colmo

I was staring like an idiot at the 'launch from below' pad wondering what possible use it was for. Then it all crystallised. Very good indeed! Are the resource hexcans texture switching to avoid inventory spam? Love the launchpads, they go well on ship decks, fyi.

Welcome back, @SpannerMonkey(smce) - the hawks are taking over here... The one downside of this method of making turrets is there's no way to operate it using guard mode, I think? It might fire if lined up on target but that's about it. Other turret weapons placed on it should work, though.

@BT Industries - are you taking on the Infinite Dice carrier too? I'm looking forward to @Eskandare's effort too - I think i asked about the Kerbinside carrier being made as parts a very long time ago! Due to the nonuniformity of your average hull, there are multiple approaches - Fengist's straightforward section lengths, Azimech's panels, Infinite Dice's semi-modular design, and I've posited the idea of bulkhead cross-sections which use fairing code to extrude the hull. There's surely others. We await the new thread eagerly.

Check out my discussion thread. I proposed this format as a 'King of the Hill' contest. It deserves a new thread, but you might want to think about constraints - no turrets, points limits etc. Note that BDA is getting lots of updates right now which impact AI behaviour, so designs may fluctuate wildly in their effectiveness. In a KOTH contest, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

Fengist was talking to someone about a handover but nothing came of it. I suggest you ask yourself. Infinite Dice was going to hand over his carrier mod to Fengist before the latter lost interest. You could ask both of them about that too. It's a mod I miss very much. It still works if you delete the main boat DLL, can cope with inverted nodes, increase the mass so it doesn't float like a lily pad, and replace the disabled engines and controls. Note there's currently a physics bug in 1.0.5 that destroys anything in the water (KJR physics easing sort of stops it), it's been fixed for 1.1. I've also been considering new approaches to hull sections. I'll PM you my thoughts.

Very nice! I concur ASET plus RPM is the way to go with IVA. Given the high likelihood these will be used with BD Armory, .cfgs or MM patches that incorporate the BDA AI, weapon manager and radome functions would be greatly appreciated!

Here's footage of the competition mode combined with a custom made arena just for the job. No editing or music, unlike the previous post

Here's an example of the competition mode.

Bahamuto has introduced a competition mode in BDA. Moving planes into starting positions no longer matters, they fly apart to a preset distance then turn and engage. He specifically was thinking of us and the BAD-T competition.

Congrats on the latest update! From the change log, it's a KK update I see. P.S. I have no idea what the last few posts about mountains has to do with KS?

This fits into the idea of having BDA able to interact with action groups. E.g. if guard mode is activated, do you want the AI to drop the extra mass to increase manoeuvrability? In the meantime, try Smart Parts - they can iirc drop tanks when they're empty.

I sketched out some ideas of how KKS would work on Kerbals a few pages back. It has excellent potential for things like contracts (I tipped off @inigma and he agreed).

I'm watching a YouTube video of someone tackling the AI module for the first time. It's giving me a few insights. One of my most fun achievements with BDA was creating a VTOL that the AI could launch vertically. ATM, stock parts are awful for the job, a typical plane needs 6 Juno engines and the extra mass and drag (despite being stowed in a Mk2 cargo bay) ruin performance, but it can be done. The trick is using action group bindings, most importantly Gear. In the aforementioned video, he was trying to make a swing-wing. Sadly, there hasn't been an integrated single swing-wing part since the days of Damned Aerospace. I suspect Infernal Robotics and the IR sequencer now create enough action group hooks that, given a certain state (E g. Gear activation, most useful for transitioning from take off to level flight) it could operate a swing wing. BDA has several AI pilot 'states' - Gain Alt, Evading, Extending etc. A potentially useful feature would be the ability to trip an action group when a given state becomes active.

One defence against the frighteningly good AMRAAM missiles is to set the minimum altitude of the the AI pilot low. The plane will dive on detecting the missile, and the missile will lead the plane straight into the ground. If Baha is feeling evil, he could set missiles to avoid ground collisions if the target is a significant distance away.

I've been using Kerbal Krash System with BDA. It does mean that targets are rather more resilient to taking hits, as BDA imparts thermal rather than physical damage. I'm hoping someone writes a modlet to make BDA impart KKS damage instead (the thermal method was Baha's way of sidestepping the lack of a damage mechanic). It also occasionally makes for funny sights like this bent missile.

I just spent the last hour or so test driving my new tank. I played a game of 'catch me if you can' with two jets equipped for ground attack. Observations: Hiding in amongst the KSC buildings made it very difficult to hit. The AI pilots had no problem blasting the R&D department in their frustration at me hiding under the bridge! This is true to life. Smoke launchers are very good, but very wasteful - I had 4 equipped, but they all fired, leaving me out of countermeasures in quick time. They sometimes fired several times (I think because of multiple missile locks) which increased the wastefulness. The defence against Hellfire missiles (and I presume Mavericks and bombs) is...move. Trundling around the KSC flats at 20ms was more than enough to flummox the AI pilots, who I presume treat all ground targets as stationary. TOW missiles were in action, but the planes invariably pull out of the dive and lose LOS, making them go wayward. They then float to the ground like snowflakes. There's something odd about the aerodynamics for Hellfires and TOWs when they've used up their propellant. Equipping the tank with machine guns for AA fire doesn't work for AI - it will happily ping away with the M1 Abrahms turret instead. I didn't test it with missiles, but given the long range of its gun, (it can shoot 8km, though I'm not sure if it can do so using a radar datalink, which would be nice), might not work either?

