Mechjeb Anonymous

[The Dulas]

Hello every one,

My name is Dulas and I have never used Mechjeb. It is with high hopes that I can resist the addictive temptation that surrounds this empowering tool. I would like to have a more organic, albeit more stressful for Jeb, space experience. Thus far I have achieved interplannitary orbit, a crash land on eve,

Mun landers and such, and a refueling station. All done with stock parts. I WILL COLONIZE SPACE, AND I WILL DO IT UN-MODDED! Wish me luck as I came within one mouse click from downloading Mechjeb the other day.

[Inquisition]

Good luck, I almost downloaded it when I saw Scott Manly used it on his videos, although to be fair he only used it for the extra information it provides not auto pilot.

[Pedonymous]

Good luck, I almost downloaded it when I saw Scott Manly used it on his videos, although to be fair he only used it for the extra information it provides not auto pilot.

Yeah, it does provide some good info, however Engineer provides the same info without the temptation to autopilot and SKAWT MAHNLEE probably knows that.

I used mechjeb when I started and I have a lot more fun now that I can fly on my own. Mechjeb buggered my ships and transfers up most of the time anyways.

[Gniuz]

I use it for information and so I don't need to keep adjusting to stay on a position when flying. I also won't use it for anything I can't do manually.

[Blackstar]

I resisted it for a while, not wanting to 'cheat', but after performing yet another mind-numbing space station rendezvous I finally caved and gave it a try. My justification is that autopilots are very much a real-world thing. As are navigation computers that can optimize things better than a human can.

So far, I'm loving it. Worth it alone just for the info displays, and the course plotting -- especially things like timing a launch so that you end up close to an orbiting target. While it can do some things completely automatically, it's best to treat it like a co-pilot. It handles small craft fine, but doesn't seem to be very good at piloting slow-turning behemoths. Often it plots a course that's so tight that it can't turn the ship toward the next maneuver node in time, then has to adjust the burn. Then it doesn't quite make it, and wastes a ton of time turning and chasing the node to try to get that last 0.4m/s of the maneuver, putting it even further behind for the next one.

Auto-dock is nice to be lazy, but it wastes a ton of monopropellant making all the tiny adjustments. If there's any wobble in the ship at all, it tends to overcorrect and make the oscillations worse. So I mostly use it to help get lined up and do the final approach by hand.

The RCS balancer in 2.x is a really good idea, though not perfect yet.

Honestly I'm amazed at the ascent autopilot. Most real world autopilots have the benefit of knowing what vehicle they'll be used in and can be tuned to its particular performance characteristics. MechJeb manages to launch completely arbitrary rockets into precise orbits, and can even automatically separate the stages at the right time. I'll still manually control ones I'm testing designs for, but for repeated launches of stuff like resupply ships it's a real time-saver.

It's totally a personal preference thing, though. There are things I'll always do by hand, and there are mods I won't use because they're unrealistic (Kethane; Quantum Struts) regardless of how useful they might be. So if you want an early 1960s experimental space program feel instead of a somewhat refined 1980s space program, then I'd avoid it.

[The Dulas]

I feel like it would be a slippery slope for me. Id start with just looking at the information, then I'll just not want to circularize my orbit one day, so I'll turn to Mechjeb, and before you know it, I forget how to do a manual landing.

[The Dulas]

Plus, nothing beats the unaided victory feeling. For any of you who used to wrestle, you know that the feeling of winning something, based purely on your own skill over the opponent, is a feeling unlike anything gained from a team sport. I guess I just get such a rush when I get a circular orbit to within a few meters by hand. Still, the information would be nice as I haven't quite mastered interplanetary travel. It's more of a trial and error with the maneuver nodes, and lots of waiting.

[Karriz]

I use it for information. It's good to see apoapsis/periapsis without the map screen.

I did uÅŸe the landing autopilot once. I've also tried the ascend autopilot, but it just breaks my rockets.

[engraverwilliam]

I simply LOVE the maneuvering Node tool. (Execute next node) (Holman transfer) (Docking assistant) (ascent assistant) (landing assistant) and the Smart A.S.S ok yes Hello my name is Engraverwilliam and I am a MJ junkie.

To my defense though I started with .17 of ksp and landed on Mun Minmus and Duna several times without any nodes or MJ.

I have absolutely NO problem using the flight computer now. I look at it from my Kerbal's point of view, the space program developed the flight computer over time.

