Box of Stardust

For the official thread's record, CShRAID Type 5 is being replaced by an aircraft developed from it, but is far more capable. PEGASys-K2 Everyone started posting up some pretty hardcore aircraft, so I skipped my submissions straight to the best one I had to best combat these new scary combatants. The D Series, for now, is being put in reserve. However, I may still go back to it if I can figure out how to tune it right; the platform isn't quite done yet, I think. It still has at least one advantage over the K Series.

@hoioh That's a funky looking thing! Not at my computer, can't test it myself, but maybe I'll just save it for myself as a surprise (but I probably won't since I'm highly curious about it). For performance, I expect its size to be a disadvantage when it gets down to guns; it's a pretty big target, and my testing has shown that even the most well-armored aircraft doesn't survive gunfire. However, that's when things get into gun range, which I can't exactly predict what will happen before that point, since I haven't gotten a close look at your aircraft yet. Its potential advantages lie in volume of firepower, and perhaps flight characteristics that I have not yet identified; one I think I got a hint of was a very good roll rate with good control over it. However, I don't know how it matches up in pitch control against the likes of other aircraft in the queue. Do you already know about the Discord server? And Missilebrick, like Gunbrick, can be beaten once everyone steps up their game properly. And like Gunbrick, I could probably optimize Missilebrick more if I actually spent more time on it. Anyways, I guess I need to just bring my A-game instead of putting in some filler planes. Which will be fun. So the CShRAID Type 5a is getting replaced with... a further development of it, yet a far more capable aircraft.

Battle: After Action Report:

Battle: After Action Report:

