WW2 BAD-T III - BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[Eidahlil]

1 hour ago, Alioth81 said:

Is there a repository of past plane designs?

Try searching kerbalx by the BAD-T props mod. Also, in this particular case, I recommend turning off the "hide craft without pictures" option, as quite a few contest entries do not have them.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Eidahlil

[DoctorDavinci]

29 minutes ago, Alioth81 said:

I also do not like the concept of invisible armor with no aero effect.

So the reason I created the transparent/Invisible armor was to simulate having armor built into your parts as stock parts tend to be like wet paper

1 hour ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Yeah, BAD-T III has gone by fast. Having only 16 entrants helped, but BAD-T III isn't done quite yet. There's still the remainder of Tier 2 to go, and there is a few bonus videos I can post to finish things off in the first tier.

I'm about to start recording the semi finals so expect the next tier 2 round in the near future ....

[Van Disaster]

From previous experience in dogfight contests - AMRAAMs aren't worth the weight, sidewinders are mostly useful for causing a break-off on the initial suicide pass but you'll get a very occasional kill with them, however you can build a perfectly viable plane that'll just out-maneuver them and that's the stock modern ones rather than the limited '60s versions I'm not sure we have anywhere. Other than having rotary guns so even more burst damage there would probably be little difference to our WW2 props, because the pilot is exactly the same. Jets do have the capability to extend easier if you can persuade the AP it really wants to extend, there is that.

BAD-T 1930 might be lots of fun; low power biplanes & monoplanes, no cannon, severe structural limits.

@Alioth81Welcome! as was said, try looking for BAD-T props or Aviator Arsenal on KerbalX, and you might want to filter results for Ferram Aerospace also. If you've got a 30kN prop engine then I think you have an old version of BAD-T props, the "Griffon" equivalent ( I can't remember the name, it's the biggest one ) is now 20kN. There was some discussion abouit the jet, it's actually not bad especially for twins, but it needs separation at the start of a fight to let it build speed, it's advantage is that it *stops* accelerating at a much higher speed. It works better with the current dev version with the fixed climb throttle behaviour. The jet is pretty hopeless if the fight starts off the deck though ( as were actual WW2 jets ). I would suggest if youi need flaps to take off your craft is not going to work well in a BDA dogfight, unfortunately.

I'm posting this because it's the one I can remember without searching, but if you want some idea of jet dogfights this is all the video from a 1.0.4 (1v1) contest. The problem with 3v3 is you start getting quite bad performance issues, especially if you're trying to cap video at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMOfiFa_ZSfdns5-FZ8_3vqoeeat0JH8B

Edited November 8, 2017 by Van Disaster

[DoctorDavinci]

13 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

BAD-T 1930 might be lots of fun; low power biplanes & monoplanes, no cannon, severe structural limits.

Now this sounds like fun ... I'm in 

[DoctorDavinci]

So, without further ado, I now present @Van Disaster's  D.A.C Deimos Mk X vs @MightyDarkStar's Kestrel F. 1

This was a fun match to watch

 

Edited November 8, 2017 by DoctorDavinci

[Van Disaster]

AI derp levels high in that one again. Tension right down to the wire though, a near-loss to friendly fire of all things too that poor pilot at the end was in a bad place...

The sequence starting at 7:35, I just love that, the inverted Kestrel & the Deimos just rising up.

( btw dots n the D.A.C - the game doesn't like saving them as dots for no good reason, they're perfectly acceptable filename characters... )

Edited November 8, 2017 by Van Disaster

[tetryds]

About a new tournament, given the state of the AI and the parts available, ww2 ended up being the most suitable era for the battles when BAD-T was conceived. This doesn't seem to have changed too much since then.

At the first iteration of the tournament there was actually a biplane tier, but my tests showed that for realistic engines the AI was not ready to battle with such low powers and speed.

What can work though is changing the paradigm a bit. Severely buffed ww1 engines, biplanes and low power guns spraying everywhere at ridiculously low altitudes sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Actually much more fun than what a jet era battle would be.

If anyone else is interested I can develop new rules for this kind of tournament, then come to terms with suicidal after his tests.

Edited November 8, 2017 by tetryds

[Van Disaster]

Yeah, even with the power-management added since then I think you need a bit more thrust than you'd likely have for pure realism. The biplane I posted recently is about as fast as the fastest biplane ever, and that was maybe 15% higher than a comfortable minimum thrust I think ( although I've had it fighting stuff built to tournament rules, so it needed the extra oomph ). Actual WW1 planes you're looking at 120mph top, which is below what half these ones take off at... 1930 I thought a reasonable point of suggestoin with a mix of more powerful old-tech biplanes and experimental wierd monoplanes. Everyone was still using small machineguns still, I think that is probably one of the most important things.

