Discussion thread - BD Armory AI tournaments

[colmo]

I'm enjoying some of these videos on my PS3 and old plasma TV right now. I loled at two planes banking into each other at take off - a bit of a stagger in placement at launch is advised!

I'm loving the ongoing oneupmanship - here's an idea:

Top Gun AI: King of the Hill.

Start a thread, post a craft file and a challenge to beat all-comers in 2v2 in best of 5 rounds, videoed in sequence by the challenger so there's no cheaty editing! Win or lose, they post the video and quote the challenge of the King of the Hill if they lost, or a new one as the new King, not forgetting the craft file of the plane used in the video.

Weapons rules are up to the OP - once decided, they can't change in that thread. Same goes for any other rules of engagement.

Edited July 25, 2015 by colmo

[PixelStory]

@Colmo! I have an idea :3

Since this post is getting VERY popular and more and more videos are being posted, someone should make a YouTube channel for it.

People could submit their video of them fighting a craft. I think this would be easier since all the videos are made by different people

and it's hard to find the video you want sometimes. People could still post these videos on their youtube channel but Most of them could

be on the main channel. The main channel could be very useful because as this thread is getting more and more popular, it will be much

harder in the future to find videos here. Thats my idea. If you have any opinions/thoughts, reply

[PixelStory]

Hello I am back with another craft to fight!

THE X-VIPER ELITE

This craft is much better at taking of and maneuvering in air than the original,

The X-Viper.

The X-Viper Elite has no OP cannon machine guns gut instead 2 vulcan turrets and

1 50mm gun on the belly of the beast.

Does anyone dare face THIS craft?

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Download: http://kerbalx.com/PixelStory/The-X-Viper-Elite

[tetryds]

Well, I will keep an eye on this, it seems very cool.

By the way, how do you plan to match fights, everybody x everybody?

Also, 3 best out of 5 seems a bit more reliable, at least a bit less random.

Everybody should tweak their own AI and weapons managers, but there should be limits for things like range and angle.

About mods, I would love to have it on FAR, but stock is not bad and on FAR the AI can suicide if you tweak it to be too close to it's limits, something an human pilot would handle much better.

[colmo]

@Colmo! I have an idea :3

Since this post is getting VERY popular and more and more videos are being posted, someone should make a YouTube channel for it.

People could submit their video of them fighting a craft. I think this would be easier since all the videos are made by different people

and it's hard to find the video you want sometimes. People could still post these videos on their youtube channel but Most of them could

be on the main channel. The main channel could be very useful because as this thread is getting more and more popular, it will be much

harder in the future to find videos here. Thats my idea. If you have any opinions/thoughts, reply

Done

To automatically add your video to the playlist, put #TopGunAI in the title, description or tags.

[PixelStory]

Done

To automatically add your video to the playlist, put #TopGunAI in the title, description or tags.

Awesome!

[colmo]

I dont think it's been decided. I always leave the altitudes set to whatever the builder had them. There are advantages and disadvantages to setting high or low preferred altitudes. High altitudes have the advantage of being able to dive on their opponent, and low altitudes can get into position faster. I think it should be left up to the builder.

Anyways, I arranged a bout between your Helion III-B and the F-4 Destroyer Mk3. It went similar to the fight with the Vulture. The Helion ate missiles early, but was a beast once it got up to altitude and started dive bombing.

http://youtu.be/1bGVpS5nZqo

F-4 Destroyer Mk3 available here: http://pastebin.com/XEDbqyXj

This is what I wanted - a fantastic showdown at the end, one plane left on each team and fuel was starting to run low in a prolonged fight which tested both planes and produced a decisive result.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, I will keep an eye on this, it seems very cool.

By the way, how do you plan to match fights, everybody x everybody?

Also, 3 best out of 5 seems a bit more reliable, at least a bit less random.

Everybody should tweak their own AI and weapons managers, but there should be limits for things like range and angle.

About mods, I would love to have it on FAR, but stock is not bad and on FAR the AI can suicide if you tweak it to be too close to it's limits, something an human pilot would handle much better.

The original format plan is a knockout tournament, so 16 or 32 designs in a cup format, conducted by multiple streamers over a few days or weeks. I've also now proposed a King of the Hill format, where you start a thread, post a craft file and let challengers take it on, making videos of the contests.

Best of 5/ first to 3 seems reasonable, and in one-sided contests they'll be over in under 15 minutes (I find they tend to take 5 minutes a round), running to about 20-25 for longer. That's about right for a YouTube video.

