Top Gun AI - The Official Tournament Thread

[GDJ]

So I'm assuming everybody is gearing up for another tournament? Any changes to the rules from the last time I played?

I already know about wing clipping (fine), the rocket pods are still DOA according to the weapon manager, I'm guessing the usual banned weapons are still banned. 60 points is still the max?

RADAR jamming is OK or forbidden?

[BlueCanary]

3 hours ago, GDJ said:

So I'm assuming everybody is gearing up for another tournament? Any changes to the rules from the last time I played?

I already know about wing clipping (fine), the rocket pods are still DOA according to the weapon manager, I'm guessing the usual banned weapons are still banned. 60 points is still the max?

RADAR jamming is OK or forbidden?

Also, what does the "Hammers - 20 points" on the OP refer to?

[colmo]

I note the popularity of screenshots over video - understandable.

This mod automatically takes screenshots at intervals and special events, including part explosions and crashes.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/116979-release-automated-screenshots-060-105-compatible/

[drtricky]

1 hour ago, BlueCanary said:

Also, what does the "Hammers - 20 points" on the OP refer to?

I believe "Hammers" is a typo of "Jammers". The H and J are right next to each other, afterall.

I personally wouldn't recommend the jammers however. I tried putting one jammer on my aircraft, and the enemy plane's radar had no issue locking onto me with its AIM-120's at 2 km away. It also appears the AI is too dumb to turn them on in flight; you need to manually activate them at the start of the fight by right clicking each jammer, or hooking an action key to the toggle setting.

Edited January 2, 2016 by drtricky

[drtricky]

10 hours ago, BlueCanary said:

That's wierd, I was sure I picked the right one. It should be fixed now.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/70gbrt062c2agjv/El%20Quicko%20%28-X%20Variant%29.craft?dl=0

That plane is almost as formidable in gun fights as the Anduril, with the wide spread of its dual vulcans. It was able to accurately hit my Taurus at over 1.5 km away in many cases (Helped by the fact that the Taurus is a huge fighter). 

It unfortunately did not stand a chance against the eight AIM-120's my Taurus packs 

Edited January 2, 2016 by drtricky

[BlueCanary]

Somebody had to do it.

 

It's actually a surprisingly competent dogfighter, very hard to hit thanks to being so compact and is able to hit back extremely hard with 4 M230s. Decently maneuverable and with a reasonable amount of thrust, it's by no means the most agile fighter ever, but isn't a total brick either. The IVA view is awesome too.

Here's a (WIP) craft file if anyone wants it, at the moment the cannon are set to have a couple of degrees gimbal, I know that's banned for tournaments, but I wanted to see how it affects the fight. It turns out it makes things explode. A lot.

Edited January 2, 2016 by BlueCanary

[GDJ]

Oh great. Now we're battling Darth Frickin Vader now.

[Zahida]

Hiya, long time lurker here. After some clumsy engineering work, I present the CF-59 Naga! It did pretty well against some of the other designs, feel free to play around with it. It topped out at 60 points. Note: Some of the images show the plane firing with two guns, though the final version only has one gun. 

Download at my KerbalX: http://kerbalx.com/Nadeenee/CF-59-Naga

 

 

 

Edited January 2, 2016 by Zahida

[BlueCanary]

50 minutes ago, Zahida said:

Hiya, long time lurker here. After some clumsy engineering work, I present the CF-59 Naga! It did pretty well against some of the other designs, feel free to play around with it. It topped out at 60 points. Note: Some of the images show the plane firing with two guns, though the final version only has one gun. 

Download at my KerbalX: http://kerbalx.com/Nadeenee/CF-59-Naga

 

 

 

Ahhh, the El Quicko in it's natural habitat: getting completely shredded by AIM-120s.

That's a very nice fighter you have there, looks pretty agile. What's it like in a gunfight?

EDIT: Also, if you're looking to shave off any weight, you could save a good half tonne by using the small landing gear, which might give you a nice acceleration and maneuverability boost.

Edited January 3, 2016 by BlueCanary

[drtricky]

1 hour ago, Zahida said:

Hiya, long time lurker here. After some clumsy engineering work, I present the CF-59 Naga! It did pretty well against some of the other designs, feel free to play around with it. It topped out at 60 points. Note: Some of the images show the plane firing with two guns, though the final version only has one gun. 

