Three1415

As for shunting the CoL very far forward, there is a definite limit to what the AI can actually control; too far and it will usually crash the plane. With regards to control surface spam, however, I more or less did that (see the Double Down on the Top Gun AI thread), which resulted in this discussion about how to prevent such similar spamming in the future.

The increased speed of your airframe is what allows the Double Down to win. Due to the latter's biplane configuration, it has high drag but massive lift, and it uses its low stall speed but high turn rate to get inside of other craft (as its turn radius is and can remain small); faster planes "waste time" decelerating to optimal turning speeds, whereas the Double Down does not. The GAU-8 is probably too effective for its point value; because it uses 30mm rounds, even a single hit will destroy something, and given its high fire rate, anything caught in its weapon arc will be subjected to immediate vaporization, which is why the Double Down can end battles so quickly.

I admit that my design relies mostly on brute-forcing the matter of maneuverability with control surfaces; personally, I would be open to matches with FAR to make such exploitation of in-game aerodynamics more difficult. However, we must realize that, as this is a game, not real life, the optimal designs may not be the ones we would expect from personal experience or knowledge of actually extant aircraft; although we can attempt to alleviate this issue, at some point we will simply have to deal with it.

Alas, I am too late, it seems, as the tournament has already begun...In any event, I rebuilt the Double Down completely, removing all instances of clipping (save for the front intake) and further optimized it, yielding the ASF-4 IIB: This is probably irrelevant now, but whatever: Revised Statistics: 79 parts 12.5 tons Point Calculation: 1 x GAU-8 "Avenger" Cannon: 1 x 11 = 11 points 1 x 30mm Ammunition Storage: 1 x 4 = 4 points 6 x "Sidewinder" missiles: 6 x 4 = 24 points 4 x Countermeasure Pods: 4 x 5 = 20 points Total: 59 points In my testing, it so far has a 100% winrate versus all designs it has faced, including the XMF-1B; hopefully I can enter it in the next tournament. Craft File

If you go by that stringent of criteria, you will also disqualify everyone else here. No person's design does not exploit clipping in some way. I already removed 50% of the fuel from each fuselage to balance it out; clipping it into the cockpit is a minimal alteration (which several others have done as well), and the new IB realigns the engines. If you are going to remove clipping altogether, you might as well ask everyone to resubmit.

Very well...Here you go: The ASF-4 "Double Down" IB Same Redundancy: Craft file

I'm sure my aircraft's performance will be seriously affected by the 0.001-ton strut I need to attach it somewhere else.

Sigh...I still do not understand how clipping is in any way "cheating." It does not suddenly give your aircraft godlike powers; about the only thing it is capable of doing is making them look nicer. I would like to hear one example of how someone could "cheat" with clipping and have it be measurably different in any way from doing it normally. Anyway, this is my entry for this competition, in an effort to introduce something more exotic--the ASF-4 "Double Down": It utilizes clipping to some extent (i.e, the engines are clipped into one another, as are the fuel tanks), and, although I fail to see how either makes a measurable difference I have in the interests of appeasing the group halved the fuel stored in each tank; I see little problem with engine clipping, however, as altering it would do little other than compromise the fighter's aesthetic. Statistics: 71 parts 12.9 tons Point Calculation: 6 x "Sidewinder" missiles = 6 * 4 = 24 points 2 x Hidden Vulcan turret = 2 * 9 = 18 points 2 x 20mm Ammunition Storage = 2 * 4 = 8 points 2 x Countermeasure Pods = 2 * 5 = 10 points Total: 60 points Craft file

Forgive me if this thread is not intended for support, but I simply cannot get this mod working; on every attempt, I end up with all the parts being freely available, but no toolbar and no functionality. Yes, I have moved the BDArmory folder into KSP's main GameData folder. Several times. I have tried every conceivable fix--removing Hyperedit, new installs, old installs, etc., but the end result is always the same: All parts, no toolbar, no functionality. Does anyone here have any idea what might be causing this? Thanks in advance.

That might take a very, very long time, although it does sound interesting. Something else that might also be intriguing is a combined arms ground/space battle, with surface-to-orbit/orbit to surface weapons (I believe I have mentioned this before). It is quite a pity that nukes are no longer practical...Something else you could try is a fuel cell/Ion engine hybrid, which gets about 1200 seconds of Isp and eliminates the need for massive battery stores (although thrust is still minimal). I am uncertain if anyone has made a round-trip-capable Laythe SSTO at all, much less sub-15 tons and with an armament payload. That sounds quite challenging indeed... That...is a very strange carrier--trapezoidal cross section? External fighter docking? Fuel storage pylons? Interesting, certainly, though I am unsure how durable that would be. Also, I am unsure as to the status of my current battle, as Alphasus has completed his turn but has not yet posted a persistent... In other news, with regards to my ship development, I have found that my new armoring scheme (employed on the Lachrymeum Class Gunship and the Photon Class Ion Frigate) is extremely effective in mass, part count, and general durability (at least in respect to my previous techniques); I look forward to new designs utilizing it, as well as further combat testing.