No battles right now, but usually when there's a lull in battles, I go and do something like a group picture of the current leaderboard and queue. This time though, I'm going to be doing something that may be of a little more interest, and slightly more informative. I'm going to teach you some history, and then examine some of our current aircraft. Aircraft survivability didn't really used to be a concern, but that's also because it's a relatively recent thing to be concerned about. A year ago, most planes just kind of stuck parts together in whatever configuration worked. That was fine in BDA 1.0, since heat-based damage meant any received damage was almost always insta-kill for the entire craft, whether from gunfire or from missiles. The idea of an aircraft actually surviving taking a hit and remaining able to do things wasn't really around. There was the occasional usage of parts of aircraft surviving, like cockpits or drone cores with guns stuck on them to continue a fight in some capacity, but these were all generally post-death effects, since an aircraft remaining intact enough to do anything never really happened. Still, there was one craft that was built that would almost always manage to have its drone core survive. See, apparently cargo bays were really well-insulated from heat, which meant they were really good armor in BDA 1.0's heat system. And thus, during my first entries and testing for aircraft in ASC, I met the menace of Rabid Squirrel Rover. Because apparently anything that has a command seat on it gets designated a rover, even if it was a piece of debris flying away. And this stupid thing would draw an aircraft's aggro, leading it away from the rest of the actual fight. And that was a problem, because distracted aircraft meant the possibility of them getting picked off one-by one. This got me thinking about making my own aircraft's survivability. Clearly, being able to have part of an aircraft survive, even as just an otherwise useless distraction, was useful for the rest of the team. As well, being able to make it a flying turret when it died could be incredibly useful as well. And thus, the protected drone core of PEGASys-D. But that wasn't the big development, no it wasn't. D1 was built otherwise just like everything else; just parts stuck together to make something that looked cool and made sense. D2, I realized that maybe I shouldn't have all my engines connected to one pretty exposed piece that could easily get destroyed, rendering the aircraft unpowered. And D3 was making the same realization, but for the other stuff like the underside intakes and its weapon pylons. This whole thinking about reducing the ability for a quick critical hit kill led me to the actual biggest development we all know about now. Everyone now knows about the Big-S Wing Strake on the PEGASys now just being an outer shell for the internal structure. Didn't always start out that way though- originally, the internal wings were actually just there to add lift to the craft for better maneuverability. But then it got me thinking- wait, I have this internal piece protected from hits by an outer layer, maybe I could connect my control surfaces to this so that if a hit blows off the 'main body', the aircraft will actually still be fine. And thus, PEGASys-D4 was created (but never released), now with a configuration that utilized a protected internal structure for the aircraft's construction. (Curiously enough, I opted out of the internal structure method in BDA 1.0 because it seemed like internal pieces would absorb heat first or something, so the reverse was true in BDA 1.0- internal pieces were destroyed before the outer pieces. This is what frequently happened with Basilisk-C3, which had the internal structure method, and would always lose the control surfaces and internal structure, but not the main body.) D5 and D6 added a few more improvement bits and redundancy features, like Basilisk's split flaps. D6 would later go on to battle in ASC-1.4+BDA-1.2.2, but it was never really tested in combat, as it only had a few battles, and against only one aircraft. The first one to catch on to the PEGASys-D's tricks and be implemented in a design was, if I remember correctly, the Du-11B-10. You've just all seen that one recently. It was pretty primitive in how it accomplished it, but still, a protected internal structure was stronger than just parts stuck on together where they seem to fit. Now, especially after a full 'declassification' of my methods, we've got a new wave of aircraft coming in with this concept in mind. Let's take a look at these upcoming aircraft. The first one is the venerable PEGASys-D, the one here specifically being Block 8, which I've actually decided will no longer see combat in ASC. However, it's been tested against by a few of you, so you know what it's like. Looking at its exploded diagram, it's actually pretty basic compared to newer craft that have come. It has 'basic' damage mitigation methods, featuring the protected internal structure that holds the control surfaces and provides sufficient lift even if the main Big-S body is destroyed. The Swept Wing A isn't the tankiest, with only 100 hitpoints, but it is half of the weight while producing almost the same amounts of lift, as well as being smaller and thinner. The PEGASys-D also features parts connected in such ways to minimize a critical hit on the craft that would cause severe destruction of a whole system. It has a few 'central' parts that hold other parts on the craft, but I've determined that the destruction of these parts would have resulted in a disabled plane anyways, so further compartmentalization of parts was unnecessary. The drone core is decently protected from all angles by various parts, ensuring most missile hits will fail to get a critical hit on it unless it comes it at a perfect angle to the craft and detonates along side it. Glancing gunfire from all angles will generally not get a critical hit on the core, especially from the back, where gunfire has to chew through a number of parts before hitting the drone core, meaning the plane would be otherwise dead by the time the core is killed by gunfire from the rear. The D8 won't be seeing combat, but one last variant will. Next, we have @dundun92's Du-13-30. He's learned from his experiences with the Du-11, and took the idea of armoring to protect a plane from damage and applied them here. The 13A's internal structure is composed of Swept Wings, which have an absurd 2400 hitpoints to them. This should make them fairly tanky, though it only really seems to be effective against gunfire; missiles seem strong enough to pick apart the rest of the plane enough to render it critically damaged. As well, the armor plating gives this plane... peculiar aerodynamics. Its control surfaces are actually all connected to the main body, so destruction of the internal structure does not guarantee incapacitation of the aircraft. Still, while it has proven itself to be able to take hits, it does not seem significantly tankier than the PEGASys-D. As well, its drone core is right there in the back in front of the two engines, meaning gunfire or missile damage from the rear has a decent chance of getting a critical hit on the drone core. Also reverse-engineered from the PEGASys were the split elevons. Hm. Lastly, we have @sturmhauke's DF-2 Yari. Now this thing... well, I'll take a few pictures to explain if you haven't already picked it apart yourself. The DF-2 is built like it has two armor layers. This thing feels like a flying tank- armed like one too. Blow apart the Big-S Strakes and you're met with one more shell with 2400 hitpoints per Swept Wing. It's got the toughest internal structure seen yet, and rates of getting any critical hits on the structure are very low. Parts are connected to multiple different Swept Wings and compartmentalization is widespread here. It could take a few missiles to pick the DF-2 apart, unless, again, you get a missile that just aims correctly and times its detonation correctly- nothing survives those 'natural 20' Sidewinders. This aircraft can be difficult to kill with guns due to how sturdy its structure is- however, get just a little bit longer gun time intersecting the target, and it'll go down like most others. And while it may not often face a quick death, multiple missile hits can still take its toll on the aircraft, which may render it near-combat-incapable anyways. However, the DF-2 seems to have taken reverse-engineering from the PEGASys to a whole new level. Not just the split flaps, but... Alright, come on. That entire section looks like it was pulled directly out of a salvaged PEGASys-D. That reaction wheel stack compression method, part configuration and order... yeah. lol. I respect this thing. It's a solidly built aircraft. In fact, I've been testing against the DF-2 a lot, because it punishes clear mistakes made with an aircraft's programming in many different situations, but it can be beaten if an aircraft is set up correctly. I've been using the DF-2 to determine if I'm on the right track when working on my aircraft, and if the craft I'm working on is deficient in any areas. These aircraft are coming very soon in the queue, so look out for them. They've also already been rated in the performance statistics tables, so check those out too if you're curious about how I feel they perform. And lastly, a sneak preview of the things I've been working on; the end of one era, and the start of another:

