CreativeCombat

I couldn't figure out how to manipulate landing locations with hyperedit directly, so I had to do it the old fashioned way. It's a good thing I recorded this too, since it uncovered a lot of things that were wrong with my recording software. I'm working on fixing those bugs now but it might take me a while. Thank you for the compliment. I'd like to take this opportunity to state that I disagree with your other statements completely. The effort required to host a tournament is not very much. So far, the only things I've had to do are: 1. Install some beautification mods, which are completely unnecessary. 2. Download and inspect craft files, and reply to posters informing them that their submissions had been received. 3. Occasionally, I had to clarify the rules or make a minor rules adjustment. 4. Reply to a few people explaining to them what rules they broke and informing them on how to fix it. The most strenuous thing I've had to do thus far is work out how to fix my recording software. It's not picking up audio. Also, reader, please, criticize me to your heart's content. Your criticisms are what allow me to improve as a KSP player, tournament host, and as an individual. Without criticisms, I would not be able to improve as a person. I care less than the mods do about how offensively you phrase your opinion. Furthermore, criticizing the tournament rules are what allows them to be refined and clarified. Hopefully, some day very soon, the rules can be written to a point where they no longer need to be criticized. Then we can simply copy-paste them about, each host making minor adjustments to make each individual's tournament unique and presenting new and exciting design challenges to overcome. I'd encourage everyone reading this to give tournament hosting a try, it's much easier than it looks. Though please attempt to refrain from hosting in the middle of someone else's tournament to prevent confusion.

Hello and welcome to the first half of CreativeCombat's BDArmory Top Gun AI tournament! It's been twelve pages and a week or so of submissions and heart-breaking rule edits in the making, but it's finally sort-of here. To very firmly clarify, this is only the first half of the tournament! The whole tournament is meant to be run with sixteen planes, but since eight have thus far been submitted, the first eight planes will be going against each other to determine one of the finalists. The tournament is not over yet, keep sending in submissions! We need six more to run the second half. Every plane thus far submitted has been re-downloaded, re-inspected, re-edited (A lot of people forgot to bind Activate AI to 0), and re-approved! Tournament battles will begin being run and filmed as soon as this post is posted. Thank you all.

Received, inspected and accepted.

Where's the second plane? I only see one here. I remember seeing a second plane from you earlier but I think you accidentally removed the link. - - - Updated - - - YouTube. Replacement plane received, inspected and accepted though the fuselage clipping was a bit dubious.

Accepted.

I feel very, very, very dumb right now. You want this to replace the FA-34, not the Proto 3, correct?

This also means I have no grounds to refuse Alphasus' box submission. But I will request that he withdraw it.

I have no reasonable grounds to refuse your submission. Accepted. All tournament participants have until Friday to update or replace any previously provided submissions. If the updated version is not in compliance with ANY rules, you will have until Friday to resolve it. If any replacement submission does not comply with the rules in their entirety by Friday, a previous submission of yours will be used in its place. Thank you for your participation.

Everything's all locked in and ready for the tournament. If I start accepting submission replacements this late, everyone might start doing it. If everyone starts doing it, then I'll have to re-inspect everything. Then, if there's a problem with anything submitted, I'll have to delay the tournament to allow that to be resolved. Plus, all the planes submitted are really nice and excellent in their current form and the tournament is geared up to be quite a sight to see. I'm worried that if I accept replacement planes this late in the tournament, they'll get replaced by less interesting 'flying box' designs. Such as what Alphasus proposes he replace the lovely FA-34 with as some kind of... political statement? - - - Updated - - - I don't understand the meaning of this post or if it's related to me in any way.