Angle has to be 360 otherwise they fly off and never see each other, starting back-to-back as we do by convention. Range will always by 5km, setting it shorter makes no sense. AI settings are up to the user, but altitude of 5km max seems likely. Scan interval creates the most profound difference in flight styles, with uses for both short and longer cycles.

[ZLM-Master]

I've also now proposed a King of the Hill format, where you start a thread, post a craft file and let challengers take it on, making videos of the contests.

So if we'are 32 players , we must make 32 spam new thread for the same challenge !?!

I wait a forum moderator before doing that !

Ah , & can you edit the first post with the Final rules ( or close to Final ) Rules are here & there into the whole thread !

Edited July 25, 2015 by ZLM-Master

[DuoDex]

I think a megathread with a regularly updated OP would be a much better way of doing things.

[colmo]

OK, thanks for the tips. I'm heading off for a few days (back Wednesday) so by all means keep testing and offering ideas for refinements. Have fun with the YouTube playlist. The King of the Hill idea is a useful testbed for the tournament, allowing some fun in an unstructured, ongoing basis. Depending on who starts it, it doesn't need to use the same rules either, and people can mod to their heart's content as the next person will know exactly what mods are required - I ache to spring my ultimate weapon on you...my Death Zeppelin!

Edited July 25, 2015 by colmo

[PixelStory]

I think a megathread with a regularly updated OP would be a much better way of doing things.

Whats a "Mega Thread"?

Edited July 25, 2015 by PixelStory
Asked the same thing 2 times o_o

[nicky4096]

a giant thread full of posts?

[keptin]

Depending on who starts it, it doesn't need to use the same rules either, and people can mod to their heart's content as the next person will know exactly what mods are required

Personally, I'm in the BD Armory and maybe FAR only crowd. Some mods are so terribly broken balance wise that it becomes a hack fest--who can use the most broken parts.

I dig the X-style take off. The one thing I might change for official trials is setting the aircraft up further away from each other, maybe teams start 1km away from the runway on each side.

One last thing. 30mm cannons should be more points than the 20mm. They hit way harder, and although are heavier, they're really a ground assault weapon. Imho, they're a little cheaty, but with a higher point value might be balanced.

[t3hJimmer]

Start conditions have a huge impact on the outcome of the fight. Different starts reward different design decisions (fast vs agile, carrying lots of missiles vs lots of guns).

I'm hoping to get some feedback on what you guys think is the best way to start a match.

Also, how far away from each other should the planes be at take off? I've been playing around with hyper edit. It seems like a close start favors planes with high TWR that can get up to altitude quickly, and starting far apart favors planes with lots of firepower that can unload a big burst as they fly towards each other on the initial closing.

[t3hJimmer]

Personally, I'm in the BD Armory and maybe FAR only crowd. Some mods are so terribly broken balance wise that it becomes a hack fest--who can use the most broken parts.

I dig the X-style take off. The one thing I might change for official trials is setting the aircraft up further away from each other, maybe teams start 1km away from the runway on each side.

One last thing. 30mm cannons should be more points than the 20mm. They hit way harder, and although are heavier, they're really a ground assault weapon. Imho, they're a little cheaty, but with a higher point value might be balanced.

I've been thinking about starting my own thread that takes a different direction from what we're doing here.

- 1v1

- max 150 parts per plane

- A point system for weapons similar to what I proposed before (max of 60, X-points for every weapon)

-Require FAR (I'm on the fence about this, mostly because I suck at FAR)

- Allow:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/111691-WIP-1-0-2-QuizTech-Aero-Pack-v1-2-8-x-Updated-6-9-15-New-Mk2-Service-Bay-and-Small-Tanks%21%21

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/76668-1-0-4-Kerbal-Aircraft-Expansion-%28KAX%29-v2-5-2

(I've poked around with the numbers and none of the engines seem that broken, but maybe limit it to stock only engines if people would prefer)

-best of 5 style fights

I'm thinking that it will be a more "simulation" type competition where this thread has been more "arcade" style. If enough people are interested I'll go ahead and set it up.

Edited July 25, 2015 by t3hJimmer

[ZLM-Master]

Just my Pov after some test !

The "D" start with 5.5 KM distant space let all design the time to take off . Most plane take off in the 500m ( in average )

Too close distant space & gun shoot down you even with all his wheels still on the ground .

This start will probably make 30s to 40s battle , very fast ending .

