There's the hardway, and then there's real life - let the computer do it.
But real life spaceflight isn't as fun as you'd hope. You have to endure punishing g-forces, you have to pee into a sucky hose, you can't bathe properly, you have to exercise constantly, and you can't even leave Low Earth Orbit. Other than the floating and the magnificent view, real-world spaceflight isn't all that appealing.
I don't have a problem with people using mods if that's what they find fun, but I find manual flight much more rewarding. I sometimes feel like an auto-pilot would be nice for experimental things, like when I was testing my station's lifeboat module to see if it would survive re-entry, but if I'm heading out to another planet, I
want to be the one that pilots the ship, and I
want to be the one that lands it. If I screw up, that's on me, but then I get to plan a rescue mission.