Is MechJeb hate still a thing?

[ZootinZack]

I think it's a fantastic tool. Once I did the same liftoff to orbit with the same ship a hundred times, I'm glad MJ is there. Same goes for the tedious rendezvous or any routine endeavours like docking. I'm not interested into repeating over and over stuff I'm proficient in and I'm glad there's a tool for that. 

(I still land all my ships though, I don't trust the mf.)

[The Aziz]

Of course it's still a thing. And will be forever and ever.

because you should do everything manually, it's the only Kerbal way

for the record, I've never trusted it neither for launches nor landings. All my rockets tend to have different launch profiles so I better do it by hand. For landings I simply use Trajectories. Stats are provided by KER, and it looks better. I've used docking autopilot but now I only need SmartA.S.S that points me parallel to the target and the rest I do myself. As for the maneuvers.. Yes it indeed performs them for me, and sometimes I let it fine tune my trajectory, mostly for rendezvous so I don't end up miles from target ship  but all fiddling with maneuver nodes are on me. It's a tool that saves time, only that.

[Superfluous J]

It depends on what you mean by "MechJeb Hate"

Do people still hate on it? Yes.

Is it a rampant thing that people leave in their signatures because they're so sick of spouting it every thread? No.

Is it common to forbid it from challenges? Yes.

[Sorabh]

I won't use MechJeb for any challenge, thats for sure. But I will relegate the tedious part of the gameplay to MechJeb.

It's my money, my game, I decide whats the RIGHT playstyle for me. For those who have a problem with this, well, I have my 'Bird Salute' for them

[Dafni]

4 minutes ago, Sorabh said:

 

It's my money, my game, I decide whats the RIGHT playstyle for me. For those who have a problem with this, well, I have my 'Bird Salute' for them

 

Of course! Its KSP, always been like that. Why would anyone care how anyone else plays this lovely game??

In KSP, everything goes. Modify config files, play only in hack gravity, build boats exclusively, modify the planets... whatever you want. You might even share everything you come up with here on the forum and nobody will give you hard time. Its a single player sandbox game and we are all aware of this.

 

As for MechJeb, personally I appreciate all the information it gives you, but I never used any kind of autopiloting whatsoever. These days I sometimes settle for KER on some installs, does the exact same thing as far as I am concerned. Tend to choose whichever one has less performance impact on that KSP version.

[Corw]

It wasn't the hate on MechJeb per se, it was a hate on people who would respond to new player questions with "Use MechJeb!".

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

I think mechjeb is a great tool for beginners to use, not as a cheaty autopilot tool, but as a learning tool. MechJeb helped me understand gravity turns. Just get a good stock ship, and observe how MechJeb does it. Although I probably learnt about 40%% of my knowledge from the tutorials, 10% of it from MechJeb, and the rest of it from binge-watching Matt Lowne YouTube videos. Seriously, SQUAD, you need to revamp your tutorials, like maybe a Duna tutorial or an advanced docking tutorial, or maybe even a tutorial on how to land at the KSC.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

8 hours ago, ZootinZack said:

Is MechJeb hate still a thing?

Yeah, sort of.

In the sense that "cheating" in any form is still frowned upon by some. MechJeb itself isn't the problem, but how someone uses it. I have no issue with veteran players who use it to automate tasks which are trivial to them. I have a serious problem with those who use it as a crutch to avoid learning the actual game mechanics, or those who recommend it to new players as a solution to their troubles with learning the game. Don't ever catch a man a fish, you've only fed him for a day, if you teach him to fish; you've fed him for the rest of his life. MechJeb is the equivalent of pointing him to the fish store where he'll never have to catch his own fish again. He's never learns anything, because he doesn't have to, and thus gains nothing from the experience.

The real issue is sorting the two groups out. The weary veterans from the lazy newbies. (Or even lazy veterans, I've no doubt there are players who are otherwise quite experienced in the game who still use MechJeb as a crutch for things they never learned to do themselves.) Anyways, sorry to say it; but since I can't know which group someone belongs to, I typically assume the worst until given some evidence/statement on their part otherwise. Bottom line: If you mention using MechJeb you've already lost a good portion of my respect, until such a time as I'm confident you actually know how to play the game without it. Not that you may care about my opinion, and no one is asking you to; just saying. That said, I'm certainly not telling anyone how to play or the right or wrong way to do something. Just my opinion on the matter.

[DerekL1963]

Sadly, yes, it is still a thing.  There are plenty of people who still take it upon themselves to insist that anyone who isn't playing the game in one particular way are "cheating".