Wonder if there's a model of a single-row radial engine around, that was really common for years.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Van Disaster

[tetryds]

18 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

Wonder if there's a model of a single-row radial engine around, that was really common for years.

Yes there is.

There is even a fully functional rotary engine on airplane-plus.

About biplanes and monoplanes, just like with current fighters and heavy fighters, there could be a biplane and monoplane class.

Still thinking about it though, and it requires testing.

Another deal is that FAR wings don't have a suitable profile for super low speed flight, everything ends up somewhat faster and requires more speed to fly.

But that doesn't seem like a problem to me.

Edited November 8, 2017 by tetryds

[Van Disaster]

3 minutes ago, tetryds said:

Yes there is.

There is even a fully functional rotary engine on airplane-plus.

About biplanes and monoplanes, just like with current fighters and heavy fighters, there could be a biplane and monoplane class.

Still thinking about it though, and it requires testing.

Another deal is that FAR wings don't have a suitable profile for super low speed flight, everything ends up somewhat faster and requires more speed to fly.

But that doesn't seem like a problem to me.

Bit more angle of incidence & low wing loading sorts slow speed out - I've built FAR stuff that'll fly at 25m/s ( albeit I didn't try aerobatics with it ), so it is doable. Not enough drag ( rigging, wing profile ) is the only thing; there is a bonus to higher drag in that you can dive & not reach crazy speeds which will pull your wings off. Maybe just have high-drag engines.

[tetryds]

Or bug @ferram4 enough until he implements a new wing profile for us.

About the airplanes, if they are light enough they can fly at low speeds, but aerobatics require much more careful piloting, which is the reason why the AI is not totally ready for it.

I'm fine with fast/high torque @ low speeds biplanes though.

[Van Disaster]

1 minute ago, tetryds said:

Or bug @ferram4 enough until he implements a new wing profile for us.

About the airplanes, if they are light enough they can fly at low speeds, but aerobatics require much more careful piloting, which is the reason why the AI is not totally ready for it.

I'm fine with fast/high torque @ low speeds biplanes though.

Yeah, I'm fine with more power ( the reason I argued against it for jets was because they had enough power already, the tourney style just wouldn't let them use it ). Would be nice to limit speeds by engineering limits ( ie, don't pull your wings off! ) but I suspect we don't have anything sensitive enough to manage that - especially if you use struts for rigging - making the engine drag ramp up steeply would let you build planes out of whatever parts you like which can hang off the prop still so the AI is happy, but aren't tearing around at 400mph.

Hm, maybe setting FAR's aero structural failure limit down might also work. Only fear then is people won't pay attention & half the submissions will disintegrate at the first turn...

[MightyDarkStar]

That match was bloody tense. I think I've learned my lesson though - heavy twins aren't suited to this kind of thing. I've been learning how to build lightweight planes with B9 PWings instead and the results have been far better. I hope to submit one next time!

Also, @Van Disaster, I love how you build planes, if you ever want to have a chat about it and exchange ideas I'm always open for a DM.

[tetryds]

@Van Disaster you don't need to worry about how to solve these kind of problems, most of the solutions are not obvious anyway. For instance you don't need to force a hard limit on wing weight, you can surely go faster, but the engine may not be up to the task of maneuvering with a heavy plane. The lower mass limit the more you have to be careful about what you design for because every kilogram counts.

What is the most important is addressing possible issues I may not have thought of, that would help a lot.

 

Well, I am assuming people are interested, and will start building a minimalist set of rules to create a great WW1 biplane battle scenario. Lots of game design come into play and, damn, I love this.

[Van Disaster]

2 hours ago, MightyDarkStar said:

That match was bloody tense. I think I've learned my lesson though - heavy twins aren't suited to this kind of thing. I've been learning how to build lightweight planes with B9 PWings instead and the results have been far better. I hope to submit one next time!

Also, @Van Disaster, I love how you build planes, if you ever want to have a chat about it and exchange ideas I'm always open for a DM.

Unless you're the guy who wrote the autopilot ( and the aero physics ) then no, it seems not Your craft ( like the P-92 ) could have gone on a bit of a diet though, for one thing you had full fuel tanks! and your wings didn't need to be that strong either. I did some basic tweaking & got the Kestrel down to 5.9t with consumables on board ( I suspect that's quite near 5.5t empty, I don't know ). I did build a more conventional twin ( basically by taking my single-engined plane, sticking a nosecone on, sticking another panel in the wing & gluing the engines there, and then making it a bit longer... ) but although it is actually quite nice performance, it's also not good enough. Probably would be much better if I knew what I was doing with the AI.

https://kerbalx.com/VanDisaster/DAC-Huginn-Mk-I

I don't know how many planes I've built over the years, but it feels a lot - haven't been actually doing much for a year or so though. Have a browse of my screenshot dump if you want.