I am fairly certain that I can lift it out; as long as you do not switch back to it, it cannot actually crash (orbits are "on rails" unless you are actively controlling the vessel), but seeing as how you have disarmed it, it is fairly irrelevant anyway.

They are quite durable for the little armor they have; the shearing off of the large outer half seems to have been primarily by luck--your armament simply needs to be better distributed/better armored. Also, the definition of "sustain power" is that ships can provide sufficient power for them to remain at constant levels when inactive (i.e, so that the power levels do not continuously degrade); I can effectively guarantee that the majority of ion-powered vessels cannot truly sustain power while the ion engines are active, but this is hardly the same (a ship fails to meet this criterion when time-warping will drain its power levels unrecoverably to zero). The chaingun round (a simple Pocket I-Beam) travels at only about 80 m/s, but that is still sufficient to destroy things such as decouplers and fuel tanks.

Turn Summary: The Linnaeus was dispatched to disable or destroy one of the remaining fully-armed Noveau-class warships; intercept and rendezvous proceeded without incident. Upon arrival, the Linnaeus probed the latter's defenses with a singular rocket, shearing off a large section of the Noveau's exterior plate; however, it was judged best to proceed with the initial objective (i.e, disarmament) rather than expending ammunition unnecessarily. Disarmament proceeded quickly due to the chaingun's high efficiency against lightly-armored targets, such as the exposed missiles; both side-mounted missiles were severed with three shots: The front-mounted torpedoes proceeded in much the same way, with the final three round being used to destroy them: Following the complete disarmament of the Noveau, the firing of two additional rockets was authorized in the hopes of neutralizing the ship completely; these, however, had comparatively little effect, and thus the final damage stands at mere disability rather than total destruction. Noveau Final Damage] The Linnaeus then repositioned, merely leaving the Noveau's immediate vicinity rather than conducting a plane change maneuver as did the Ohm. Persist

Actually, both ships are running off of auxiliary cores in their interior, and both still have plenty of xenon and monopropellant left. Missiles are not at all necessary to move them around...Additionally, even fully intact they could not sustain power and move; the thing has 24 ion engines and thus is battery-powered--it relies on 32000 stored units of electric charge rather than solar panels to maneuver, and recharges in between burns.

@Alphasus: I must declare that final hit the luckiest shot ever. Why, you ask? Because out of the Mach's 431 parts, it destroyed exactly two of them: A decoupler, and the root girder. As such, the ship, now split into two halves, is still completely functional; with some fancy engineering work, I can reunite them, as well as retrieve the dislodged battery casing. I fear you underestimated the "debris cloud." Of course, I cannot attack you with its armament immediately (it is still my bomber's turn, after all), but the Mach is coming for you...

Turn Summary: Due to uncertainty as to the ability of the Ohm's weapons to penetrate the armor of the Noveau-class warships, it was mobilized to attack and disable the opponent's light fighter rather than engage heavier targets. As a result of its limited ammunition capacity, theOhm was cleared to utilize all on-board weaponry in the opposing fighter's destruction. The Ohmrendezvoused with its target quickly and without incident. As per standard attack protocol, the target was engaged from close range with the Ohm's twin chaingun rather than immediately expend its more valuable flamethrower ammunition. The first shot had comparatively little effect, merely shearing off one of the fighter's missiles; the Ohmwas authorized to close the distance still further and attempt to destroy the Tiger's central xenon stack. However, this attempt again failed to cause major damage to the target, this time only disabling a solar panel. As a result, the Ohm was authorized to close to point-blank range and discharge another volley. This shot scored a direct hit on the xenon canisters, causing the fighter as a whole to disintegrate into its component parts. Though several pieces (such as missiles) and the capsule itself survived intact, as they are capable of neither movement nor power generation the fighter has been declared neutralized. Following the destruction of the Tiger, the Ohm, lacking salvaging equipment, was directed to reposition into a high polar orbit and await further instructions. END OF TURN SUMMARY Persist

Wonderful; I shall take my turn immediately...

That's more or less what I thought, but I was unsure if weird inclinations or orbital planes could mess with it, though it makes sense that they do not (i.e, escape velocity from any orbit around one body will be the same no matter the inclination, anomaly, etc.). Now for the practical applications: I know exactly how much delta-v to bring to GNBC battles! It also means that someone should tell zekes that his 11 km/s warships are useless...

I have been wondering about this for a long time: What is the maximum "distance" (i.e, delta-v) that can separate two orbits around the same body? Intuition tells me that there should be some maximal value, almost certainly as a function of the orbital parent's mass/density, that can exist, but I have yet to discover anything definitive on this. Does anyone here happen to know?

