WW2 BAD-T III - BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[tetryds]

@Van Disaster yeah, increasing the gains won't make it better, that is just not how control systems work.

For MAF I tested a lit of aircraft models and found parameters that work decently for most of them.

The biggest problem is that the airplane never truly aims towards the target, it maintains a margin between the target and the forward direction that makes it impossible to score kills during a turn.

This is why even though an airplane turns much more than the other you hardly ever get kills during continuous turns.

Another problem is that the pilot and the weapons module are separate, the pikot doesn't aim where it should shoot at, but instead it aims towards the enemy and the weapons manager fires whenever it thinks firing is a good idea.

The behavior of the pilot is not bad, both regarding to what to do and how to execute it, but the execution itself has these flaws that, if fixed, would make battles a lot better.

[Vexnium]

Will there be another tournament? Eager to join!

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, Vexnium said:

Will there be another tournament? Eager to join!

Sorry. You can't enter. It's too late. You will have to wait till next year.(BAD-T is done each year)

[Guest]

9 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Hmm... A WWI era BAD-T would be fun, but would likely require a new weapons pack, definitely require a new engines pack, possibly some MM edits to bring down part durability. This will require some research. (Disclaimer - research implies feasibility studies, not a guarantee that a WWI BAD-T style tourney will happen).

But back to the main event, in which two similar aircraft with substantially different armament philosophies go head to head:
Round 5: My IA-22 Stribog VII vs @Van Disaster's D.A.C. Deimos Mk X:

 

I hope it is good enough to beat the wasp!

1 minute ago, dundun93 said:

Hmm... A WWI era BAD-T would be fun

I would prefer the early jet era.

[Van Disaster]

16 hours ago, aleksey444 said:

The one I'm really curious to see in action is the other open cockpit plane.  I think it's Bob_Saget's Falcon.  It's 2nd row on the right in the group screenshot.  It's also pretty small, and an open cockpit saves A LOT of mass.

I've just noticed it's on KerbalX... not sure why I didn't notice it there before. Initial verdict would be that it seems very nice - can certainly change direction swiftly & aims well - but a bit prone to overcontrolling.

As for early jet era - this already is the early jet era. Maybe with a 2x power jet.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Van Disaster

[aleksey444]

11 hours ago, dundun93 said:

I would prefer the early jet era.

 

6 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

As for early jet era - this already is the early jet era. Maybe with a 2x power jet.

 

Korea!  Jets and machine guns.

[Guest]

@aleksey444, I hope your plane beats the wasp, because I am not going to have a chance against it.

 

 

 

 

 

[DoctorDavinci]

13 hours ago, Vexnium said:

Will there be another tournament? Eager to join!

I'm quite confident there will be more competitions coming in the future as the only thing that was holding the BAD T3 back was FAR being updated

[tetryds]

8 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

As for early jet era - this already is the early jet era. Maybe with a 2x power jet.

Jets would be fun indeed.

I just warn that 2x is way too much power, remember that they perform much better at higher speeds and altitudes already, it would be better to set them somewhere from 1.2x to 1.3x their current power.

That considering it won't have any propeller aircraft.

The current weapons can be used as they are now, no rebalance is required.

The only thing needed would be more jet engine types.

The rules don't require many tweaks either, if anything more points or slightly lower mass requirement.

Edited October 23, 2017 by tetryds

[Van Disaster]

For Korea-era up to 2x might be ok - just don't raise the Mach limit too far so you don't end up prematurely supersonic - or perhaps use a subset of AJE instead? haven't checked what jets are in there recently. Early Korea - era jet engines seem to be around 15-16kN, 1/2-2/3 tonne mass ( well, stuff that actually went there - RR Avons in Canberras/Hunters overlapped Korea, that's in the 30kN range ). Some experiments needed to see what's sane, I think.

[SuicidalInsanity]

If doing Gen-1 Jets (~1944-1950?), a quick search shows its going to be stuff like the Junkers Jumo 004-B (8.8kN), de Havilland Goblin 3 (14.9kN), Rolls Royce Derwent 8(16kN), General Electric J33 (18kN) or the Allison J-33 (20.4kN, 24kN water injection), which should work nicely. Add maybe one or two other engines, and that's enough for a BADT Jets pack. Min mass requirement will likely need to be brought down a little, and maybe adjust points available to the two classes for weapon/engine purchases, but other than that, the current rules should serve.

[aleksey444]

14 hours ago, Vexnium said:

Will there be another tournament? Eager to join!

So, as others have pointed out, you cannot enter this tournament.  We all submitted our planes, and now we're waiting for the battles to play out.

BAD-T tournaments seems to happen every year or every 6 months or so.  There's only been 3.

But, there are other competitions that take place, too.  Sometimes they're tournaments, like this one.  More often they are King of The Hill type competitions, where people get in line to knock out the current champion.

I personally check the forums (https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/25-challenges-mission-ideas/) every now and then, and see if anything new pops up.

[tetryds]

There can be another tournament right after this one if @SuicidalInsanity is into it.

