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

[commonnerfer]

another thing we could do is limit the guard range make them all the same because when i first tested my craft against king of the hill i wonder why i kept getting destroyed at 6km 

so i set my guard range to 8km and tied it twice.

2 minutes ago, Jakerblam22 said:

He's got some clipped together as a cluster, completely ripped mine apart. I did have time to shoot a missile off, though.

i got 8 off and managed to kill both before my kerbal died on impact

i think we should make guard ranges the same because some people don't know how they work and videos tend to be more cinematic if the guard range is closer for example

this is quite awesome since they get close range before they fight and leads to some cool war thunder esk themes

[Draconiator]

For fun, I'm going to pit the Shorty up against the current King, 3 rounds, 2v2.  Video up shortly.

 

Edit, only posting the first one, because it's...weird.  CONFIRMED, the AI is a showoff with my Shorty.  lol, near the start of the video.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2016 by Draconiator

[drtricky]

3 hours ago, commonnerfer said:

honestly the current king of the hill is op as crap with lasers I'm surprised i  tied it twice 

Let just say its not only the lasers that allow it to dominate. A certain aspect of it that is logically seen as a severe disadvantage is actually rather beneficial with its lasers.

@inigma Also, regarding the BDA part limit for ASC II, I feel that is too low, considering the amount of chaff pods and jammers needed to even have a chance at dodging AIM-120's.

Edited April 27, 2016 by drtricky

[Hobbes Novakoff]

22 minutes ago, drtricky said:

Let just say its not only the lasers that allow it to dominate. A certain aspect of it that is logically seen as a severe disadvantage is actually rather beneficial with its lasers.

@inigma Also, regarding the BDA part limit for ASC II, I feel that is too low, considering the amount of chaff pods and jammers needed to even have a chance at dodging AIM-120's.

For whatever reason the planes I test don't seem to have all that much trouble with only 2 CMs. Watch that test battle, all the AIMs but one  miss by miles (one of them actually hits a KSC building.) One plane in that battle was taken down by AIMs, the rest by Vulcan fire.

[SuicidalInsanity]

A good part of why the Solarius has continued to win is people haven't quite caught up with the shift in design paradigm needed to counter lasers - hence the bemusing trend seen so far of simply bolting a laser to the nose and hoping it's good enough. To counter lasers you either need a better laser craft, or the ability to absorb some measure of damage. To give an idea of what I mean, here's a pair of example craft I threw together in a few minutes, both of which have consistently won 2v2 battles against the Solarius:

Spoiler

The Clawviper here is the 'better laser craft' school of thought, 6 lasers, 4 AMRAAMs; capable of going 1v2 against a pair of Solari and winning; it relies on speed and maneuverability to quickly close distance, and missiles to force the Sols to go evasive and potentially remove one or both from play prior to entering beam range. if you thought the Solarius was bad, this thing is terrifying.

Spoiler

The Scarab belongs to the 'damage soak' category. Armed with 4 AMRAAMs, 2 sidewinders, and a pair of Vulcans, and equipped with frontal armor (translation: I bolted some radiators to the nosecone), it can take a laser to the face and keep going long enough for it and its wingman to engage, sacrificing the wingman if necessary to drain the Sol's batteries.

I do agree that the laser is somewhat OP (I would reduce it's maximum range a few Km, but otherwise have no restrictions on it); I have no intention of entering another laser craft for ASC-II, but someone else might, so hopefully the above should even the odds somewhat against them.

 

[drtricky]

11 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

A good part of why the Solarius has continued to win is people haven't quite caught up with the shift in design paradigm needed to counter lasers - hence the bemusing trend seen so far of simply bolting a laser to the nose and hoping it's good enough. To counter lasers you either need a better laser craft, or the ability to absorb some measure of damage.

The armor part is true, but based on what I've noticed...

Spoiler

Solarius III's lack of maneuverability is actually another key reason it is able to be effective. Your aircraft's poor maneuverability means that any maneuvers it makes causes it to lose very little speed, and also causes it to deviate very little from heading straight towards the enemy when it is attempting to evade AIM-120's. 

