Anyone running 0.17 unmodded?

[Flowz0r]

I've been playing KSP for a long time now, and never had to resort to any kind of mod, the info you get from MechJeb is really not needed for anything at the moment.

I thought I might have to start getting some mods to get to other planets, but it turns out it's the exact same thing as going from Kerbin to one of its moons on a larger scale.

[martscht]

In the base game you fly pretty blind. You can rule of thumb / ballpark your way to moons within a system. Transfers planet to planets are small targets over large distances. I don't enjoy missing an encounter because I thought something was about 45° ahead of me and instead it was 50°.

[...]

In the base game a mission to duna might be:

wait for duna to be about a pie slice ahead of kerbin

orbit kerbin at x altitude (orbit east, 90 degree, with rotation, whatever you want to call it)

A little after going into the dark side of the planet burn prograde until your orbit hits duna's

get an encounter? If not burn a little more to maybe get a second shot at an encounter.... if not keep an orbit that crosses duna's and eventually you will have an encounter... or re-load and launch again with duna at a different starting point

With more information it is more like

Launch - when a little before Duna hits 44.36° ahead of kerbin (give some time to establish kerbin orbit)

Get in 100km kerbin orbit (if different orbit update angles/exit velocity)

Transfer orbit - burn ship's prograde when ejection angle is at 150.91° (with reasonably TWR)

Burn until velocity is 3289.2 m/s

Encounter ... likely or may require some minor adjustments on the way.

I think this is only true if you're unwilling to math your way to other planets. I don't use an information panel for interplanetary transfer, because I think all you need is given by the game. For example, my mission to Duna (without information panels) looked like this:

Build a rocket good enough to get three Kerbs there and back.

Warp until dawn of the 58th day (or the 285th or the 513th or... well, you get the idea).

Launch aforementioned rocket.

Get a circular orbit at 125 km.

Wait until you are at Kerbin prograde.

Warp/wait exactly 20 minutes and 1 second.

Transfer.

Encounter.

Land.

Using this mission profile and only stock parts I have not missed a Duna encounter. Sure, I've scattered the parts of my rockets across the Duna surface, I've run out of fuel and was stranded on Duna, I've lost Kerbs who insisted on EVA-ing with just a few minutes until atmosphere and so on. But the information the vanilla game provides is sufficient for exact mission planning. Though I will admit it's less comfortable when you have to write it down, rather than just looking at the extra window on your screen and say "ah, it's time to launch that rocket to Duna". But without information mods it is in no way a foregone conclusion that you're gonna be winging it.

I didn't wanna rant here. I just wanted to show that getting more information is not always the solution when you haven't yet exhausted the information you already have.

[AlternNocturn]

I landed on Duna when the patch first came out, completely vanilla. The only reason I could do that though was because I tested lander designs before the patch came out, in 0.16. I could probably do it again, but I can't test new designs without the game crashing. Besides that, I love modding my game. Carts, Probodobodyne, MMI, Mechjeb... after a while I can't play the game without knowing that these mods are installed.

Also, my stance on MechJeb: Stop arguing about it. It's a mod. In a highly moddable game. MechJeb might take away enjoyment from you, but other people derive more enjoyment when actually using it. Fun fact, this game actually has quite a bit of tedium involved, and tedium can actually take away enjoyment from the game and vastly dull the sense of achievement for some people, including me. Turning a stupidly sluggish vehicle to anti-normal manually is not fun. Smart A.S.S. can take away that frustration. If you don't like it, cool, keep doing what you're doing. If you do like it and use it routinely, cool, keep doing what you're doing.

[A Fat Pokemon]

I tried RemoteTech and the Kethane mod, and I found them fun at first. The RemoteTech mod wore off on me after a while, but I did enjoy the Kethane mod quite a bit.. As it worked well with my interstellar UFO When I updated it .17 Though, I removed my mods and I haven't used one since, as I only use them to make some crazy builds sometimes. It really depends on what you want, You don't need MechJeb to get a giant halo ring into orbit but it can help if you want it