It's just that it takes a lot of effort to host it, and BAD-T 1 to 2 time was due to mods being created especially for it.

And 2 to 3 was a matter of weapon rebalance and someone having the time and willingness to host it, as I could not.

Should be much simpler to have them more often now that everything is settled.

[DoctorDavinci]

1 minute ago, tetryds said:

There can be another tournament right after this one if @SuicidalInsanity is into it.

It's just that it takes a lot of effort to host it, and BAD-T 1 to 2 time was due to mods being created especially for it.

And 2 to 3 was a matter of weapon rebalance and someone having the time and willingness to host it, as I could not.

Should be much simpler to have them more often now that everything is settled.

There was also the problem of not having FAR for KSP above 1.0.5 for over a year 

[Van Disaster]

7 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

If doing Gen-1 Jets (~1944-1950?), a quick search shows its going to be stuff like the Junkers Jumo 004-B (8.8kN), de Havilland Goblin 3 (14.9kN), Rolls Royce Derwent 8(16kN), General Electric J33 (18kN) or the Allison J-33 (20.4kN, 24kN water injection), which should work nicely. Add maybe one or two other engines, and that's enough for a BADT Jets pack. Min mass requirement will likely need to be brought down a little, and maybe adjust points available to the two classes for weapon/engine purchases, but other than that, the current rules should serve.

Yeap, and the RR Nene ( just a big Derwent ), which ended up in the Mig-15. The F-86 is pushing it a bit for 1st gen given how many things came before it, just like I wouldn't put the Hunter in there despite it being equivalent.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Nene's on the list. Juno's getting kicked up to the D variant for 10kN, and I also grabbed the Heinkel-011 A (12kN) to round out the selection
Also, for fun, have a teaser:

(yes, I will make you account for turbine volume when building jets)

[Van Disaster]

The main reason for centrifugal flow jets back then was reliability ( the WW2 Jumo was *awful* - 8 hour life I think? ) - there was a British axial flow jet in WW2 but expediency won over pure technical merit just to get something useful & reliable in service. Not really sure how you go about giving fat centrifugal jets their reliability bonus here...

Ed: 10-20 lifespan for the Jumo 004 depending on pilot - note this is actual life, not "in need of repair" - the insides just fell apart because they couldn't use precious metals & their metallurgy just wasn't up to it. I did not realise it had a variable exhaust nozzle though.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Guest]

On 10/23/2017 at 1:36 PM, tetryds said:

There can be another tournament right after this one if @SuicidalInsanity is into it.

It's just that it takes a lot of effort to host it, and BAD-T 1 to 2 time was due to mods being created especially for it.

And 2 to 3 was a matter of weapon rebalance and someone having the time and willingness to host it, as I could not.

Should be much simpler to have them more often now that everything is settled.

Soon, im going to make a 1960's dogfight competition. Im currently waiting for BDAWE's K-5 missile.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Save for a few prototypes, Jumos were made out of garbage steel since the good stuff was a strategic material in very, very short supply, and it was easier to simply replace the things every 20 hours. If I recall correctly, the main reason centrifugal compressors took off outside Germany was they were far less complex to produce, and I think a little bit lighter.
But enough focusing on the past. Lets instead focus on the past:
@Bob_Saget54's Falcon Mk. XII vs @MightyDarkStar's kestrel F. 1:

This match was odd. The AI settings for the Falcon didn't have any major oddities, nor did I see anything unusual in the logs, but instead of the usual turn and head towards the opponent craft at the start of the match, they would just continue heading straight, requiring the opposing force to play catch up, or, in the case of round 2, the two falcons would head off in opposite directions and end up 10s of km apart.

[Van Disaster]

In the UK's case it was really just about reliability - the axial flow jet I mentioned above had the same development time as the centrifugal flow jets & ended up in a lot of aircraft in the 50s ( including US ones ) but wartime metallurgy just wasn't up to it, especially when there was an alternative. The Meteor's engines were far more reliable than the 262s & less prone to melting in flight... postwar being completely broke didn't help developing anything at all.

The Falcon from KerbalX has a visual range of 10km, I suppose it could have wandered outside that at the start? the Kestrel linked here also has 10km. It's possible it was just the BDA targeting bug, I guess. That was a closer fight than I was expecting, actually.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Bob_Saget54]

@SuicidalInsanity I kept noticing that issue when testing, but assumed that it had something to do with my BDArmory install. Perhaps the pilots drank too much before the fight?

Anyways, it was a good match @MightyDarkStar, your Kestrel was an amazing opponent.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Round 7: @Arvolder's DRAWROF Mk III vs @dundun93's P-92B:

 

[Guest]

@Arvolder, you had a great looking airplane. You deserved to win!

[DoctorDavinci]

I find it amusing to see the Slap Chop is going up against the Spicypepper ... I guess we get to see if the Slap Chop can live up to the hype of the commercials

[tetryds]

@dundun93 thanks for the spoiler

Will there be a 2nd tier row?