WW2 BAD-T 2 - BDA AI Dogfight Tournament [SEMIFINALS]

[tetryds]

Hey everybody, I just realized that the weight of the "Brutus" engine was wrong.
The correct weight for that engine is 0.84 tons, or 840kg.
The previous setting of 1 ton was mostly a balancing accident.
I don't think anyone was using it, because the weight mistake made it useless, but if anyone did, please update the pack and rebalance your airplane.
This kind of thing will not happen again, this was the only engine with a balancing mistake.
I also fixed two typos, the Brutus engine is B27-D not B24-D, and the Widshed description said 32kn while it actually has 20kn static thrust.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

[SuicidalInsanity]

7 hours ago, tetryds said:

To everybody, what about the weapons? Which setups did you consider and what do you think is going to work the best?

Briefly considered entering a plane armed with the Bk 75mm howitzer just for fun; Standard weapon loadout for planes I've built has been 6x 13mm machinegun because I like it's mix of stats (that, and the tracers are blue). Common alt configs were 6x shKAS 7.62 mm MG for light fighters or 4x MG 151/20 Short Barrel 20mm Cannon for heavy fighters. Whats going to work best? Subjective, but I have a hunch its probably going to end up being some flavor of the Browning .50.

[gridghost]

9 hours ago, tetryds said:

Yes, I have seen some bugs like those, but they don't show up when setting up the airplanes and stuff, so that is fine, we can continue using B9 Pwings 0.40.

To everybody, what about the weapons? Which setups did you consider and what do you think is going to work the best?

I used the M-131 x 5 in a star-configuration to get the plane up  to 100 pts (light fighter).

I got a delicate problem though. First I made a smallish, pull-engine, plane with good manueverability. Then i found the SAAB j-21A and made a (lighter) tribute to it. Now I can't decide which plane to enter...

And I've noticed that the Firespitter module spams exceptions like crazy. I noticed it first when loading two planes to fight and the FPS plummeted from a steady 40-50 when testing 2 highish part jets in AI-combat to around 15 when testing low part Prop-fighters.

[JagerVonSmith]

On 2/23/2016 at 8:07 AM, Pds314 said:

It depends on the AI settings. That particular flying monstrosity is basically a sailplane with a Widshed. It pretty much CAN'T get an L/D of less than 10 from high AOA.

So below a certain level of aggression, it will accelerate and stop doing so much turnfighting as darting back and forth at 450 mph trying to vaporize planes with the 2 40 mm guns. It managed to vaporize the dummy in one hit. Nothing left but like 3 wing parts.

Also working on AI settings for the plane I posted that cause it to dive at the enemy planes at 240+ m/s. Since it cannot be bested in dry TWR, it can out-climb anything.

Do ya think you could share your settings? I have a plane that out dives and out climbs anything I throw at it, but turns like a brick. I'll do some testing to see if I can get the right settings.

[alp3r]

@JagerVonSmith Settings change from plane to plane so him giving out his settings wouldn't help you too much. I suggest you to check theBDArmory's wiki page here: http://bdarmory.wikia.com/wiki/AI_Pilot_Flight_Computer

Try to increase the tail surfaces and/or get the CoM and CoL right. Decrease the weight of your craft or get a better engine. 

@tetryds I too got 3 ShVAKs, 1 in the propeller hub 2 in wing roots. Takes out the dummies in a single burst from close range and decent damage from afar.

@gridghost Yeah, even 4 prop planes with roughly 40 parts bring the FPS from 60 to 25. 

[tetryds]

@gridghost I am checking into that, I have noticed these exceptions but they don't always happen, I am looking into it.
Could only reproduce it one time though, and it doesn't throw the nullrefs during the battle.

Yes, I have noticed that picking weapons requires a lot of testing, each setup works better with a plane against a certain other plane.
I also found out that you can make really tough airplanes if you go for heavy fighters, a lot trickier to get resistant light fighters, you really to go wild on weight saving.
 

I love to see that people are using several different weapon setups, and this has become clearly a strategy point rather than seeking for a "best of all" (because really, I spent months making sure there isn't such a thing).
And I see that there is a tendency towards heavy fighters, but several people are making both to try them out.
Which type of airplane you are planning on entering, and why?

[gridghost]

@tetryds I fixed the problem, as it seem, and don't get the spam anymore. The problem where an old version of Firespitter sitting around in my GameData folder (that i didn't know i had). 