Next battle: After Action Report:

Battle: After Action Report:

Official submissions. First being weapon cheese spam, because. Missilebrick. Because I started the whole idea of meta weapon boating with Gunbrick, so I might as well continue. And now for a legitimate design, something on the opposite end of the spectrum but surprisingly potent, CShRAID Type 5a. It's currently in a 5.5t limited configuration, which kind of maximizes its performance, but does have a flight endurance time of only 'probably fine'. Unlike the PEGASys-D (and other related craft reverse-engineered from it...), it's only got a Damage Mitigation of 'maybe, but probably not'. However, it turns out that with top-tier maneuverability, size, and good other flight performance factors, the 'okay' damage mitigation is really less of a problem than it may seem.

What factors exactly determine the effectiveness of flares against Sidewinders? Amount? Position? Current craft engine heat/state? Any of these or none of these?

Okay, so we've had a discussion on Discord, and over there, @HeroBrian_333 said that And @dundun92 said that It should be a rule to not provoke the lead designers to design maliciously. But apparently some of you want weapon spam cheesing. Alright guys, you heard it. A 'well designed drone' can beat a weapon spam cheese drone. So let's see it. Here's your mission: Missilebrick; just under 10t, carriers 28 missiles. It will occasionally suffer a launch failure that will cause this flying SAM launcher box to self-destruct, but otherwise, it will statistically win its battles. Not overwhelming victories, but that's the nature of missiles being a very RNG weapon; with so much variation in the effectiveness of the weapon, enemies will get windows of opportunity to get kills. Still, it accomplishes such victories against the HSC and the D7. Has not been tested against the D8, but... well, I guess I'll get to finding that out eventually. Stats: Also, curiously enough, despite being a weapon spam cheese craft, I surprisingly learned another lesson regarding Pilot AI tuning. So at least I got that out of it.

Ah, okay. Interesting.

It's too early in the morning for me, so do you think you can explain how it thus mathematically computes that a Structural Wing Type B, which is dimensionally half of a Wing Connector Type B, does not have half of its hitpoints?

Here's a 'secret'; PEGASys-D6 exploded diagram:

So because I was really bored, I was experimenting around with reviving an old ASC classic aircraft. One that seems pretty flimsy in construction, since it was built in an era without damage mitigation, but it was otherwise one of the top combatants. Before improving its protection, I decided to see what its current 'armor' was like, which is to say, how its exposed parts would take hits, and I clicked on one part... Holy f-balls, I just found out why the HSC is so tanky. Wing Connectors have super high hitpoints. Not Structural Wings, or any of the other parts, just the Wing Connectors. A Wing Connector C has 700 hitpoints. A Wing Connector B has 1400 hitpoints. The HSC is quite literally a flying tank, because of hitpoint values. ... lemme see what I can do with Gunbrick again. yes it's cheese, but I'm just curious.

Uh, guys? Are Wing Connectors supposed to have massive amounts of hitpoints? A Wing Connector B has 1400, a Wing Connector C has 700. In comparison, Structural Wings and most other wing-type surfaces are only ~100. A massive Delta Wing only has 200. The only other exceptions being the control surfaces with ~750 hitpoints.

Got an amusing plane for you guys to fight. Also a preview. PEGASys-D9 / D8-30 It's actually a lot worse in a fight than the standard D8, because the GAU just gets blasted off any time the plane takes a missile hit, but it's otherwise amusing when it works. And it's also otherwise (currently) identical to the D8 in all other ways. The D8 will probably be submitted officially... eh, soon probably.

