Feelings about being able to fly without MechJeb

[BrainiacBlue]

I went through a phase of using mechjeb a lot and I looked with childish glee as it landed exactly where I wanted it to and took care of pain in the arse 17 minute ion burns for me but eventually I decided not to update Mechjeb with .23.5 because I wanted the challenge back. Mechjeb is one of those mods that is helpful to those who are mostly sure of what they are doing, but not fully. My rendevous attempts were aways inefficient (which is why I originally got Mechjeb) so I used mechjeb to learn how to do it properly. Now that I am proficient in all forms of Kerbal based technologies I can do better than mechjeb with landings (It never did understand the concept of slopes) and it could never handle aircraft in FAR. So I reverted to manual control and I am pleased that I did, I like the challenge of getting a blatantly unstable ship into space by wrestling the atmosphere with my RCS, mechjeb always overdid the compensation a bit.

[TimePeriod]

Forsooth, is this a knave I see before me? A scoundrel seeking to diminish the fun of others? To dictate how fun should be had?

Suffer not the Mechjeb hating individual, for he hath no regard for you, give him not your ear or your mind.

My brain seems unable to comprehend why anyone would not want to fly their own aircraft.

Why even bother to start the lengthy process of designing the aircraft to begin with, if you do not even intend to fly it...!?

If you don't even know how an aircraft operates, how it functions while in space, under various conditions, influence and piloting skill how will you ever learn if you are good at designing aircraft to begin with?!

Arrrrgh >_>

Knowing why the leaf fell from the tree is ½ the understanding of why the tree even bothered to get leafs in the first place!

[Torham234]

Forsooth, is this a knave I see before me? A scoundrel seeking to diminish the fun of others? To dictate how fun should be had?

Suffer not the Mechjeb hating individual, for he hath no regard for you, give him not your ear or your mind.

http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1399/10/1399103277633.jpg

As I saw that picture, I instantly heard

in my mind.

[sal_vager]

Dude, it's a game, you're supposed to have fun, how you have fun is up to each of us individually

[Laie]

Why even bother to start the lengthy process of designing the aircraft

Indeed, why bother? I think it's entirely possible to "win" KSP without ever designing an aircraft. Actually, if you completely ignore them and just stick to old boring rockets, this won't impede your space program one bit. You seem to enjoy them a lot, but that doesn't mean that everyone does... or has to.

[EdFred]

My brain seems unable to comprehend why anyone would not want to fly their own aircraft.

Why even bother to start the lengthy process of designing the aircraft to begin with, if you do not even intend to fly it...!?

If you don't even know how an aircraft operates, how it functions while in space, under various conditions, influence and piloting skill how will you ever learn if you are good at designing aircraft to begin with?!

Arrrrgh >_>

Knowing why the leaf fell from the tree is ½ the understanding of why the tree even bothered to get leafs in the first place!

When I want to fly my own aircraft, I get in my car or truck, drive to the airport, open my hangar, preflight my airplane, pull it out of the hangar, taxi it to the runway, and fly it. Why would anyone want to fly a plane in a game, when you can fly one in real life?

[GreatWyrmGold]

My opinion on the matter seems to be similar to that of others: MechJeb is best used for when you've learned how to fly manually and don't want to. It's also useful for things you can do but aren't as good as the computer at, like maintaining attitude. That being said, people who fly entirely with MechJeb aren't doing it "wrong," though they are missing out and will be SOL if they encounter a bug or something MechJeb doesn't do well.

[TimePeriod]

My opinion on the matter seems to be similar to that of others: MechJeb is best used for when you've learned how to fly manually and don't want to. It's also useful for things you can do but aren't as good as the computer at, like maintaining attitude. That being said, people who fly entirely with MechJeb aren't doing it "wrong," though they are missing out and will be SOL if they encounter a bug or something MechJeb doesn't do well.

So much epic win, this is everything I wanted to say but could not find words for.

[Synighte]

Is it just me or is mechjeb's autopilot function for rendezvous incredibly inefficient (or am I just mech-jebbing wrong)?

I personally have found mechjeb to be lackluster. I then tried mechjeb because I had multiple SSTO's to recapture old and very expensive inter-planetary probes and was tired of the longer than normal take offs and landings of large SSTO's.

[cantab]

I've yet to use Mechjeb myself, but orbital rendezvous in general lets you trade between time and fuel.

[Laie]

Is it just me or is mechjeb's autopilot function for rendezvous incredibly inefficient (or am I just mech-jebbing wrong)?

I'm a bit underwhelmed by the rendezvous planner. But what works well for me is the standard maneuver planner: match planes, hohman transfer, fine-tune approach (optional), match velocities.

If your orbits are somewhat at odds, it is your responsibility to bring about a situation where a cheap hohman transfer is possible. Often, it's enough to wait another turn or five. Mechjeb seems to put "soon" before "efficient" -- which isn't necessarily bad, by the way.

That said, just watching the "get closer" function from the rendezvous planner taught me a lesson that however many words couldn't bring across.

[r4pt0r]

guys, guys, guys....chill.

