After 1000+ hours of game time, I finally tried MechJeb.

[Voculus]

Good Lord, the power! The power! Coupled with the jaw-dropping ALCOR Pod it's pretty frakkin' incredible. Keeping a deep space telescope fixed on a target, and being able to see Jool and it's moons from Kerbin orbit, or having a plane maintain altitude without having to babysit it is awesome. After a thousand hours of taking off, landing, rendezvous-ing, docking, and crashing all by myself, I think I've earned a break!

[SkyRender]

Power is such a dangerous thing... He who uses MechJeb should look to it that he does not become reliant upon it. And when you gaze long into an auto-pilot mod, the auto-pilot mod also gazes into you.

In short, use MechJeb responsibly. Just my advice; do with it as you will.

[Tortoise]

I agree with skyrender, dont rely on it.

[Soda Popinski]

Even Kerbal Engineer got me lazy. Before I use to calculate my delta-V's by hand (or by Excel for complicated things). Now I just look at the little window. I better stay away from MechJeb. Only going for pure organic Jeb.

[RidingTheFlow]

Mechjeb gave me back many hours of my life, so it felt a lot less like "spacecraft driver work", and I could concentrate on craft & mission engineering without having to manually circularize every time.

But I avoid designs that _require_ Mechjeb to be useful.

[lammatt]

i am seeing this is going to become a Mechjeb-is-a-cheat thread

which a typical new forum-er likes to post.

and.

this is in the wrong subforum i believe...

[RidingTheFlow]

i am seeing this is going to become a Mechjeb-is-a-cheat thread

Like 50% of threads eventually do

[magnemoe]

Mechjeb gave me back many hours of my life, so it felt a lot less like "spacecraft driver work", and I could concentrate on craft & mission engineering without having to manually circularize every time.

But I avoid designs that _require_ Mechjeb to be useful.

What designs does that? Yes I had an Laythe lander once who required mechjeb to land as it would flip over with engine up if you did not keep it exactly in speed direction in the atmosphere.

Center of drag was lower than center of mass and it just had an small probe core for reaction wheels and trying to land manualy would give you some degree tilt and it would flip.

[ibeinsane]

I agree with you Riding

I can fly without Mechjeb, indeed almost enjoy the pilot experience on occasion, but when I need to concentrate on a mission, timing and getting other stuff done when I am launching the 8th section of a station I refer to Mechjeb to ease the load.

I still manually do some critical manoeuvres and alignment procedures for docking as I don't trust Mechjeb and I can sometimes do them much quicker but until Jeb can perform some of the repetitive tasks for you.

It's the same with the whole of KSP and mod's. You use what you need to use depending on your playing style. Pilot, mission control, designer or all 3. The game and mods allow you the flexibility for each.

[RidingTheFlow]

What designs does that?

Anything which requires balancing that SAS is not enough for (e.g. very unstable re-entry vehicles or planes), or something that needs very precise/smooth gravity ascents which only autopilot can achieve.

[magnemoe]

Mechjeb docing is a great help with large or unbalanced ships, however if you want to dock an small lander to an large station it demand to start far away.

Mechjeb is very good at two things first, accurate landings in atmosphere also aerobrake, this is very hard to do manual.

Second is finding intercepts, including planetary transfers.

However you has to think too like matching orbits depends on how much fuel you will spend and how much time you will use, mechjeb might put Pe down at 50 km

[magnemoe]

Anything which requires balancing that SAS is not enough for (e.g. very unstable re-entry vehicles or planes), or something that needs very precise/smooth gravity ascents which only autopilot can achieve.

Ok like the lander I described.

Has done some missions where I had let mechjeb control the craft while I pumped fuel around or adjusted trust.

Many astroid redirect burns fall into this, here I also use engines who burn sideways.

[Red Iron Crown]

If MechJeb enhances your enjoyment of the game, use it and don't mind the haters.

