WW2 BAD-T III - BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[tetryds]

10 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Related, perhaps restart a fight if there's a kill before the pairs ( or perhaps one element of the pairs if they've split up a long way ) have passed each other once, judges discretion.

This would the first step towards screwing up everything related to balance.

What makes BAD-T fun and fair is the fact that it was never a "replica battle", but an airplane battle.

The engineering limits are given by the physical properties of the craft, rules only serve to cut out edge cases and sanitize the game, they don't enforce a strict playstyle.

Artificially adjusting the rules to "make D engines useful" or "make crafts spawn far away" or "ignore first enconter kills" artificially disrupt the environment the tournament is built upon.

There are several other dogfight tournaments, really good ones, but ask yourself why there hasn't been any other tournament that was as successfuly balanced as BAD-T always was.

Same principle applies for the weapons. I have crunched the numbers countless times (before BDA changes) and there are in fact better weapons than others. Now if you ask me, no, I did not pick the overall best, I paid the price to gain some slight boost in other properties. Being weaker makes my weapon less suitable? Not at all.

No rule or battle setup requires major adjustments. Some things did, and Suicidal nailed it when applying those changes. Now if it was to become something else, then it's not going to be BAD-T.

Edited October 17, 2017 by tetryds

[SuicidalInsanity]

@Van Disaster: At the beginning, I was considering allowing Airplane+ cockpits, but the question of 'why use anything besides the lightest cockpit available' was a recurring thought. I had a few ideas, like having twin engine fighters require two crew instead of one, but some more though on the matter is required.

Jets were a gamble. If there is a BAD-T IV, would they return? I don't know. The standard single engine fighter rules seemed to work for single engine jets. For twin jets, possibly letting them be 1 ton lighter, but using light fighter point allotment might work (do you want speed, or guns?). Or maybe it just goes back to props only for simplicity and established balance.

Some better performance metrics would be good, but what would they be, and how is performance being determined (who's viewpoint)? Though the next match would be a good poster child for 'must be able to shoot down the dummy within X minutes, if nothing else.

Re 6G turns being the limit - instead of an aerodynamic limit or a structural limit, it was probably a pilot limit - I recall reading somewhere about Stuka dive-bombers pulling 6G turns coming out of the dive and pilots suffering (sometimes severe) G effects when it happened.

Edited October 17, 2017 by SuicidalInsanity

[tetryds]

If you really want competitive jets simply buff their engines by 20%.

I recommend testing them a lot before having them fight with propeller airplanes, remember that they are historically superior.

Another fun idea would be going a step further in time, and having a end-ww2 BAD-T using only jets and powerful props.

[Van Disaster]

1 hour ago, tetryds said:

This would the first step towards screwing up everything related to balance.

The only reason I suggested that is because a kill at merge means the battle is quite often over before it's begun & I think everyone is cheated out of a good experience, unless one side is way better than the other & the weaker side got lucky & then gets massacred by the remaining opposition craft. If BDA didn't fly headlong into bullet hails on the first pass it wouldn't be needed. I suppose I have to say I'm putting out ideas for discussion here, not making demands.

The problem with raising jet thrust is it's not just about TWR, but drag also. Starting the fights allowing for more energy buildup first would help low TWR/low drag craft ( like jets or even prop-twins with the smaller engines ) at the start of the fight, it's up to the builder to maintain energy after. WW2 jets were only historically superior once they'd got energy up, there were many many kills on LW jets by allied prop planes when they were around their bases or even just down low. I'm not sure there were any Meteor combat losses at all, at least not by Axis forces - seems collisions & friendly fire were the biggest danger. Immediately post-war jet thrust skyrocketed - 9 days after VE day the next Meteor was 270kmh faster - until you end up in Korea 5 years later & piston engine fighters killing jets is just about luck. In BAD-T battles, that Meteor replica I built can easily out-pace the fairly low-drag twin prop, I just can't set it's pilot up to make best use of that ( as I said, maybe someone who can tune B&Zers can do it as a demo? ); but that's only if it's given time to accelerate first though. The single jet ( the Vampire-alike ) has an even worse time if it's not given any buildup. They don't behave the same as props at all at the moment, and that feels a good thing - not much thrust but it just keeps going.

If every fight starts the same distance further away then the playing field is still the same, it's just a slightly different field. I don't see how that of all things is a balance change other than to give all the stuff nobody uses a better initial chance, the only type of craft that'd get hurt is one that is already artificially built to take advantage of a close start at the cost of performance later. Everyone else's craft is just going a bit faster. I've run a whole bunch of people's posted craft in fights & the only thing start distance mattered to was the jets. How many engines were entered?

Metrics are up to whoever runs the tournament & the type of show they want to put on and before there's a debate about "replica battle" - if we didn't care about putting a show on we'd all be building ultra-low mass/loading things that look like experimental RC aircraft & just happen to have props, rather than the nice field of things that could have stepped out of 40s comics. I feel this tournament is successful because it's both competitive and stylish ( and thanks Tetrydis for starting it ). Again, about giving everyone including the builder a good time, if they have a bit more pre-entry guidance & then have a better time in battles.

