[ASC-III] Air Superiority Challenge - King of the Hill (BDArmory 4v4 AI Duels: WW1 Theme) - Now Concluded!

[JollyGreenGI]

Ooh, I think I need to raise the minimum flight altitude...

[Kokanee]

I just finished tweaking my entry for the next contest while I wait to see how my current entry fairs. This new craft pulls 23.7G turns smooth as butter.

[JollyGreenGI]

@Kokanee Does it happen to have more than 4 Panther engines?

[inigma]

Been lovin' the submissions. Getting closer to what I had in mind.  I actually spent time to hash out the general concept on paint. My skillz are terrible. What can you art guys do with this concept? Needs texturing and embossing, and maybe whatever else you think it needs to really look cool, and not 80s ish. Heh. Feel free to re-make it in your image. 

and

Edited April 12, 2016 by inigma

[Kokanee]

10 minutes ago, JollyGreenGI said:

@Kokanee Does it happen to have more than 4 Panther engines?

Nope! Not at all.

[drtricky]

On a completely unrelated note, is anyone willing to test this fighter I made? (Not being entered into this competition) 

It's having problems with the AI on my computer, namely:

1. It does not fire more than one missile at a time, even though missiles per target is set to two

2. It does not fire its vulcans, even though it has ammo, and is within range and position to do so, and automatically switches to them when within range.

Can anyone quickly run a 1v1 and see if it does any of the two behaviors above or not?

Edited April 12, 2016 by drtricky

[GDJ]

Yeah, I'll do it.

Give me a minute to load your craft into my game and fire it up.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by GDJ

[xKage21x]

If someone could post a little info on how to change flight computer settings I would appreciate it. 

[GDJ]

The vulcans started to work when I moved them from the original position to the sides of the fuselage just behind the cockpit. Maybe the cockpit bubble for the pilot was in the way? Dunno.

Missiles were one shot at a time.

[drtricky]

3 minutes ago, GDJ said:

The vulcans started to work when I moved them from the original position to the sides of the fuselage just behind the cockpit. Maybe the cockpit bubble for the pilot was in the way? Dunno.

O 

Thanks for testing it out!

[inigma]

Next official match recorded and available!

 

[YargJay9991]

1 hour ago, inigma said:

Been lovin' the submissions. Getting closer to what I had in mind.  I actually spent time to hash out the general concept on paint. My skillz are terrible. What can you art guys do with this concept? Needs texturing and embossing, and maybe whatever else you think it needs to really look cool, and not 80s ish. Heh. Feel free to re-make it in your image. 

and

Hey,

How's this?

Happy Flying

YargJay9991

[inigma]

20 minutes ago, YargJay9991 said:

Hey,

How's this?

Happy Flying

YargJay9991

thats perfect!  thanks! I'll use that at the logo for now. Can you bold the text by double just to see what it looks like?  I'll ping you over PM on this project.  Thanks!

Edited April 12, 2016 by inigma

[NotAnAimbot]

Could anyone test the F-2C if they got time? It's working well on my PC, but I'm lagging a bit too much to test on some other aircraft.

[inigma]

In order for ASC to be the least restrictive of the dogfighting challenges in the challenges forum, should I drop the manned aircraft requirement and allow lone probe cores?

[JollyGreenGI]

@inigma It would definitely open up the designs, but things might get pretty overpowered. Imagine a ship with 10 different cores all buried deep inside the bullet sponge MK3 fuselage, bristling with CIWS and Jernas turrets.

[Redshift OTF]

2 hours ago, inigma said:

In order for ASC to be the least restrictive of the dogfighting challenges in the challenges forum, should I drop the manned aircraft requirement and allow lone probe cores?

I prefer it if I can pretend the Kerbals are flying the planes.

[drtricky]

1 hour ago, JollyGreenGI said:

@inigma It would definitely open up the designs, but things might get pretty overpowered. Imagine a ship with 10 different cores all buried deep inside the bullet sponge MK3 fuselage, bristling with CIWS and Jernas turrets.