Sure, post it up.

@panzerknoef You can continue the testing, sure. I personally haven't ran the Du-11B against anything other than my own things, so go for it. I won't deny that the thought of skipping a plane ahead is a bit of a consideration I've had a few times, but that's currently the process. However, that probably just means a new look into the rules is in store, or a change in format. Probably just disconnect the top of the leaderboard into an 'elite gauntlet challenge' kind of deal, since they're so far ahead of everything else in performance. Still, for the 11B, just continue it along. As for the D8, it's really not much more than a D7 with slightly different tactical programming, but with the same flight programming (so far). So it's really nothing crazy different. Really, I'm more surprised by the strange BDA AI behaviors the plane exhibits, rather than the performance of the plane itself. As for other competitions, most of them are run on Youtube. You just have to know about them. JollyRogerAerospace runs a fairly consistent series called PFC, and each season of PFC has new rules, which makes for a fun exercise in construction, and figuring out how to apply my ASC knowledge within specific constraints. I'm not sure about any others, however; other competitions come and go. I can say this though: expect any ASC plane to be illegal in most other tournaments lol. There's always some weird restriction in the construction rules that ASC planes break. So when we enter other competitions, we usually just build from scratch and apply our knowledge as best we can, especially since we also don't know what the competition is like. The advantage for us, though, is we understand BDA on a deeper level, and as such can create tactics around that knowledge. The day another competition has rules that allow an actual ASC plane to slip in unchanged in any way though... Kraken help their souls.

You'll lose to the D7 like that. Probably. Or just fail to engage at all. And will likely lose to the D8. But you did get one part right, which was part of the solution. Really, I'm just giving some time for others to do something before I enter the D8. Which has already beaten every aircraft including the D7... with 3-0 victories per sortie... with half-emptied weapon pylons We're really entering 'advanced weirdness' territory here. That said, I expect those overwhelming victory results to shift back to something more normal once the meta fully shifts. The D8 is only as efficicent as it is due to the other aircrafts' AIs not being able to deal with the D8's AI weirdness. As well, the tactics change doesn't really do anything else to improve from the D7 at the moment. There might be a few things left that can be done, but it's hard to improve when improvements at this point are on a case-by-case basis. I think there's a bit more flight tuning that can be done. Still, it's also all a bit of a testament to the PEGASys-D's design, which has only seen incremental changes from KSP 1.3+BDA 1.0, so I like to believe that I've always been headed in the right direction. It technically has 'a weakness' according to the stats sheet, but it's a bit of an irrelevant weakness. The weakness lies more in tactics combined with BDA AI quirks. As well, I think it has a weakness in its design that will prevent it to simply adapting to the D8's solution. However, it can easily be tested, which I'll do later. All this said, I'm hoping that my solution isn't just avoiding the problem, which would leave it in the same losing position with just a few adjustments to the HSC. But again, I'll test that later. We're entering the stage of the cycle in ASC where it really shines, when it goes from a competition to a BDA testing grounds. I suppose the BDA devs could be interested in the insights from the coming battles. It's borderline, but then it's also combined with the various tactics it employs, which just disgust me, because of how the BD AI deals with it, or rather, fails to. But again, this is where ASC is at its best, when we start trying to discover solutions to deep BDA behaviors. @panzerknoef Anyways, the primary tier 1 board will stay as it is, just continue the testing. The 'extras' board I'll do more bonus battles for, but they would've been knocked off anyways, I think. I'm just curious as to the results; the results won't place them on the actual board, regardless of what the results are. As for the gun limit, it's been a long-time considered thing, and we (including me) have always decided against it, because I do feel that it's our 'duty' to try and get ever more creative solutions to beat cheese tactics and find out more about how BDA behaves. Like the routing device development, but that's a niche ASC feature; it's kind of indirectly banned in most other places, but also generally unnecessary anyways. It does, however, teach the importance of gaining the initiative. Speaking of 'other places', if any of you are so willing, spread the lessons of air superiority to other BDA competitions by beating them! Our goal here in ASC is to teach how to build smartly around BDA's functions; that's why we have the open testing environment. Let's make this clear: ASC isn't 'better' than the other competitions, it's 'different'. Working around others' rules pushes creativity within bounds, but here, with minimal rules, we can discover new things about BDA. It's an R&D environment, really. The rules we put in place here are simply to ensure that we keep pushing towards applicabe solutions, rather than cheesing the battles, which probably won't get you far in other competitions, if you can enter such a craft within the rules at all. That said, I was the one that submitted the Magic Carpet air-jousting mini-plane to JollyRogerAerospace's PFC (which I lost in what would've been an easy victory because I forgot the important lesson of 'initiative' that air-jousting stemmed from), then broke/shifted a subsequent PFC season's meta by using the PAC-3 SAMs on my plane instead of the AIM-120s, so I'm plenty guilty of cheese solutions as well.