Cockpits: well, we're all either picking the same cockpit now anyway or concocting something from parts, so even if there's just 2-3 cosmetic choices it's a bonus & nothing is lost.

If you really want 1946 jets vs props then yes, much more jet thrust, very slow spool, and bi-mode prop engines with water injection et al ( easy to do that with the bi-mode engine module, and BDA can use afterburners already - just use water/whatever as a seperate fuel. Worth a thought anyway ). That's a lot of balancing work ...

Anyway, we've only seen one fight, going to shut up for a while.

[tetryds]

27 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

The only reason I suggested that is because a kill at merge means the battle is quite often over before it's begun & I think everyone is cheated out of a good experience, unless one side is way better than the other & the weaker side got lucky & then gets massacred by the remaining opposition craft. If BDA didn't fly headlong into bullet hails on the first pass it wouldn't be needed. I suppose I have to say I'm putting out ideas for discussion here, not making demands.

I understand, I am not judging you, but sometimes something that "seems wrong" may not be that wrong after all.

It is very hard to achieve such kills, and if you feel that is exploitable you can simply design your craft to do that, but let me tell you, it's not, and an airplane designed for sniping won't do well if it fails. This basically turns this practice into taking the risk for it, which is exactly what every other strategy is about, it's just another one of them.

Along these lines the same would have to be said for airplanes which set their flight altitude very high, or are highly maneuverable, how unfair is it that you can out-turn your opponents

 

About starting fields, some BAD-T 2 battles were not even using the BDArmory's combat starter mode thingy, both teams simply had their pilots started on the runway and were left to battle. This did not change the outcome at all, only made battles take a while longer to start. In fact, increasing the distance will give great unfair advantages to certain strategies, I have tested it.

Edited October 17, 2017 by tetryds

[DoctorDavinci]

46 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

The only reason I suggested that is because a kill at merge means the battle is quite often over before it's begun & I think everyone is cheated out of a good experience, unless one side is way better than the other & the weaker side got lucky & then gets massacred by the remaining opposition craft. If BDA didn't fly headlong into bullet hails on the first pass it wouldn't be needed.

I think that the introduction of aircraft armor, in it's current iteration, solves this for the time being

20 minutes ago, tetryds said:

About starting fields, some BAD-T 2 battles were not even using the BDArmory's combat starter mode thingy, both teams simply had their pilots started on the runway and were left to battle. This did not change the outcome at all, only made battles take a while longer to start. In fact, increasing the distance will give great unfair advantages to certain strategies, I have tested it.

I tried both ways for many of the BAD T2 second tier bouts and in the end it really didn't make much of a difference on who won the battle ... There were a couple exceptions IIRC but for the most part the winners of each round won regardless of the way the battles were started (namely Launch and fight or Competition mode at 8000)

Edited October 17, 2017 by DoctorDavinci

[SuicidalInsanity]

Youtube's being slow, so the next match will be up in an hour or so.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Round 2: @53miner53's WW II Fighter 1 vs @Joseph Kerman's KF-87:
I make no apologies for the more aggressive editing this time round; the initial raw recording was 53 minutes long.

The way this match went, I'm tempted to write up an after-action report about how the craft performed and some observations of what worked and what could have worked better.

 

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Round 2: @53miner53's WW II Fighter 1 vs @Joseph Kerman's KF-87:
I make no apologies for the more aggressive editing this time round; the initial raw recording was 53 minutes long.

The way this match went, I'm tempted to write up an after-action report about how the craft performed and some observations of what worked and what could have worked better.

 

How boring!

53 only won because Joseph ran out of gas!

I am disappointed with both entry's!

Edited October 19, 2017 by Guest

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Round 2: @53miner53's WW II Fighter 1 vs @Joseph Kerman's KF-87:
I make no apologies for the more aggressive editing this time round; the initial raw recording was 53 minutes long.

The way this match went, I'm tempted to write up an after-action report about how the craft performed and some observations of what worked and what could have worked better.

 

That must have taken a lot of patience.

 

[Joseph Kerman]

5 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Round 2: @53miner53's WW II Fighter 1 vs @Joseph Kerman's KF-87:
I make no apologies for the more aggressive editing this time round; the initial raw recording was 53 minutes long.

The way this match went, I'm tempted to write up an after-action report about how the craft performed and some observations of what worked and what could have worked better.

 

Wooo!!! I got one gun kill to none for the enemy!

To be fair, we were equally matched. One maneuver broke the tie in the final round, the barrel-roll turn.

 

Oh, and yes please. Do a report.

 

GG, @53miner53.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Joseph Kerman

[53miner53]

1 hour ago, Joseph Kerman said:

Wooo!!! I got one gun kill to none for the enemy!

To be fair, we were equally matched. One maneuver broke the tie in the final round, the barrel-roll turn.

 

Oh, and yes please. Do a report.

 

GG, @53miner53.

I would consider it your win because my plane didn’t shoot yours down at all! GG @Joseph Kerman! 

