Scoundrel

So I decided to pop on and check out the forums to see what's new and what my old friends are up to and BLAMMO! I stumbled into this thread. Glad to see people are still interested in the mod and thanks to @TMasterson5 for taking over from SpannerMonkey and keeping this little guy alive and up to date! To address some issues: The large Red bay is scaled for AMRAAMs, and I even modelled the extension launcher from the F-22 for it (which I couldn't get it to work because of many reasons). IIRC BDA's AMRAAMs don't fit all 4 because the AIM 120s that Baha made are the A/B series, and the ones that would fit 4 in the bay were C/D series with the clipped wings/fins that are used on the F-22/35 (they may have needed to be staggered... I forget now). Though I started a 120D model, I never bothered to finish it as I started working on a modular missile system, so I just made the current missiles as sort of placeholders while I decided how I was going to implement my BuildYourOwnMissile/Gun mod (based on my original Kerbal Dynamics mod idea)... but I digress. If someone models a 120C/D properly and close to scale, 4x AMRAAM should fit and eject just fine without requiring a bigger bay. As for the AI, IIRC they have problems opening the bay because it needed to have the bay linked to a key and be programmed to hit the key to open the bay before deploying the weapon... but I don't think Baha ever got around to it (I could be wrong though), so whoever is running BDA (or its replacement) needs to add that launch sequence to the AI controller for it to work. Perhaps linking it to part detection? Not sure how that would be best implemented. And I apologize for the medium bay. I had intended to build a AIM-9 bay but life got in the way, so I am sorry for not getting that one done and out before life showed up, smacked me upside the head with Lucille, and turned my little RvB into an orphan. Finally I shall leave with a historical fun fact: If you're wondering why RvB is like how it is, it's because I originally intended that Red and Blue have different design philosophies to give each a unique balance and flavour inspired by all the "build your best jet fighter" challenges: Red is China + Russia + US (using Russian/Chinese ordnance) aggressor; while Blue is everyone else (with US, South African, Israeli and European ordnance). Obviously Blue was at a disadvantage, but that's what made it fun.

As a long time veteran and survivor of the two huge forum blowups and the Great Derp, I think this thread is cute. For those that are curious about KSP history, here's the response on the issue at the time: http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/47730955705/expansions-dlc-and-the-future-of-ksp Unfortunately the forum link to HarvesteR's original thread is dead since the moderators moved it to the archives (this was all after the Great Forum Derp of '13, so I know it's still around), and was considered by most to be Squad's first huge PR blunder, which many also thought would be their last. Unfortunately all it did was foreshadow the Great Community Meltdown of '13... a PR disaster that started when Cap'n Skunky deleted Frostiken's rant thread on the 5th of June (I still have the PM between me and Frostiken), and subsequently bungled the response when they underestimated the community displeasure at how things were being handled, a lack of dev transparency, and at Squad in general. The resulting fallout ultimately led to Skunky eventually getting the boot... which was too bad, he was a nice guy and I liked him, and though he lacked solid crisis management skills, he was great when things were going good. Ahhh, the good ol' days. Back when we got 5 quarters to the dollar... the devs posted on the forums daily... the explosions were bigger... we could get to the mun just using the navball and the horizon as our guide... and rockets were steam powered, as I recall. Anyways, enough strolling down memory launchpad crawler-way lane. The point I am trying to make is that I do not believe that Squad should ignore this thread and allow it to fester. They need to craft a diplomatic response ASAP demonstrating the context and history of the offer, and why April 2013 was the deadline, and put this whole thing to bed. Because it really shouldn't fall to people like me to have to point this out.