This isn't a problem with the existence of MJ, it's a problem with people and problem with their egos.

[censored] them.

There is no "one true way" to play the game.

3 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

He's never learns anything, because he doesn't have to, and thus gains nothing from the experience.

Right.  Using MJ I've never learned how to optimize a launch vehicle.  (Oh, wait, I have.)  Nor have I learned how to design and implement a mission architecture for one of the most complex challenges in the game - and then executed that architecture and mission.  (Oh, wait, I have - see my signature.)

Etc.. etc...

As I said above, the problem here isn't MJ.  It's people.

[censored] them.

9 hours ago, Sorabh said:

It's my money, my game, I decide whats the RIGHT playstyle for me. For those who have a problem with this, well, I have my 'Bird Salute' for them

Precisely.

[DualDesertEagle]

On 10/20/2018 at 10:52 PM, ZootinZack said:

I think it's a fantastic tool. Once I did the same liftoff to orbit with the same ship a hundred times, I'm glad MJ is there. Same goes for the tedious rendezvous or any routine endeavours like docking. I'm not interested into repeating over and over stuff I'm proficient in and I'm glad there's a tool for that. 

(I still land all my ships though, I don't trust the mf.)

Honestly, why do u even care about other people's opinion about that? KSP is a single player game and other than those set up in challenges that u take part in u don't need to abide by anyone's rules. It's like someone asked if it was OK to use cheats in GTA2*, no one should care except the only one affected by them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

Spoiler

GTA2 was the only single player game that came into my mind for an example coz I always went completely overboard with using cheats in that, for the single reason that with cheats enabled I often ran into situations that made me [snip] myself from laughter.

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Xavven]

3 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Yeah, sort of.

In the sense that "cheating" in any form is still frowned upon by some. MechJeb itself isn't the problem, but how someone uses it. I have no issue with veteran players who use it to automate tasks which are trivial to them. I have a serious problem with those who use it as a crutch to avoid learning the actual game mechanics, or those who recommend it to new players as a solution to their troubles with learning the game. Don't ever catch a man a fish, you've only fed him for a day, if you teach him to fish; you've fed him for the rest of his life. MechJeb is the equivalent of pointing him to the fish store where he'll never have to catch his own fish again. He's never learns anything, because he doesn't have to, and thus gains nothing from the experience.

The real issue is sorting the two groups out. The weary veterans from the lazy newbies. (Or even lazy veterans, I've no doubt there are players who are otherwise quite experienced in the game who still use MechJeb as a crutch for things they never learned to do themselves.) Anyways, sorry to say it; but since I can't know which group someone belongs to, I typically assume the worst until given some evidence/statement on their part otherwise. Bottom line: If you mention using MechJeb you've already lost a good portion of my respect, until such a time as I'm confident you actually know how to play the game without it. Not that you may care about my opinion, and no one is asking you to; just saying. That said, I'm certainly not telling anyone how to play or the right or wrong way to do something. Just my opinion on the matter.

I'm curious... what would the serious problem be with someone who goes to the fish store, so to speak? It sounds awfully judgmental. After all, following the analogy to its real life application, I don't actually hunt or grow all of my own food IRL. Are grocery store patrons not worthy of survival?

I used to be in the "Mechjeb is cheating" camp, because you don't have to learn the piloting skills to get vehicles where you want them to go. I could even dig up one of my own quotes from a couple years ago that I actually now disagree with -- something about how modded KSP doesn't really count as playing KSP, because it's literally "something else".

But then... but then I got into archery IRL and learned that there are many, many different styles of shooting bows and arrows. All of them count as "archery", and because some modern bows are inherently more accurate than others, the scoring standards are different for different kinds of bows. I think it's here that I learned to cool my jets on my purism on, well everything, KSP included. I don't worry about what equipment the guy shooting next to me is using. We just chill, talk about anything, and compliment each other on good shots. It's a much more relaxing way to live life.

We can all enjoy KSP with or without mods, and share our mutual experiences together. I guess I don't feel the need to look down on those who play differently than me, with mods that make the game easier, or on easier difficulties than I do. Is Sandbox mode cheating, because you don't have to worry about upgrading KSC and researching upgrades? Is Science mode cheating because you don't have to buy your upgrades and rockets? Am *I* the one cheating because I don't program a flight computer with kOS?

Frankly... who cares.

