goduranus

It looks very simple, what made the part count so high?

I wonder how well my F-18 will do in FAR? Gonna send it in without making FAR changes and see if it does okay: https://kerbalx.com/goduranus/F-18E-Super-Hornet Edit: I watched the videos, and it seems that missiles fired from long range don't really do very well. So I'll leave the missile range as they were in old BDA for now.

Yeah, but building a decent looking hull is easy, only takes 10 minutes to do that. I feel that the real fun of building KSP fighters is in fine tuning the complicated stuff, like minimizing moment of inertia, finding a way to preserve kinetic energy through a turn, optimizing the shift in center of lift depending on angle of attack and control input, and optimizing radar profile, etc.

Since you are using 10x range, do range settings get automatically multiplied? Like if I set Sidewinders to launch at 2km, does it automatically get set to 20km when it's loaded into RBDA?

Hey, so are you guys using BDA 0.212 as a base for RBDA, where you could set range limits for each gun and missile, or are you using the older BDA? I would like to build a plane but don't want to fiddle with RBDA.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say, wouldn't it make sense for the VTOL in VTOL VR to not have windows, and instead project the video feed from external cameras onto the pilot's VR helmet? Then the pilot could sit in an fully enclosed cockpit with his VR helmet, or even be back on the mothership or even back at base. F-35 uses this technology now, except it probably had to have a window or else it'd look too radical, but it the technology is there.

Has the way AI pilots maneuver been changed in 0.212 since 0.210? I've been noticing the planes not obeying the AoA limit alot more than before.

Aha, I made a realistic looking plane with similar performance with the lifting body example. https://kerbalx.com/goduranus/F-18C-Hornet

Cheap tactic! Wut man! Suppressing the enemy with radar missiles to prevent them from getting an angle on you is a staple of 4th generation fighter tactic. Not doing this would be very unrealistic.

I think so, other than the missile settings part. Gun range should be set to max in that case, and you'd need to change the speed settings depending on the performance of the engines you're using.