Download at my KerbalX: http://kerbalx.com/Nadeenee/CF-59-Naga

Your aircraft is very maneuverable and good at dodging missiles. But it has a rather slow turning speed (time it takes to do a full 360); even slower than my huge Taurus fighter-bomber. It does have a very small turning radius, but unfortunately, due to the way the AI programmed, this turns out to be more of an disadvantage, as the very moment the AI detects a missile, it begins turning, bleeding a LOT valuable speed (as mentioned above), and potentially orienting itself in an awkward position to dodge missiles because it turned too early.

Pretty good, otherwise! My suggestions are to turn down the steer factor a bit (I believe this determines the amount of power the AI applies to the elevons when turning), and re-add the second vulcan. Your plane would become a very competent gun fighting airplane if you were able to add another gun!

And if you're going to add the second vulcan, place both vulcans on the sides of the fuselage. It will spread the shot and give your plane a firing cone, rather than a firing line. I've also noticed this increases the range at which an aircraft fires on another aircraft with its guns.

Edited January 3, 2016 by drtricky

[SasquatchM]

Did the final results from CrativeCombat's tournament get post ever?  I know my submission for that was one of the final 2, but I don't know who won.

[Zahida]

52 minutes ago, BlueCanary said:

Ahhh, the El Quicko in it's natural habitat: getting completely shredded by AIM-120s.

That's a very nice fighter you have there, looks pretty agile. What's it like in a gunfight?

EDIT: Also, if you're looking to shave off any weight, you could save a good half tonne by using the small landing gear, which might give you a nice acceleration and maneuverability boost.

I don't like the small landing gear on this plane, since I have a couple of small vertical stabilizers on the bottom, if the clearance is too short they break off on takeoff (and it would just look silly to put the landing gear right on the tail). 

30 minutes ago, drtricky said:

Your aircraft is very maneuverable and good at dodging missiles. But it has a rather slow turning speed (time it takes to do a full 360); even slower than my huge Taurus fighter-bomber. It does have a very small turning radius, but unfortunately, due to the way the AI programmed, this turns out to be more of an disadvantage, as the very moment the AI detects a missile, it begins turning, bleeding a LOT valuable speed (as mentioned above), and potentially orienting itself in an awkward position to dodge missiles because it turned too early.

Pretty good, otherwise! My suggestions are to turn down the steer factor a bit (I believe this determines the amount of power the AI applies to the elevons when turning), and re-add the second vulcan. Your plane would become a very competent gun fighting airplane if you were able to add another gun!

And if you're going to add the second vulcan, place both vulcans on the sides of the fuselage. It will spread the shot and give your plane a firing cone, rather than a firing line. I've also noticed this increases the range at which an aircraft fires on another aircraft with its guns.

It does get pretty slow, but it's also supermaneuverable. I find that slow turning speed doesn't really affect affect the plane, it only makes you vulnerable to missiles, and countermeasures seem to be the defining factor there, not how fast you are going. Also, the more you crank up steer factor it just causes the plane to go crazy, I played with a bunch of the other setting as well but the changes were either undesirable or negligible (though one of my other designs benefitted from having steer factor up to 18 with steer damping up to 6). Extra guns don't really help much either, which is why I ended up removing the second one (and freed up some extra points to use in the process), wing surfaces explode from one 20mm shot, and it's usually fatal if it's one of the main wings that gets hit. Also there's a benefit to having one gun far below the cockpit like on my plane: As the plane rolls, it makes it's own large cone of fire with only one gun, and it ends up spraying in wider area than it would normally.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Zahida

[BlueCanary]

12 hours ago, Zahida said:

It does get pretty slow, but it's also supermaneuverable. I find that slow turning speed doesn't really affect affect the plane, it only makes you vulnerable to missiles, and countermeasures seem to be the defining factor there, not how fast you are going. Also, the more you crank up steer factor it just causes the plane to go crazy, I played with a bunch of the other setting as well but the changes were either undesirable or negligible (though one of my other designs benefitted from having steer factor up to 18 with steer damping up to 6). Extra guns don't really help much either, which is why I ended up removing the second one (and freed up some extra points to use in the process), wing surfaces explode from one 20mm shot, and it's usually fatal if it's one of the main wings that gets hit. Also there's a benefit to having one gun far below the cockpit like on my plane: As the plane rolls, it makes it's own large cone of fire with only one gun, and it ends up spraying in wider area than it would normally.