Although CIWS's are incredibly powerful (I should know, heh), I've done some testing with Jernas turrets, and I've found them to be overall worse than mounting fixed missiles on the aircraft if it has maneuverability in mind. The Jernas not only have some programming quirk that prevents multiple missiles from being fired in rapid succession, they also have rather slow traverse rates, meaning the range at which it is easy to dodge them is surprisingly large (~3 km before a jernas on a decently maneuverable aircraft is unable to reliably lock onto a decently maneuverable enemy). What this means is that it is only advantageous if you're firing from an odd angle at a distance, like while the fighter is trying to dodge a missile. But a craft with AIM-120's fired to distract the enemy and decent maneuverability should have little problem turning itself around to be able to fire another missile.

You can decrease maneuverability on the aircraft the jernas is mounted to increase its accuracy, but that correspondingly increases vulnerability to missiles, AIM-120 AMRAAMs in particular. The real thing that would be incredibly OP is if someone were to submit a mk3 bulletsponge brimming with lasers, and if it was set to target all with the AI behavior fixed. Even I have standards, damn it .

11 minutes ago, Redshift OTF said:

I prefer it if I can pretend the Kerbals are flying the planes.

While I personally second this, if inigma wants a competition for the most overpowered thing possible, then I won't say anything.

Edited April 12, 2016 by drtricky

[ScriptKitt3h]

Oooh, here goes nothin'. It'll be interesting to see how my Gemini twins fare in a full match against the Stealth Weasels- testing only goes so far, part of it's always going to be luck.

[jrodriguez]

In my opinion, this challenge is very cool however at some point we are going to see all people trying to use similar settings and the variability is going to get reduced, thus converging in pretty similar design..and that is sad  (e.g I really love the @Spearka Thassa design, but it will be very difficult for him to win Stealth Weasel)

Here is my brainstorming to introduce new flavours:

- Different leagues with different rules.

- Some other mods like FAR, Procedural Wings, TweakScale, allow drones. I think this will be very funny and harder to design.

- No limit of planes but a limit of parts per team. ( with maybe a big plane and a set of small support drones haha)

 

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

I'm inclined to leave the crewed craft requirement as is. Permitting probe cores sounds like things could get ridiculous, fast. If nothing else, things like this would become legal:

Spoiler

Autonomous parasite drone fighters, anyone?

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by SuicidalInsanity

[g00bd0g]

30 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Permitting probe cores sounds like things could get ridiculous, fast. Autonomous parasite drone fighters, anyone?

Um, you mean like guided missiles? ;p

But seriously, here's my 2 cents...

• Only 1 Command Module per vehicle
• Manned and unmanned categories by weight (1t, 2t, 4t, 8t, 16t, 32t, 64t, etc...). More weight categories if there is demand.
• 1v1, 2v2, 3v3
• Mod categories like FAR and other parts and mods if there is sufficient demand. If there are two entries with identical mods/parts, why not run 'em
• Double Elimination format. This allows fights against a broader range of opponents and rankings below 1st place.
  • Some nice web-based apps to help manage.
    • http://challonge.com/
    • http://bracketcloud.com/

 

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by g00bd0g

[ScriptKitt3h]

24 minutes ago, jrodriguez said:

In my opinion, this challenge is very cool however at some point we are going to see all people trying to use similar settings and the variability is going to get reduced, thus converging in pretty similar design..and that is sad  (e.g I really love the @Spearka Thassa design, but it will be very difficult for him to win Stealth Weasel)

Here is my brainstorming to introduce new flavours:

- Different leagues with different rules.

- Some other mods like FAR, Procedural Wings, TweakScale, allow drones. I think this will be very funny and harder to design.

- No limit of planes but a limit of parts per team. ( with maybe a big plane and a set of small support drones haha)

 

 

I'd be ok with the suggestions to have different tiers of competition and allowing drones, as well as the idea to increase the number of aircraft- with a few caveats. There's have to be things like mass distribution rules/etc. for having more than 2 aircraft, and I personally think that keeping the competition as stock as is reasonably possible is better- not everyone wants to load up on more mods than is necessary to partake in the challenge. (I had BDA already on my install, but I'm never planning on using FAR, tweakscale, or PWings. I'm sure others feel the same to varying degrees.)