The first half of the tournament, engaging the eight planes submitted to determine the first finalist, will start this Friday and stretch into the weekend. Thank you for the submissions everyone, thank you for making this spectacle possible. This is a two plane tournament, two planes count as one submission. They can be the same plane. The two planes can not have more than 150 parts between them. The two planes, with all weapons and countermeasures combined, can not have more than 90 points of weapons/countermeasures. If you have turrets, such as the Vulcan Turret, they must have their maximum pitch, minimum pitch, and yaw range set to 0, 0, and 0. Neither plane may have more than 60 points of weapons/countermeasures on it. Now, the plane you submitted follows all these rules except for two. 1. The Vulcan Turret doesn't have its rotation locked, but this might have just been a design 'typo'. 2. It's one point over the 60 point individual plane limit; it has 61 points. If the Vulcan Turret was a Vulcan Hidden, this would be fixed. Those are both very minor, but what I'm confused about is: Where's your second plane? I can't accept you into this tournament until those two things are resolved, and you provide a second plane. More complete rules can be found at the top of page 74 of this thread. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130238-Top-Gun-AI-The-Official-Tournament-Thread/page74 Thank you. EDIT: On a minor note, it didn't follow the naming scheme either but that's not a big deal. It is annoying though, I'd appreciate it if you resolved that in your resubmission if you will be providing one. - - - Updated - - - I'm not sure if I should accept this. - - - Updated - - - No. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected and accepted. These planes are very lovely, thank you for submitting them. I would've advised you to add more countermeasures though, seeing as the combined point total only comes to 75. I hope they do well in the tournament.

Wing clipping is banned to prevent people from sticking all their wings inside their plane, or sticking all their wings inside their other wings, because doing that allows the plane to retain a small surface area, making it hard to hit, while still having the lift of an Albatross. - - - Updated - - - Eagerly awaiting. - - - Updated - - - Go to Page 74, read the updated rules, adjust for them and resubmit your entry. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130238-Top-Gun-AI-The-Official-Tournament-Thread/page74 - - - Updated - - - I got the Bullet confused with your other ship, the Missile. Sorry.

I don't know what's up with your copy, mine has ammunition in it.

I'm in no rush to get this done and over with, but as soon as we get one more participant to bring the total to eight, I'll run the first half of the tournament with the eight places submitted so far going against each other. If we don't get the last plane needed to decide the finalist in a week, I'll submit one of my own design. - - - Updated - - - I do my tests a bit ghetto. I turn one plane around in the VAB, roll it off the runway, stop it, launch the other plane and have them fight. The tournament itself will be done more properly, with hyperedit. - - - Updated - - - The bullet has a Vulcan on it.

I was wondering why it looked so similar.

Seven entries so far. - - - Updated - - - From what I've seen so far, the most likely victor is MarsRocks.

So the only change from the original is that the monopropellant has been removed? Or is there something else?

You can leave the reaction wheels in the pod on.

What defines 'destroyed' is rather hard to say and in a lot of cases varies from plane to plane, so if I'm being completely honest it's going to come down to personal impartial judgement in some cases. However, I will define the following things as situations in which the plane is DEFINITELY dead. 1. The cockpit is destroyed. 2. The cockpit and EVERY weapon are completely SEPARATED (not necessarily out of ammunition), such as if the cockpit was shot off of the plane. This includes if it is separated from all ammo boxes, but still connected to a weapon. 3. The cockpit and flight computer are separated. 4. The cockpit, or any part of the plane the cockpit is still attached to, makes physical contact with the ground and cannot recover itself. There are also situations in which the plane can be considered 'dead in the water' as it were, such as if it ran out of fuel, defined as the following. 1. The plane is unable to maintain flight due to wing loss. 2. The plane is unable to maintain flight due to engine loss. 3. The plane is unable to maintain flight due to fuel loss. 4. The plane is unable to maintain flight due to structural damage, such as being shot in half by 30mm ammunition. 5. The plane has completely run out of ammunition for every weapon attached to itself, missiles count as their own ammunition. (This is extremely unlikely.) If both planes become dead in the water simultaneously, such as if they both ran out of fuel and started gliding, whichever one meets a death requirement first (most likely death condition #4) is considered the loser. As to what you said about linking radar receivers, pressing the 0 key, which activates the AI flight computer, is the last thing I do. The only buttons I touch after that are the brackets to switch views and the mouse to control the camera. My hands are off the keyboard otherwise. If a preparation can't be done before that, or bound to an action group to trigger at the same time as the flight computer goes off, I can't do it. - - - Updated - - - I recommend strapping radiators on directly and using the offset tool, but whatever floats your boat. If the radome is destroyed or disconnected from the rest of the plane, the fight continues as normal. Its reason for being there is to extend the range at which planes can see each other so they don't fly off into the sunset. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected, edited and accepted. The FA-34 Lightweight had a pair of Wing Connector Type D's that were pretty clearly clipped into the fuselage which the rest of the wings attached to. I removed the rest of the wing, removed the connectors, and reattached the wings at the same angle they were before, then centered them with by pressing V as I have Editor Extensions installed. The plane seems the same but I figured I should notify you of that change. Wing clipping is not allowed in this tournament, including wings being clipped into things other than wings. I'm a poet and I didn't even know it.