Bonus battles, which will explain the leaderboard merge I plan on doing. The first battle is watching what ASC-1.4 leaderboard #2 spot, @ZLM-Master's X-Fighter Hunter, can do against @panzerknoef's Zircon UT-7-B4. Analysis: So what's the X-Fighter like against the PEGASys-D7? Analysis: But to battle the #2 spot, it would have had to go through the #3 spot, @dundun93's HSC, a very... special craft. So let's see @panzerknoef's UT-7-B4 take a swing at it. Analysis: So how does it fair in BDA 1.2.4 vs @ZLM-Master's X-Fighter Hunter? Analysis: And finally, @dundun93's HSC goes up against the top of the board, the PEGASys-D7 in a full battle: After Action Report: And now, a long digression on my gripes with the HSC and the quirks of BDA dogfighting. Look, we dealt with a stage of ASC that was about gunspam. 8 GAU-8s on a flying turret was a bit early to the party, despite happening during the air-jousting period. Then 5 Vulcans on a gun-only aircraft. Then I figured it out and put 10 Vulcans on a slim flying brick, and it worked as expected, which was terrible. Then dundun93 decided to go super dumb with it and put 16 on a plane. You can read all about air-jousting and that period of ASC and BDA's AI here: Throwing an unstoppable stream of 20mm just isn’t fair. It’s a lazy solution that makes up for BDA’s AI gun accuracy deficiency, as well as plays into the AI's behavior. The HSC annoys me because it’s so borderline on this. It’s 8 guns. 8. Some planes have 6, which is getting up there, but within reason. But then it’s all put on this flying brick that just eats damage (which is fine, I guess, that’s good design), but also carries around its own debris, which potentially gives BDA lots of problems, and it annoyingly takes BDA AI quirks and drags its enemies into not really much of a dogfight, but really just a trap. It just circles around slowly in an area, shooting at enemies it will eventually pull in, and killing them when they try to run away after burning excess energy trying to turn and fight the HSC. And now it has Sidewinders that work, thanks to BDA 1.2.4. I don’t feel like planes fight the HSC as much as just fall into traps that should be avoidable if a plane were able to use the advantages of jet combat. The AI forces planes into a low-speed dogfight where this flying turret excels and wipes out enemies through sheer volume of fire. Not just that, but BDA is such that the lower you are the more advantageous your position. And the HSC is programmed to take advantage of that. Obi-Wan may teach you that the high ground is the advantage, but in BDA, that isn’t the case. Because from below, the BDA AI will try to escape from the plane below it, while the chasing plane has the easiest gunnery target presented to it, because BDA AI sucks at gunning down targets in all other scenarios. BDA can’t boom-and-zoom, it can only turnfight. Basically, the AI forces planes into a low-speed dogfight where this flying turret excels and wipes out enemies through sheer volume of fire. There’s two paths against this thing: do what it does even more extreme and enter a stale, boring meta, or try to design a better aircraft that can defeat it in its own way. And let me tell you- the second path is incredibly difficult, because that plane still has to beat the rest of the conventional board. Try to build that plane to beat the HSC, and it will probably lose to the PEGASys-D7. Build a plane that can beat the D7, and well, it might lose to the HSC. But then, I suppose, that is the challenge of the Air Superiority Challenge Unlimited. To build the ultimate superior aircraft that can win in all aspects of combat, no matter how unfair the opponent may seem. And I mentioned earlier about playing to the strengths of jet combat… and I may have an idea. The HSC is a drone that gets stronger the longer a battle draws out and slows down. My philosophy for my drones has always been directly opposed to that- hit fast, end fights quickly. The problem with that is that the HSC’s tactics counter that philosophy very well if my drones fail- my drones get weaker through a battle, and the BDA AI will naturally drag them into the slow turning fight. To design a drone that can strike fast but maintain enough lethality into the mid-game if the initial attack fails, well, that’s the goal now. This entire rant made me realize a few things, and I just came up with the solution.. and most of it was one AI setting change… one that no one considers to touch. It turns out there's more BDA quirks to learn, so get ready for another major meta shift. The others were an ASC staple (routing device) and… another setting we might have been getting wrong for a while now. HSC may have been built to counter the PEGASys-D, but I can tell you that the -D8 can potentially flip the tables just as hard against it. And I didn’t even touch the airframe or weapons loadout at all, which means it’s equally effective against all other opponents. Smart tactics is how we should properly win battles, without resorting to lazy solutions like overwhelming firepower. And I refuse to take the meta in a direction that can be beaten with increasingly lazy solutions. The leaderboard and records have been updated with these aircraft. They are linked in this post and in the record sheet if you want to take a look at them.

