Alioth81

Thanks for running it. Very satisfying to watch a 75mm kill even if it is friendly fire and when it misses it makes nice new year fireworks. I agree it would be more on the fun then competition side but without the 500m arming distance the 75mm would have been a very solid choice for a different type of warplane. With arming distance it could have been interesting on an even slower (opponent spends more time at 500m plus) plane. More agility and more optimization (probably smaller explosion distance setting to maximize damage) could have helped too I guess. Wish you all a good end of 2019 and a great start into 2020

I am currently traveling and will be until end if January but I watched the matches when I had WiFi. Thanks @SuicidalInsanity for running the tournament. I hope I am back in time for the next one. Out of curiosity could you run a fight with my flak fighter (75mm). I never really finished and tested it under true battle conditions and wondered whether it would have been viable at all.

@Pds314 creative use of parts. I tried once but always had issues with z fighting and ended up with huge part count. About how much do you elevate the wing decals to avoid z interference with the main wing? I probably have to try again For the round parts you use a procedural structural part? That limits you to those colors correct? Regarding minimum height it should have been 450m so it seems i uploaded a slightly earlier version. However some crashes would have occurred anyway I guess. Loved to watch the first fight. Seemed pretty even and was quite tense.

Such a disappointing last match... Seeing them nose dive that hard. Also showing that the most important part of the plane is the root with wings having so much HP. I saw some dives that seemed to be related to beiing fired at but they never crashed as much during my testing as here... I guess it must be a case of going to close to the limit and @Pds314 design. Good job @Pds314! What mod did you use for decals? Do they influence FAR and how do they interact with BDAc hitpoints? My guess reason for excessively suicidal behaviour of my pilots are: - Too much risk taken by setting min height very low... But having it as low as possible is so important :-) -AL-25 were significantly above max speed so they had excessive speed adjusted steer limiting. - La-9 has very low min alt? And probably low default alt too. So the merge happened at low alt. I never tested against such a plane. - the ground seemed quite a bit above sea level and i tested only around the space center - AI sometimes not immediately pulling up below min height I should have continued to optimize the very low speed design of the AL-26 with his Flak and not revert to this one - it could have lost with more style @SuicidalInsanity If the looser round happens with GLOC off can you put the speed adjusted steer limiter to 1 on the AL- 25? Else they probably happily crash there as well.

Seems to work only because of the rpm mod

I think it is resolved. Try this one here until a new release comes out

I agree releasing of the stick is better (no matter what is more realistic) because it will not end in a literal infinite loop. If you release the stick the problem is solved quickly either by lithobraking or by recovery. But I guess this behaviour is not BDAc but part of Kerbal Space Program code. In my opinion the biggest flaws of the AI - It uses the vertical space much to liberal. It should prefer to turn within the horizontal plane. Pulling up into a looping with someone on your tail is rarely good and wastes energy and the same goes for doing a split-s especially when 200m above minimum height - The evasion moves it does should be really just last resort panic mode... They also seem to lock the plane in a certain sate so it does not react to other input (like not pulling up below min height). - Basically if it is faster and accelerates faster then its opponent it should just move away until it hits extension range. If slower and accelerating splower it should it should try to roll until there is some difference in the roll axis and break away. In addition instead of using brakes to force an over shoot of a faster opponent it sometimes just pulls back throttle making itself an easy target. - It does not respect its top speed, and does not use the brakes (or basically it uses the brakes but only for split seconds) even if you have setup spoilers. - it should stick to its plan and not switch targets so easily or reverse a breakaway after a second.

If someone is interested here is my Flak fighter. I scaled down the engines so it should technically be compliant. https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-26-Rhino However it is not optimized so use it at your own risk. I will be away for quite some time but i hope to get internet connection for time to time to follow this thread

Thanks that did the job. My folder was indeed named wrongly. Similar but still wrong. By the way here is the unfinished fighter with Flak gun in action. (Does not conform to rules and is not really tuned). The only thing I did was lowering the minimum arming distance to 50m (from 500) and suddenly its deadly

The canards are turning ahead. Basically I have redundant pitch control and they provide additional lift at low speeds and drag at high speed to bleed speed in turns to avoid GLOC. The max deflection is lower than the other control surfaces and they tolerate quite some AoA before they stall. But you are correct the canards are the limiting factor in terms of AoA.

@SuicidalInsanity I considered using it and have a semi finished BF-109-Z where I planed to mount it when I saw it has air detonation. However it seemed shots detonate only after a certain minimum range 500m+ which was to big to be used effectively. The guns cost are a bit high too and you are forced to go with weak engines. I think between 50 - 400m it could have worked What version of BDAc Si edition of your repository are you using? I might want to build my own because I want to show the aiming sight and the aiming support also when the AI is engaged. At the moment You can show or hide it if you fly yourself but if the AI is engaged it does not show. In addition I installed your beautiful target markers but I still have the original BDAc ones showing so I get them on top of each other. The brackets around the targets still seem to be the original ones an not the nice circles you made. Is there a way how to show one or the other? @Pds314 Scared of the first fight against the La-9 DPRK who is probably a very good turn fighter at low speed . I was hoping for a fast craft that does high speed turns. Now it is up to the Kerbal Ace pilots to show how good the can deal with an opponent that probably has a plane and the skill to exploit the weakness of the Vulture.

