Alioth81

I assume part clipping of structural elements allowed similar to BAD-T? (e.g. wings clipping into other wings or fuselage) Another example would be to clip parts like a fuel tank or weapon into an empty structural part or the custom Cockpit. Can i use the BDAc version of SuicidalInsanity? Autostruts? (I generally try to go without them but just to be sure)

Oh no missed it again I hope I will get another chance! How do you prevent kerbals from fallling/getting forced out of self made cockpits if you fully enclose them? I always had problems. Will try to see if I can make it work in 1.5.1 and fight with myself @SuicidalInsanity What visual mods are you using for your videos? kerbal konstructs? destruction effects? Others?

I can more or less confirm this. When I designed a (non BAD-T III compliant) plane that could shoot down the Wasp I used BDc 1.0 and the Red Arrows would reliably take at least one Wasp down first pass. Once I downgraded to 0.3 the planes started showing constant "evasive" behaviour in the debug text and did barrell rolls until they were shot down instead of facing the danger :-)

A sorry it must have gotten too late yesterday... I started with 2 jet engines and somewhere along the way forgot that you have to double engine power... The plane should only have 475kg of armor that should be 10 points right? Maybe I missed an armor piece somewhere. Edit: Found the problem I did forget to count 2x30kg - you were right Anyway on my PC I have around 90% chance of destroying a Wasp during first pass so there must be some dependency with frame rate. I wonder why? I would expect that lower frame rate would increase the chance to miss. Edit2: I use BDarmory v1.0 and the first post mentions 3.0 but 1.0 seems the latest version The intention was to shoot one down and have one of the planes distract the remaining wasp long enough for the second plane to line up the shot. Seemed like a great idea yesterday in theory. On a side note - to reach 5.5t even with 475kg of armor I had to add quite a lot of "ballast" (increase wing strength) and if you consider that the plane has to be 3t heavier than a light fighter for only 10 points more of weapons/armor it seems like a lot. No excuse for exceeding the poin limit though I guess I still have to make the original twin "Jaeger" jet fighter work

Good to know - I thought I was getting paranoid I think superior designs will win no matter what as I only really observed it when I fought against iterations of my plane during design. I think it is most crucial for the first head on "pass" as at this stage all planes have very long fire opportunities on each other at the same time (and if one has a higher hit chance it could matter)

I think I have a heavy fighter that can more or less reliable shoot down the Wasp Mk 3.3 (at least on my PC with very limited frame rate) The "Red Arrow" https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-8B30-Red-Arrow It has to have a good first pass with its 3x30mm guns and relies on its armor but it is also quite fast and agile for a heavy fighter. If someone else can confirm that it is indeed compliant and able to shoot down the Wasp I would be happy. As a side note I somehow got the weird feeling that which ever plane you observe has a higher chance of being hit. So it is a bit like quantum mechanics your choice of observation influences the battle result. I do not have any data to back this claim but when I let similar designs fly against each other I got that impression

Actually this "fix" (at least the one in the regain energy funtion) is not seperate it improves the fast low TWR plane behaviour without affecting slow high TWR planes. The original implementation had all planes dive below minimum altitude if they did not reach minimum combat speed after the steep climb. As soon as they dive below minimum altitude they would go into a steep climb (so they actually do not regain energy at all). This cannot be intended behaviour and must be a "bug" I simply decreased the dive angle close to min height (in fact it has a very slow rise close to minheight to partially compensate for height loss when banking hard close to min height). High TWR planes with low combat speed are not affected at all because the rarely experience such a situation. But you are right it is just a drop in the ocean and not a magical solution. To whom should this be adressed? Should I put this in the BD armory thread? I guess with KSP stock engines such problems probably never occur.

