colmo

Nice video - I'll see what kind of quality I can manage in capture. I didn't think anyone would use that huge GAU gun, it certainly seems to hamper manoeuvring (those planes turn slowly) but it's a monster in damage. Yes, I just started tampering with default altitude - it made a huge difference to the normal kind of engagement. Definitely one for the designers to decide - lots of thrust and big wings to get altitude advantage, or manoeuvrable and do the limbo flying dangerously low around the KSC? Setting a really low minimum altitude gives first strike advantage, but crash probability goes up. Just the sort of risk/reward scenario you want in a contest of design skill. It also produced a dogfight were one jet shot down his own wingman and both opposing jets in a single strafe!

What is seen cannot be unseen. I will not sleep tonight.

Scatterer doesn't play nice with OpenGL? That's a shame. I noticed Linux had those ugly texture seams too.

Sure, some balancing of the point cost of missiles (and countermeasures) v guns might be required, but remember this may also bias the kind of planes favoured - missiles favour fast long-range fighters (BVR), guns favour agile dogfighters (WVR).* Some may want to repeat the mistake of the Americans in Vietnam, and build planes with no cannon. Who knows, it might work in KSP? Very risky if all the missiles miss, then it's a matter of outlasting the opposition team while not getting shot down! BVR = Beyond visual range - e.g. F22 Raptor WVR = Within Visual Range - e.g. Eurofighter Typhoon

From memory, if a missile hits it's goodnight Vienna, regardless. Iirc, the AMRAAMs get fired first, followed by the Sidewinders, and often its hard to tell which made the kill. Points - let's say 10: Both AtA missiles cost a point, as does the cannon and ammo box each, and each countermeasures pod. You could have long distance loadout: 1 cannon 1 ammo 4 AMRAAM 2 Sidewinder 2 countermeasures Or short range: 2 cannon 3 ammo 2 Sidewinder 3 Countermeasures And I'm sure there are other viable loadouts too. Might need a rule that cannon ammo must be visible - don't want cheaty clipped boxes hidden from sight for auditing! No idea about other weapons - they really belong in an anything goes class than pure fighters.

Part of the builder's skill will be tweaking the BD AI to optimise the performance of the craft. Steering factor and limiter etc. are to be used exactly as provided in the craft file. Should max and min altitudes be the same for all? Some designs may work better high, other lower and slower, so may also be a design choice? Or should this, too, be a design choice? As long as the ranges overlap reasonably, this shouldn't result in the silly scenario of two sets of planes circling, one so far above the other they go out of the 5km engagement range.

I'm getting the feeling the testing for this challenge might be as much or more fun/work as the tournament... Easy way to test weapon costing is to test different loadouts on the same airframe against each other. Standard seems to be 2 Sidewinders, 4 AMRAAM and a cannon, but I doubt there'd be 4 AMRAAM still on planes in a close dogfight like this. I'm not sure which missile type is better inside 5km, surely the Sidewinder's lower mass would make it more valuable? Countermeasures also need including in the cost, to introduce a defence/offence dynamic.

No need, as you say, no point splintering the participation. I'm happy to put the idea out there and let someone else lead with it. Your enthusiasm is noted Key is that people design for challenges rather than use existing craft (they may modify), so you may be on the money by keeping it focused. I've just been reading up on interceptors, which throws up a whole different set of scenarios. The ultimate is a triathlon of air superiority, interceptor and ground attack to find a multirole design. Weapons loadout changes with role, so I think having standard weapon loadouts for particular roles is a good idea. I note some real fighters have one cannon, some have two - not sure whether to restrict or allow swapping one for, say, 2 Sidewinders?

For weapon loadouts, it's really a matter of Sidewinders, AMRAAM, and guns (fighters would surely all use the hidden Vulcan). I found myself restricting my single engine class jets to two Sidewinders and one Vulcan, and twin engine to two Sidewinders, 2 AMRAAM and 2 Vulcan. Ammo was one box per gun. They also got more countermeasures, 4 instead of 2. They rarely got shot down with missiles. The points system idea means some may go for guns, some for missiles, some for a balanced mix. As it's really a test of the plane, not the weapons minmax, I favour a standard loadout for particular classes of plane. What's the usual loadout of an air superiority jet?