Gained some insight into building fighters with BD Armory lately, so I'm making a post of what I learned. Some of the content is from posts I made in the 1.2 Dogfight thread. How to build a competitive jet fighter for BD Armory: AI Pilot and Weapon Manager settings Let's start with AI settings, which is an often neglected aspect that has a decisive impact on the outcome of the dogfights. Your plane will be slow if its AI Pilot is not told to make use of its maneuverability, and your weapons will be inaccurate if the Weapon Manager is not told to use them properly. The default values are no where near good enough for a fighter so you'll have to change them. AI Pilot settings is meant to achieve good maneuverability through rapid steering response and kinetic energy management. Through experimentation, I've found some reasonably good values that work well with any ~10 ton fighter that has center of lift close to center of mass: Steer Factor: 12 , this increases control sensitivity so steering commands are executed faster Steer Dampening: 6, this increases stability, which you'll need because with CoL very close to CoM there is very little dampening force in the craft itself Min Combat Speed:100, you need to keep your speed up, which means you have more kinetic energy, which means your kinetic energy can be converted to rotational energy faster Idle Speed: 200, again this keeps your speed high before Guard Mode is activated, so you have more kinetic energy work with at the start of a match Max G: 25, this tells the plane to maneuver hard at high speed, by setting G-limit to max, so that it will turn hard when it has lots of kinetic energy to spare. Max AoA: 10-15, tells the plane to not maneuver too hard at low speeds, so that it doesn't bleed speed when kinetic energy is already low. You generally turn faster in a gentle turn by keeping the kinetic energy up. Don't set it to more than 20 as an abrupt turn will be fast initially but become sluggish as kinetic energy is bled away. See reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfZdUnGJkZU Note* Propeller planes built with Airplane Plus are different, you should make them turn sharper, and at slower speeds than jets. This is because propellers' powercurve maxes out between 40-100m/s, where as jets max out at 600-900m/s. So depending on the propeller engine you're using, you can turn as sharply as you want as long as it doesn't make the plane drop below the speed where it generates 80%-90% of its maximum power (power=thrust*speed, which you can check by right clicking on the engine.) This means you can usually go whild on your steer factor and AoA settings, as well as set Min Combat Speed to something 60 and below. Weapon Manager settings controls missile tactics, with these settings, you can already win against untuned planes. For standard 8km competition mode, the best settings seem to be: Firing Interval:5, you want to space your missiles close enough such that there is always at least one AMRAAM in active seeker range of the enemy, which force them onto evasive maneuvers, which in turn cause them to lose energy and become easier targets. At the same time, missiles have to be spaced far enough apart so that you maximize the duration of the suppression to keep the enemy always on the defensive. Gun Range:1000, reduce the gun range because missiles are also much more accurate at close range, you want to encourage the AI to use missiles right down to the point where guns can't miss. Missiles/Target:4, you need several missiles in flight so that when the leading AMRAAM passes the target, the next AMRAAM's active seeker is already engaged, to suppress the enemy non-stop missile warnings. Spread:300, you want your fighters to spread out the minimize the chance that all of you team can be caught in the active seeker cone of a single AMRAAM Lag: 100, again, this is to spread your fighters out, which also encourages them to pick different missile targets Note* With In absence of missiles you want to set your gun range to the maximum that the tournament you're in allows. Munition choices There are several missiles and guns to choose from, I've seen that Sidewinders and 50cal Browning arrays to be quite popular, but they are a no-no if you want to win the fight Missiles: Use only AMRAAMs in missiles. AMRAAM has active radar, which gives out radar warnings to all enemy crafts within a cone in front of it, so you can suppress several enemy fighters with a single AMRAAM. Sidewinders are bad because they won't work if the enemy has even one decoy flare, so don't use them if you don't have to. PAC-3 is terrible, because it requires constant radar lock for guidance, which meant it will miss if the enemy has ECM or if you have to do evasive maneuvers HARM and others simply won't work against aircraft Guns: Use only GAU for your gun whenever possible. GAU has the highest dps/ton, because GAU fires explosive shells producing splash damage and nearly constant damage output independent of range. Vulcan are bad because it only works very well at short range, at 500m and above the bullets lose damage which negates its high rate of fire. Brownings are terrible, while light, they do very little damage at long range, and also has slowest bullet velocity which make them harder to aim. Munition settings With BDArmory 0.212 you can right click on individual gun and missile parts to change their range settings, doing you usually gives you an advantage AMRAAMs : Set the Detonation Radius to 20m to reduce the chance of a near miss at the target, since the AMRAAM's blast radius is 20m Use forward ejection, which although slightly unsafe, adds to the missile's velocity and makes it reach the target faster. If your plane is stealthy, you can reduce the max range of your AMRAAMs to as low as 6km to conserve them for when your up close, and you can lower the Fire Interval setting in your Weapons Manager to compensate and achieve a higher salvo density To avoid exploding your planes by your own missiles, set ejection speed to max and set drop time to zero. Sidewinders: Set the Detonation Radius to 10m to reduce the chance of a near miss at the target, since the sidewinder's blast radius is 15m, but you can only adjust in increments of 10m. Although easily distracted by flares, Sidewinders are useful in that it forces the enemy to temporarily shut down afterburners. If you are forced to use sidewinders due to tournament rules, it's best to limit their max range to 1km above your gun range, which I recommend to be 2km, so that your plane fires a Sidewinder just before it goes in guns blazing The point to doing this