I honestly thought that people would use the regular cargo bays for bomb bays, and leave the weapons bays as missile bays, lol. If you're thinking stealth, there would be little difference between a modified weapons bay and the cargo bay, as to open it up I'd have to remove the fuel section, which would reduce its stealth mass fraction, and thus it would have a negligible effect on the LO characteristics of the aircraft when other LO parts are taken into consideration. That might change when Baha rewrites BDA for 1.1, but we'll have to wait and see. Worse case scenario is I just lengthen the cargo bay and slap a red stripe on it. FYI, the way Baha has stealth set up now, filling the bays with weapons appears to reduce an aircraft's LO; I can't confirm it at the moment, but it apparently doesn't recognize parts that have been internalized. It's something I'll bring up with him when he pops back on the forums after KSP 1.1 is released.

The AMRAAM is the older A/B models. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet made the newer C/D models.

Okay, so let's see if my reply works this time... Firstly, a heads up regarding my status: I've been prepping for the last month because in the new year I start a new gig which, for the next 90 days (with an optional +30 days extension) or so, will keep me too busy to work on RvB (as well as have a social life... sigh) Secondly, I do have plans to finish RvB as soon as this gig is over, so feel free to continue to make suggestions. I likely won't be able to reply because my secure laptop doesn't like the new forums for some reason (I can't even log in with it) - I suspect it's because of the cookies - but I will continue to read posts where internet and protocols allow. Anyways, sorry for the long delays. I'm really hoping things cool off in 2016 and I can go back to having lots of spare time again. Cheers!

Affirmative! It's where I get my juicy details for parts (nothing classified tho... I like my freedom!), but geopolitical events coupled with a change in gov't has gobbled up all of my time. I miss the good ole days when I was just a simple consultant. Unfortunately that is the truth. RvB is fun because I'm testing new learning techniques and expanding my skillset (I'm a polymath thanks to my addiction to learning), and I'd definitely prefer to be doing that all day, but apparently I need things like "sustenance" and "shelter" and an internet connection in order to indulge my hobbies. But do not fear! I shall return to RvB!

This is awesome. Just a thought: f you added a GUI so you could zoom out to map mode and drag the model across a planet (or place a marker, then select the vessel and have it automatically shift coordinates to that point), you'd be able to place anything anywhere! Total global warfare, without the fuss!

Sorry, RvB is on indefinite hold thanks to change in government putting my livelihood in crisis mode. "Dance little monkey! Dance for your supper!"

Make sure you get Uwe Boll to direct it!

Niiice! My only quibble is the c pillar looks like its from a 60s Barracuda or a Ford. oh noes! IT'S AN INTERNET FLAME WAR BECAUSE I FOUND 1 TINY THING WRONG AND NOW WE MUST BE MORTAL ENEMIES FOREVER! or something like that. Good job though!

But don't be surprised when the answer is 42.

Which is exactly my point. Yes and no... the more accurate your gunsights, the more precise you want your weapon system; the average engagement ranges for ww2 dogfights was between 50 and 300 yards; and the results of those early dogfights revealed the lack of efficacy of machineguns and pushed aircraft armament towards cannons. The only reason the US weren't running 20mm in WW2 was because they never managed to make the Hispano reliable... even the Colt Mk 12 cannon had a shocking amount of failures, so much so that everyone but Argentina and Brazil swapped them out of their A-4s for DEFAs and ADENs. But I digress. My point is that yes, the Browning is inferior to the UBK for hitting power... just like the UBK is inferior to anything 20mm and up. I have no idea what you're talking about. I thought we were talking about energy vs momentum for damage. What does this have to do with your weapons? I still don't see your point. The UBK had reliability issues under hard maneuvering, was designed to be disposable, was limited in burst length (this was due to the soft steel used in the barrel; even with case hardened steel, the M2 required an inconel sleeve to maintain its rate of fire), wasn't nearly as precise... yet had superior terminal ballistics because the round is heavier. But the biggest reason Americans used the M2 rather than the UBK? Because the UBK isn't American. Remove the sovereignty issues, and yes, the UBK is the better choice if the only criteria is damage dealt. I'm not disagreeing with you on that point. Um... you realize that if you want to "balance" the guns and you don't care that it's not realistic, then you should just give them the exact same stats? I know then that the counter is "but if there's no difference...", but it seems to me like you're arguing for a single point of change to support a rationalization for a decision, rather than pushing for more factors of difference. If we were serious about aircraft guns, we'd add a GLimit trait that if the gun is fired beyond that G limit then it becomes jammed and is out for the remainder of the fight. We would add BallisticCoefficients. We would even take it a step further and include a general Reliability trait (misfires/squibs, jamming) and use accurate dispersion values rather than "I think it needs dispersion X because of balance." We would need shell types (AP, API, HEAT, HEI, SAPHEI, etc) for the cannons. If we did that, we would find plenty of reasons to take one gun over another, depending on our priorities. I am a huge fan of using real world traits and real world solutions when all that has to be added is a few additional factors. Then we can use these realistic numbers and calculations to create realistic armour, and we don't have to mess around with observational and anecdotal evidence to emulate reality when we can more easily and simply simulate it. I wouldn't say problems so much as I would say shortcomings... but yeah, I agree that most of the realism issues with BDA could be solved with just a few adjustments and the addition of a handful of factors. Heh, maybe we could solve it with thermodynamics: rather than apply 100% of the explosive force as force, we transfer a % into heat? We really need to differentiate warhead types.

