[BDA] [1.1.3] Airborne Heavy Weapons Platform Challenge- Battles Begin Soon

[drtricky]

3 hours ago, njmksr said:

@drtricky, are you willing to host the battles?

If I had the free time I would.

In addition, the videos would be glorified powerpoint slide shows. When I ran the Liberator against my Titan, I was getting 5 FPS, and I know a screen capture program would reduce that even further.

Edited October 1, 2016 by drtricky

[njmksr]

Does anybody else have a powerful enough computer?

[Kubas_inko]

i might have inought powerful PC  I will test the battle later.

[Kubas_inko]

cant run freedomizer, because 1) cant load ckan 2) missing about 5 parts that i cant find

[njmksr]

On 9/30/2016 at 9:58 AM, Wraith977 said:

Sorry, mobile quotes being weird --njmksr

I don't see how CKAN has anything to do with this, just install the mods shown on the KerbalX page, as well as TCA and KJR. It should work then.

[Kubas_inko]

where can i get this?

[njmksr]

Huh. That seems to be OPT. You have OPT, right?

[Kubas_inko]

59 minutes ago, njmksr said:

Huh. That seems to be OPT. You have OPT, right?

yes, I have

[drtricky]

And this is the part where I bring a beach chair and lay back while sipping a nice, tall glass of stock parts, watching you two run around figuring out why your planes won't work. 

Edited October 3, 2016 by drtricky

[Kubas_inko]

OK its working now and Freedomizer is running only at 70FPS

 

Edited October 3, 2016 by Kubas_inko

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

@njmksr Hey, I'd be willing to set up an install and see if my machine could manage it, i have the time, or will have later on today, point blank i refuse to make anything today lol, so  yeah, I'll drop you a line and let you know if it'll work

[njmksr]

31 minutes ago, Kubas_inko said:

OK its working now and Freedomizer is running only at 70FPS

 

Only 70 FPS? I got like five! Nice!

11 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

@njmksr Hey, I'd be willing to set up an install and see if my machine could manage it, i have the time, or will have later on today, point blank i refuse to make anything today lol, so  yeah, I'll drop you a line and let you know if it'll work

Sounds great! So the battles shall begin!

For the first battle, @Adelaar's Liberator shall be pitted against @drtricky's Civilizer in a 1v1 epic throwdown! (If they're OK with that)

Edited October 3, 2016 by njmksr

[drtricky]

@njmksr Let the battle begin!

[Adelaar]

Get to it!

[Kubas_inko]

i will do it ASAP

[ScriptKitt3h]

I might be interested in making an AHWP, just need a day or so to set aside some time and work on it.

[njmksr]

2 hours ago, Kubas_inko said:

i will do it ASAP

Just so you know, @SpannerMonkey(smce) will be hosting this battle.

 

1 hour ago, ScriptKitt3h said:

I might be interested in making an AHWP, just need a day or so to set aside some time and work on it.

Cool! The more AHWPs, the merrier!

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

3 hours ago, njmksr said:

For the first battle, @Adelaar's Liberator shall be pitted against @drtricky's Civilizer in a 1v1 epic throwdown! (If they're OK with that)

Before you read on please understand that i have no bias, i don't care who wins, my only really interest in this is in the performance of BDAc and the mods that use it as a backbone. Apologies if any of my comments seem harsh they are not meant to offend only to inform, but admittedly my PR skills can be a bit Dockyard rather than Boardroom

Hi guys, well the good news is yes my rig can fight two of these things... The bad news is that with the exception of the Civilizer, the Titan and  the Liberator the AI struggles to fly them, and the only two that can really fight are the Civilizer and the Titan once again.   I think you've got to make some compromises in the rules, or change the emphasis, for this to be valid the AI has to be able to fly the craft firstly, and secondly fly it in combat mode which is a little different than just flying in lazy circles. 

I've not been able to load the Flying Tank or Devilfire as i still appear to missing parts, but the others have all loaded and been flown crashed, flown some more and attempted a fight.

If your primary means of motion is vertical then the AI can't fly it,  if it's underpowered the AI can fly it but not in combat mode, if it's not got enough control authority the AI can try to fly it in combat mode, but it will eventually fall out of the sky. You see were I'm going here, while your VTOL is all cool and everything it's pretty essential that the damn thing can trundle down the runway and lift off under it's own steam.

