WW2 BAD-T III - BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[Guest]

23 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

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

 

looks like he is going to first place!

[aleksey444]

30 minutes ago, dundun93 said:

looks like he is going to first place!

Yeah, that thing is a sniper.  It's made out of paper, so it can't survive a single hit, but it doesn't need to.  It can turn on a dime, and is ridiculously accurate.

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

It's a bit more durable than you give it credit - the Wasp was able to take multiple 23mm HE rounds before dying in the last round, which is why the Mantis only scored a single kill that round - but it's an incredibly large target, and its maneuverability comes at the price of basically stalling the craft every time it turns. I wouldn't be so quick to declare it the winner; lets see how it does against another Hispanio armed craft first.

 

[Temeter]

That plane seems to work less like a sniper, and more like a rotating turret.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Temeter

[Van Disaster]

 

3 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

It's a bit more durable than you give it credit - the Wasp was able to take multiple 23mm HE rounds before dying in the last round, which is why the Mantis only scored a single kill that round - but it's an incredibly large target, and its maneuverability comes at the price of basically stalling the craft every time it turns. I wouldn't be so quick to declare it the winner; lets see how it does against another Hispanio armed craft first.

 

Nope. Doesn't stall, just bleeds speed like mad - but with the way the AI works, it doesn't matter. Only thing that'll beat that sort of craft ( other than another, better one of the same type ) is something that does near supersonic B&Z, and with the BDA zoom bug I fixed still there, forget that too.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Joseph Kerman]

45 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

Haven't seen the other ent

Nope. Doesn't stall, just bleeds speed like mad - but with the way the AI works, it doesn't matter. Only thing that'll beat that sort of craft ( other than another, better one of the same type ) is something that does near supersonic B&Z, and with the BDA zoom bug I fixed still there, forget that too.

Like my jet.

[Van Disaster]

49 minutes ago, Joseph Kerman said:

Like my jet.

If it was lighter so it could climb, and had enough time to be able to climb. And there wasn't a head-on merge without avoidance. And the AI didn't have rocks for brains, too. The illegally light version of my twin jet can run rings around this thing if it's given enough separation to accelerate, but the pilot will lose by bleeding off energy & making itself an easy target, and not putting itself in a decent position to shoot even with the advantage ( and this is with the fixed BDA zoom too ).

I honestly don't see why there's a ban on biplanes.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Joseph Kerman]

36 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

If it was lighter so it could climb, and had enough time to be able to climb. And there wasn't a head-on merge without avoidance. And the AI didn't have rocks for brains, too. The illegally light version of my twin jet can run rings around this thing if it's given enough separation to accelerate, but the pilot will lose by bleeding off energy & making itself an easy target, and not putting itself in a decent position to shoot even with the advantage ( and this is with the fixed BDA zoom too ).

I honestly don't see why there's a ban on biplanes.

I may have wanted to reduce mass, but I was on the limit on the dry mass thing.

It was also rushed.

[tetryds]

3 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

I honestly don't see why there's a ban on biplanes.

Because reasons.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Round 4: @aleksey444's AF-292D Falconet vs @tetryds's Elkow-6:

 

[aleksey444]

Well, I'm pretty happy with how this played out

 

[Van Disaster]

37 minutes ago, aleksey444 said:

Well, I'm pretty happy with how this played out

 

Yep, congrats.

A fight between yours & mine & Keptir's ( and perhaps SI's, I've not seen it fly though ) planes would be a riotous whirl I reckon.

For people who've been contacting me about the throttle fix, the PR went in yesterday. If there's anything else in the AI that needs actual fixing rather than just something you think could be better, let me know ( privately, don't clutter ).

[SuicidalInsanity]

Riotous whirl - that's one way of describing the next match

 

[aleksey444]

1 hour ago, Van Disaster said:

Yep, congrats.

A fight between yours & mine & Keptir's ( and perhaps SI's, I've not seen it fly though ) planes would be a riotous whirl I reckon.

For people who've been contacting me about the throttle fix, the PR went in yesterday. If there's anything else in the AI that needs actual fixing rather than just something you think could be better, let me know ( privately, don't clutter ).

Keptir's Rolf-75 was my main sparring partner when I was designing my plane.  He released early, and I took advantage

It's a turn-fighter.  In fact, it sacrifices some stability to turn faster.  So it turns, stalls a bit, corrects, turns some more.  But it works.  On the other hand, it's heavier than it needs to be.  So, my plane can keep up with Rolf's turning, but it can also outrun it, because it's a lot lighter.  There are no guarantees, but I think probability is on my side in that fight.

SI seems to have taken a similar design philosophy as I did -- small plane, so it presents as small a target as possible.  Also, he's using b9 wings for parts of the fuselage, which is nice, because you can control the mass by adjusting the strength.  But with a stock cockpit, which weighs a ton, I doubt it's as light.

Your plane is also very similar, maybe a little bigger than SI's -- it's hard to judge from the group screenshot.  But you also have a move powerful engine.  I think these fights will come down to accuracy and turning ability.

The one I'm really curious to see in action is the other open cockpit plane.  I think it's Bob_Saget's Falcon.  It's 2nd row on the right in the group screenshot.  It's also pretty small, and an open cockpit saves A LOT of mass.

And the one I'm really afraid of is the Wasp.  Like I said, that thing is a sniper .  It's jut as light as my plane (in fact, 100-200 kgs lighter), so I can't run away.  It can out-turn me with those huge wings.  And it's crazy accurate, so my small size doesn't save me.  I ran a few 1v1's with it, and it doesn't look good

[Van Disaster]

Yeah, I also wonder about Bob's plane - I didn't comment because I've not seen it properly. I have an open cockpit version of mine, it's actually not noticeably better so I think most of that is down to my AI setup... I did sacrifice a little turning for lower drag & keeping speed up because I thought I'd get eaten alive by B&Zers if I didn't, my plane is surprisingly good at retaining speed, not that that helps with the quality of pilot:p. I do have really good roll rate... but of course that doesn't often come into anything either. I've flown mine against the Rolf-75 a bit, end results are pretty even, seems mostly dependent on luck.