I'm now doing this for CKAN's cache using symlinks. I could do so with save folders too, though it would be tricky to keep track of what points to where.

Argh - my dedicated ground attack plane was coming in for the last bombing run to finish off the flak cannon, having done for the CIWS and SAM already. Releases bombs, rolls, wings hit bombs and buys the farm. I may need to redesign it so bombs are fuselage mounted, to lessen the chance of wing waggling causing an accident. I thought I'd increased bomb ejection force adequately - apparently not.

OK, I think my issue with laser guided weapons was due to me confusing the targetter for the jammer....(d'oh!); I'll check the cargo bay issue again. @BahamutoD, the AI is rather stupid about bomb drop safety - numerous times they've immediately rolled after release and blown their own wings off. I note on the VesselSwitcher, only loaded craft show up, so even if I put an AI pilot module on a ground unit, it won't start a competition if they're out of physics range. A feature rather than a bug, I get it.

I know it's completely superfluous, but I'd love a guard-mode triggered air raid siren Eagerly grabbing the update now...

Hmm, I must have done something wrong. I equipped a plane with Hellfires and a targeting pod, it would select the weapon and go on a strafing run, open cargo bay doors if needed (I also tried wing mounts), but didn't fire. 0.10.3 looks sweet, I'll give the TOW missiles a go as well now, and feedback on the BDVesselSwitcher.

It's only for vessel switching to get different camera angles. The idea is you'd use the UI as you did in the video to kick things off, then turn it off to record the action, using the toggle (Pg Up/Down seems perfect) to switch between vessels (you've realised the issue ordnance and debris causes) I've been puzzling over simultaneous or near simultaneous launches since last year, most recently using radar and lure probes. This puts an end to it, and the distance parameter means first to reach minimum altitude isn't so vital. The AI can't use any of the laser guided weapons at all. This is an issue for AI planes v CIWS too, as all they really have for that is bombs, which the Goalkeeper swats effortlessly. I hope rocket pods get some AI love, and then maybe Hellfires and Mavericks. For the moment, ground battles are best done using legacy targeting, or else use tank turrets and machine guns. P.S. I'm surprised no-one has made a mortar mod yet. A KIS powered portable one would be fun...

Thanks @BahamutoD, the dogfighters will love you for this. This completely circumvents the need for elaborate Kerbal Konstruct arenas which allow take-off at range - as you know physics errors can lead to unpleasantness in that scenario. If the vessels can be fixed to hotkeys or a custom toggle, that's nice for those wanting to turn off the UI. I postulated other kinds of matchup (the Joint Strike Fighter challenge) in my discussion thread (the one that kind of kicked things off). Would the vessel switcher also sic planes on a ground-based target? I see no reason why they wouldn't, unless the ground units lacked an otherwise redundant AI pilot module? Another scenario would be bomber interception, so one team gets airborne while the other stays on the ground until radar picks up the bombers again and guard mode scrambles them. This would test the limits of physics range and would mean keeping focus on or near the grounded units, I think.

Another few hours of AI sortees against ground units. HARM missiles now come into their own - don't leave home without a few. As the AI can't use laser guided weapons, options for taking out Goalkeepers and AA guns with the AI are extremely limited. Bombs are no trouble at all, they shoot them out of the sky with ease. Guns are always at a disadvantage against these weapons. I noticed several sortees ending in stalemate, with the SAM destroyed by a HARM, leaving the two impregnable guns, and the planes circling overhead at a reasonably safe altitude. I'm noticing planes that had washed out for air-to-air AI battle are proving much better for fighter-bomber duties. Supermanoeuvrability doesn't impress AA guns, speed does. You also need much more fuel. There's no substitute engine for Panthers, they are the best choice for that job.

Currently the AI has Idle and Combat modes - either way, they'll try to fly at default altitude and for Idle, quite slow speed. For long-range missions, a third mode would be nice - Cruise. This is for Fly to Position, where it will ascend to maximum efficient altitude and NOT engage the afterburner but at max Q. On planes capable of it, this will be supercruise - Mach1+ speeds without the thirsty afterburner, which as @Veskenapper says, quickly ends up with your birds in the drink. With this mode, plus my previously suggested Fly to GPS, missions halfway around the planet become possible. With a starting GPS coordinate, auto Return to Base is calculable (a conservative dV approximation, and preferably it doesn't kick in in the middle of a strafing run!) One behaviour I don't like is the way planes pull up when shot at from the ground, helpfully presenting their belly to the guns to make their job easier. I'd much prefer that they stay low and try to pass over the turrets instead. The AI is amazing already, I hope my suggestions make it even better. On planes with a high default altitude, when they engage in strafes, they attack at a steeper angle and I note don't give themselves a chance to pull up. I had two planes do this in the same run, one a wingman to the first, following it all the way to its own doom.