The main advantage of an extra vulcan would be putting twice as much lead in the air in the same amount of time, doubling the chances at least one round hits. Of course, it also adds a bit of a weight penalty.

 

I flew some simulations against my latest El Quicko variant (2 vulcans, no missiles), I found that the general course of events was that my fighter got to altitude a little before yours, allowing it to turn in and fire a (generally ineffective) vulcan burst, before the Naga began firing AIM-120's. So far it looks like the El Quicko can usually dodge the missiles (most often 6 of them) for long enough that the Naga gets too close and switches to guns, at which point the advantage seems to be solidly with the more maneuverable El Quicko, which was able to stay on the Naga's tail and eventually shoot it down. The Naga did display some impressive damage resistance though, often still fighting despite missing an engine and half a wing.

So if the initial missile attack failed, which, if the El Quicko was in the air first, it often did, as soon as the planes got too close for missiles, the result almost always went to the El Quicko, as it's superior maneuverability and acceleration meant it could prevent the Naga from escaping.

That is, if the initial missile attack failed. If it didn't, and the fight remained beyond about a kilometre, the Naga got the win very quickly. I'm going to try giving the El Quicko some missiles of it's own and see if that changes anything.

 

EDIT: I gave the El Quicko 2 AIM-120s and 4 Sidewinders, which actually made it's performance worse as while it tried to find a Sidewinder lock it was less able to evade missiles. I reduced it to just the 2 AIM-120s, which turned out to be very useful. If it gets to altitude to first - which it does most of the time, especially if it is the one activated first - and is able to turn onto the Naga and fire them off before the Naga can return fire, and the Naga is generally unable to avoid the missiles. I strongly suggest you work on it's missile avoidance ability, as in an AIM-120 fight, unless it fires the first shot, it seems to have no chance of successfully evading. 

If the Naga got to shoot first, the El Quicko was forced to evade, preventing it from returning fire whilst the Naga shot off all of it's AIM-120s. About half of the time the El Quicko was able to avoid every single missile, leaving the Naga with just it's gun while the El Quicko retained both it's missiles. When the AIM-120s did hit, it was usually with the last pair, when the El Quicko had already expended most of it's energy avoiding previous shots, suggesting that if the Naga was fighting a fighter with better missile avoidance ability it would have little chance of achieving a hit.

 

Edited January 3, 2016 by BlueCanary

[Redshift OTF]

@BlueCanary Have you tried angling the rear wings down on your craft? I mean so that if you were looking sideways to your plane the front of the rear wings are pointing down slightly. I have tried this on the next version of the Anduril and it makes a big difference. When the plane turns it reduces the rear wing drag allowing you to keep your speed up during the turn.

[BlueCanary]

7 minutes ago, Redshift OTF said:

@BlueCanary Have you tried angling the rear wings down on your craft? I mean so that if you were looking sideways to your plane the front of the rear wings are pointing down slightly. I have tried this on the next version of the Anduril and it makes a big difference. When the plane turns it reduces the rear wing drag allowing you to keep your speed up during the turn.

Wait, I'm not sure what you mean. Have you got a screenshot of the angled wings?

[Redshift OTF]

Something like this:

Although you don't need to angle them this much.

[BlueCanary]

2 minutes ago, Redshift OTF said:

Something like this:

Although you don't need to angle them this much.

Thanks, I'll try this out, although I'm not sure how it'll work seeing as my plane's wings are pretty much just one piece. How does it affect stability/maneuverability?

[Redshift OTF]

The idea is that if the plane pitches up the wing is in line with the air flow for longer. I'll post the Anduril Mk2 with the adjustments and you can test it.

[Redshift OTF]

OK, here's the Anduril Mk2.

http://www./download/nd31ds9g3o7aer8/Anduril_Mk_2.craft

The only difference is I angled all the wings pieces down a small notch, (as viewing from side on to the plane). The only reason some pieces look angled up at the tips, (as viewing front on), was because they were rotated and angling them down made some of it angle up. That probably doesn't make sense.

I think it has the same ability to fire and dodge missiles but if it gets on your tail then nothing stops it, (except maybe the El Quicko?).

[GDJ]

15 hours ago, drtricky said:

Your aircraft is very maneuverable and good at dodging missiles. But it has a rather slow turning speed (time it takes to do a full 360); even slower than my huge Taurus fighter-bomber. It does have a very small turning radius, but unfortunately, due to the way the AI programmed, this turns out to be more of an disadvantage, as the very moment the AI detects a missile, it begins turning, bleeding a LOT valuable speed (as mentioned above), and potentially orienting itself in an awkward position to dodge missiles because it turned too early.

