did all things manualy, but it was not going well. Then i started  to use MJ for long time before i got a good idea how everything works. Later started to do more and more things myself, and eventualy got to conclusion that i can do everything moch better and more eficiently than MJ so i stopped using it. 

Now I use VOID for orbital info so i dont have to use map view. 

 

[eddiew]

1 hour ago, DerekL1963 said:

No offense, but I think it's more like you have trouble understanding that MechJeb doesn't play the game.  It automates certain tasks, and executes those only when specifically activated by the player.  This whole "plays the game for you" is nothing but a gross mischaracterization and silly nonsense.

That. OP makes it sound like MJ is a training tool. What it actually is, is a boredom remover. I for one find no enjoyment in 10-minute burns or rendezvous planning, so I let MJ do those tasks. Once I used it to take a rover on a 40 minute drive I didn't want to do myself. Why would I not automate dull tasks?

[StarStreak2109]

Why is it that MechJeb is such a HOT topic for many and that even more people feel the need to justify their using it in the first place??? Isn't it the joy of this game that you can fly hands on if you so desire? Or you can fly with full automation, if that is more to your liking. So each and everyone can do it as they like.

It is very easy to feel opressed by the sometimes harsh criticism avid MJ-users face, when confronted with how cheaty their gameplay is. I'd love for people back of a little and just accept that not everyone is a good virtual pilot or has the patience to plot every manouver by hand.

Here is my experience:

I got into KSP by reading about it on Steam. Then I stumbled upon some videos by Scott Manley and got hooked. First I played w/o mods, then slowly but surely I added all the little toys I couldn't live without today. Including MJ... Hey, life is so much easier with it than without it. Turns out, I waste so much time in the VAB anyway. Then it is fun to see whether a given design is able to perform the jobs I have made it for etc. A little bit later, I found that there are certain tasks, I can do better than MJ. Orbital rendez-vous for example. MJ has a strictly step by step approach. Align the planes. Go to a phasing orbit. Circularize. Phase. Set up intercept. Match speed. Repeat until distance < than cut-off distance. Done. Takes ages. At some step I saw @Felbourn do direct ascent rendez-vous. So I tried as well. Using the MJ ascent guidance, but with the "Skip circularization" option toggled. Fiddling with the ascent angle, you can narrow down your closest approach. Once out of the atmosphere, I usually switch off the guidance and set a manual manouver node to fine tune the closest approach, especially if the inclination is not 100% correct. Then I can also combine prograde/retrograde/normal/antinormal/radial vectors to make the node more efficient.

Another example is docking. I often (95%) use the docking autopilot. This one lets you dock even the most horribly unbalanced vessels. It will waste a bunch of mono-prop, but it will get the job done. Generally speaking, you will still have to build your vessel in such a way, that you could get it docked manually. Sometimes, at least for me, you cannot do so, e.g. in orbital construction, where I do not want to cover a truss segment liberally with RCS thrusters. So I use a tug with a strong reaction wheel and powerful thrusters and let MJ crack the nut docking it. But again, there are also aspects where MJ just does not cut it. For example docking in tight spaces. Or undocking from a space station to pick up a module from the launcher and having to avoid the stations solar panels (the collision avoidance of MJ docking autopilot only covers the target, not any other vessels around...). So then I have to (un-) dock manually.

To make a long story short, I think MJ is a great tool, thanks for @sarbian for all the hard work! It is not the end of all wisdom, since it still requires me to understand what I want to do, but it relieves me of repeating chores and stuff I do not like (like flying ascents through the atmosphere with only the keyboard). BTW, it would be the end of all wisdom, if it were a true autopilot in the way of saying "I want to go to Jool" and it would fly you there including all manouvers, whicht it doesn't since you still have to understand transfer windows, orbital manouvers for midcourse corrections and how to capture into orbit once at your target...

To come back to my original point: If people could just accept that some people actually like flying with MJ, the life in this forum would be a little bit nicer. And to all MJ users: Just use it... and be happy with it, we do not have to justify our using it! MJ is fun! MJ is happyness! MJ is life! (okay, got a bit carried away here...)

See you on the other side!

[RX2000]

6 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

No offense, but I think it's more like you have trouble understanding that MechJeb doesn't play the game.  It automates certain tasks, and executes those only when specifically activated by the player.  This whole "plays the game for you" is nothing but a gross mischaracterization and silly nonsense.

Yea thats a little bit of an overstatement. More just like "flies your ships for you," which it absolutely does.

[TopHeavy11]

I mostly use it for mundane (such as docking and getting to orbit), or extremely challenging tasks (like getting an Eeloo encounter at the point in which I can communicate back to Kerbin without a relay).

[eddiew]

39 minutes ago, RX2000 said:

Yea thats a little bit of an overstatement. More just like "flies your ships for you," which it absolutely does.

Or "performs the jobs you hate so you don't have to"   Having MJ installed doesn't mean you give up all control - just the bits you find boring.

[MaxPeck]

I love that this is becoming the great MJ throwdown of 2016.  

When I was learning to fly, I had to do everything by hand.  I learned in a Cessna 152 that had 2 com radios, 1 nav radio, an OBS and an ADF.  There was no autopilot, there was barely useable NAVAID gear.  My instructor used to go in the plane after every cross country and spray the windscreen with windex, because that made the suction cup marks from a GPS antenna show up, and if he saw them, you had to repeat the flight.  Everything was done MANUALLY.  Which was great for a new pilot, because you should know how things work and why they do what they do.  