[Malachai]

I use it sparingly, but I know that even things like the Assent tool (which I use just so I can get my mission into high gear and then get a drink) is a gateway drug. We'll see where this dark path takes me. I've already been using it to adjust my orbits and such. I'm not yet ready to admit I have a problem, but one day...for now, it's all I can do to keep the spiders at bay.

[KerbActual]

Does Mechjeb help with landings? That's the only thing I see myself using it for. The closest I've come to rescuing some stranded Kerbals is landing within 40km, and that's as accurate as I can get.

[Pedonymous]

Does Mechjeb help with landings? That's the only thing I see myself using it for. The closest I've come to rescuing some stranded Kerbals is landing within 40km, and that's as accurate as I can get.

Kind of... Though I'd try to learn on my own if I were you. Setting a lander down within 100m of another craft is very satisfying.

[engraverwilliam]

Does Mechjeb help with landings? That's the only thing I see myself using it for. The closest I've come to rescuing some stranded Kerbals is landing within 40km, and that's as accurate as I can get.

I like to get my landing really close to whern i want to be but since I cant for the life of me NOT impact with the surface I am landing on or go skidding and bouncing/slpoding all over the place I press LAND SOMEPLACE when I am close to the ground and slowed down enough. It fires the engines in the correct direction and sets me down like a feather.

[ShroomOfDoom]

This must be the 576.386th Mechjeb thread. Is it really neccessary to warm up these old discussions about it again? Seriously,this whole thing reminds me of the GregTech discussions in various Minecraft mod forums. Some love it,some hate it, and this is just the same thing,only in green.

[Fiddlestyx]

Yeah, I wish there was a MechJeb Lite. Some information, but no auto pilot and all that other stuff. But I would rather Squad add the info to the game (hopefully they will).

[Guest]

MechJeb has been known to be exceedingly accurate with landings.

I have never understood the anti-MechJeb biases. By all means, learn the fundamentals of flight and get proficient. But for repetitive tasks there's nothing wrong with automation. It's not like you'll find the astronauts working out every burn on the back of a napkin.

[sewerbird]

I mostly use it for information, but I don't use Flight Engineer because I need the Ascent autopilot when I'm launching through atmosphere due to lag issues on my Mac. I've not checked out the new version yet, still on 1.9... if its docking mode is good, I might end up using it: tedious after a while!

[SteevyT]

MechJeb has been known to be exceedingly accurate with landings.

-snip-

Huh, appears to have missed this time. I usually have to correct it so I don't end up with a skyscraper colony.

[MRab2]

I use Mechjeb a lot. And I feel completely justified in doing so. I've been here since 0.14 (possibly 0.15) and have done everything manually - to the point where it started getting dull. After you launch a couple hundred ships the appeal seriously starts to wane. When you're launching a fuel tank that you've launched dozens of times before and can predict, to the litre, how much fuel you'll have left when you circularise at 100km then we're in to boredom territory. Any game that has boredom as a component is doomed to failure.

So, fellow Kerbanauts I suggest you all buckle up for MORE automation. It's going to have to come or the game will quickly lose its appeal. This is a game about a developing space program. One of the essential elements of any space program is that space-flight starts to become routine. As you push further out into space and as you have increasing amounts of assets in space so a greater proportion of your flights are going to be simply routine and what's worse, if consumables become part of the game and if you insist on running those missions personally without automation you're going to hit a stall point.

By that I mean you'll be spending Almost all your game time just servicing your orbital assets and almost no time forging ever deeper into space.

Think about it. To launch, rendezvous, dock, transfer whatever, de-orbit and land takes how long in total? The stiff end of half an hour. Say, 20 minutes if you're on the ball. If I've got a refuelling station that's got 5 red tanks that I've stupidly let run dry then I'm going to have to invest and hour-an-a-half of my gaming time to run 5 entirely routine missions to top the tanks off.

Where's the fun in that?

Ah, you might say, but we're getting resources in 0.2 you want have to launch from Kerbin! That's true, but now I have to supervise a miner mining, a refinery refining and then run a tanker from the Mun surface, transfer to Kerbin orbit where I'll have to spend 10 minutes watching the smegger aerobrake before organising a rendezvous and then docking.

Reources out there in the solar system may be cheaper to get to Kerbin orbit in terms of launch costs but they won't be more time efficient in terms of YOUR time.

So before you know it you're three hours in and you've basically spent it keeping the plates spinning.

Oh, and last word on automation. I have a big beast of a ship - 300+ tonnes. It takes a full minute to rotate 180 degrees. Without Mechjeb that would be me sitting with my finger on the D or A key (or whatever) waiting for the frigger to complete its turn. That IS NOT stimulating gameplay. Instead, hit the retrograde button and I get my finger back.