is to make the enemy shut down afterburners, lose speed, and become an easier target. Also, to avoid exploding your planes by your own missiles, set ejection speed to max and set drop time to zero. Guns: Not much, except to set the gun range to 1km if you have missiles, so that gun aiming won't get in the way of missile lockon. If you have no missiles, set gun range to max If you have more than one gun, setting Barrage to false seems to make the AI fire the guns faster. Stealth, ECM and countermeasures BD Armory calculates radar cross section by counting how many pixels of the sky your plane blocks out from the perspective of a radar. Below a certain threshold, and the radar won't be able to see your plane. Radar sensitivity is further reduced by active ECM pods the target has on board. A small plane with ECMs can reduce the range of enemy AMRAAMs' active seeker to about 2.5km, from 6km active seeker lock-on range for typical fighters without ECM, which means your plane spends considerably less time being force into evasive maneuvers, and some AMRAAMs may not lock onto you at all. For this to happen the ECM pods need to be activated before the enemy missiles engage their active seekers. So you need to bind the ECMs to the "Stage(Space Bar)" action group. ECMs take alot of electricity, so you'll need about 3000 electric charge in batteries. Alternatively, put on a tiny amount of oxidizer and a Fuel Cell Array, and make sure to also activate it with the"Stage(Space Bar)" action group. ECM seems to work better the smaller your plane is, if your plane's frontal profile is bigger than Mk-2 space plane fuselage, ECMs seem to stop working against AMRAAMs. ECMs have a diminishing return, so more than 2 ECM pods is ineffective, more than 4 ECM pods is completely useless. Note that because of how airplanes maneuver by pitching up, enemy radars generally come from the bottom. So you'll want to reduce your aircraft's profile when viewed from 20-30 degrees below direct front. This means you'll generally want to mount your missiles on the top of your craft so the missiles' tails don't stick out and increase your radar profile. You'll also want to put chaff and flares on the craft, right now 1 of each is sufficient, maybe put 2 of each just to be sure. Aircraft construction Moving Center of Lift with Elevators: With regards to center of mass vs center for lift for optimum maneuverability. Mount all the wings and control surfaces except your elevators(the ones that control pitch), and make sure the center of lift with everything except the elevators is a good distance in front of the center of mass. Then mount the elevators in such a way that it pulls the center of lift slightly behind the center of mass, usually by placing elevators as far back as possible. Then set the elevator authority limit such that at full deflection is near the desired pitching AoA for the craft, which imo is 10-15 degrees. What this allows you to do is turn much faster by shifting the center of lift back and forth, in front and behind the center of mass, by changing the elevator angle. When the elevator is at full deflection during a turn, it is nearly parallel to the airflow and don't contribute to the center of lift, so center of lift moves in front of the center of mass, and the aerodynamics force on your main wings contributes to your manevuerability. When the turn is finished, the elevator centers, moving the center of lift behind the center of mass, and your craft stabilizes. Reducing adverse yaw from Ailerons: With stock game not taking airflow direction into account, the ailerons will produce a yaw force when the craft is rolling while pitching. This is because aileron on one side is deflected against the airflow, while the other side is deflected into the airflow. For example, while pitching up and rolling right, the airflow is coming from below, so the ailerons produce a yaw left, because the left aileron is deflected against the airflow while the right aileron is deflected parallel to the airflow. I think the solution is to either mount the ailerons to exert a partial yaw force to counteract this,(swept forward for ailerons behind CoM, swept back for ailerons in front of CoM) or to just make sure the ailerons aren't too big, and mounted as far to the sides as possible for leverage. See explanation https://youtu.be/Y6RcTtGfG3E?t=9m50s Don't use Canards: Canards are bad in stock, because their orientation don't depend on direction of airflow, so what you get is basically a reversed elevator that's worse than an elevator because they generate much for drag when in use. This is because while pitching, the canard turns opposite to the airflow while the elevator turns into the airflow. With FAR, you can set canards to follow the airflow and they become much more useful for assisting with stability, see video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBuQvZvBdto Put enough but not too many Wings: Make sure you have enough wings that your craft can maneuver at a relatively shallow AoA, as this is efficient for retaining kinetic energy during a turn. Although don't put too many wings as doing so causes your plane lose a lot of kinetic energy from drag. You seem to need at least 2 unit of wing area for every 10 ton in craft mass to fly, preferably 4 units of wing area per 10 tons of craft or more, but no more than 10. Use rudders: I've seen people not put rudders on, which puts them at a disadvantage in gun fights. While the bulk of the maneuvers are carried out by ailerons, rudders are still useful for fine adjustments. Weight Distribution: You want your center of mass to not move very much as you expend fuel and munitions, so build the craft with all fuel tanks empty. Then add fuel back bit by bit while keeping the CoM in the same spot. For this to be possible you should have fuel tanks both in front and behind the CoM, or on the CoM itself. After you get the desired amount of fuel, add missiles and ammo while keeping the CoM in the same spot. Note that you should have heavier components/munitions near the center of mass and lighter components/munitions further but still as close as possible from center of mass to minimize the moment of inertia, which gives you a higher angular acceleration. I'd love it if someone builds a plane using these tips and send it to TAPE gaming, because I think all the crappy planes he gets sent deserve some major curbstomping, muahaha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB_PdO9SFwQ&t=19s Here's a new craft demonstrating the content of this thread, built for BDArmory 0.212 https://kerbalx.com/goduranus/F-18C-Hornet