What this means is that Solarius III essentially behaves like a kamikaze: Once committed to killing the enemy, only death can stop it. As a result, Solarius III gets within range of its targets surprisingly quickly, often before AIM-120's reach it. The range and power of the lasers allows this to be very heavily exploited.

So yeah, your plane's poor maneuverability turned out to be an upside when paired with its lasers! I don't know whether you intended that or not, but damn am I envious I never envisioned this with my own laser boats!

...

Unrelated to above, but has anyone notice that AIM-120's are now significantly easier to dodge, or is it just me? 

[JollyGreenGI]

18 minutes ago, drtricky said:

Unrelated to above, but has anyone notice that AIM-120's are now significantly easier to dodge, or is it just me? 

I'm not quite sure, but I think the more AMRAAMs that are fired in a barrage, the less accurate they become. I can't prove this, but I've been noticing in testing that a craft that can dodge a single AIM-120 fairly reliably has no problem with a slew of incoming missiles. Even if one hits, it's rare that more will hit as well.

 

Edited April 27, 2016 by JollyGreenGI

[Jollyfellow]

Would anyone like to build a 1.1 jet real quick that I could test against?

[JollyGreenGI]

Just now, Jollyfellow said:

Would anyone like to build a 1.1 jet real quick that I could test against?

Matador RED and BLUE are still fully functional from 1.0.5, and should work in 1.1. 

https://kerbalx.com/JollyGreenGI/TAL-12K-Matador-BLUE

[Jollyfellow]

Just now, JollyGreenGI said:

Matador RED and BLUE are still fully functional from 1.0.5, and should work in 1.1. 

https://kerbalx.com/JollyGreenGI/TAL-12K-Matador-BLUE

Okay! Thank you! I'm testing my own variant team.

 

[Jollyfellow]

25 minutes ago, JollyGreenGI said:

Matador RED and BLUE are still fully functional from 1.0.5, and should work in 1.1. 

https://kerbalx.com/JollyGreenGI/TAL-12K-Matador-BLUE

Is BLUE supposed to fire at the opposite team while on the runway?

[inigma]

3 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

A good part of why the Solarius has continued to win is people haven't quite caught up with the shift in design paradigm needed to counter lasers - hence the bemusing trend seen so far of simply bolting a laser to the nose and hoping it's good enough. To counter lasers you either need a better laser craft, or the ability to absorb some measure of damage. To give an idea of what I mean, here's a pair of example craft I threw together in a few minutes, both of which have consistently won 2v2 battles against the Solarius:

  Hide contents

The Clawviper here is the 'better laser craft' school of thought, 6 lasers, 4 AMRAAMs; capable of going 1v2 against a pair of Solari and winning; it relies on speed and maneuverability to quickly close distance, and missiles to force the Sols to go evasive and potentially remove one or both from play prior to entering beam range. if you thought the Solarius was bad, this thing is terrifying.

  Hide contents

The Scarab belongs to the 'damage soak' category. Armed with 4 AMRAAMs, 2 sidewinders, and a pair of Vulcans, and equipped with frontal armor (translation: I bolted some radiators to the nosecone), it can take a laser to the face and keep going long enough for it and its wingman to engage, sacrificing the wingman if necessary to drain the Sol's batteries.

I do agree that the laser is somewhat OP (I would reduce it's maximum range a few Km, but otherwise have no restrictions on it); I have no intention of entering another laser craft for ASC-II, but someone else might, so hopefully the above should even the odds somewhat against them.

 

craft files?  those look wicket.

I had several tactical ideas™ to combat laser craft though:

- The patent-pending Inigma Industries Laser Decoy (LD): a BDA weapons module mounted to a cubic strut, with 6 radiators clipped around it in a sphere, and the strut floated outside of the plane with offset. Since lasers only target BDA weapons modules, any craft with multiple modules mounted in safe places away from critical parts would serve to confuse enemy AI which seem to target nearest first.