I agree. With my limited testing I found the MG151, the 23mm Vya and the 30mm MK108 to be the best guns The 20mm due to its generous overheating tolerance and the good damage. The 23mm has significantly more damage for only 3 points and fires very fast but overheats quickly. The 30mm basically one shots whatever fuselage part or control surface it hits but is often overkill and does not match well with other guns. Thats why I put the a 20mm and 2x 23mm on my plane. I considered 3x 20mm but did not have the time to adjust my plane (with a bigger engine)

it seems that adding something like maxRot = 130 in the internal configuration of the cockpit does the job. Example: MODULE { name = InternalSeat seatTransformName = PilotChair portraitCameraName = PilotCam allowCrewHelmet = False kerbalEyeOffset = 0, 0.018, 0 maxRot = 130 }

That is my entry: https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-25-Vulture The "vulture" The compromise between maneuverability, TWR, top speed and trying not to GLOC with accurate guns. It is not top in one area but ok in all. Strength: It tries to fight at low altitude trying to lure the opponent in below their minimum altitude to use their pull up to get on their tail. It is very maneuverable above 140 m/s It is fairly accurate with it guns and will use the 20mm MG 151 on long range and 2x 23mm Vya on close range. If the vulture is behind the target and in range of the 23mm it is over fairly quickly. It has a lot of redundancy in the control surfaces and big sturdy wings Weakness: not so maneuverable below 120 m/s (and it spends a lot of time below 120 m/s as it bleeds speed fast) Shooting at the cockpit will kill it easily (happened sometimes during the first merge). Reckless AI will not dodge incoming fire but simply roll. Stalls sometimes during its maneuvers (simultaneous roll and pitch) In general has risky AI settings (GLOC min altitude lead to crashes)

It could be related to the fact that if you limit steering at higher speeds it will extrapolate further if you are above max speed. E.g. in a dive. So it could be that it only has 0.1 input left and crashes. Also if it is under fire it will do a bit of rolling and sometimes forgets to pull up. Maybe the adjusted steer limiter should not go below that limit? Although the trainer is not very agile at low speeds it can pull a lot of Gs at high speeds (and bleeds the speed quickly). Therefore if a fast plane with good energy retention follows it can get GLOC very quickly.

Normally I would probably have set those to do nothing or as spoilers (only decorative as the AI does not use them). However because its good acceleration and the GLOC I had to create something that slows the craft down while turning hard to bleed all the speed. I was actually surprised how well it works but it has drawbacks like tendency to stall at high AoA. I am sure the plane can be optimized in many ways but instead of optimizing the design I just used the "flaps" as brakes as it was intended only as a bit more challenging test opponent for future designs. General question to all what is your strategy to deal with GLOC? Lower top speed? Less agility at high speed?

How can I extend the rotation limits of the IVA camera? Can I look backwards? I am in the inline cockpit and want to look backwards however it seems that there is a limit at around 90° (meaning you can only turn around within the front 180°). I would prefer to have something like 270° (basically look back over the shoulder).

I did PR on Github as you suggested. I hope I did it correctly

For those wanting nice destruction effects I added this small patch for destruction effects: https://github.com/Alioth81/DestructionEffects/releases/tag/1.10.1 I am a first time github user so no clue if I published it in the right way. If not let me know and I remove it. This should fix the all burning auto-struts problems that existed before. In addition it adds some more parts to the burning list (also includes case insensitivity which it did not have before) It also adds flames to breakaway parts which is especial spectacular if you destroy the root node I do not intend to continue to fix other stuff or guarantee it works for you. It does work for me on 1.7.3. with typical mods required for BAD-T

For those who cannot compile the code themselves I added this zip https://github.com/Alioth81/DestructionEffects/releases/tag/1.10.1 I am a first time Github user and I do not claim this is a full release more a patch until it is fixed in the real destruction effects. It works for me under 1.7.3 with modes to run the BAD-T challenge but I do not know how it interacts with other modes or KSP versions. If I did something wrong please inform me and I delete it.

Here is my advanced target dummy if the original one isn't a challenge anymore. AL-24 Advanced Combat Trainer 2x 13mm & 1x 30mm with the best engine.

I updated my version of flamingjoints.cs again (see some posts above) This version clears the list of dead parts when a scene is loaded. Else it could lead to some unexpected burning parts when you reload a save game that contains a plane that was destroyed in a previous session.

If I get it to work I will enter with a fusion of the WW2 Canard fighter protoyp Ambrosini SS.4 and Do 335. Main challenge is to tune the control surfaces and the AI. If someone is interested I can upload an advanced target dummy that offers a greater challenge. It is basically my bar I set myself to test against. It is very frustrating that the advanced dummy I created in 30 minutes so far destroys my design I spent an evening with. Probably a sign that I should restart the design... I found some interesting huge jumps in HP based on the wing strength set in FAR. This is especially apparent with procedural wings but also affects the stock wings. Basically the HP stays constant but under a certain wing strength HP drops dramatically and stays there. You could argue that this is reflecting a different material that is used in construction but I thinks it is a bit weird . Also procedural parts still seem a bit buggy and the nodes vanish which can mess up your autostruts/rigid attachment @Pds314 Set the same weapon group for both weapons and they fire together. You can still have different ranges set (I think it only works in barrage mode). I just call the groups something like "Alpha" or "Guns" and type in that name for all weapons that should fire together.

@Me1_base Did you try the mod memgraph? It solved my stuttering issues. I can say from my limited testing that GLOC will be a major issue for all those normally designing super agile planes. In fact finding the right balance between agility and not flying around in eternal circles with unconscious Kerbals will be a deciding factor. My limited experience tells me high g-load for a very short time no problem. Sustained 12 g not good. Especially if the AI tries a downward facing tight turn it can get bad very quickly if it does not bleed speed quickly.

@TheKurgan How did your testing go? I updated the code in my previous post so that also the breakaway parts get flames attached if the root part is destroyed which is quite a firework . (Happens only if the root part would have gotten flames attached e.g. its a cockpit, has resources etc.). Before I excluded the root part from the dead part list so its destruction was not triggering effects on the break away parts. So please update as well