[Geonovast]

I won't use it.  But I don't think less of anyone who does.  I don't know why it has to go beyond that.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

 

42 minutes ago, Xavven said:

-snip-

1 hour ago, DerekL1963 said:

-snip-

 

4 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

That said, I'm certainly not telling anyone how to play or the right or wrong way to do something. Just my opinion on the matter.

(An opinion, I'll add; that was specifically asked for by the OP.) 

Edited October 21, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Atkara]

Hate? No, not hate. I just don't use it. It would've propably done a much better job in my hands, than what I've seen over at youtube, but it docks in a way I haven't used in years and which I consider inefficient.

Great automation tool, just not for me -not it's fault, really. It has to obey certain guidelines and constraints, otherwise it wouldn't work.

Atmosphere Autopilot on the other hand, specifically it's Fly-By-Wire, that's something I use. I fly spaceplanes a lot and AA performs much better in the air than either the default SAS, or plain trimming (which isn't as responsive at times).

[Mr. Peabody]

Who needs mechjeb? I don't wish to sound boastful, but truthfully I am a better pilot than mechjeb. Flying manual is more challenging and more fun.

[Epicdreamer]

I don't really get the hate thing, which I assume is still there. There is no cheating in KSP since it's a single player game. When it feels like cheating to a player, then nothing stands in his/her way to not use it. But it's a great tool to get a grip on the game for new players imo.

I used it on a save once, but enjoy flying manually more than let an autopilot fly my ships...I like the tension of flying and landing somewhere I haven't been...or the tension of getting a craft to a specific location by hand.

As many play styles as there are Kerbonaut players!

[Gargamel]

How dare anyone use Mechjeb?  That's just pure cheating, and ruins the game for everybody.   Pure trash.

 

 

 

 

Oh....

[Mike Mars]

11 hours ago, Dafni said:

 

Of course! Its KSP, always been like that. Why would anyone care how anyone else plays this lovely game??

In KSP, everything goes. Modify config files, play only in hack gravity, build boats exclusively, modify the planets... whatever you want. You might even share everything you come up with here on the forum and nobody will give you hard time. Its a single player sandbox game and we are all aware of this.

 

As for MechJeb, personally I appreciate all the information it gives you, but I never used any kind of autopiloting whatsoever. These days I sometimes settle for KER on some installs, does the exact same thing as far as I am concerned. Tend to choose whichever one has less performance impact on that KSP version.

Exactly how I feel.

I modify configs all the time.  I change parts to suit my needs.

I'm having a blast as I explore the Kerbol system.

And lastly, I love MechJeb.

MM

[mystifeid]

I have multiple KSP installs - some with MJ, some without. I really enjoy playing all of them.

[Lord Aurelius]

For me, MechJeb enables me to enjoy the parts of the game I like best and skip the tedious maneuvers and manual calculations. Especially for interplanetary transfers. I like building spacecraft and to some degree mission planning, but I find flying to be rather tedious most of the time.

Is it cheating? From my perspective, not really. Real rockets are flown by computer systems similar in function to MechJeb where mission planners choose the maneuvers but don't manually execute them. It might be a bit cheaty to rely on all the MechJeb built-in functions without fully understanding them, but at the same time it helps a lot to understand how to execute the maneuvers by watching MechJeb do them. I just pretend that I'm the boss and I told my Kerbal minions to go do the calculations for me and execute the maneuvers at the correct time.

Maybe some day I'll get really ambitious and write a kOS script that fully automates a mun landing instead of using the MechJeb maneuver planner.

[katateochi]

I think MechJeb is misunderstood by the haters. "It's an autopilot and you're missing out on the fun" (and other similar remarks) is, I think, a rather flawed statement.

The autopilots for launch, landing and docking are just three features in a tool with so many features it would make a swiss-army knife feel insecure about itself. There is so much to MechJeb and while I consider myself a seasoned user of it, there are still features that I've never tried (or have and am still puzzled by). 

By far my most valued feature is the SURF feature of Smart ASS, which simply lets you manually set heading, pitch and roll as numerical values and have the craft turn to that orientation. I do most of my craft control using that, because to me, that is way more realistic than aligning a craft with WASD keys and more to the point, it's way more precise. The stock game gives you prograde/retrograde, normal, radial etc buttons to click, this does the same but for any heading and unlike the stock ones it also controls roll (I hate the way the stock alignment buttons will put you prograde, but leave you rolled at some random angle, I want to be rolled 0, 180 or tracking the roll of a target craft). 
Unlike the stock game it will orient a craft that you're not currently controlling; ie, set your station to radial out and then when you next approach the station, when you get close to it, the station will automatically correct it's alignment.  I recently found out that you can also set orientation based on other craft or bodies, ie; set a probe to orient relative to the sun, so it's always facing it.  In my view, features like that are just filling in for missing stock features.  And that's just the SmartASS (which I could go on about for another page or two, but I'll stop now).