The "A" Start or "C" Start seems classical .

The "B" Start may push two planes too far to the two other ! "out of the ring" Risky !

I test parallel takeoff , similar to the "D" Start with all crafts faces North . with mostly the same result .

I'd like to know what other PPL experience with those different start .

EDIT :

I've been thinking about starting my own thread that takes a different direction from what we're doing here.

I happy to participate , but let finish this one before

Edited July 25, 2015 by ZLM-Master

[t3hJimmer]

I happy to participate , but let finish this one before

Sounds good. I wont start a new challenge till after this one is done. I'll keep working on the details until then.

With a 5 km start distance missiles become a much bigger part of the game.

This video goes 1-1, but 7 out of 10 times the Helion III-B eats the Rafale's missiles

Edited July 26, 2015 by t3hJimmer

[ZLM-Master]

Y op !

Her's my very last entry , work better with "A" Start . ( I agree about start style will change my craft in all point ! )

Based on the 10 Hardpoints , no free turrets in [stock] + [bD-Armory] Only . 54 Parts .

-Hard point 1 : CM Pod

-Hard point 2 : CM Pod

-Hard point 3 : CM Pod

-Hard point 4 : .20 ammo box

-Hard point 5 : .20 ammo box

-Hard point 6 : .20 ammo box

-Hard point 7 : Vulcan ( hidden)

-Hard point 8 : Vulcan ( hidden)

-Hard point 9 : Sidewinder missile

-Hard point 0 : Sidewinder missile

Last download always in my sig picture . "Shark"

I not sure it was your last F7 , you defeat me 7 times in a row before i re-tweak my craft

Enjoy the movie , i spend 3 hours to upload it with my crap net !!!

[t3hJimmer]

Thanks for uploading the video, very entertaining!

I'm surprised my F-7 was able to beat your old Shark. In my testing they we're about 50-50. I'll have to update my F-7 and hope that it can compete with your latest design

This video is a mashup of planes from 4 different designers, including your old Shark. Enjoy :^)

[tetryds]

I've also now proposed a King of the Hill format, where you start a thread, post a craft file and let challengers take it on, making videos of the contests.

So, that seems a bad idea to me.

Because what happens is that people will simply design a specific aircraft to beat the previous one, over and over again, there wouldn't be a "best of all" design, it doesn't force the design to be good on all aspects.

what I suggest is some sort of growing knockout tournament.

Every 3 submissions you make an all x all, the winner goes into a next spot on the knockout tournament.

Then every two spots they fight together, and the winner remains, and goes up one step.

Every time you have two planes on one step there is a battle and one of them goes one step further.

If you want, the loser could have a second chance fighting the next candidate on the same step level, but I don't think that is a good idea, as it would lose the battle on the next step anyway.

This setup sounds a bit complicated, but it's not, if you want I can draw something.

But it would be a sort of mixup between king of the hill, knockout tournament and all x all.

Angle has to be 360 otherwise they fly off and never see each other, starting back-to-back as we do by convention. Range will always by 5km, setting it shorter makes no sense. AI settings are up to the user, but altitude of 5km max seems likely. Scan interval creates the most profound difference in flight styles, with uses for both short and longer cycles.

Ok, 360 degrees is fine.

5km of range is little, because in flight the crafts remain loaded until something around 21.5km

But I don't know if it's possible to set it higher than 5km using the weapons manager, so if that is the limit then it's okay.

[t3hJimmer]

I agree that a tournament style competition is better than a king of the hill, for the reasons you posted. Maybe have a format where there is a tournament once a week, like every Sunday. During the rest of the week people can have skirmishes and work on perfecting their aircraft. The results of the tournament go on the leaderboard and are reset every week.

You can set the physics distance pretty high. I have a relatively old computer, and I have no problem running a 20km physics distance.

The physics distance is adjustable on the BD Armory options tab [alt-b].

[keptin]

Put the latest Helion design up to t3hJimmer's F-4 Destroyer Mk3 with interesting results. The Helion has a weak spot for missiles, but proves deadly up close. Also added a neat little kills counter. I filmed it at a very wide view since I think it better shows the positioning of the aircraft teams--it's more telling than watching up close. *edit*-seems I miscounted; forgot to count the Helion suicide run into the corpse of one of the Destroyers. Final score should be 8-6 Helion.