Yeah, control surfaces dependent on airflow is a FAR thing, it's not the same as setting authority to negative.

They are supposed to deflect in opposite directions relative to the airflow, which is not necessarily opposite directions relative to the hull of the aircraft. FAR has the option to let control surfaces do this, but stock game they always deflect relative to the hull. See this video of Su-37's canards, at 1:20, they deflect in the same direction to the hull. I think the reasons for doing this is somewhat do to with keeping the canard from stalling, but I am no expert.

Submission is closed though Won't be more videos for a while.

This small profile hull is just what I was looking for. Built a fighter out of it. https://kerbalx.com/goduranus/XLB-Stealth-Fighter Some changes: Moved cockpit backwards to shift CoL back a bit Swept the Elevons forward to cancel yaw from aileron drag while pitching Changed engine to Panther Added BD Armory stuff Anyone want to take it on? It's made for BD Armory's competition mode, and beats the Bo-Shuriken by Inter's Odyssey more than 90% of the time.

I have a suggestion, how about having the BD Armory generate some combat missions? Generate some tanks and fighters in random spots on Kerbin, and give out missions in the Mission Control building for destroying them? or even ground rescue missions when you have to recover Kerbals surrounded by enemy tanks, or even fly over heavily defended areas for recon. Most well built planes can take off with AI control from relatively flat areas around Kerbin so terrain shouldn't be too much of a problem. Maybe you could read the biome and generate boats for water, tanks for land, and only generate planes for relatively flat biomes?

Some tips: Stock KSP's elevon control is not good for high maneuverability crafts, so it's best to separate out the ailerons from elevators. FAR has advanced settings that takes the airflow direction into account, so in FAR you could definitely come up with better set ups than what I just described. These are just tips for stock. Elevators: With regards to center of mass vs center for lift for optimum maneuverability. Mount all the wings and control surfaces except your elevators(the ones that control pitch), and make sure the center of lift with everything except the elevators is a good distance in front of the center of mass. Then mount the elevators in such a way that it pulls the center of lift slightly behind the center of mass, usually by placing elevators as far back as possible. Then set the elevator authority limit such that at full deflection is near the desired pitching AoA for the craft, which imo is 10-15 degrees. What this allows you to do is turn much faster by shifting the center of lift back and forth, in front and behind the center of mass, by changing the elevator angle. When the elevator is at full deflection during a turn, it is nearly parallel to the airflow and don't contribute to the center of lift, so center of lift moves in front of the center of mass, and the aerodynamics force on your main wings contributes to your manevuerability. When the turn is finished, the elevator centers, moving the center of lift behind the center of mass, and your craft stabilizes. Ailerons: With stock game not taking airflow direction into account, the ailerons will produce a yaw force when the craft is rolling while pitching. This is because aileron on one side is deflected against the airflow, while the other side is deflected into the airflow. For example, while pitching up and rolling right, the airflow is coming from below, so the ailerons produce a yaw left, because the left aileron is deflected against the airflow while the right aileron is deflected parallel to the airflow. I think the solution is to either mount the ailerons to exert a partial yaw force to counteract this,(swept forward for ailerons behind CoM, swept back for ailerons in front of CoM) or to just make sure the ailerons aren't too big, and mounted as far to the sides as possible for leverage. Canards: Canards are bad in stock, because their orientation don't depend on direction of airflow, so what you get is basically a reversed elevator that's worse than an elevator because they generate much for drag when in use. This is because while pitching, the canard turns opposite to the airflow while the elevator turns into the airflow. With FAR, you can set canards to follow the airflow and they become much more useful for assisting with stability, see video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBuQvZvBdto Wings: Make sure you have enough wings that your craft can maneuver at a relatively shallow AoA, as this is efficient for retaining kinetic energy during a turn. Although don't put too many wings as doing so causes your plane lose a lot of kinetic energy from drag. Weight Distribution: You want your center of mass to not move very much as you expend fuel and munitions, so build the craft with all fuel tanks empty. Then add fuel back bit by bit while keeping the CoM in the same spot. For this to be possible you should have fuel tanks both in front and behind the CoM, or on the CoM itself. After you get the desired amount of fuel, add missiles and ammo while keeping the CoM in the same spot. Note that you should have heavier components/munitions near the center of mass and lighter components/munitions further but still as close as possible from center of mass to minimize the moment of inertia, which gives you a higher angular acceleration. Missiles and Guns: To avoid exploding your planes by your own missiles, set ejection speed to max and set drop time to zero. Downward ejection is slightly safer than forward ejection. Put guns on a non-curved surface so they fire straight. Use only AMRAAMs in missiles because Sidewinders don't work if the enemy has even one decoy flare. Use only GAU for your gun because it has the highest DPS due to splash damage.