In flight and editor info is the other big aspect of MJ for me (ok there is KER which can provide the same info, but why install another mod when I'm already using MJ).  I love MJ's customizable windows (and the fact that the settings for those are so easy to port between installs) and I've got my in flight info set just how I like with just enough info that I can perform a launch to orbit without having to switch to map mode.  I'm still manually piloting the craft, but I can stay focused on it without having to jump to map mode (faff about with the mouse and AP marker) to check my Ap/Pe.  Is that cheating or detracting from the fun....I don't think so, I think being able to stay in flight mode is more fun.

There's tools like the flight recorder which lets you record and plot various flight data which, if you're doing experiments to see how one design flies compared to another, is a great tool.
The rover autopilot (yeah it's an auto pilot but...) lets you setup waypoints and have a rover potter around your base while you do other things (can be a bit flaky, but it's pretty good). 
There's the maneuver node planner which is not only a great convenience tool, it's quite a good way for newbies to learn.
The landing autopilot can be used as a prediction tool; either predicting aerobraking outcome or prediction landing site.  You still manually control things, but that can be some useful info. Ok yeah, you're supposed to have a hardwired sense of atmo braking so you can deorbit and bullseye the VAB everytime, so using a tool like this is cheating. But this lets you do things like work out (roughly) where on a target planet's surface you're going to land impact while your still in orbit around another planet and that's a NASA level of precision that is either very hard (or extremely dull) to work out in the stock game.

I also think there is a time and a place for autopilots, that adds some real fun to the game;
Docking autopilot; while building your space station, don't just settle for moving one thing around at a time, have multiple construction drones and use the docking autopilot on them. set their target, engage docking autopilot and switch craft and setup another one.  The end result is a busy little space port, with several craft zipping around moving stuff, while you work on another part.  It looks so awesome seeing other craft moving about adds a bit of life (and the occasional mishap).
Landing autopilot (for aircraft); same idea, set one craft to land with the autopilot while you manually pilot the other one (great if you've got a craft that's separated mid air, ie glider and tow plane).
But my personal favourite; using the Smart ASS to control two craft during assent or descent; By setting heading/pitch/roll and having MJ hold to those values, you can very reliably fly a couple of spaceplanes side by side to orbit or return from orbit to land, just switching between them every now and then to alter the pitch setting. It's a really fun and rewarding experience, that still requires your skill.

MJ is also a great instructor for new players; showing them how to launch, land or dock. I much prefer to do those things manually, but MJ taught me a lot at the beginning.

So yeah, there are those to hate (or look down on) MJ use. But there are also those of us how absolutely love it.

Edited October 21, 2018 by katateochi

[The Aziz]

7 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

If you mention using MechJeb you've already lost a good portion of my respect, until such a time as I'm confident you actually know how to play the game without it. 

I should've mention that earlier (not that, as you've put it, I care about anyone's opinion, but just because I feel I should say it) that yes, I am capable of doing all those things MJ is doing for me, but it simply takes too much time. I automate few things to save it, and still 95% of the game is on me. And that's fine on my side.

[invision]

i use to use it for docking but then mechjeb liked crashing into the docking ports at 200 m/s often enough i stopped using it all together and deleted it

[jlcarneiro]

I stopped using it not because of cheating feelings, but because at that time it seemed heavier than KER. Don't know how it is nowadays...

But I really miss the "launch windows calculator", "rover and plane autopilots" (those missions get tedious!) and, specially, the "execute maneuver"... All in only ONE mod!

Edited October 22, 2018 by jlcarneiro

[Gargamel]

4 hours ago, katateochi said:

ok there is KER which can provide the same info, but why install another mod when I'm already using MJ).

I thought that for years, but the default HUD on KER is so much better.  I do run both, and have premade 'huds' for MJ for Space, Flying, and driving, but I've pretty much gone with the KER hud for space. 

49 minutes ago, jlcarneiro said:

All in only ONE mod!

I think that's where the Hate comes from.  It's one mod, and It can do everything for you.  I bet if they released each module as a possible separate mod, then a lot more people would be using it, or least part of it.  I doubt it would take up that much less space, but some people would like to say they only use it for docking, cause I've done it a 100 times manually.