Charlie_Zulu

Aww, @Rath, you didn't mention my score in the OP!

@Rath, I'm still not on the scoreboard. Since it's not quite in the spirit of the challenge and I can understand why you wouldn't want it there, can I get a honourable mention in the light category at least?

Again, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be checking. I've checked the engines, and they can run for several hours at the right RPM under physics warp on the test stand, so it can be assumed that they should never lose thrust. The plane can sustain flight as long as the engines don't lose thrust or parts fall off. There is no reason for parts to spontaneously fall off in flight when the plane is flown properly. Ergo, the plane should keep flying forever when flown properly, and I'm not sure how flying it for 20 minutes is any less comprehensive a test than flying it for 20 days. What exactly would flying it for a longer time period test? Edit: After a bit of math, it'd take me at least 4 days MET if I wanted to comfortably get first place. I'd rather not.

I don't see a requirement to have actually flown it for the maximum range. @Rath suggests flying it until it crashes and then using F3 to check, but again, this thing should never crash. There is no change in performance over time, and I've flown it for ~20 minutes or more wanting to make sure that it was actually capable of sustained flight and didn't wiggle itself apart. Since the plane can keep flying, it'll only crash when I stop paying attention and it starts to pick up some bank and crashes into the ocean. That's a test of my own willingness to waste a few days of time when I could be doing something better as opposed to the capabilities of the aircraft.

It's definitely not following the spirit of the rules, but I think I have an entry that literally cannot be beat. May I present the Cygnus B: Imgur Album Scoring: The maximum speed I took her to without crashing was 34 m/s. She can go faster, but it's hard to recover from the dive without stalling out and I honestly didn't bother trying. Range is infinite, since RTGs last forever and the engines run on electricity. There are 2 passengers. There are no flight attendants. Total bonus points is either -10 or something around -600. Final score is 34+(∞/10)+(2/5)*1+(0/2)-10 = ∞ Category is light.

Well, uh, damn. My F.2C's definitely not in a state where it's competitive, and the F.4C-D only wins about half the time against the current KotH - I had it winning reliably, then I tweaked some control settings, and now I can't get it to do anything better than break even. If I can PM the F.4C-E to you by Monday, can it still be put in? How successful do I have to be against the current KotH to allow entry?

Recent testing against a pair of Crown Nightingales has led me to discover some interesting things; first, the German 20mm cannons (MG FFs? 151s?) are sparkle cannons, and second, my F3C-B can fly through a Crown Nightingale's wing and suffer no damage (while the Nightingale will lose the wing). Honestly, I'm quite surprised at how the cannons are balanced in AA - Hispanos have a lower muzzle velocity than MG 151s, while doing more damage. This is despite the ridiculous amount of HE filler used in minengeschoss, and the lower muzzle velocity of 151s IRL...

How bad is the drag, though? I found that the largest source of drag on my designs was the vertical engine; you're achieving a negligible amount of lift in exchange for a huge increase in mass (almost double a single-engined design) and a lot of drag. It doesn't seem like a helicopter is worth it. I've experimented a bit with multi-engined crafts in an effort to build a "support" fighter. My largest has 4 engines in 2 nacelles and needs a fat-455 wing to have acceptable wing loading. I'll admit, I'm tempted to keep pursuing it just because it can go 80 m/s in a 30 degree climb and can outrun anything else in this competition, and the centrally-mounted guns means it absolutely tears apart anything it hits, it's just really damn big. I'm looking into possibly armouring it up and using it to tank damage while a pair of highly maneuverable fighters pick off distracted enemies.

The problem with "they should only have one engine" is that there are counterexamples in real life. The Germans loved putting multiple D.IVa engines on planes; I can't recall the name, but they even managed to make a bomber with 4 of the engines coupled together to power a single propeller. If someone wants to put more engines on their plane, that's fair, especially since it's about an extra tonne of mass for every radial engine added, and the engines produce a LOT of drag. As for speeds, the vast majority of planes in the competition are limited to under 360 km/h. While faster than most WW1 planes by about 120-150 km/h, it's in line with what would be expected from interbellum designs - the I-15, for instance, could manage those speeds without difficulty.