Nice work Can you quickly explain how they are balanced? Some seem to have the same weight as the Jaeger but seem much more powerful It motivated me to build a jet fighter according to BAD-T III rules with the original "Jaeger" https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-7B It can barely take of the Oasis runway where there is no Hangar at the end. (maybe the take off speed could be a bit lowered). However the AI is severly hindered by the regain energy function that lets the plane as soon as it is above min height... and then it has to climb up again. Also the take off angle is too steep for my taste. I made seom very little changes to BD armory AI and they in my opinion greatly increased the performance of crafts with a higher combat speed setting and especially low power jets that are below their combat speed when the go above min height. 1. Reduced the climb angle from 0.3*surface speed every 100 m to 0.15* surface speed every 100 m. (e.g. at 100m/s the change is from around 17° to 8°) Helps to climb at a more efficient angle and therefore increases the speed (which help fighters with higher min combat speed). 2. Changed the regain energy function so that there is a buffer of 150m above min height where it actually does not dive (which was useless anyway) and above that the dive is a bit more gradual until it gets to the same level as it is in the current version. Also here fighters with high "min combat speed" do not make a useless dive when the go above min height (they might still do a hard turn however). void RegainEnergy(FlightCtrlState s, Vector3 direction) { debugString.Append($"Regaining energy"); debugString.Append(Environment.NewLine); steerMode = SteerModes.Aiming; Vector3 planarDirection = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(direction, upDirection); float angle = (Mathf.Clamp(MissileGuidance.GetRadarAltitude(vessel) - minAltitude-150, 0, 1500) / 1500) * 55; angle = Mathf.Clamp(angle, -3, 55) * Mathf.Deg2Rad; Vector3 targetDirection = Vector3.RotateTowards(planarDirection, -upDirection, angle, 0); targetDirection = Vector3.RotateTowards(vessel.Velocity(), targetDirection, 10f * Mathf.Deg2Rad, 0).normalized; AdjustThrottle(maxSpeed, false); FlyToPosition(s, vesselTransform.position + (targetDirection*100)); } As I am not a programmer I am sure there are better ways to do it

Yes i will try to do that - I have to get to know the forum a bit better. Thanks it is good to know that you have to design around that I am sure that is true it was more a subjective feeling that explosive ammo does not always "work" whereas the AP ammo types seem a bit more reliable (this could be realistic). For sure I put 30mm on my plane to have a good chance to destroy whatever is hit :-) What would you think about some restriction about how many large caliber cannons you can mount/clip into the engine (which was for sure a real restriction)? A limit of 30 mm per engine in total would be a limitation for cannons but you still can mount 2x 12mm or 4x7mm? At first I had my 30mm shooting through the propeller but it just did not feel right. This way if you want multiple large guns you would be limited to wing positions outside the propeller diameter where they are a bit less effective. (or have an inverted propeller design where you need an appropriate nose cone. Ok that is good to know too. I guess the g limit is than enforce by structural/weight limitations :-) Thanks - I will check about the reaction wheels

After some trial and error I think I have now a craft that complies to the rules. As I am not sure how placement of armor is interpreted would you consider that ok? The armor parts just do not fit ideally. https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-6-B-Thunderstrike Despite the armor it gets often shot down during the first pass - any tips on that? It would be nice to have a FAR slider like for wings for other parts it seems to have the same effect as armor but is a bit heavier. I tested several guns by shooting at fighter size wings from a range of around 500m. To me it seemed the 20mm Hispano and the 23mm was a bit too good, everything below had problems with bigger wings, armor etc. and the guns above are not ideal from munition, bullet speed ,heating or rate of fire. The German 20mm did not perform at the same level as the hispano in my opinion. How was it balanced? Is there some more detailed explanation about the pros and cons of each weapon? Especially the 7mm guns seem not that useful (if you can only mount 6). Do you also open fire at max range? I had best results with that strategy despite not hitting until about 1000m but it seems to "scare" the other plane. In addition I also had a look at a craft with a constructed cockpit and it seemed a bit unfair compared to the regular inline cockpit. The weight savings are too extreme. I am fine if people want to construct their own cockpit but I think a 500kg closed WW2 cockpit should be added to the prop pack (remove all stuff like monoprop, reaction wheels etc.) and it would seem fairer to me. Also super high G turns with unconcious pilots seem a bit weird. Maybe the AI could take the state of the pilot into account and loosen controls until he is back from black out.

Just want to say that I picked up Aviator Arsenal a few days ago and as I was late for an entry in round III I played BAD-T for myself From my first old planes (where I just added weapons) that got shot down by the target dummy or nosedived (I blame that partly on the AI).... ...to designs that actually win easy was a lot of fun. And they are also better to fly by myself - So I learned a lot! If there ever is a BAD-T IV I will join. I sepecifically created my account to tell you (and all modders that made this possible) how much I like the idea. I never thought that I would enjoy watching the AI test my designs Finally I make use of the SPH. Is there a repository of past plane designs? I wished that the AI would use the first flap setting for take off (like it does with the landing gear) and than retract it. A few of the beautiful arenas are just difficult to use for some designs. Afterwards there is always the first head on pass that is a bit "spray and pray". I think the only jet engine is underpowered or overweight compared to a 30KN prop engine but I will try it anyway (it could perform a bit better even if it is only for balance reasons). To be honest I think I BAD-T with guided rockets would not be that fun for me. WW2 with guns and maybe other unguided ordonance is much better. I also do not like the concept of invisible armor with no aero effect. Maybe 3vs3, Mixed teams (where you submit different planes) or high altitude combat could be fun too.