Top Gun AI - The Official Tournament Thread

[Slam_Jones]

Well I guess we have to define "kill" a little better. Is surviving the match considered the same as getting a kill? Not really, right? It's just means you didn't get killed.

So I guess the question is, which is more important: shooting your foe, or staying in the air? The two scenarios can coincide, of course, but they're not mutually inclusive. One does not directly lead to the other, but the consequences of one can affect the other.

[Alphasus]

Iirc,the Vulcan is 5500 rpm, GAU 4000 rpm or so? GAU bullets are also slower. It's in the configs, I may be wrong. Guns are not ideal at the minute so fudging with instakill may be necessary. Knowing this in advance, though, I'd have spammed .50 cals.

50 cals have a terrible rate of fire for their point value. 2 vulcans are far better than 4 50 cals.

[colmo]

50 cals have a terrible rate of fire for their point value. 2 vulcans are far better than 4 50 cals.

Even discounting instakill, that's a good argument to reduce their points cost. One to remember for when guns work again. I'll head on over to YouTube and add the new videos to the #TopGunAI playlist.

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A minute into Round 16 illustrates my point about crashes - the location of the VAB could have made the difference between time to crash of two planes that shot each other down. Should be counted a draw, not have you raking through the flight log to find which plane blew up first.

[Alphasus]

round 16.... Not that it would have mattered, but i will change it on the tournament site.

EDIT: Changed

Edited August 19, 2015 by Alphasus

[Alphasus]

Would you like me to upload round 24 today or tomorrow?

[colmo]

round 16.... Not that it would have mattered, but i will change it on the tournament site.

EDIT: Changed

Kudos. I did mean to write up the rules as we've mostly settled on but a new job took precedence!

Every tournament we run we refine and learn. I have some quite elaborate plans which build on what we've developed.

[Alphasus]

I have seen 2 ways to fix the gun issues. One, all vulcans instead use the turrets with restricted gimbal and 30 mm use m230s with restricted gimbals. Or, we can go with instakill.

[GDJ]

Sorry I've been absent. Working on a exhibition project for this tournament.

Well, I'm damn pleased as to how far the CF-86 has gone. For a stripped down, barely carrying any fuel, only two guns and nothing else but spit and courage (stupidity) on the pilots part, it has gone far farther than I would have expected.

Thank you all for the great tournament, and I congratulate all the attendees for their hard work and ingenuity on aircraft construction. I've learned quite a bit.

[Alphasus]

I was thinking about using this mod for the finals matches, but I think that the colors would cover too much of the screen. What do you think?http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/125845-1-0-4-G-Effects-blackouts-redouts-G-LOCs-v0-2-2-with-beta-sounds-%282015-July-24%29

[Zixor]

I'll post a link to my range-limited turret test when I'm home from work in a little bit.

I've hacked together a scaled-up 30mm version of the vulcan turret that weights more and has the same ballistic properties as a GAU-8. I figure having it as an alternative to the vulcan should keep things interesting. We could make this 30mm Super Vulcan a special addition to the mod pack for the next tourny.

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I was thinking about using this mod for the finals matches, but I think that the colors would cover too much of the screen. What do you think?http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/125845-1-0-4-G-Effects-blackouts-redouts-G-LOCs-v0-2-2-with-beta-sounds-%282015-July-24%29

Is that just an IVA effect? If so then yes, I support this mod.

[Alphasus]

It is an IVA and 3rd person effect.

[colmo]

I don't believe G-Effects would impact play at all...though missing a crucial moment due to blacked out screen would be annoying. Make sure you use pilot Kerbals, they don't black out so easy.

A WIP plane of mine can pull 15G (that's not a typo), which would make this mod rather interesting...

[Alphasus]

Yeah we will be using Jedediah and Val from now on. 15 g is quite simple for most planes that made it to the finals. In testing the f9, Little buster, fa33 and Gladius did it at low speeds too.

[colmo]

Yeah we will be using Jedediah and Val from now on. 15 g is quite simple for most planes that made it to the finals. In testing the f9, Little buster, fa33 and Gladius did it at low speeds too.

I think my designs fared poorly because I was a little too attached to the Mk2 parts which are larger than necessary, making planes long and thus relatively poor in pitch authority.

I suspect they'd translate to a FAR environment better than the 'peanut fighters' which have dominated this particular tourney. Planes with a wingspan greater than their length have done best in this one. I can imagine the popular mk1-2 adapter used to make them so small would be enormously draggy in FAR. No complaints, the original thread's poll showed a stock aero preference.

The WIP plane isn't quite the same though...I don't want to spoil the surprise!

[Zixor]

Here is the footage of my test matches. I think this should make gun fights more interesting in future tourneys.

Credit to Rdivine and Slam_Jones for the plane designs.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Zixor

[Alphasus]

That is interesting in results. How much was the gimbal set to, because it may need a bit more then reliable gun kills can exist.

[Zixor]

I was using Legacy Aiming, with all turrets set to have -1 degree min pitch, 2 degrees max pitch, and 2 degrees yaw. Perhaps another degree to both min pitch and to yaw would do the trick. These planes are both using just a single 20mm vulcan cannon, so twin vulcan planes would be significantly deadlier.

[Alphasus]

Perfect!

[TokiTech]

Turret gimbal is now authorized to use? How do you set it at 2 degrees in SPH? The increment number is 0 jump straight to 3.

Ed: and yaw is 0 to 5.

[colmo]

Chaps, Top Gun AI is about to get the Manley treatment:

https://twitter.com/bahamutod/status/634104546130792450

[Zixor]

4 degrees of total pitch X 4 degrees yaw = too strong. A Little Buster with twin vulcan turrets is reliably taking down its opponent with a single pass.

[dangerouspeople1]

I guess I am not going into the final stage. But it's my first time designing a fighter, so I'm not that disappointed. Quite proud of it actually.

[Alphasus]

You should be very pleased. It flew very well for its weight, and the thought behind its design was unique enough that very few counters existed to it.

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Are you ready for the finals?

[dangerouspeople1]

Now I hope the GoldenHawk wins, just as Kerdinand said

That way I can say I lost against the best plane

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Lol, just watched the video. The 3rd round is basically what happened in my test. Even the order of crashing is the same.

Let's get to the finals!

[Alphasus]

You are going to love the final:)We have most likely an f-9 fa-33 fight about to happen too.