oh look who decided to show up Your X-Fighter Hunter fights better than it did last season without any changes, because they fixed Sidewinders. Still not good enough to beat the PEGASys though. I think you'll find this version of BDA to be very good though, very little problems to encounter.

I mean, that was the point of the tier 1 and 2 boards; the tier 1 is populated by extreme hyper-competitive aircraft, and tier 2 has everyone else. But if you want to just fully split them, that's fine; probably the sensible option at this point. The tier 1 board would have eventually been populated by hardcore-only aircraft anyways. Honestly, the tier 1 board, once the old leaderboard is merged in, probably won't see much in the way of major activity, given the level of difficulty presented by those aircraft. Frankly, it takes a lot to build something that can take down what would eventually be the top 3-4, given the required knowledge of advanced ASC tactics, aircraft construction, flight AI programming, and BDA quirks. ASC got really nuts when we pulled all stops and went into hyper-drones a year ago. I may have to reconsider the percentages on what makes a good BDA fighter... probably 35% aircraft construction, 30% weapons and usage, and 35% flight AI. Anyways, remember also that the original setup on the Recordkeeping document was for multiple judges, hence the 'next battle' section under the leaderboards, so that coordination is easier. Sure would be nice if we could get more people in the competition. Maybe we should move to Discord or something, idk, widen the platform so other people get interested outside of the forum community. Other KSP-BDA competitions run on Youtube generally have a larger submission pool.

I've been considering merging the boards, and I've actually already ran a few battles using old leaderboard aircraft. One of which, to my great irritation, actually works better now and would actually take the new top spot on the leaderboard, despite its design being something that I can only describe as 'ultra cheesy'. But more on that later. For the curious, the board's top three would be the HSC, PEGASys-D7, and X-Fighter Hunter. Two of which have not received any updates whatsoever, and then of course, the D7 which replaces the D6. As for what would happen to the rest of the board, well, there's a chance the SK-22 won't be able to place in Tier 1, depending if the UT-7-B4 is in spot #4 or #5. I'll run a few quick battles later to satisfy my own curiosity, but I should also mention that I already re-ran the X-Fighter and HSC, and that's what determined the 'combined' board I mentioned above. Rigid Attach All should be enough; I've heard that auto-struts have a greater chance of producing weird phantom forces around a plane. It's worked for all of my planes.

I've been super lazy and running some old designs that I was still working on, without changing any parts. So the B-10 probably still works the same way as it did when it was first designed. I'll swap out the F from the queue. Really, we could've just picked up the original thread where it left off without any changes, since everything would still work. I might do some bonus battles using the old leaderboard against some of the newer craft, since the competition would have had to go through them anyways.

@panzerknoef The Du-11 was built from lots of experience fighting the PEGASys-D6, as well as a lot of other aircraft. It should be pretty good. That said, he'll probably want to fix up the -11F once he figures out what he did wrong going from the -11B, or else it might have a tough time getting to #2... I have a hint for you @dundun92. The -11F is on the left, the -11B-10 is on the right.