- The patent-pending Inigma Industries Enemy Laser Actuated Decoupler (ELAD): an LD used as the floating point of connecting two or more independent combat-ready craft that when destroyed by an enemy laser, separates such craft into Multiple Independent Targeting Platforms aka ALLIES that would then take out the confused enemy AI. ALLIES would require their BDA weapons modules to be mounted near their rears to prevent them from being targeted first upon enemy laser craft engagement.

 

man i love tactical thinking.

Edited April 27, 2016 by inigma

[JollyGreenGI]

35 minutes ago, Jollyfellow said:

Is BLUE supposed to fire at the opposite team while on the runway?

Are you using Competition mode? Because turning on guardmode will just have it attack instantly.

[Jollyfellow]

1 minute ago, JollyGreenGI said:

Are you using Competition mode? Because turning on guardmode will just have it attack instantly.

Oh... well then... Thank you!

 

[drtricky]

19 minutes ago, inigma said:

Since lasers only target BDA weapons modules, any craft with multiple modules mounted in safe places away from critical parts would serve to confuse enemy AI which seem to target nearest first.

This isn't always true. I've fought a few laser fighters against my LA-41 Megalodon, and the enemies almost always target the tip of the cockpit first where the radar is, even when they were above my fighter. And as you can see in the link above, the weapon manager and flight computer are on an mk3 cargo bay portion of my aircraft. I've only seen 2 instances in the 20+ fights I've run where this didn't happen.

Edited April 27, 2016 by drtricky

[Jollyfellow]

@inigma You should start ASC II on May 1st! And probably start the thread now (if you haven't already), that way people know when to have their jet by; because I know I'm testing mine right now.

[DoctorDavinci]

From previous experience it is not advised to have more than one weapon manager or AI pilot on a single craft as it can end up causing weird things to happen and the craft in question not to perform as intended

Anyways, on another note ... I am currently recording the next battle between @SuicidalInsanity's Solarius III and @Kokanee's CF 90 SPIRIT Block II

I will post the video when I have uploaded it to the tube

Edited April 27, 2016 by DoctorDavinci

[drtricky]

@inigma Question: I potentially want to use M1 Abrams turrets as armor (because I can), although JUST as armor, and nothing else. Would each hull still count as an individual BDA piece, or could an exception be made if I removed all ammo and set movement limits to zero?

Edited April 28, 2016 by drtricky

[SuicidalInsanity]

1 hour ago, inigma said:

craft files?  those look wicket.

Clawviper

Scarab

if you want to try them against other planes keep in mind they weren't intended to be tourney competitive, only to duel the Solarius, so they're lacking chaff/flares/ECM.

[Jollyfellow]

Just putting it out there... My ASC II Jet name(s) is NightJar-X4 and/or NightJar-Z4, the names are a hint as to what they are...

[Draconiator]

Lets go even further back in time...

 

[DoctorDavinci]

The next battle has been uploaded to the tube ... Solarius III vs CF 90 SPIRIT Block II (Full Match)

 

[inigma]

1 hour ago, drtricky said:

@inigma Question: I potentially want to use M1 Abrams turrets as armor (because I can), although JUST as armor, and nothing else. Would each hull still count as an individual BDA piece, or could an exception be made if I removed all ammo and set movement limits to zero?

ASC-II will probably ban turrets as well, which includes the m1. ;P  to be sure.

46 minutes ago, Draconiator said:

Lets go even further back in time...

 

actually for ASC-III I was thinking about limiting craft to at most two 50cals, command seat only craft (assuming Take Command mod gets updated for 1.1) and KAX engines only.

Edited April 28, 2016 by inigma

[Jollyfellow]

Okay, so I'm having problems with my Vulcan Turrets, as they only run for as long as they're deployed, and if anything else is activated, they don't work again, but they have plenty of ammo... What am I doing wrong, here?

 

[Monkey29399]

4 minutes ago, Jollyfellow said:

Okay, so I'm having problems with my Vulcan Turrets, as they only run for as long as they're deployed, and if anything else is activated, they don't work again, but they have plenty of ammo... What am I doing wrong, here?

 

The turrets will only work if selected. So, if you have multiple kinds of weapons, the AI can only choose one type at a time.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Monkey29399