[SkyRender]

Interestingly enough, I've also never tried MechJeb, even though one of my first mentors (Scott Manley) is using it a lot these days. When I first started KSP, MechJeb didn't really exist. (If it did, I sure as heck didn't know about it!) By the time I was aware of everyone's favorite autopiloting and information tool, I had already worked out pretty much everything it did and was getting progressively better at everything it did too. So I never bothered, and odds are good I never will.

Certain other tools, by contrast, I have no problem using since they really are just saving me some manual calculations. The Kerbal Engineer Redux non-flight chip, for example, saves me the tedious process of calculating TWR and dV for my various stages. I used to do it by hand, and it sucked a lot of the fun out of rocket design. Similarly, I've got no problem with Protractor. I can calculate the phase angles manually, and usually know pretty well when one is coming up, but it's nice to have a little rover off near the radar station I can switch to for fine-tuning my intercepts with planets. Again, it's a great time-saving tool, since it spares me an hour or more of time accelerating, testing with maneuver nodes, and repeating until I get the exact right phase angle.

I guess the short of it is, I like some of the information-only side-functions of MechJeb enough to get equivalent stand-alone tools, but I really have no interest in the package deal.

[ThatBum]

I don't have a problem with MechJeb, I use MechJeb 2's maneuver planner liberally. That's my feelings on the subject and I'm sticking to it, let the haters hate. If those dingbats who oppose MechJeb think it's cheating, then NASA, ESA, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, etc. are all cheating too, because very little of actual modern spaceflight is normally done manually. Except if something's gone horribly wrong with the flight computers, I'd imagine.

I've done a journey to put a MapSat around Eve without MechJeb, and indeed before I knew MechJeb existed. I used the ol' "hold your hand up the the screen in map view to approximate your phase angles" method.

In fact, until that mission, I didn't even know maneuver nodes existed, because I wasn't involved with this awesome community at the time. So, in 0.18.4, I did a Mun landing/return and a Gemini style docking above Kerbin completely manually. Then one day I accidentally clicked on an orbit, and I was all "Add maneuver node? WTF is this now?" And then everything was easier...

I use MechJeb because I know I can do these things, but I want to save my sanity a bit. Sorry, I'm not going to hold my attitude prograde for a 10 minutes per pass while I do an extra-long burn with an ion engine. I'd just like to get on with what I'm trying to accomplish.

I feel like I'm back in grade school, and I'm doing math homework. I look up the answers to the even numbered problems in the back of the book, because there's already enough odd numbered problems, and I want to finish the homework early so I can go play some N64.

This metaphor has gotten away from me, it seems.

[Jokurr]

I only got into the game about a month ago and have been reluctant to try mechjeb as it did sorta look like cheating and I wanted to learn the basics on my own, which I did. One advanced maneuver that I learned how to do but find incredibly tedious, is docking. I’ve done it dozens of times now, but I find I seldom have the patience for it anymore and find myself cutting corners. Last night that resulted in me crashing a fuel ship into my space station, tearing apart 2 solar panel arrays in the process. It was after that I decided to give mechjeb a try.

[Pontiac]

I played KSP for about a week, trying to get something to space. I watched videos on how its done, my eyes rolled outta my head when I read technical details on how its done, etc, etc. Basically, not knowing, or more accurately, not understanding the fundamentals on how to get a rocket into space was a downer for me. Then I saw MechJeb, figured out how to install it, used the auto-pilot a couple times, watched its process, then the light bulb turned on. Since then I've launched two vehicles on my own, got 'em up there, and manually brought 'em back down. Without it, I PROBABLY would have classed this game as a waste of *my* money because *I* am not getting any enjoyment out of the game, but regardless of my status of the game pre-MechJeb, I'm extremely glad that others out there are having a blast with KSP, with or without the tools.

I have no reservations about kicking up MechJeb and letting it do the tedious things. I now know how to circularize, I now know how to hop to moons and planets, I know how to change my orbit orientation, so on and so on, all because of MechJeb.

I'm basically the opposite of most people in this thread who were reserved on installing the tool. Being a software developer, I tend to want to write programs that do the work for me (Writing one for managing packages exclusively for KSP even though there are some that already exist). In this case, the tool showed me what to do, right infront of my eyes, and I was able to replicate. I get more of a kick understanding how the process works now, rather than worry about the maths involved. Line up the lines, and let 'er rip.