Now i'm back to getting stellar FPS with props too :D.

And yes... my 2 light fighters are glass cannons. One hit and they are gone. But when they hit, they hit hard  (but it's damn hard to chose which one to submit)

[tetryds]

@gridghost I suggest you to wait.
Simply don't submit just yet, try to improve the design as much as you can, otherwise you will upgrade it and then realize you entered an old version of the airplane.
Another "trick" would be to simply update the kerbalx or dropbox file, as I am only going to download all of the airplane when the submissions close.

Edit: added this tip to the second post.

[TangerineSedge]

1 hour ago, tetryds said:

Which type of airplane you are planning on entering, and why?

I have a light(ish) fighter submitted - a pusher design like the XP-55 or J7W1, however she looks more like a Vampire/Venom with the boom layout. She has 2xMk.108 30mm cannons in the nose for good fire power, and hopefully one burst kills.

[gridghost]

@alp3r I used 2 prop-planes...  But now that i fixed the problem i get 25-ish with 4

[DoctorDavinci]

Well, I've got a few ....

DF-43 Bad Company - Dual Prop Heavy Fighter
Variant 1 - 6x 7.7mm + 3x 7.62mm
Variant 2 - 3x 23mm
Variant 3 - 5x 13mm

DF-41 Bad Neighbor - Dual Prop Heavy Fighter
2x 40mm
4x 20mm

DF-39 Bad Dog - Single Prop Light fighter
3x 20mm
 

I think I'm forgetting one or two though

Edited February 24, 2016 by DoctorDavinci

[KamikazeF0X]

This is my light fighter !

Can someone find a cool name for this thing ?

I have :
4x 13mm guns with 5100 rounds of ammo in the wings
96 Units of fuel

And lots of G ! ^^

Spoiler

 

Edited February 25, 2016 by KamikazeF0X
Bad URL for the Pic

[tetryds]

@KamikazeF0X Is it a stealth plane? Because I cannot see it
Paste the image url and hit enter twice and the image should automatically show on your editor, if you had trouble with that.

@TangerineSedge 2x 30mm, that is a nice choice, does it crunch the dummy on a single pass?

[KamikazeF0X]

@tetryds It's fixed !

@TangerineSedge I prefer the 23mm cannon, HE bullets from the hell ! Yeah !!!

[pyrosheep]

http://imgur.com/hIrT9sW

My submission is Inspired by the hawker Hurricane, Ki43 and yak 1.

Turns like a UFO (15+ G at 600 kph), possibly because of it's extremely low wing loading (20% less than a Zero); This is the most manoeuvrable Plane I have ever seen in FAR.  

Decided to go with less fire-power for less weight; hopefully one 30mm is enough and the AI doesn't decide to go for head ons with heavy fighters.

Edited February 25, 2016 by pyrosheep

[SuicidalInsanity]

With tetryd's permission, I've posted an absolutely basic, barebones FAR 101 tutorial. It doesn't cover advanced material or building strategies, but it should serve as a good beginners starting point for people new to FAR.

2 hours ago, KamikazeF0X said:

Can someone find a cool name for this thing ?

Given its shape, maybe something like Jagermoth?
Also, 5100 rounds of ammo?

5 hours ago, tetryds said:

Which type of airplane you are planning on entering, and why?

I really wanted to enter a heavy fighter, but it just couldn't compete with two of my better light fighters, so it came down to choosing one of them instead. For me, at least, the advantages of a heavy fighter were almost, but not quite enough to make up for the weight disadvantage, so here's the paint schemes you won't be seeing in the competition:

Spoiler

IA-3 Buzzard IV:

IA-14 Faust V:

 

Edited February 25, 2016 by SuicidalInsanity
Adding tutorial link

[Doke]

5 hours ago, tetryds said:

Which type of airplane you are planning on entering, and why?

Since my Pfeil replica attempt is better suited to boom and zoom tactics, I settled on a light fighter design. Something of a jack of all trades; I wanted agility but also performance. The result looks a bit like a mix of a Ki-61, MiG-3 and Hawker Tempest. Not coincidentally, three of my favorite planes.

2 hours ago, KamikazeF0X said:

This is my light fighter !

Can someone find a cool name for this thing ?

I have :
4x 13mm guns with 5100 rounds in the wings
96 Units of fuel

And lots of G ! ^^

 

I really like the flying wing design. You might have too much fuel, though. Even twenty units can last an hour, I think.