Also, FYI, the wing area/mass ratio on those swept wings is terrible. I switched to using them for a while after the low heat tolerance of the FAT-455 tails caused my wings to come off after a single hit, and found that I was consistently getting planes much heavier than its counterparts.

Yeah, I pretty much gave up on defeating the Sweep because of this. I'm not a fan of making planes with multi-part wings, nor do I like doing things like clipping engines into fuselages like you've done. If I made a plane with a large enough wing to support 2 engines side-by-side, I had to have larger wing pieces, which meant that a shot to the wing by a Sweep was a guaranteed death. Meanwhile, I could score 5 or 10 confirmed hits on a Sweep with twin nose-mounted Hispanos, and it'd still keep flying. Monoplanes in this competition also have the disadvantage of presenting a larger target as well, meaning it's easier for enemy planes to land a hit on them.

It's 1200 K, half that of the other airplane parts (which are all 2400 K), at least according to the KSP wiki. If anything it's a disadvantage, but I just like the wing profile too much to consider giving it up unless I'm made to do so. Here's the link again, although I'll be changing it; it consistently loses to the (old) SI-5 in a one-on-one for some reason despite having much better performance on paper. I've already made a C version that has a much lighter cockpit made of wing panels and radiators.

Do you mean the empennage or the tail parts used for the wing? The rudder and elevator are the old elevons (I think Elevon 2 and 3?). The wings are the FAT-455 tails, which aren't a Mk.3 profile part or otherwise associated with the Mk.3 fuselage system aside from being added in the same update. If you want, I can add additional control surfaces & disable the tails' built-in control surface, but I'd rather not replace the entire wing; I really like how they look. Thanks. Thanks for the fix. I've played enough flight sims to be aware of muzzle velocity influencing drop - that's why I specifically mentioned the MK108s, which had that issue in real life as well. However, it's fairly common to account for that and aim upwards slightly; I'm wondering why the BDA AI doesn't. The 12.7mm AN/M2 has a negligibly higher muzzle velocity than the Hispano Mk.2 anyways, and the Hispano's muzzle velocity is very high compared to German cannons or the ShVAK.

I've noticed some issues with the AI when trying to test ASC III crafts. I have two relatively capable fighters (one can keep above 50 m/s in a 5g vertical loop) that are both stable (both the AI and SAS hold them straight towards a moving target), and they're both armed with Hispano Mk.2s. When I pilot them, I have no trouble shooting things down, even with mouse & keyboard. However, I've had two glitches. First, the AI won't start the competition; it gets hung up on "pilots are taking off" & keeps both planes orbiting at their cruise altitude until they run out of fuel. If I use Guard Mode to get around this & attack cruising targets, the AI just shoots at a point slightly underneath the enemy. I'm suspecting that it's not compensating for bullet drop - it was even worse when using MK108s. This means you have to get right on the enemy's tail in order to land a shot, or just get really lucky. As well, a few general questions: First, how do guns interact with engines? Do guns have a virtual synchro gear, or do they just ignore the effect of the prop? Is mounting a Motorkanone desirable? Finally, here's my current flagship aircraft, the F2C-B Tern, though I've been unable to test it. I'm currently working on a high-performance monoplane variant with a higher cockpit, as well as a biplane with a lightweight cockpit and better forward visibility. If the Kerbal pops out, just re-board the seat.

If you could do this, it would be great. Kerbalism's calculation of communication range is much more in-depth than RT's thanks to the influence of space weather, but the deficiencies of the signal system (the absence of an autopilot, connection lines, and for some, signal delay and directional antennas) makes it preferable to use RT. Your adaptability to allow other mods to work with Kerbalism is already remarkable, and this would go above and beyond.