That Wasp eats it, no chance vs that. At least my biplane doesn't dominate it, althought that can put up a very nice fight with one of the bigger engines.

Then again that thing terrorizes my jets... but it does have the Merlin. Well, I suppose there was a CR.42 with the Bf109 engine.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Van Disaster

[aleksey444]

That's a beautiful plane!

I kinda wish there was a BAD-T WW1 edition.  Something with very underpowered engines, so we'd be forced to make bi- and triplanes (and maybe even quad-, people have tried that early on).  And small-caliber guns, too.  None of these 20+ mm cannons that rip everything apart with 1-2 hits.

[Van Disaster]

It's kinda fun building something that works with the smallest engine - that biplane isn't too bad with it, but I did build it to the single engined rules rather than trying to be as light as I could get so it's a little sluggish. It does have four hispanos though, which is a little more than your average biplane... apparently there were some Gladiators with 6x303s, that sounds like it might win the most-armed-biplane award.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Van Disaster

[SuicidalInsanity]

Hmm... A WWI era BAD-T would be fun, but would likely require a new weapons pack, definitely require a new engines pack, possibly some MM edits to bring down part durability. This will require some research. (Disclaimer - research implies feasibility studies, not a guarantee that a WWI BAD-T style tourney will happen).

But back to the main event, in which two similar aircraft with substantially different armament philosophies go head to head:
Round 5: My IA-22 Stribog VII vs @Van Disaster's D.A.C. Deimos Mk X:

 

[tetryds]

Nice battle.

I didn't expect to win, but my airplane can take quite a beat before being taken down.

The thrust vectoring thing gave me a few ideas. If i get on the mood to fire up KSP I will give them a try.

[Van Disaster]

Yeah, that was well worth entering for

Spoiler

That might have been different if my pilots could shoot straight, jeez. I thought the last fight was going to end with me out of ammo, but nop knew it was over as soon as I saw the plane trying to go vertical.

 

[aleksey444]

That was awesome!  A riotous whirl indeed!

Very good camera work.

 

I was wrong about IA-22's weight.  With ammo and fuel, it seems to be as light as possible.  Deimos is only a little heavier.  Van Disaster could have optimized it a bit.  But the two planes seem to be almost evenly matched.

 

BTW, it seemed like most of IA-22's kills were with the 30mm.  The .50 cal just doesn't do enough damage.  Probably why most people (myself included) chose 20mm.  It offers a nice balance between damage and rate of fire.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Yeah, that match easily could have gone either way. I could watch those two craft dance in the skies all day
The Stribog was built to be a brawler - If anything, I consider the .50s to be secondary weapons supplementing the cannon; use the .50s to get the enemy craft to dodge and waste energy, then go in for a kill with the cannon, which is why I was comfortable having less than a full box of 30mm on board.

[Van Disaster]

23 minutes ago, aleksey444 said:

I was wrong about IA-22's weight.  With ammo and fuel, it seems to be as light as possible.  Deimos is only a little heavier.  Van Disaster could have optimized it a bit.  But the two planes seem to be almost evenly matched.

I couldn't if I wanted the thing to stay intact - any lighter on the wing parts & bits started falling off. I've seen it hit 250m/s at the bottom of a steep dive & pullouts under min alt tend to be quite violent.

I'm a little disappointed none of the tail bits got removed - that craft has an amusing ability to fly with most of it missing, the balance shifts just right.

My other problem is the AI PID settings - I don't think it had enough prop. gain so that's why it can't aim very well - correction is not keeping up with the heading error - but I really wanted to keep it's control inputs smooth rather than snapping to maximum all the time so it didn't bleed energy unnecessarily. That is something of an issue with BDA itself I think - @tetrydshave you any input on modifying it's behaviour? ( code, not plane setup, I mean ) this is your area iirc.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Van Disaster

[tetryds]

1 hour ago, Van Disaster said:

@tetrydshave you any input on modifying it's behaviour? ( code, not plane setup, I mean ) this is your area iirc.

If nothing changed since then the code BDArmory uses to control craft is actually quite bad.

MAF was first created by ferram using it, then he handed it over to me, and I made a lot of changes to improve it.

The major problems are the lack of true sideslip control and not pitching enough.

I don't remember if pitch yaw and roll use independent parameters either.

Maybe MAF's code could improve it straight away, but last time I looked at BDA's code it did not look like something someone would have a good time modifying.

Edited October 22, 2017 by tetryds

[Van Disaster]

1 hour ago, tetryds said:

If nothing changed since then the code BDArmory uses to control craft is actually quite bad.

MAF was first created by ferram using it, then he handed it over to me, and I made a lot of changes to improve it.

The major problems are the lack of true sideslip control and not pitching enough.

I don't remember if pitch yaw and roll use independent parameters either.

Maybe MAF's code could improve it straight away, but last time I looked at BDA's code it did not look like something someone would have a good time modifying.

I believe it's still using the same PID for everything. I'm a bit leery of adding too much complexity for this, but let's see first. I guess to do this properly you'd need seperate settings for general maneuvering and aiming ( I remember Baha tried to do that by just turning the PID gains up - I can see why he did but that is not exactly the best way... ).

Posted the biplane using a detuned Wizard & 6 Breda 7.7s, that probably needs some AI tuning too. It's um, a teensy bit low drag.

https://kerbalx.com/VanDisaster/DAC-Tisiphone-Mk-1

Edited October 22, 2017 by Van Disaster