Erm, that sounds like a rationalization for an unnecessary change to the damage mechanics. Momentum is acceptable as any other, IMHO. Yup. In fact it does. In real life... though not at long ranges where the superior ballistics coefficient of the M8 API not only brings the .50 M2 on par with the Berezin UBZ's 12.7x108mm API BS round for hitting power, but possesses superior windage (1mrad vs 1.3mrads for the API BS), drop (704.2cm vs 861.7cm), and time to 1000m (1.358 seconds vs 1.583 seconds), meaning the .50BMG has a slightly higher Pk at typical to extended engagement ranges. At close in ranges, the UBZ's marginally inferior ballistics aren't particularly relevant, and is a decidedly superior weapon system. It does mean something... just not what you think it means. Faster rounds are more likely to connect with targets, making them more accurate. You are trading the likelihood of connecting with a target for the likelihood of doing significant damage with a single strike, because terminal ballistics and exterior ballistics are not mutually exclusive.

Except that damage isn't based on heat generated; it uses KSP heat mechanic in place of damage, because there is no % damage state for parts (yet).

Yeah I'm not sure where my head was yesterday... oh wait, it was 5 drinks in to a glorious 21 year old Glenfiddich as I prepared a magnificent Michelin-starred quality roast with perfectly done gravy, potatoes and puddings. Anyways, you don't want to use energy calculations. Momentum is what is used to calculate terminal effects: RHA penetration calculations are based on mass*velocity*sectional density*one or more constants, and the spalling/fragmentation effects are derived from that. Maybe, but as I said, we don't want to use energy. There appears to be a straight conversion from momentum into heat, and that is perfect for our purposes. We would just need to derive blastPower from the mass*velocity of the gases of the warhead, and correct the formula to take into account the warhead type. A bit of an oversimplification, sure, but it would be relatively realistic enough for our purposes. I'll see if I can find time to do some calculations of the various munitions and see what numbers I can cook up.

