TorchedForever

Wow, now that's dedication to a replica! The stabilizer design is truly impressive. Even that alone makes this an excellent craft.

Great idea for a challenge! I need to go dust off some jet designs, look into the mods, and get cracking. So much to learn about the parts and different dynamics of Laythe. It will be interesting to see what you all come up with! I've got some random thoughts about the challenge in the spoiler below, but it's pretty much a wall-of-text. TL:DR sometimes greater restrictions on weapon count and which parts you can use contributes to a healthier challenge

Great replica! It looks good and seems highly functional.

I've been trying my hand at this challenge. My current best is 4 out of 6 but I'm having trouble taking out the highest mountain launcher. Its position makes it very difficult to get the jump on.

I expect designs similar to the VulcaRaptor will still be dominate. High wing area for maneuverability and reaction wheels for gun accuracy. Additionally, the biplane design maximizes wing area for a given target profile. Another approach might be to focus on the bullet joust at the start of the match. A narrow plane with GAUs could takeout the competition before the battle really starts. Although some quick tests have shown that the joust is much shorter than expected and even twin GAUs can't put out enough firepower. If anyone has test results that contradict this feel free to share. EDIT - Way back in ASC they found vulcans to be more effective than GAUs. I'll have to revisit the tests with this in mind. And as for the posting of testing results, I'm all for it. Sure it means you're giving up an advantage, but it makes the challenge more competitive (Fewer poorly designed planes) and keeps the thread alive.

Sounds interesting! I'll begin working on a submission right away.

I did some more testing with the newest entries and the revised AVRO Kraken. @GDJ wow... Those new Krakens are frightening, my planes are torn to shreds instead of enveloped in a green cloud of 20mm rounds. Anyway, here is the updated version of the Vivamente. Turns out you can't use the same settings as a slower plane .

After a decent amount of testing (not extensive as normal, this craft being more of a revision than creation) I present my entry for ASC-IV The K13-A Vivamente It's a redesign of the good ol' Volante with a stronger engine, more guns, and some minor tweaks. @GDJ your Krakens are certainly formidable. With some tweaks it'll be a nightmare to fight. I'd recommend switching to the BDA 50 cals by the way. The ShKAS is just ineffective. The already low accuracy of the weapon is amplified by a high Steer Factor. Not to mention the few stray shots that hit rarely cause enough damage to remove parts.

Uhh.. Wildcat your plane has 8 guns. Is this going to be another rule change?

Are we keeping the 50 part limit or is it gone?

Does this mean the competition will actually start on February 15th or that the contest will take submissions until then?

Those last three matches were great to watch. @Draconiator's planes put up a strong fight, they were great at exploiting the Volante's fragility. Also, the music for the third round was perfect. @AlexTheHu, I think your planes could have taken down the Volante with a bit less roll. They were pretty capable at tearing the Volantes apart once they got their sights on 'em. @qzgy those planes could take quite a beating! They could deal with surface loss extremely well. Now I need to learn how missiles work for ASC-4.

I'm not sure if mod requests are fitting for this challenge. It has always been fairly minimum (more accessible that way) using only BDA at times. KAX was necessary for a WWI-themed challenge to exist and Aviator Arsenal was only added due to weapon restrictions. Also, I've been working on two planes for beating the Volante, a more extreme Volante (requires a lot of AI work) and a small, stable sniper (just recently started). So far, it looks like out maneuvering the Volante while still maintaining speed and accuracy will be difficult. One strange idea might be building a slower plane and using that to get behind the Volante's tail. I haven't gotten to test the sniper yet, so I cannot comment on how well that idea will work.

