Box of Stardust

You can submit, but only for KSP 1.4.x and BDA 1.2. There's been quite a few changes, so make sure your craft is made in 1.4.x and BDA 1.2. If you're going to submit a plane that was made in 1.3.1, you have to import it into 1.4.x and remove and re-equip all BDA parts with fresh ones (those were the instructions the BDA team gave).

@dundun92's Du-8C vs @GillyMonster's Dart II. Battle: After Action Report:

@dundun92's Du-8C vs Du-5Rs: Battles: After Action Report:

So we're getting pretty close to finishing off the 1.3.1 queue, which means getting closer to having to deal with what to do with the leaderboard when moving into 1.4.x. Because there's been a lot of changes in BDA 1.2, I feel that it may not be fair to make planes that were made for BDA 1.0 fight in an environment they were not designed in. That means probably just freezing the leaderboards of 1.3.1 and relegating them to the records section, and starting over with a new, clean board. Veteran statuses will not change until the new board is populated and planes are sufficiently tested. Of course, that's what I'm just considering right now. The other option is to re-arm all leaderboard planes for BDA 1.2, but there's also been flight AI changes that affect how aircraft fight, which is the bigger issue really, and why I'm considering a clean slate. Anyways, back to the battles. @dundun92's Du-8C vs the board, Part 1. It's a small, very lightweight drone designed during that trend of lightweight drones. It is only armed with 2 Vulcans. vs Gunbrick. After Action Report: vs @ZLM-Master's V-TEK After Action Report:

@dundun93's A26 vs @Earthlinger's Berzerker 2.1: Battles: After Action Report:

One for the morning. @dundun93's A26 vs @53miner53's P-5 Flash. Battles: After Action Report:

You can put multiple radars on aircraft, but I don't think it gets any utility out of them. I've tried it, to an extent, with forward and rear facing radars. The thing I haven't tried was mounting missiles facing backwards with it. The tricky thing, too, is getting BDA to actually use rear facing weapons, since it may require mixing weapon ranges to get utility out of them, and not even BDA 1.2 is smart enough for this, awesome as the AI is in the update. And next, firing the right weapon, which I have not seen it do; it was able to select a rear-facing Sidewinder against a chasing craft in my testing, but it wouldn't fire.

Last one for now. @dundun93's A26 vs @GillyMonster's Dart II.

Continuing the rush to get the 1.3.1 queue over with. Two gunslingers face off in the next match. @dundun93's A26 vs @dundun92's Du-5Rs.

@dundun93's A26 vs #6 spot, @ZLM-Master's V-TEK:

@dundun92's Du-6S vs the remainder of the board: vs @GillyMonster's Dart II vs @53miner53's P-5 Flash vs @Earthlinger's Berzerker 2.1

Last one for the night because my allergies are killing me. @dundun92 faces off against himself, with Du-6S going up against Du-5Rs. Two pretty opposite aircraft- one that doesn't like to fly in formations at all, and one that flies in formation probably a little too well.

@ZLM-Master's V-TEK goes on its Re-Advancement 5v5 vs Gunbrick.

Getting back to the Tier 2 runs for the ones I missed. @dundun92's Du-6S Diode poor-formation-flier vs @ZLM-Master's V-TEK.

Continuing on, @dundun92's Du-5Rs vs @GillyMonster's Dart II.

When you open the BDA menu to run competitions, there's a box you can tick 'Debug Labels'. Heat rating sort of corresponds with the hottest part on a craft (so, the engines), but seems to be a little more nuanced than that. I asked on the BDA thread how heat seeking works, and it simply seeks out the hottest part on a craft; it is in no way occluded by parts in line of sight.

Last one for the night. @dundun92's Du-5Rs goes on the offense against #6 spot, @ZLM-Master's V-TEK. Yup. But you're only barred from Tier 2 if you already have 2+ aircraft currently in Tier 1. Which kind of only really applies to me right now.

Next up is @dundun93's A26, an actual, properly designed aircraft this time. It's got an MLRS and a Big-S Strake-based design like the Squirrels and my various ASPEN aircraft. Perhaps this has a good shot at beating Gunbrick? Bonus battles considered 'invalidated' due to... things happening. Lastly, I realized I (partially) screwed up following the new leaderboard rules, so @dundun92's Du-5Rs and Du-6S (ugh; I'm just gonna let this thing fly in a messed up formation), as well as the A26 will be tested against the Tier 2 board according to the new leaderboard rules.

Continuing going through the remaining 1.3.1 queue. @dundun92's Du-6S 'Diode' vs Gunbrick. Let me get this out of the way: Du-6S wins the prize for being the most impressively non-compliant to fly in a formation. It turns out there's an important reason for this, but I'll get to that in the analysis. For now though, that's the explanation as to why formations are so wonky in this one- because I had to do screwy things to get them to fly as close as they do when I started the battle.

Speaking of radar and RCS, is there somewhere that fully explains the mechanics of the interactions between radar and RCS here? Is the RCS seen by the radar calculated in real-time while in game? I.e., does what the radar see change based on the orientation of the craft it is attempting to detect (as front-facing shows minimal RCS, but a side or top view will be massive)? What are the requisite parameters for the AI to fire radar missiles (e.g., AMRAAM)? They tend to be able to fire on targets beyond the lock distance displayed in the editor RCS tool.

You could still argue heat signature though.

Yes.

@GillyMonster's Dart II continues its series, going on the offensive against @53miner53's P-5 Flash: @dundun92 The next Tier 1 series is supposed to be Du-6s, but I kind of remember saying you wanted that replaced? Are you going to replace it or not? Or do you just want it taken out of the 1.3.1+ BDA 1.0 queue completely and just put something else new for BDA 1.2?

From experience, I can say that heat under 400 is pretty good for thermal stealth, heat at 500 above is prone to getting heat-locked at ranges beyond 3km. Panther at dry at max throttle around Mach 1 runs about... mid-500s - low-600s I think? The ever-popular Tiger engine runs about 400-420 at about 120% and max throttle on dry. It would be an interesting dynamic to have for sure, even to the point where I was wondering about disallowing engine clipping but allowing thrust limiter editing, but not allowing engine clipping seems too drastic of a change to the spirit of the competition, at least the way I see it right now. My theorycrafting on the effect of opening up thrust limiter editing isn't that it'll cause a huge change in the construction meta, but with enough engines, boosting their output by a relatively low amount can amount to the equivalent of an additional engine or two (though BDA 1.2 actually encourages having *more* parts to spread out damage). I dunno, this is all kind of mad rambling from someone whose designs are built around clipped engines for aesthetics and low profile, and even has a design with 3 groups of 3 engines clipped together.

Hm? Not sure what you mean here. I was thinking about allowing designers to mess with their thrust limiters so they could set it to the amount of thrust they want out of an engine. Within reason, probably, so maybe a max of 200% for an engine. Kind of like simulating improving engine technology to get more output of an engine design. And if you're saying that it could be a problem for a plane being hotter because of increased thrust, I don't see that as a problem since I figure it works as a balance parameter. I'm not implementing rules against engine clipping here, so just clipping engines into each other is still valid and doesn't increase heat. You could say this simulates better engine technology in a different way, through increased weight. So now there would be a choice for tradeoffs: weight or heat detectbility. Or do a mix of the two and increase engine outputs slightly to get a little more performance without drastically increasing heat. Speaking of giving a Juno the thrust of a Goliath, I'd be interested in doing a quick test of setting its thrust limiter to the requisite value and seeing what the BDA debug readouts show for heat level.