I have no experience with proper programming, but since Acea has kindly pointed me to the part that does explosion damage, I think I've sort of figured it out: [COLOR=#333333]ExplosionHeatMultiplier = [/COLOR][COLOR=#0086b3]2800 [/COLOR]heatDamage = ExplosionHeatMultiplier * power * distanceFactor/part.crashTolerance; part.temperature += heatDamage So distanceFactor is some sort of square root function of distance to the explosions point of origin, ExplosionHeatMultiplier is a constant, and power must be derived from blastPower in the config... yet I can't find the relationship between power and blastPower. It must be in the cs files somewhere... Anyways, the proper damage equation would look something like: heatDamage = ExplosionHeatMultiplier/part.crashTolerance*(power/distanceFactor) We would also add in the weapon config warheadType: HighExplosive, BlastFragmentation, ContinuousRod; and distanceFactor would include a function of the warheadType rather than be just a pure square of the distance. So, knowing that raw R0 damage is 2800 * power, all we would need to do is figure out what that equates to in joules and we'll have our basis for calculating our power for our warheads. So, a bit more research reveals that the formula for kinetic projectiles is: float heatDamage = (rb.mass/hitPart.crashTolerance) * rb.velocity.magnitude * 50 * BDArmorySettings.DMG_MULTIPLIER; [COLOR=#333333]heatDamage = heatDamage/[/COLOR][COLOR=#0086B3]8 [/COLOR] [COLOR=#333333]hitPart.temperature += heatDamage[/COLOR] I'm not exactly sure if there is a difference between velocity and rb.velocity.magnitude at R0 when the vessel is at V0 and the target is also V0; DMG_MULTIPLIER = 6000; and with that info, it's probably safe to say that we have all that we need. A bit of maths finds our projectile heat damage calculations are: mass * velocity * 3750, so a 1 joule projectile (1kg @ 1m/s) would have a heat damage of 3750... thus 1J = 3750! Thus 2800/3750 = ~0.75 joules per point of power! And if we can just figure out the relationship between power and blastPower, we would have an actual measurement from which to derive our blastPower ratings! Woohoo! Anyways, I'll have to finish digging around laters as I've got to get dinner ready. Heh, got ninja'd (sorta) while posting. THAT is exactly the kind of info we need! I'd post more but duty calls! +1 from me!

Ooh, nice attempt. You're just misinterpreting what R is and how it's used... allow me to correct your assumptions. M102/M119: M1/M760HE 2.1kg t1TNT = 9,700,000J Rheinmetall GDM-008: 35x228mm HEI 112 g TNT = 526,400J M256A1: IM HE-T 3.1kg PAX-48 = 18,212,500J R is the radius from the blast point so our numbers should look like 1/R1/3 M102: 0m= 9,700,000J; 5m= 77,600J; 10m= 9,700J GMD-008: 0m= 526,400J; 5m= 4,211J; 10m= 526J M256A1: 0m= 18,212,500J; 5m= 147,700J; 10m= 18,212J Now if we were using blast fragmentation warheads, our numbers would be based on 1/R1/2 M102: 0m= 9,700,000J; 5m= 338,000J; 10m= 97,000J GMD-008: 0m= 526,400J; 5m= 21,056J; 10m= 5,264J M256A1: 0m= 18,212,500J; 5m= 728,500J; 10m= 182,125J How we convert that to blastDamage... I have no idea lol.

Thanks. I knew the ranges were in meters... it's that blast power config I've sort of become fixated on... you'd think the units would be in joules, but I'm starting to think that its just an arbitrary unit that's converted to heat. Also 1.05/1.1 is likely definitely going to break BDA with the tweaks/fixing of the thermal system, which might be an opportunity to fix the blast calculations so they use some meaningful numbers. Yeah, I can approximate the G1 ballistic coefficients* for the projectiles, and I have the G1 drag formula with atmospheric correction (for use on planets such as Duna or Eve... yeah I'm thinking of an expansion for battles outside of Kerbin muahahaha!), but I don't think it's something that Baha would be interested in. I was thinking of working with a programmer to make a mod that would work with BDA to expand BDA to include different warhead types and implement drag calculations (and maybe simply give missiles a drag coefficient rather than the constant fiddling) but I'm not sure if it's technically possible. Also, it would be nice to have a variety of gunsights (iron sights, gyro, radar ranging, computer assisted, integral gun ballistics) that could be tied to the tech tree, but I bet Baha would be even less interested in that lol. *the actual numbers are classified and are not something I can obviously publish, but I can get close as long as I "show my work" as they say.