If you like mission planning and construction but don't enjoy piloting, by all means have MechJeb do all your flying for you. Who cares if you become "reliant" on it? Nobody, that's who.

Personally, I use it to automate repetitive or dull things (and for all that tasty information). I don't derive a lot of fun from launching my trusty tanker for the 50th time. Nor to I derive a lot of fun from keeping the ship pointed correctly for an hour-long ion burn. MechJeb is ideal for those situations.

I don't use it much for landing, docking, or plotting transfers, but that's more because I enjoy doing those things manually.

[Javster]

Remember to have a break every hour when using MechJeb to rest your eyes (oh wait isn't that for KSP too )

[velve]

Wait mechjeb can keep a ship orientated at a target?

I might only need that feature for RT2. hmmm

[Red Iron Crown]

Wait mechjeb can keep a ship orientated at a target?

I might only need that feature for RT2. hmmm

SmartA.S.S. is like SAS on steroids, much smarter than stock. Only works when the ship is focused and not time warping, but that's a KSP limitation rather than a MJ one.

[xcorps]

It can keep two ships oriented at target. Switch to the ship you are docking to, control from here on the docking port, target + on the smart ASS panel. Switch back, target +. close to 150m and target the port. The close to about 50m and turn it off on the active ship, it causes bad yaw/pitch if your docking approach isn't perfect.

however if you want to dock an small lander to an large station it demand to start far away.

I've only used the docking module one time. All the dockings I do are with the maneuver planner. That gets you to 200m with zero relative v, docking from there takes less than 5 minutes.

Edited July 2, 2014 by xcorps

[Victus]

It's ironic that when I first started playing I tried to use Mechjeb but couldn't get it to work so I uninstalled it. Best thing I have done in KSP!.

[xcorps]

If you never used it how do you know?

[KerbMav]

Oh come on ... not this again ...

[Frank_G]

I still use VOID for the information i want. And i like piloting my constructions manually. MechJeb is tempting and i installed it for a few weeks. But in general i stick to mods, that add no additional parts... So MechJeb lost the race. Hopefully KSP will have some more information options at some point in the future, so i can rely on KSP alone.

[xcorps]

It's been almost a week. It's overdue. Like my payment to the chiropractor.

[velve]

It can keep two ships oriented at target. Switch to the ship you are docking to, control from here on the docking port, target + on the smart ASS panel. Switch back, target +. close to 150m and target the port. The close to about 50m and turn it off on the active ship, it causes bad yaw/pitch if your docking approach isn't perfect.

I've only used the docking module one time. All the dockings I do are with the maneuver planner. That gets you to 200m with zero relative v, docking from there takes less than 5 minutes.

I don't want to use this for docking. My primary concern is using Remotetech2. Having a ship quite a distance away, but still allowing the other ship to keep its orientation focused on said ship a million km's away? Mainly due to the directional antenna that has to be pointing at the target ships antenna.

[Victus]

If you never used it how do you know?

I like to have a feeling of accomplishment, could you imagine if the first time you got to the Mun and it was done by a 'robot'. I'd feel like I wasted my £15.

[Kobymaru]

But I avoid designs that _require_ Mechjeb to be useful.

Personally, I use it to automate repetitive or dull things (and for all that tasty information). I don't derive a lot of fun from launching my trusty tanker for the 50th time. Nor to I derive a lot of fun from keeping the ship pointed correctly for an hour-long ion burn. MechJeb is ideal for those situations.

I basically follow this guideline, and especially want to highlight the rover autopilot since driving a rover for hours is incredibly tedious.

I have one exception though: i use the landing indicator for prediction of aerobraking maneuvers and predicting the landing point, because I don't really see a way to do that without Mechjeb. I really, really don't want to F5-F9 for things like aerobraking because it feels more like cheating than any mechjeb use.

Also, I have yet to figure out how to put down a craft through an atmosphere onto a location picked by me, so I really do require mechjeb there.