Received, inspected, and accepted with some minor edits. The CX-61 was four points over the limit so I took a pair of chaff dispensers off of the radial air intakes, I hope that isn't a problem. The CX Mini Macro had no air intake so I clipped a shock cone into the radome. All else is good. These designs are unique, I'm eager to see how they perform. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected, and accepted. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected, and accepted, though I can't seem to find where the AI flight computer is.

You could try sticking your countermeasures on long poles so that the missiles are drawn farther away from the plane, or use more flares since AIM-9 missiles track based on heat and if you have a lot of engines, the heat of the engines can be greater than that of the flares. Usually just changing the position of the countermeasures on the plane will do it, though. Maybe put them on the tips of your wings?

You can edit the planes to be in compliance and resubmit them, or create an entirely new pair of planes. A 'disqualification' is a disqualification of the plane, not the participant submitting the plane.

Thanks for the submissions everyone! I failed to receive this one. The download link sent me to a .rar file, which I can't do anything with on account of not having WinRar or any similar program. I assume the planes are inside the .rar file. Please just provide two links, one to each craft file. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected, and accepted. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected, and accepted. Design Note: I like the double wing design, I think it'll do well. - - - Updated - - - Received, inspected, and accepted. Design Note: Countermeasures seem excessive and the plane's resulting lack of offense might hinder it in the tournament. - - - Updated - - - Second plane is okay, though it didn't follow the naming scheme (I rectified that). The first one is not. I don't have a problem with the control surfaces being inside the plane, but I do count them as wings. As such, that MASSIVE nest of clipped evelons on either side of the cockpit is completely unacceptable. I'm willing to excuse the ones that are a little clipped into each other symmetrically, but only just. This was a little obscure in the tournament post and clarified later, but if you have a gun on your plane which can rotate (The Vulcan turret and the .50cal turret), its 'Max Pitch', 'Min Pitch', and 'Yaw Range' all have to be set to zero. This isn't the case on either of the planes, and while I edited the both to comply with the rules, it seems like you weren't aware of or misunderstood this when designing them. So, to clarify. 1. Control surfaces count as wings, and while I'm okay with them being inside that the structural panels and even the ones that are a little clipped into each other from symmetry, the 'nest' of clipped evelons on either side of the cockpit is not acceptable and disqualifies the plane. 2. These planes do not follow the naming scheme. I rectified this, but it is worth noting. 3. Turrets have to be set to 0/0/0 for maximum pitch, minimum pitch, and yaw range. Also rectified, but somewhat breaks the planes. 4. Please state what weapons the points went into. I counted it up on the second plane and it was fine, but didn't bother on the first since it's not acceptable in its current form. Simply writing out what weapons/countermeasures you've spent your points on saves me a massive amount of time, and while it's not something I can disqualify you over, I would very much appreciate it if you did this in the future. 5. Also nothing to do with disqualification, but you should know the structural panels won't really provide much defense for those evelons since BDArmory weapons deal damage through heating rather than impact. Radiators and heat shields would, though. - - - Updated - - - I don't see anything wrong with this, but I don't see what you think would be wrong with this either.

Yes, though I wouldn't recommend it from a design perspective.

No, only one entry per participant.

All good. Ensuring the tournament is balanced and enjoyable is and always will be my primary focus in managing it. My only complaint is that this wasn't all resolved way back at post #719. In the future, I'll provide a pastebin of proposed tournament rules so clarifications can be provided and the rules discussed before sign-ups.