1 hour ago, tetryds said:

@Van Disaster you don't need to worry about how to solve these kind of problems, most of the solutions are not obvious anyway. For instance you don't need to force a hard limit on wing weight, you can surely go faster, but the engine may not be up to the task of maneuvering with a heavy plane. The lower mass limit the more you have to be careful about what you design for because every kilogram counts.

What is the most important is addressing possible issues I may not have thought of, that would help a lot.

It is an inherent game balance issue if you like rather than a tournament rules issue, my thought tree went:

* There's not enough drag for the type of craft.. What does this mean?
- Craft dive too fast, out of proportion with other maneuvering speeds
** can cause aero failues as it's an unusually stressful event compared with everything else and the AP doesn't manage well enough <-- this is the thing; we're not just building fancy planes, we have to deal with the AP and physics quirks. Mostly the AP.
** Looks daft
- Craft straightline speed is rather high
** Looks daft. Well, this one doesn't matter so much if everything is equally overspeeding because you won't really notice it. However it'd be good to be visually different from other types of planes.

* Is it a problem?
- Well, the diving thing might be.

* What can we do about it then?
- Add drag somewhere. Drag scales with speed, so it can be made not to affect "normal" flight for these craft in a meaningful way.

* Where though? you want people to use any parts from the mod lists without messing around altering other people's parts.
- If we're providing the engines, add more high-speed drag to the engines. That puts a lot of drag on the nose, but these are not fast craft in absolute terms so maybe that will be ok. Test!

The tournament balance issue for low drag - note my thoughts didn't even go near any idea of perfomance equalisation - might be "planes don't burn off sufficient energy so there is not enough penalty for having acres of wing" - which I'm *not* talking about, that would be your job. I was just addressing what would be a wierd kink in the flight envelope caused by the parts we're working with. I mean, it's obviously not the only solution; the AP will bust it's own G limits quite happily though so that is not a thing to rely on either.

[MightyDarkStar]

@Van Disaster Until recently I didn't quite have the whole "weight shedding" thing down yet .

In the meanwhile, here's something I threw together entirely out of PWings (and a few other bits). This orthographic view really doesn't do the fuselage cross-section justice (it looks a lot like an early Yak's). Weighs 3 tons on the dot and is slightly larger than a real-life Bf 109.

(Kronal Vessel Viewer hates PWings lmfao)

Spoiler

If you'd like the craft file to try out I could upload it to KerbalX, but bear in mind it uses Infernal Robotics, some other cosmetic mods, AJE and an older (but fully working) addon to AJE called Real Airplanes.

[DoctorDavinci]

@keptin's Rolf-75 Spicypepper vs @OmegaForce's BT-170 ThornBird

 

[Van Disaster]

13 hours ago, MightyDarkStar said:

@Van Disaster Until recently I didn't quite have the whole "weight shedding" thing down yet .

If you'd like the craft file to try out I could upload it to KerbalX, but bear in mind it uses Infernal Robotics, some other cosmetic mods, AJE and an older (but fully working) addon to AJE called Real Airplanes.

Heh, well, removing mass benefits almost everything! it's like getting free wing, free engine, free control authority and if you don't overdo it, free structural integrity through lower stresses ( eventually you'll overdo it of course, like Keptin's craft in the primaries showed ). You won't accelerate in a dive so fast, is all.

I'll get back to you if I ever do a bigger 1.3 install, currently only have 1.3 mods for BAD-T in the build ( the only reason I installed 1.3 in the first place, tbh ).

Good fight: final is looking interesting, my own testing showed they're pretty even with end results, a lot of it is down to luck.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Alioth81]

After some trial and error I think I have now a craft that complies to the rules.

As I am not sure how placement of armor is interpreted would you consider that ok? The armor parts just do not fit ideally.

https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-6-B-Thunderstrike

Despite the armor it gets often shot down during the first pass - any tips on that? It would be nice to have a FAR slider like for wings for other parts it seems to have the same effect as armor but is a bit heavier.

I tested several guns by shooting at fighter size wings from a range of around 500m. To me it seemed the 20mm Hispano and the 23mm was a bit too good, everything below had problems with bigger wings, armor etc. and the guns above are not ideal from munition, bullet speed ,heating or rate of fire.

The German 20mm did not perform at the same level as the hispano in my opinion.