Helion III-D craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66999462/Helion%20IIID.craft Edited July 26, 2015 by keptin

[t3hJimmer]

Sunday Tournament #1

Thanks to everyone for participating! All the entries were truly excellent. If I have time, I'll do this again next Sunday. Please feel free to use any of the Rules/Images/Format if you want to run your own tournament (and let me know so I can compete )

Tournament Rules:

-Fights are 2v2 (you can use two different planes if you want)

-Each match-up will be a best of 5 (first to 3 wins advances)

-Last flying aircraft wins (if the last 2 planes blow each other up, the round will be called a draw)

-I'll record and post all the fights to Youtube, one match-up per video with no editing

-Aircraft will be launched with each team starting together and 2.1 km away from the other team

*the start will be just like the start in this video:

Aircraft Requirements:

-Stock + BD Armory only, no other mods will be loaded

-80 parts or less per plane (sorry, that's all my computer can handle)

-Has less than 60 points of weapons per plane (point system detailed below)

-All turrets must be locked (0 degrees of motion in all directions)

-Your aircraft must fly

-Aircraft must be Kerbaled

-Minimal Clipping (No hiding parts inside of other parts)

*clipping up to 30% of a part inside another part is acceptable (This is hard to judge, just try not to go overboard with your clipping)

*No clipping of fuel tanks inside other fuel tanks

Weapon Point System:

-Missiles - 4 points (all types)

-CM pods - 5 points

-Ammo Can - 4 points (all types)

-.50 cal turret - 4 points

-GAU 8 30mm - 11 points

-M230 - 6 points

-Vulcan Hidden - 9 points

-Vulcan Turret - 8 points

-Goalkeeper - Banned

-Abrams Cannon - Banned

-M102 - Banned

-Millennium Cannon - Banned

*If there's something I forgot, suggest a point value and I'll add it to the list.

*Let me know if you think these point values should be changed. I've done some testing, but nothing extensive.

The tourney is over!

These brave Aircraft competed valiantly in the skies over Kerbin:

ZLM's Dassault - Rafale Shark

keptin's Helion III-D

Darren9's Daz1

Bob_Saget54's Mosquito Mk. II-A

Mad Rocket Scientist's MiG-35-BD

PixelStory's The-X-Viper-Elite

erasmusguy's RasTech-K-4g-Advanced

colmo's Colmo-Korp 141A

t3hJimmer's F-8 Goblin Mk2

I had to make a few small changes to some of the planes so that they complied with the tournament rules (remove an extra set of missiles to get below 60 points etc). All of the craft files as they flew in the tournament are available here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kap9s6hars42xs0/Sunday%20Tourney1%20All%20Crafts.zip?dl=0

Tournament Results:

1. ZLM

2. Darren9

3. t3hJimmer

4. erasmusguy

I used an online generator to create the randomly seeded tournament bracket:

Congratulations to our champion ZLM!

Videos of all the battles here:

First Round videos: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129182-Gauging-interest-stock-BD-Armory-dogfighters-AI-tournament?p=2103505&viewfull=1#post2103505

Second Round Videos:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129182-Gauging-interest-stock-BD-Armory-dogfighters-AI-tournament?p=2103795&viewfull=1#post2103795

Championship video:

Edited July 27, 2015 by t3hJimmer
Tourney is over, that was fun :^)

[ZLM-Master]

Yop !

Just a lucky round with last Rafale C 'Shark' VS Helion IIIB I just see you make a new one , i try it now !

And i stay on Close view probably because my eyes aren't very good ....I just see Dot moving onto a large grass area ... erf !

That's smell glaces on my nose .... But i think most ppl use large view during battle .

Sorry for the sooo short movie , it's a hell for me to upload big data files !!

What's the trick for simultaneous start ? When i click on BD window nothing happens ! There all armed but that don't activate autopilot . Is there a script for that ?

Edited July 26, 2015 by ZLM-Master

[t3hJimmer]

Put the latest Helion design up to t3hJimmer's F-4 Destroyer Mk3 with interesting results. The Helion has a weak spot for missiles, but proves deadly up close. Also added a neat little kills counter. I filmed it at a very wide view since I think it better shows the positioning of the aircraft teams--it's more telling than watching up close. *edit*-seems I miscounted; forgot to count the Helion suicide run into the corpse of one of the Destroyers. Final score should be 8-6 Helion.

Helion III-D craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66999462/Helion%20IIID.craft

Those are some great fights! I got almost as many kills from crashing into you as I did using weapons . You've really got that minimum altitude dialed in, there were several time I thought you were going to crash and you pulled out of the dive just before hitting the ground.