I hope you are okay with my total tonnage slightly exceeding 160 (it is ~164); my ships are as follows: The C3V Ohm, an Omega Class Fighter: Design Statistics: Mass: 12.9 tons Delta-v: 3460 m/s Armament: 1 x Twin Chaingun (3 rounds) 1 x Flamethrower Armor: Type E-LP [Encased, light plate], Class I _________________________________________________________________________ The C3V Linnaeus, a Dynastinae Class Bomber: Design Statistics: Mass: 19.9 tons Delta-v: 4550 m/s Armament: 1 x Single Chaingun, 6 rounds 6 x "Wheel of Misfortune" Rockets 1 x Flamethrower Armor: Type E-BPA [Encased, braced ablative plate], Class IV ___________________________________________________________ The C3V Mach, a Lachrymeum Class Gunship Design Statistics: Mass: 42.9 tons Delta-v: 4550 m/s Armament: 6 x I-Beam Rockets 2 x "Neutron" Microtorpedo 2 x "Schism" Torpedo Armor: E-(BP)1.5, Class V [Encased, one-and-a-half-layer braced plate] ________________________________________________________________ The C3V Schrödinger, a Photon Class Ion Frigate and Flagship of Strike Force Upsilon-19: Design Statistics: Mass: 88.9 tons Delta-v: 11,110 m/s Armament: 6 x I-Beam Rockets 6 x Microtorpedo Armor: E-(BP)2.5, Class VI [Encased, two-and-a-half-layer braced plate] _________________________________________________________________ Total Tonnage: 164.4 tons Final Orbits: Battle Context: Strike Force Upsilon-19 has been mobilized to establish orbital dominance over Pol in an attempt to provide a suitable base of operations in the Joolian system. An Alphasian fleet of comparable tonnage is anticipated to intercept; however, as its probable composition is unknown, Strike Force Upsilon-19 has been provided a variety of weapons, armor, and engine equipment sufficiently versatile to effectively combat any response. Due to Pol's low mass and density (and thus low maneuver costs), and the anticipated high range of all craft operating in the Joolian system, the arrangement of strike craft to limit available intercepts has been largely foregone; the fleet now merely waits for any enemy response. As I have a lower median craft mass, and am thus at something of a disadvantage, I would like to request that I receive the first turn; however, you may have it if you wish. Persist

Excellent! I shall set up as soon as possible. My ships will be of more varied tonnage, probably ~85-40-20-12; I will give further details when I have access to them later today. I grew sufficiently irritated with this issue that I simply scrapped all vessels utilizing liquid fuel and now employ ions as the sole means of propulsion (though this was in the days immediately after 1.0, when liquid fuel tanks still had massively sub-par capacity); I would imagine that the exchange would require a complete refit of the vessel due to the liquid fuel tanks' more awkward shape (though the Mk I tanks may be more suitable for direct replacement).

This thread seems fairly dead...I shall try to breathe some life back into it: Anyone for a battle? I have completed my fleet, and thus can do a battle of nearly any tonnage (though I would prefer somewhere in the 150-250 and 4-6 ship range); Pol seems a good location. My only requirement is that, in addition to the NBC's standard rules, my opponent and I must obey the following condition: No more than ten tons of armament may be fired in a single turn, and no missile more than five tons in mass may be used.

I will probably return soon as well, with what free time I can scrounge up; I will try implementing some of the restrictions we have come up with over the past few years to make combat more interesting.

My guess is also along the lines of an exoplanet discovery. As we have already found many fairly Earth-like planets, I see two (non-exclusive) possibilities: The planet is A: Ridiculously similar to Earth (enough to stir excitement among the scientists); and/or B: Very, very close to home, so that future optical/ infra-red telescopes (like the James Webb) can perform more detailed analysis on it. With luck, both will have occurred, though now that they got everyone excited for it, it will probably be something about the reaction wheels...

I have heard many of the same complaints from people I know who have played it...Just another in the current series of "Look at the pretty lights!" games, I suppose... This particular example aside, the gaming industry really depresses me right now; if it were not from KSP, I would just have washed my hands of it completely...Almost every studio I know of, from indie to AAA, has run its games into the ground in recent years. SCII is a pale imitation of its predecessor; the FPS industry has probably passed the point of no return; another of my erstwhile favorite games, Robocraft, effectively committed suicide a few months back...The requiem list goes on and on; it is just sad at this point, because generally people are willing to buy things that look nice but have no depth, and so studios have essentially forgotten how to make good games. From a more theory-based perspective, I became largely disillusioned with strategy games in general a long time ago, starting with chess and progressing through the RTS industry, because to me they all suffer from a single, critical flaw: Repeatability. The problem with the strategy genre in general is not so much how games are played but with their unchanging sameness. In almost all members of this category, every match starts the same way, or at least largely so (i.e, there may be different maps in Starcraft, but the pool is limited, and in any case they still involve the same six matchups), which leads to the rise of builds--certain ways of playing a race or color or whatever distinguishes your team from another, and the strategy begins to leach out of the game to be replaced by technical skill or memorization. In chess, for example, beyond a certain level, the game stops being about playing well and becomes one player trying to outmemorize the other; I got to this point in my early years, became quickly disillusioned, and simply quit. In Starcraft, for example, I quit after I saw enough of the game to realize that regardless of one's strategic ability victory is basically guaranteed for the player better at pushing buttons at the right times than the other, and there is no real strategy in that. As such, a true "strategy game" is one wherein a player must rely on their intellect, rather than their memory of a build or technical ability, to claim victory over the opponent, and the only true way to do that is to randomize everything, and then one must deal with the problems of balance...Alas, creating one of these may be impossible.