The Liberator is a lovely looking thing but woefully underpowered, by the time it struggled off the runway Civiliser was 8km away and had turned to start it's attack.  when in the air in patrol mode it's fine but the moment it switches to combat mode the only place it's going is down, virtually no lift to speak of and no control authority at all defeats the AI completely

The Freedomizer refuses to do anything than crawl around under AI control, why? because you have two control systems and systems fighting each other. Multiple weapon managers is not recommended behaviour, 1 per craft is plenty, more than that can cause huge control issues for the AI, and a couple of times i switched back to the craft to find it using another WM than the one originally set oh and more importantly it's only any good at going up, not so hot on the fwd which defeats the goal before you start . 

The Civiliser gets lucky but is prone to stalling in combat flight has a problem wit yaw control  and once or twice managed to shoot itself down. The best of the tested bunch by far is the Titan I know you've all put some serious effort into the ships and in and of themselves they are great, but if the AI can't fight them it's all just ornamental.

As a first step towards proper conflict would be to create a control HWP that can be downloaded and tested against any proposed candidate, at least then it's a given that it can fly, and fight and the challenge becomes a thing, if you can beat the control in a best of 3 it's good to enter, otherwise the Titan will likely destroy it before it gets off the runway, just a suggestion as i feel there has to be a minimum level at which you say, this craft is junk back to the drawing board, not for me to say though.

I'll leave for you lot to decide how you want to proceed as I'm quite happy smashing up your creations

[drtricky]

@SpannerMonkey(smce) I actually knew what was causing the yawing problems on my civilizer, but fixing would have hampered its aesthetic appeal somewhat. Considering it had poor maneuverability anyway, and the turreted nature of the weapons, I didn't consider it to be too big of a problem for (most) of its combat scenarios. I chose a bonus to psychological terror for some functionality. 

Though the stalling issues...do you think it could be alleviated by a reduction on the AI's steer factor? I know I set it to the max.

Also, what weapon(s) did the civilizer use to shoot itself down?

Edited October 3, 2016 by drtricky

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

1 minute ago, drtricky said:

Though the stalling issues...do you think it could be alleviated by a reduction on the AI's steer factor? I know I set it to the max.

I'll mess with the settings a bit more yet, early days. But i reckon this is one case in which function needs to exceed form by a large margin.. A missile doesn't care how pretty you are

 

[njmksr]

Alright then, @SpannerMonkey(smce) here's my solution.

Two classes: Competition, and Creative. Creative is the 'did it for the lulz' kind of AHWP-- i.e. the Freedomizer. Anything goes.

Competition AHWPs must not only be VTOL, but be capable of flight without powered lift. 

I'm going to start work on the FAV-274, a competition AHWP, soon.

Edited October 3, 2016 by njmksr

[Adelaar]

24 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

The Liberator is a lovely looking thing but woefully underpowered, by the time it struggled off the runway Civiliser was 8km away and had turned to start it's attack.  when in the air in patrol mode it's fine but the moment it switches to combat mode the only place it's going is down, virtually no lift to speak of and no control authority at all defeats the AI completely

The curse download hasn't actually been optimized for arena fighting, but has the fuel load up to the 1.0 Vertical TWR limit. So, you might want to unload the fuel in the center tanks to get more agility and power out of it

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Just now, Adelaar said:

The curse download hasn't actually been optimized for arena fighting, but has the fuel load up to the 1.0 Vertical TWR limit. So, you might want to unload the fuel in the center tanks to get more agility and power out of it

Hi, as these fights seem to swing on who gets the first good shot in, I'll drain a goodly bit of that fuel, it'll brighten the performance for sure.

[drtricky]

17 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

I'll mess with the settings a bit more yet, early days. But i reckon this is one case in which function needs to exceed form by a large margin.. A missile doesn't care how pretty you are

It shot itself down with its own missiles? I expected the Goalkeepers to do that.

Edited October 3, 2016 by drtricky

[njmksr]

3 minutes ago, drtricky said:

It shot itself down with its own missiles?

WHO IS RUNNING THIS AIR FORCE?!

(jk)

But seriously, wut.