To avoid exploding your planes by your own missiles, set ejection speed to max and set drop time to zero. Downward ejection is slightly safer than forward ejection.

Maybe set up two airbases 100 km apart so planes won't have to fly out to 85km every time?

85km seems too long but 4km is too short, it's inside the boost phase for some missiles. Also 85 km is too long because current radars in BDA can't detect objects that far, so planes won't see each other. Also, judging from experience running the 1.2 dogfights, you probably won't be able to run with too many mods, since mods take up memory and can really slow the game down if you run out, especially when you're also recording. With just stock and BDA, KSP was using about 3.5GB, but with EVE thrown in it was eating 5.5GB of RAM.

Whether the guns and missiles are action grouped doesn't affect the AI's ability to use them. You can make the plane more maneuverable by: keeping the center of lift close to center of mass, which reduces resistance to turning; telling the plane to keep its speed up by setting minimum combat speed to at least 100, so it has more kinetic energy and can convert kinetic energy to rotational energy more quickly; telling the plane to not maneuver too hard at low speeds, by setting AoA limit to 10 degrees, so that it doesn't bleed speed when kinetic energy is already low telling the plane to maneuver hard at high speed, by setting G-limit to max, so that it will turn hard when it has lots of kinetic energy to spare.

I might be getting more busy over the next few week, so won't be taking more planes in this thread. If I am ready to do more recording I'll start a new thread for it so rules revisions can be in the opening thread. First up Mig-1 vs Anshar Mig-1 has violates the 4-guns limit, but it's no big deal as the guns are low powered Brownings, it's matched against the Anshar which is also violating the rule by using turrets, which is also not really a problem as the turrets are fixed. F-1100 vs Anshar F-1100 get +2 planes from having no missiles and no missile countermeasures, it does not get a +1 from using Junos for a violating the "Only 2 engines" rule, so the 4 Junos counts as a single Wheely. F-1100 is matched against the Anshar. The Anshars managed to even the odds by destroying two F-1100s in the missile salvo, then besting the F-1100 with their suprerior maneuverability. Bullet vs MicroAIV The Bullet has AI settings violations which was corrected before the battle. Bullet and MicroAIV are very similar crafts with similar performance, and even having similar flaws of low speed instability. After an evenly matched battle, the Bullet pulls out a narrow victory. The Bullet Challenges the Dorito The Bullet was not able to match the Doritos' missile dodging performance. Birdie vs Bullet Birdie has a violation by using more missiles than the rules allow, so 2 AMRAAMs were removed, as it didn't have a radar for firing them anyways. Quick victory for the Bullet, with the Birdies nailed by missiles before they could return fire. Bullet vs Fighter 2 Fighter 2 gets +1 planes by using no missiles. The Fighter 2 have a major design problem in that sometimes the game thinks their main intakes are occluded by the cargo bay. The match started with Fighter 2 having thrust problems due to the game not recognizing their main intakes, but they managed to outmaneuver the Bullets and snatch out a win with their superior gun firepower. Fighter 2 vs the Dorito Fighter 2s once again had intake problems, and this time it was their downfall, as the loss of speed resulted in their being unable to escape the Dorito's missiles.

I saw the new planes. A bit busy to fire up KSP, but will be back in a couple of days.

That'd be a bit hard for people to follow.

Then guns won't fire.