I suppose we could create a custom Kerbal Constructs site with 4 launch sites, then its just a matter of launching them, setting them up, and letting them go for the 2 v 2. As for base assaults, similar, but maybe with a hill in the way to give the planes a chance to get in the air before getting shot at. If this develops a following, new contests would use new custom sites which would be akin to a golf tour with unique courses

It does have simplicity going for it. I'm a tiny bit curious to see if someone goes the other way and builds a flying fortress replete with Goalkeepers, but first time out, reasonably similar planes avoids too much silliness. We can always expand the parameters for subsequent contests. - - - Updated - - - I just added explanation of my classes options. Noname is advocating a fighter class as the main contest, which fits the different classes option rather than open classes.

Remember that running out of fuel is effectively a loss, and running out of ammo is a death sentence. I haven't really tried to abuse the new aero to make a tiny plane (which I presume would have monstrous TWR and low drag), but it's likely it would be limited in it's endurance, toughness (mk1 fuel tanks go poof very easily, mk2 are much sturdier) or weapons carrying capability. I'd be interested to see if an abusive design could make it all the way through before getting exposed by one of its design compromises? It's possible this ruleset could evolve over multiple contests. - - - Updated - - - That being said, a minimum delta V (from Kerbal Engineer readout) would be an easy restriction.

Well, we can have few builders but many planes - I have a load of differing designs I'd happily submit to make up numbers. I don't have experience of livestreaming or YouTube, so happy to let someone else do that (there's no requirement all the contests be performed by the same person if the starting conditions are meticulously agreed). I'd agree on part count - no 100 part monstrosities featuring all manner of weird parts just to make it look like an F22, this is about effective designs, and if they're original or only work because it's KSP, so be it, all to the good.

Thanks! I'm thinking of minimal human input for reproducibility - any ideas how to set up base assaults so the starting conditions are always the same without a massive time investment? I might use some persistence file editing to set e.g. starting positions, because I noticed slight variations in heading tend to result in the same thing happening over and over, such as one plane getting targeted by all the missiles from both enemies. I do like including take-off as part of the test, because the planes to reach min altitude first have the advantage. I even figured out how to do VTOL take-offs under AI, though sadly the basic jet has been nerfed so badly it's not worth it.

Poll: Multiple choices allowed, check what matters to you. Note that Open classes means anything goes in matchups, different classes means like battles like. Current AI v AI contests and tournaments: Top Gun AI - Stock modern fighters - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130238-Top-Gun-AI-The-Official-Tournament-Thread WW2 BAD-T - Early 20th century fighters, FAR and mods allowed - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130035-WW2-BAD-T-World-War-2-BDArmory-AI-Dogfight-Tournament-OPEN FAR Fighter Challenge - A stock 1v1 contest using FAR and Dynamic Deflection mods. - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132274-FAR-Fighter-Challenge-BD-Armory-AI [ASC] Air Superiority Challenge - King of the Hill - 2v2 AI Dogfight Battles- A modded 2v2 contest, no holds barred! YouTube playlist of test videos, use #TopGunAI in title, description or tags and I can add your video to it: I had no interest in BD Armoury until I saw the first AI dogfighting videos. That tipped me over the edge - I haven't built many planes since about 0.15, but I've been churning out fighters for the last few weeks. The next step was to test them. Doing a human trial is far too subjective, so letting the AI do it seemed much fairer. I quickly found 2 v 2 battles, where each team starts either side of the runway, all AI active and guard mode on, until I switch one to team B. At that point, all the planes scramble and I have plenty of time to switch the wingman to team B too. I then sit back and watch to see which plane wins the most fights, probably best of 3. Winning means having at least one plane under controlled, powered flight when the other team doesn't (in some cases, they ran out of fuel!). If there's a mutual wipeout, it's a draw. I guess a whitewash, a win with both planes still flying, is worth a bonus point. Planes that fly out of guard mode range before they can turn and engage are deemed lost. My question is, would anyone be interested in a builders' contest, designing planes and then having a knockout contest to find the winner, using this format? Also, would there be interest in recording videos of the battles? I find them mesmerising! My PC, however, is very old, so I'm unsure how good performance would be. Finally, would stock plus BD be the way to go, or allow a few select mods? Would different classes of plane be desired - e.g. twin turbofans are much more dangerous than single turbofans, and wouldn't be a fair fight. Perhaps old-school prop engine dogfights would be desirable. I'm unfamiliar with FAR, and would prefer to conduct the tests under stock aero,but as the AI does the flying and everyone else does the building, that may not matter. Weapon loadouts may also be open or restricted, again depending on feedback. AI settings would be whatever the plane's craft file is set to, though there would be max and min altitudes set. I found that pure performance wasn't the only factor in design - redundancy and using tough parts play a part, in a speed v toughness tradeoff which challenges builders. My house rule for part clipping is it's fine unless both parts are fuel tanks (I wouldn't count things like the engine precooler, as it has barely any), in which case only one can carry fuel, the other must be drained, or both only partially filled depending on degree of overlap. In the course of this thread, I've developed a few more ideas: On part clipping, my thoughts are:

It might have been a space invaders game on the BBC Micro, or one of a number of ZX Spectrum games - there was a fruit machine one, and a flying side-on level-based game called Helichopper, which had the all time greatest level name: "Soft Solid Tank Attack", featuring bouncing rubbery tanks.

Kerbal Konstructs allows the placement of runways and buildings in-game. Launching new vessels from a base in Laythe (which KK can do, just not advised on bodies other than Kerbin) is likely to be...'exciting'.

Nice tip - the old Damned Robotics rotatrons and hinges made fabulous torsion bar suspensions, but alas the Infernal equivalents now would be much more solid.

The amount of grip wheels give when trying to skid or slide is a long-term issue. As wheels are being completely redone in KSP 1.1, apparently much for the better, you could bide your time by using the Rollkage wheels, which slide rather than roll, or TouhouTorpedo's rover wheels, though they've not been updated in a while. Kerbal Foundries is up to date - lo-fi has put in a lot of work on wheels, they likely perform well.

Just reinstalled OpenSuse after a few months away. Oh joy, couldn't wait to ditch Windows. It's probably not the best distro for the job but it's the one I know best, been using it on and off since 1999.

It'll work on a Windows 8/10 tablet, and any Intel based Android tablet modded to run Linux. Performance is likely to be horrible in either case.

I was just thinking this. Not sure how to get AI pilots to attack buildings, until Baha implements laser guided targeting (there's a demo on his YouTube channel), then it would be a matter of set coordinates for the various buildings. Can vehicles spawn in the air? It would seem counter-intuitive to be accepting it as a contract - we'd need some sort of random contract trigger. Perhaps a class of random contracts which are accepted automatically (with an alert to let you know!) and don't take up contract slots, like the speed and altitude record contracts. I'd love an air-raid siren, a guard mode 'weapon' which triggers when enemies stray within range.

A small request, but could you fix the preview icons for tracks in VAB/SPH? Being so small, I unconsciously overlook them, and as I'm not familiar with the pack, finding the right tracks is trial and error.

Interesting pack. As a helicopter fan, I'd prefer it remain open to aircraft of various types. Suggestion: Rescue contracts from the surface, including oceans, of Kerbin. This could include splashed down pod recovery! This especially encourages VTOL aircraft, which are pretty tough to build and fly. It could also encourage cargo-capable planes, perhaps with their own deployable recovery vehicles.

Yes. It'll be called Kerbal Space Program 2; similar idea, but moved to a more suitable game engine (Space Engine, anyone?) And I'd happily play it.