Also, one of the KF-87s disappeared in the first round after the first pass. Did anyone see what happened to it?

[Joseph Kerman]

Just now, 53miner53 said:

I would consider it your win because my plane didn’t shoot yours down at all! GG @Joseph Kerman! 

Also, one of the KF-87s disappeared in the first round after the first pass. Did anyone see what happened to it?

It crashed on the ground.

[53miner53]

1 minute ago, Joseph Kerman said:

It crashed on the ground.

Ah. Thanks!

[tetryds]

I hace to yet watch this last battle.

But if an airplane flees from the battle it's up to the judge to assume that as a win for the opposing team.

When running battles myself that only happened once, and I performed a rematch just to make sure.

Luckly the match only lasted for about an hour, before the weight removal phase my craft could fly for more than 9 hours straight

[aleksey444]

2 minutes ago, tetryds said:

But if an airplane flees from the battle it's up to the judge to assume that as a win for the opposing team.

I had that happen, a lot, when testing my plane.  If I switched view to another plane, the one running away would turn around and attack.

I think it's a BDA glitch, instead of some kind of problem with plane design.

So, the solution for the judge seems to be to just switch views and trigger the turn around.  Probably best done when the feeling plane is some distance away, say 2km or thereabout, so that it's not disadvantaged.

[tetryds]

The judge should never interfere with the battle, even to fix a glitch.

That issue was vaused by a missing module on the AI antenna, there os a patch for it somewhere on this thread.

[aleksey444]

It was happening even after I applied the patch.

[DoctorDavinci]

So a tip for the run away craft situation ....

Your thrust needs to pass through the center (or almost center) of your CoM as well as passing through the center of your CoL

Or your thrust needs to pass evenly above your CoM and below your CoL (or vice versa)

If your CoL is too low as compared to your thrust and CoM (or vice versa) then your craft will suffer from performance and piloting issues

Also, for BDAc to work as intended, it needs to be in as clean of a KSP install as possible due to BDAc throwing a fit if there are too many NRE's being thrown

Remember that prop engine powered planes are like front wheel drive cars and perform differently as compared to rear wheel drive cars (jet engines being rear wheel in this analogy)

Edited October 19, 2017 by DoctorDavinci

[SuicidalInsanity]

So, that AAR thing. The Round 2 match both craft were heavier, at 4100-4900 kg each, with lower thrust engines. These factors don't prevent a craft from flying, but they do restrict their ability to do so by reducing their available energy budget. A lack of angle of incidence resulted in difficulty taking off from the 2km runways (and almost certainly led to the takeoff craft of a WII F1 in Round 3), and resulted in needing a fairly high AoA to maintain level flight, which in turn means higher drag and less energy.
The KF-87 didn't maneuver too aggressively and was able to hold onto some speed, but near constant harassing from the opposing craft meant that it was having to constantly dodge and weave, preventing it from extending and allowing the WWII Fighter to stay on its tail. It has the thrust to stay aloft and dodge, or stay aloft and accelerate, but not all three. The nature of the jet means means that high mass is detrimental; reducing the mass of the craft would help here; the KF had around ~800kg of oxidixer in the fuselage as ballast that could be removed, as well as wings that could be lightened. Moving the wings back slightly would also help the balance of the craft. As seen at the end, it is capable of shooting down enemy craft, it just needs the ability to extend to do so. But with only 125 rounds per gun, while a successful salvo will result in a kill, it has little spare ammo for misses
The WWII Fighter on the other hand, was something of the opposite - it was much more nimble, to the point of actively bleeding off energy and having to constantly break off and regain speed and altitude. Again, a lighter craft or a more powerful engine would help; like the KF-87 there is room to lighten the craft by about a ton, but the main issue at hand is the overly generous control surface settings. The lower the TWR of the craft, the less energy can be spent freely, because it takes longer to regain. Reducing the pitch authority of the elevators would reduce the turning radius of the WWII Fighter a little, but would allow it to keep more energy that could then be spent elsewhere and prevent the elevators stalling at high deflection. Despite this, the WWII fighter was able to successfully turnfight and maintain pressure on the KF-87. However, at only 60 points, the WWII Fighter 1 had room for a few more guns; with an armament of 4 Breda 7mm MGs, even with 900 rounds each, it simply lacked the firepower to exploit its ability to land hits on the enemy craft.

Edited October 19, 2017 by SuicidalInsanity

[53miner53]

Note to self, when there’s a patch to the mod your engine comes from that changes the thrust, update the mod! Can’t believe I made that mistake...

[Joseph Kerman]

7 minutes ago, 53miner53 said:

Note to self, when there’s a patch to the mod your engine comes from that changes the thrust, update the mod! Can’t believe I made that mistake...

lewl

[SuicidalInsanity]

Round 3: @Eidahlil's Wasp Mk3.3 vs Bot Winslow's Z-17 Mantis

 

[53miner53]

Spoiler

Wasp Mk 3.3 seems a little dominant.

 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, 53miner53 said:

  Hide contents

Wasp Mk 3.3 seems a little dominant.

 

Yeah, I gotta agree on that.