Pretty good, otherwise! My suggestions are to turn down the steer factor a bit (I believe this determines the amount of power the AI applies to the elevons when turning), and re-add the second vulcan. Your plane would become a very competent gun fighting airplane if you were able to add another gun!

And if you're going to add the second vulcan, place both vulcans on the sides of the fuselage. It will spread the shot and give your plane a firing cone, rather than a firing line. I've also noticed this increases the range at which an aircraft fires on another aircraft with its guns.

In regards to Zahida's CF-59 Naga;

I concur with drtricky's statement. I did find it a difficult plane to combat against due to it's small turning radius and the copious amount of missiles it fires early on in the 1 vs 1 battle. I did have a plane that did have some success against it (My Warthog replica) but it was equipped with RADAR Jamming. After the missiles were fired, the Warthog could get a foothold and eventually win against it with guns only.

It's a tough plane to tackle. Good job Zahida!

[BlueCanary]

22 minutes ago, Redshift OTF said:

OK, here's the Anduril Mk2.

I think it has the same ability to fire and dodge missiles but if it gets on your tail then nothing stops it, (except maybe the El Quicko?).

I really couldn't tell which is best in a gunfight. Mainly because the most common result is a mid-air collision.

Time to try the latest El Quicko against the latest Anduril, it's pistols-at-dawn time

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5qwyqlzl0wok0g/El%20Quicko%20%28-X%20Variant%29%20Missiles.craft?dl=0 <-- latest El Quicko with dual Vulcans, dual AIM-120s, and a reduced fuel load.

[Redshift OTF]

Also I've noticed that if your plane still has AIM 120's after the initial exchange it tends to try and get some distance from the attacking plane so it can fire your remaining AIM 120's at a more effective range. In doing this your plane ends up flying in straight line away from the enemy were you are very prone to missile attack or enemy guns. You can avoid this buy using less missiles, (so when you fire your only volley the plane will automatically switch to guns and close), or use AIM 9's, (which are close quarters missiles and can be fired at much closer distances).

[GDJ]

I've been tinkering with BDArmoury and trying to make a Heat seeking or RADAR guided Maverick.  It would make a nice missile in between the AIM-9 and the AIM-120. It has a wicked turn radius and fairly precise on it's targeting, albeit it's not very fast.

Doing this more for curiosity, just to see what it can do.

Edited January 3, 2016 by GDJ

[BlueCanary]

35 minutes ago, Redshift OTF said:

Also I've noticed that if your plane still has AIM 120's after the initial exchange it tends to try and get some distance from the attacking plane so it can fire your remaining AIM 120's at a more effective range. In doing this your plane ends up flying in straight line away from the enemy were you are very prone to missile attack or enemy guns. You can avoid this buy using less missiles, (so when you fire your only volley the plane will automatically switch to guns and close), or use AIM 9's, (which are close quarters missiles and can be fired at much closer distances).

Sorry, I forgot to remove the sidewinders. It actually fights much better with just the two AIM-120s.

So far, after 9 fights:

3 Wins for the Anduril, all with AIM-120s.

3 Wins for the El Quicko, all with guns.

3 Mid-air collisions.

[Redshift OTF]

46 minutes ago, GDJ said:

I've been tinkering with BDArmoury and trying to make a Heat seeking or RADAR guided Maverick.  It would make a nice missile in between the AIM-9 and the AIM-120. It has a wicked turn radius and fairly precise on it's targeting, albeit it's not very fast.

Doing this more for curiosity, just to see what it can do.

Yeah, I'm not too keen that AGM's can only target stuff using the targeting pod. Heat seeking versions would be cool although they would be for ground targets only. It would be fun to see them launched against planes though.

11 minutes ago, BlueCanary said:

Sorry, I forgot to remove the sidewinders. It actually fights much better with just the two AIM-120s.

So far, after 9 fights:

3 Wins for the Anduril, all with AIM-120s.

3 Wins for the El Quicko, all with guns.

3 Mid-air collisions.

Wow, it's getting better! I always thought that if El Quicko could handle missiles better it would be the strongest plane. Is that against Anduril Mk1 or Mk2? Did you need to angle the wings on your plane?