22 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Permitting probe cores sounds like things could get ridiculous, fast. Autonomous parasite drone fighters, anyone?

Perhaps, though I think it'd be neat to have one submission be a heavy fighter with 1-3 small, fast drones armed with guns and/or AIM-9s in limited amounts. Would make things more of a challenge for the AI in terms of piloting. (Since there'd be more than one type of aircraft for the king and/or challenger to face.)

4 minutes ago, g00bd0g said:

Only 1 Command Module per vehicle

Manned and unmanned categories by weight (1t, 2t, 4t, 8t, 16t, 32t, 64t, etc...). More weight categories if there is demand.

Mod categories like FAR and other parts and mods if there is sufficient demand. If there are two entries with identical mods/parts, why not run 'em

Double Elimination format. This allows fights against a broader range of opponents and rankings below 1st place.

 

 

Don't forget- the current limit is 2 crew per plane (lots of IRL fighters are 2-seaters), and if someone wants to use the 1.25 meter form factor, they're forced to use 2 modules to accomplish this (or partbuild a custom cockpit section).

I somewhat like the idea for manned/unmanned categories, though I think weight's a bit restricting- there's major mass shifts that can happen simply from adding more missiles to a plane's load.
Plus, I think having a drones w/ manned fighters engagement would be a great watch.

I'm personally not too keen on adding in more mods- it limits the interest in the community when you start adding in mods beyond what is necessary (in this case, BDA).

Not sure about this- it kinda goes against the whole KOTH concept, but it's not a bad idea per se either.

 

[g00bd0g]

11 minutes ago, ScriptKitt3h said:

I'd be ok with the suggestions to have different tiers of competition and allowing drones, as well as the idea to increase the number of aircraft- with a few caveats. There's have to be things like mass distribution rules/etc. for having more than 2 aircraft, and I personally think that keeping the competition as stock as is reasonably possible is better- not everyone wants to load up on more mods than is necessary to partake in the challenge. (I had BDA already on my install, but I'm never planning on using FAR, tweakscale, or PWings. I'm sure others feel the same to varying degrees.)

Perhaps, though I think it'd be neat to have one submission be a heavy fighter with 1-3 small, fast drones armed with guns and/or AIM-9s in limited amounts. Would make things more of a challenge for the AI in terms of piloting. (Since there'd be more than one type of aircraft for the king and/or challenger to face.)

Don't forget- the current limit is 2 crew per plane (lots of IRL fighters are 2-seaters), and if someone wants to use the 1.25 meter form factor, they're forced to use 2 modules to accomplish this (or partbuild a custom cockpit section).

I somewhat like the idea for manned/unmanned categories, though I think weight's a bit restricting- there's major mass shifts that can happen simply from adding more missiles to a plane's load.
Plus, I think having a drones w/ manned fighters engagement would be a great watch.

I'm personally not too keen on adding in more mods- it limits the interest in the community when you start adding in mods beyond what is necessary (in this case, BDA).

Not sure about this- it kinda goes against the whole KOTH concept, but it's not a bad idea per se either.

 

Totally agree about keeping stuff as "stock" as possible. Won't be as much fun with 4 participants each in 17 different categories. Maybe don't allow any "other" mods for a bit. See where the demand is 1st?

OK, instead of the 1 command module rule, it could change it to "1 pilot or 1 probe core per vehicle".

I still think the weight rule is a good one. You SHOULD have to go up a weight class if you're toting a ton of missiles or other armament. The only other way I can think of is to categorize by parts count, and I don't like that very much.

Also should have some parts clipping rules, otherwise, 100 wings and engines clipped inside a small vessel to reduce the overall size is not very realistic. Maybe no wings or engines unrealistically clipped inside of vessels?

 

 

[drtricky]

1 minute ago, g00bd0g said:

Also should have some parts clipping rules, otherwise, 100 wings and engines clipped inside a small vessel to reduce the overall size is not very realistic. Maybe no wings or engines unrealistically clipped inside of vessels?

I'd personally outright ban part clipping, the kind where you put the same parts within each other. I'd allow minor amounts of clipping, but not clipping to that extent.