Ah, thanks! That's actually quite useful to know. So everything is a blast fragmentation warhead... I can work with that! Is there any chance you might be able to recall if there's a unit of measurement that goes along with that number?

Err my bad. I should have been clearer and separated the quotes better. You stated that explosive impulse has a falloff equal to its distance squared, which isn't exactly correct. In real life falloff for pK is equal to R (radius from point of impact) to a particular power that depends on the warhead type: HE, blast fragmentation or continuous rod (blast annular fragmentation)... aaaaaaand since I probably just confused you further: pK is probability of kill, which is derived from a formula which includes a J/MJ value for a given target that the warhead has to meet to be minimally effective (and how the term "effective range" is typically determined). Lastly, BDA doesn't discriminate between HE, BF and CR warheads, and I can't tell if there's any falloff or if it is just an arbitrary cutoff.

Yes It appears to be an arbitrary value. I haven't been able to successfully measure an actual explosive effect. China Lake and Aberdeen uses these formulas for approximate damage effects: HE is R1/3; blast fragmentation is R1/2; and continuous rod is R (though when it goes past Rlimit it becomes R1/3)

The snacks thing started with some fan art, IIRC, back around 0.10, and was further cemented into KSP lore in a few posts from HarvesteR on the Orbiter forums - mostly to do with some off the cuff replies, though... hmm... I could be wrong... I might be misremembering one of the IRC chat things. Anyways, that was back in 2011 when I was just a forum lurker, and the snacks meme had yet to take off. IIRC, it really didn't hit full steam until 0.17ish, where it didn't come from any single source... I think people just heard "snacks" and ran with it. Amusingly enough, if you search for my old posts in the suggestion forums back in 2012, you'll see me arguing that life support should just consist of "snacks" rather than "Life support should require a 200 page manual"... which was about the time that "snacks" as a meme really started to take off. I'm not taking credit for starting it, just saying it wasn't prevalent until about that time, as I had seen someone else post it so I glommed onto the idea for an argument about life support. And of course, a year or two later, someone made a mod that did just that.

Yup. It's pretty good too. If I did an R-73 it would be to use (close to) real-world stats... which means the missiles don't quite perform like their real world counterparts since I have no idea how BDA handles drag and turning so it's trial and error to get the missiles to work properly. Poking around BDA code hasn't revealed much, unfortunately. Me too.

For KSP or BDA? No, not really - other than AI improvements for BDA. For RvB? Right now I'm working on MICA, 530 series, IRIS-T (it flies crazy when I plug its RL attributes into the config, so I have a ton of work yet to do to get it to not fly like an early sidewinder... grrr! ), Magic, and a 30mm gun. I'm also toying with building an R-73, but I'm kind of on the fence about that one. There's a few other ideas I'm kicking around, but I'm waiting until Baha gets back to BDA to see if they'll work.

That might be a conflict between BDA and other mods. I tested the gun by destroying KSC with it (well, most of it) as well as dropping bursts into heat shields...which didn't last too long - they were mostly to check for dispersion - but if it still seems too low I'll crank up the damage. Also if you're using the K-4 missiles, yeah, they're garbage because they are an exact recreation of AIM-4s which were historically crummy - I did that because I'm going to link them to the tech tree down the road after KSP 1.1 is released, but I haven't done it yet because I don't want to do all the work now only to have to redo them because of the change to Unity 5.x and whatever else is changed in BDA/KSP. The K-26, K-60, K-77 and K-132 all have accurate blast damage configs (relative to their warhead size vs what Baha has listed for his ordnance), which are mostly superior to the Sidewinder so you should be knocking planes out of the sky with them. Unfortunately I don't have a missile testing range setup so I can't verify blast damage (I really wish there was some documentation with BDA so I had a better idea of what was what), but if people could do some testing with them and give me feedback, I'll be more than happy to tweak the numbers if it turns out they're too low - which they may very well be.