Now, some 25 years later, as soon as I'm above 1000' AGL, the autopilot comes on, and I'm content to manage the flight instead of manhandling the aircraft across the sky.  I have the same feelings about MJ.  I'm perfectly content to do the "flight planning", kick on automation and manage the flight - and you know what?  That's just as much flying as sitting there doing the "hand on stick" deal.  Do you think, when you fly from point A to point B on an airliner, that the captain is sitting up there with his hand on the yoke?  Hell, Airbuses don't even have a yoke, and they discourage the pilots from touching the controls as much as possible.  Pilots no longer "fly the plane", they make "control inputs" that the flight computer interprets, but the computer is flying the plane at all times.  

So if you're a masochist or a control freak who has to have absolute control (I've known pilots like this - they must have their hand on the controls at all times and refuse to use any AP modes at all) then go for it.  I, however, choose to fly my own way, and if MJ starts acting squirrelly, I'm there to override it and take control.  So there ya go - MJ impressions from a pilot.  It's not cheating, it's good cockpit resource management.

[Diche Bach]

57 minutes ago, RX2000 said:

Yea thats a little bit of an overstatement. More just like "flies your ships for you," which it absolutely does.

Much the way your Operating System "operates" your hardware for you, and much the way your browser "navigates" the internet for you, and much the way a paint app "controls" the graphics software on your VGA for you.

So does this mean you're going to uninstall your OS, and start running everything from the equivalent of a DOS prompt as a matter of "pride" or something? You do realize that _MOST_ of what you have ever done on a computer amounts to "using an autopilot" don't you?

People are being over the top silly if they honestly think that there is something "unethical" or "wrong" about anyone playing this game anyway they want, much less using a famous, well-designed, and very popular app like MechJeb. It is a single player game, short of breaching your EULA or otherwise engaging in cybercrime/IP crime, play it however, whenever, and for whatever reasons you want and enjoy and do not judge anyone else because they do not play it in exactly the same way as you. "Cheating" is impossible in a single player game; reserve the judgementalism for the script kiddies who love to troll the various multiplayer gaming communities.

[GoSlash27]

8 hours ago, foamyesque said:

 

I'd actually have to create the spreadsheet to do the comparisons, and I've not needed to since 0.8

Payload size doesn't justify a Rhino, and payload size in combination with TWR eliminates the Spark. So it's between Poodles, NERVAs, and Terriers for your engines, all of which will need more than one. The Poodle is awkward to place and doesn't increment well, so it's out; even on massless tanks two Poodles can't do the job (TWR spec) and three are overkill. On a short dV, high TWR spec like this I don't think nukes are justifiable.

 

That leaves Terriers. MR of 1.86 for the Terrier means you need a minimum of six (since the absolute minimum thrust target assuming massless tanks and engines is going to be 320kN). Those engines will, themselves, require another 40kN, which puts you just within that cluster of six, but doesn't account for the dry mass of the tanks, which is 2.8t without accounting for what's needed to lift it, which brings the total number of Terriers needed to seven.

Figuring 3.5t engine, 25t payload, you need 24.5t fuel, which has dry mass of 2.75t, which means you need another 2.35t of fuel to lift it, which has a dry mass of 0.25t, which needs another, call it 0.25t to account for further iterations. That gives 3.5t engine, 25t payload, 30t tankage (incl. dry). Conveniently, 7x -8 tanks more or less approximate this (31.5t).

Assuming you use the 7x -8s, the sancheck numbers are:

 

TWR: 420kN / 60t / 9.81m/s^2: 0.71;

DeltaV: ln(60t / 32t) * 300 s * 9.81m/s^2 = 2127m/s

 

The above numbers allow some room for clustering overhead or decouplers, too. KER, of course, tells me exactly what that overhead (or strutwork, or whatever) will cost me, much more responsively than dropping into a spreadsheet will.

 

foamyesque,

 Your guesstimate is pretty close, but the Poodle is actually the 3rd lightest option.

#1: 2 Poodles. 62.105t, $9,000

#2 3 Aerospikes. 62.487t, $20,850

#3 7 Terriers. 62.838t, $12,030

#4 1 Vector. 65.140t, $27,750

#5 1 Skipper. 65.850t $12,500

 That's what I mean... unless you have a spreadsheet to check all the engines, you're never really sure if you've found the best option.

Best,
-Slashy

[Leafbaron]

1 hour ago, RX2000 said:

Yea thats a little bit of an overstatement. More just like "flies your ships for you," which it absolutely does.

We could break it down even further. Since the ingame SAS already has a maneuver node hold setting we can remove the "handling" aspect from the equation. whats left? MJ basically just controls throttle. Especially if you create the node yourself and then just execute it using MJ. 

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

No offense, but I think it's more like you have trouble understanding that MechJeb doesn't play the game.  It automates certain tasks, and executes those only when specifically activated by the player.  This whole "plays the game for you" is nothing but a gross mischaracterization and silly nonsense.

Mechjeb can automate some tasks, smartass is lowest level its just an more advanced version of sas. 
in 1.2 its mostly interesting relative to ground. 
it can execute burns, hold at node and tapper off and end burn then tapper off and end burn accurately, it also warp to correct time before starting burning. 
It can generate nodes for many tasks, its not smart so asking it to change inclination around mun with 60 degree and it will not lift Ap to reduce the inclination burn cost but nice then you first make an node to raise Ap then tell MJ to calculate inclination burn, remove it and change Ap burn who saves a lot of time. 

Accent autopilot holds an trajectory, autostage and circulate, again a too little flexible but works well. 
docking and landing autopilot is the advanced stuff who behaves pretty smart. I always use the landing autopilot except on Gilly, as its more accurate and tend to use less fuel than me as I tend to chicken out and brake too much.
Docking autopilot is less important in 1.2 as its less lag, trying to dock two huge ships with lots of lag is hard. 

Main benefit for me is speeding up gameplay so I can do more missions.