I think we all know that using any mods other than chatterer and EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements is flagrant cheating. We don't need 14 pages of debate on that.

edit1: plz dont report me. even though this is my genuine feeling, this is meant in jest.

edit2: yeah 4 rep bars!

Edited August 31, 2014 by r4pt0r

[Canopus]

My brain seems unable to comprehend why anyone would not want to fly their own aircraft.

Why even bother to start the lengthy process of designing the aircraft to begin with, if you do not even intend to fly it...!?

If you don't even know how an aircraft operates, how it functions while in space, under various conditions, influence and piloting skill how will you ever learn if you are good at designing aircraft to begin with?!

Arrrrgh >_>

Knowing why the leaf fell from the tree is ½ the understanding of why the tree even bothered to get leafs in the first place!

You seem to forget that you can turn Mechjeb on and off anytime you want. So if i want to fly my planes manually i do that and then if i want a perfect runway landing i switch on the ILS and follow the path that it gives me. Mechjeb is not all about the autopilot features either and since you talk about designing aircrafts, you have to do that even better if you want Mechjeb to be able to fly it.

[Linear]

guys, guys, guys....chill.

I think we all know that using any mods other than chatterer and EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements is flagrant cheating. We don't need 14 pages of debate on that.

edit1: plz dont report me. even though this is my genuine feeling, this is meant in jest.

edit2: yeah 4 rep bars!

I'm disgusted you give yourself clouds.

[Wanderfound]

I'm disgusted you give yourself clouds.

Real Kerbonauts just scratch up their corneas instead.

[Linear]

Real Kerbonauts just scratch up their corneas instead.

And chatterer? I hear Kerbals are offered schizophrenia-inducing drugs.

[MarvinKitFox]

I use MJ where it does a better job that I can.

i.e...

* Boring routine stuff that would make me fall asleep.

* Smart a.s.s. It is bloory hard finding a marker on the navball, when said marker is on the *rear* of the ball! If I want prograde, I dont first want to explore half a hemisphere of navball to find it, I want the quickest way there!

* Delta-v on-the-fly. I can calc my own delta-v, thank you. But not while wrestling my rover-toting unbalanced landed down to a landing on a 37-degree slope!

* Showing current Ship Mass AND Thrust level AND Altitude, AND ground speed, AND vertical speed, AND apogee, in one place where you can see it. Why the (expletive deleted) is the standard rate-of-climb indicator a miniscule little needle, on a logarithmic scale, that pegs out at 1/10th of the normal figure?????(good grief, the Red Baron had a better rate-of-climb display than this in his WW1 Fokker Triplane!)

.

.

.

That's about it.

I can do a better job at landing, ascent, terminal-velocity-matching, etc.

I can do a better job at setting up interplanetary transfers, although MJ's prediction is a handy shortcut for a first approximation.

I can do a LOT better at docking! MJ's docking module is an idjit!

[Umlüx]

i could play without MJ and do my stuff without problems...

...but why would i want to do that?

its the tedious, repetitive things that MJ is really good at. holding a lock with SmartASS, or finishing that 5min interplanetary burn. i want to play the game, and not hypnotize the navball for several minutes

[Tripzter]

I play this game to enjoy it. Sure it gets boring getting my rocket in orbit or whatever the case is but at the end of the day i'm playing this game for fun. It's a lot more fun when i do it my self than have an autopilot do it. That said i used mechjeb for about 2-3 days when i was learning how to dock in orbit but after that i removed it and havent wasted any time on it since.

[poser765]

When I want to fly my own aircraft, I get in my car or truck, drive to the airport, open my hangar, preflight my airplane, pull it out of the hangar, taxi it to the runway, and fly it. Why would anyone want to fly a plane in a game, when you can fly one in real life?

because the game is exponentially cheaper than 100LL!

[Starwaster]

My opinion on the matter seems to be similar to that of others: MechJeb is best used for when you've learned how to fly manually and don't want to. It's also useful for things you can do but aren't as good as the computer at, like maintaining attitude. That being said, people who fly entirely with MechJeb aren't doing it "wrong," though they are missing out and will be SOL if they encounter a bug or something MechJeb doesn't do well.

Totally 100% wrong. You speak as though MechJeb is some infallible thing that you can just flip a switch on, lean back and have a drink while it flies your entire mission for you.

Just like a real autopilot, it requires baby sitting and a flesh and blood hand to take the controls sometimes.

I once took an interest in MechJeb because of its autodocking ability and because I couldn't dock well nor did I know how to design a craft for balanced RCS.

I am now a better pilot because I used MechJeb. I've found that MJ is not perfect but it taught me the right way to do things and if I feel like it I can now take over and dock at least as well if not better.

[Lucid Hills]

I used to use Mechjeb a lot when I got lazy, but for some reason I stopped using it.

I personally find I waste too much time trying to be a perfectionist when I use MJ rather than just getting on with it. I tend to get things done faster when I go manual.

That all said I got into KSP using MJ so I guess it's the reason for my current skill and interest in KSP. It helps people get started.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Lucid Hills