[DoctorDavinci]

So I figured that I'd upload some pics of my BAD series prop planes ... Still haven't decided which to enter as I'm still tweaking but it's down to the Bad Dog and the Bad Company although the Bad Company is extremely fast and has the added ability to likely survive a head on collision (the thing has rammed the BAD-T dummy a few times and kept on going with the dummy plane smashed to bits)

1st pic - Bad Dog just after takeoff
2nd pic - Bad Neighbor over KSC
3rd pic - Bad Company on tarmac

 

[KamikazeF0X]

8 hours ago, Doke said:

I really like the flying wing design. You might have too much fuel, though. Even twenty units can last an hour, I think.

In fact, 20 units of fuel lasts for something like 20 minutes, I am someone who likes to have a lots of things
Lots of ammo, lots of guns, lots of fuel and -the most important- a lots of snaks ! ^^

[DoctorDavinci]

So after some testing and aero design changes I have decided that I will enter my DF-43 Bad Company into this competition

You can find a teaser video of her in action HERE ... The game clip was taken during tuning

There are still a few gremlins to wash out but she performs admirably

[pyrosheep]

Spoiler

 

Here is a dummy battle with my updated design.

As you can see; turns on a dime (although, there are some roll stability issues to Iron out on the B variant).

Are we still allowed to change our submission before the competition starts? The A variant of my design has a rescale error bug.

Edited February 25, 2016 by pyrosheep

[Pds314]

On 2/23/2016 at 3:23 PM, tetryds said:

To everybody, what about the weapons? Which setups did you consider and what do you think is going to work the best?

So far tested in flight:

1x75mm and a Widshed: not remotely promising. Makes airplanes die in one hit, but the shells, gun, and such weigh far too much to have any significant structure, and the mass of the gun makes it wobble. Accuracy is critical for a plane that only fires once every few seconds and has a few dozen rounds, especially for one that weighs considerably more than 2.5 tonnes empty, and so gun wobble is totally unacceptable.

2x40mm and a Widshed: somewhat promising. Reasonable fire rate, accuracy, range and guaranteed total obliteration of aircraft makes it viable as long as your plane can endure. Weapon and shells weighs much, much less than the 75mm while packing easily enough destructive power to destroy a dummy on any hit.

2x30mm and a Falcon: somewhat promising. Much better engine is traded for slightly lower accuracy and the possibility of a non-lethal hit vs. certain robust aircraft designs. Cannons and ammo also weigh practically nothing.

3x20mm shVAK and a Falcon: very promising. A handful of good hits usually rip off a wing and one hit can sometimes do it, or, at the very least, melt wing-mounted guns, and the excellent fire rate causes on-target volleys to hit fairly often.

3x20mm M151 and a Wizard or Falcon: somewhat promising. Low rate of fire is an issue, but high-speed rounds mean dodging is more difficult.

6x7.62mm shKAS, 1x20mm Hispano and a Gazelle: AI seems to have issues with which gun it should use when, using the 20mm to take potshots when it is winning a turning fight and such, despite the fact that, at 200 meters, the 6 shKAS could shred most craft in a fraction of a second, with its innaccuracy actually being beneficial under those circumstances. Likewise, it uses the shKAS sometimes on targets a kilometer or more away, despite the fact that 7.62mm rounds do no substantial damage for single hits.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Pds314

[tetryds]

@pyrosheep You cannot submit twice, but you can update the file the download link leads to: 

Also, I noticed your airplane has both an antenna and AI module, that is illegal, please remove the AI module as the antenna already has everything you need.

[pyrosheep]

@tetryds fixed

[MightyDarkStar]

Okay, good news! All problems with the AI pilot have been rectified with the tweaking of the elevator deflection angle, and the thing can now completely execute the dummy with a good shot. The thing is actually more manoeuvrable than the dummy, which is built like a sport aircraft rather than a fighter plane.

So, introducing the aircraft.

Spoiler

Warspite F. 20 Fighter 

Dimensions: (Length) - 10.2 metres, (Wingspan) - 22.4 metres, (Weight) - 4.61 tons

Parts: 29, Points: 86

Weaponry: 1x  Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23 23mm autocannon in the propeller hub, 2x Mauser MG 131/13 13mm machineguns under the wing roots

Powerplant: Roaken B37-D "Buzzer" Radial Engine