TorchedForever

Wow, now that's dedication to a replica! The stabilizer design is truly impressive. Even that alone makes this an excellent craft.

Great idea for a challenge! I need to go dust off some jet designs, look into the mods, and get cracking. So much to learn about the parts and different dynamics of Laythe. It will be interesting to see what you all come up with! I've got some random thoughts about the challenge in the spoiler below, but it's pretty much a wall-of-text. TL:DR sometimes greater restrictions on weapon count and which parts you can use contributes to a healthier challenge

Great replica! It looks good and seems highly functional.

I've been trying my hand at this challenge. My current best is 4 out of 6 but I'm having trouble taking out the highest mountain launcher. Its position makes it very difficult to get the jump on.

I expect designs similar to the VulcaRaptor will still be dominate. High wing area for maneuverability and reaction wheels for gun accuracy. Additionally, the biplane design maximizes wing area for a given target profile. Another approach might be to focus on the bullet joust at the start of the match. A narrow plane with GAUs could takeout the competition before the battle really starts. Although some quick tests have shown that the joust is much shorter than expected and even twin GAUs can't put out enough firepower. If anyone has test results that contradict this feel free to share. EDIT - Way back in ASC they found vulcans to be more effective than GAUs. I'll have to revisit the tests with this in mind. And as for the posting of testing results, I'm all for it. Sure it means you're giving up an advantage, but it makes the challenge more competitive (Fewer poorly designed planes) and keeps the thread alive.

Sounds interesting! I'll begin working on a submission right away.

I did some more testing with the newest entries and the revised AVRO Kraken. @GDJ wow... Those new Krakens are frightening, my planes are torn to shreds instead of enveloped in a green cloud of 20mm rounds. Anyway, here is the updated version of the Vivamente. Turns out you can't use the same settings as a slower plane .

After a decent amount of testing (not extensive as normal, this craft being more of a revision than creation) I present my entry for ASC-IV The K13-A Vivamente It's a redesign of the good ol' Volante with a stronger engine, more guns, and some minor tweaks. @GDJ your Krakens are certainly formidable. With some tweaks it'll be a nightmare to fight. I'd recommend switching to the BDA 50 cals by the way. The ShKAS is just ineffective. The already low accuracy of the weapon is amplified by a high Steer Factor. Not to mention the few stray shots that hit rarely cause enough damage to remove parts.

Uhh.. Wildcat your plane has 8 guns. Is this going to be another rule change?

Are we keeping the 50 part limit or is it gone?

Does this mean the competition will actually start on February 15th or that the contest will take submissions until then?

Those last three matches were great to watch. @Draconiator's planes put up a strong fight, they were great at exploiting the Volante's fragility. Also, the music for the third round was perfect. @AlexTheHu, I think your planes could have taken down the Volante with a bit less roll. They were pretty capable at tearing the Volantes apart once they got their sights on 'em. @qzgy those planes could take quite a beating! They could deal with surface loss extremely well. Now I need to learn how missiles work for ASC-4.

I'm not sure if mod requests are fitting for this challenge. It has always been fairly minimum (more accessible that way) using only BDA at times. KAX was necessary for a WWI-themed challenge to exist and Aviator Arsenal was only added due to weapon restrictions. Also, I've been working on two planes for beating the Volante, a more extreme Volante (requires a lot of AI work) and a small, stable sniper (just recently started). So far, it looks like out maneuvering the Volante while still maintaining speed and accuracy will be difficult. One strange idea might be building a slower plane and using that to get behind the Volante's tail. I haven't gotten to test the sniper yet, so I cannot comment on how well that idea will work.

In the battle against epicman81 I noticed that the lighter mk25s lasted longer than the armored mk24s. It seems like losing speed or maneuverability for 'armor' doesn't pay off. Damage avoidance or managing part loss seems to be more useful than damage tolerance. I did some testing with a Volante versus an armored version. While the Volante isn't the best plane to armor (large wings and all), there is a lot of plane to cover and the weight and part count jumped rapidly. A fully armored plane would certainly pose a challenge, but it would be hard to pull off. On the other hand, the "Sweep" was giving me some trouble in testing because it could handle wing loss really well. The Kerbwith Alpaca has similar design and might down the Volante. Reopening ASC-III might be a cool way to explore the design concepts behind ASC and develop understanding of the sniper-dogfighter dynamic. I would advocate for creative solutions as opposed to the method used to take down the VulcaRaptor, ie. remaking it with a few tweaks for improved performance (redoing the rooting tree, moving all yaw control to wing-attached surfaces, etc.).

Well, thanks guys! I didn't expect the Volante to survive this long. GDJ, your Super Bees had me worried, that second round showed how vulnerable the Volante is to the bullet joust.