In the battle against epicman81 I noticed that the lighter mk25s lasted longer than the armored mk24s. It seems like losing speed or maneuverability for 'armor' doesn't pay off. Damage avoidance or managing part loss seems to be more useful than damage tolerance. I did some testing with a Volante versus an armored version. While the Volante isn't the best plane to armor (large wings and all), there is a lot of plane to cover and the weight and part count jumped rapidly. A fully armored plane would certainly pose a challenge, but it would be hard to pull off. On the other hand, the "Sweep" was giving me some trouble in testing because it could handle wing loss really well. The Kerbwith Alpaca has similar design and might down the Volante. Reopening ASC-III might be a cool way to explore the design concepts behind ASC and develop understanding of the sniper-dogfighter dynamic. I would advocate for creative solutions as opposed to the method used to take down the VulcaRaptor, ie. remaking it with a few tweaks for improved performance (redoing the rooting tree, moving all yaw control to wing-attached surfaces, etc.).

Well, thanks guys! I didn't expect the Volante to survive this long. GDJ, your Super Bees had me worried, that second round showed how vulnerable the Volante is to the bullet joust.

It gets the same top speed with and without the vertical engine. The vertical thrust allows it to have 0 AoA while flying level, which decreases drag. Really, the only benefit is you have much smaller wing area than a conventional design. Your concept seems interesting. I ran some tests with a Mallard covered in structural panels, it seemed to work fairly well. I'd love some pictures if you can get them!

I whipped up a vertical engined craft. It still had wings (just really small ones) for stability and control. Not sure how much of an advantage vertical engines provide. They can make a plane have a smaller target profile (it's about 6.4 x 4.9 x 6.7) but your vertical engines are vulnerable and you crash without 'em. Here's a couple pics for you.

Charlie_Zulu helped convince me that allowing multiple engines is probably fine within reason. As long as you aren't reaching transonic speeds or your plane uses vertical engines instead of wings multiple engines are not a problem.

The interior of the helicopter is stunning! Nice use of probe cores too.

So, after a bit of testing with stacking multiple engines I found top speeds tended to max under the limit you described. The extra thrust and drag seem to equal out mostly and fuel consumption because problematic. I guess they are fairly balanced. I believe the German aircraft you are referring to is the Linke-Hofmann R.II, which also had the largest single propeller in history!

I think that might be up for discussion though. ASC-III is the WWI themed rendition of ASC. However, inigma generously extended the time period to pre-WWII so that there was a little more variety. The mark 24 starfish and the Kerman & Kerman Sweep have a little over 100 kN worth of power using 3 and 2 engines respectively. The Sweep maxes out at 105 m/s and can climb at an astonishing rate of 32 m/s at 30 degrees. This seems like a good limit for Interwar craft seeing as a P-40 Warhawk can get to 160 m/s. Five engines fives 260 kN worth of power, twice the power of an afterburning jet engine. I think that easily goes beyond the intended scope of the rules. I would advocate for a 110 kN power limit, it lets you build some interesting designs without throwing reality out the window. Also, it doesn't make any previous craft invalid. We could lower that limit for ASC-VI to 45 kN for true WWI combat.

I'm in favor of some engine limitations. Biplanes and triplanes were favored in WWI mostly due to their climbing capabilities. Gaining altitude quickly let you escape an oppenent's line of fire. Not to mention, with higher altitude you could dive a little into your attacks creating a larger target. However, with the sheer power of the KSP engines (especially mounting two or three) climb rates are high enough that monoplanes work better. They produce a smaller target and usually result in lower part counts. If we want true WWI style dog fights I would recommend limiting engine thrust to something like 75% of the diesel engine's (roughly 40 kN).

So I noticed that people are posting mostly 1v1 test results. These tend to not reflect 4v4 behavior very well from what I have seen. In 1v1 the bullet jousting at the beginning is basically a contest of who can hit first. However, in 4v4 the bullet joust is more focused on forcing the enemy to go into evasive maneuvers. Also, at the 4v4 level you have to worry about taking fire from multiple sources and wounded planes drawing unnecessary fire. I need to start working on another plane if when the Volante gets torn to pieces.

With epicman81 v. JollyGreenGI it looks like bad wheel physics struck the mark 20s down. They would hover above the ground, and due to pitch instability would touch down momentarily. However, the wheels spin out at high speeds causing the crashes.

Excellent job on the wings, they blend so smoothly! Do you have any pictures of it at other angles?