How was it balanced? Is there some more detailed explanation about the pros and cons of each weapon?

Especially the 7mm guns seem not that useful (if you can only mount 6).

Do you also open fire at max range? I had best results with that strategy despite not hitting until about 1000m but it seems to "scare" the other plane.

In addition I also had a look at a craft with a constructed cockpit and it seemed a bit unfair compared to the regular inline cockpit. The weight savings are too extreme. I am fine if people want to construct their own cockpit but I think a 500kg closed WW2 cockpit should be added to the prop pack (remove all stuff like monoprop, reaction wheels etc.) and it would seem fairer to me.

Also super high G turns with unconcious pilots seem a bit weird. Maybe the AI could take the state of the pilot into account and loosen controls until he is back from black out.

 

Edited November 10, 2017 by Alioth81

[DoctorDavinci]

@keptin's  Rolf-75 Spicypepper vs @Van Disaster's D.A.C Deimos Mk X

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

Some of you were wondering earlier how the Wasp Mk3.3 would do against the BT-211 SkyRebel and the Tytonid XVI, so here's a bonus battle of champions video.
One thing to keep in mind is under BAD-T III rules, the SkyRebel and Tytonid are not tournament legal - they're direct ports from BAD-T 2, using the BAD-T2 (1.3ton, 38.5Kn) version of the Foxhound engine. So, do these previous champions have what it takes to beat the Wasp?

 

[Van Disaster]

2 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

@keptin's  Rolf-75 Spicypepper vs @Van Disaster's D.A.C Deimos Mk X

That was a little more decisive than I expected I'll release the Deimos later when it's not a spoiler. BTW, can you guys give some music credits?

1 hour ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Some of you were wondering earlier how the Wasp Mk3.3 would do against the BT-211 SkyRebel and the Tytonid XVI, so here's a bonus battle of champions video.
One thing to keep in mind is under BAD-T III rules, the SkyRebel and Tytonid are not tournament legal - they're direct ports from BAD-T 2, using the BAD-T2 (1.3ton, 38.5Kn) version of the Foxhound engine. So, do these previous champions have what it takes to beat the Wasp?

Those on the other hand went about as I expected. I think the old pair could probably do with some AI tweaks given that's changed too ( SkyRebal definitely needs min alt set! ) otherwise yeah, results as I thought.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Van Disaster]

7 hours ago, Alioth81 said:

After some trial and error I think I have now a craft that complies to the rules.

As I am not sure how placement of armor is interpreted would you consider that ok? The armor parts just do not fit ideally.

https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-6-B-Thunderstrike

Despite the armor it gets often shot down during the first pass - any tips on that? It would be nice to have a FAR slider like for wings for other parts it seems to have the same effect as armor but is a bit heavier.

I tested several guns by shooting at fighter size wings from a range of around 500m. To me it seemed the 20mm Hispano and the 23mm was a bit too good, everything below had problems with bigger wings, armor etc. and the guns above are not ideal from munition, bullet speed ,heating or rate of fire.

The German 20mm did not perform at the same level as the hispano in my opinion.

How was it balanced? Is there some more detailed explanation about the pros and cons of each weapon?

Especially the 7mm guns seem not that useful (if you can only mount 6).

Do you also open fire at max range? I had best results with that strategy despite not hitting until about 1000m but it seems to "scare" the other plane.

In addition I also had a look at a craft with a constructed cockpit and it seemed a bit unfair compared to the regular inline cockpit. The weight savings are too extreme. I am fine if people want to construct their own cockpit but I think a 500kg closed WW2 cockpit should be added to the prop pack (remove all stuff like monoprop, reaction wheels etc.) and it would seem fairer to me.

Also super high G turns with unconcious pilots seem a bit weird. Maybe the AI could take the state of the pilot into account and loosen controls until he is back from black out.

 

Why can't you insert quotes into posts when you're editing.. apologies for double post then.

* First pass shootdowns, not much you can do about that. One reason a lot of us set huge ranges on the guns is to try and make the other guy break off at this point, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be shooting more than 700m probably.
* Gun balance - tetrydis put hours into those, they're all meant to have their strengths and also approximate real performance as much as BDA can anyway. If one didn't perform as well as another, then it just isn't as good as another. The 30mm 108 can one-shot kill a plane - the shells were enormous, of course it's ballistics and ROF are worse than the 20mms. There is some balance in the ammo mass.
* I limit distance to about 1500m to try not to waste too much ammo, but the reasons for firing at extreme range you got and I mentioned already.
* There's a G-limiter, it just doesn't seem to work too well. If the plane can pull a human into unconciousness ( these are piloted by Kerbals, mind ) then it might be too heavily constructed to be ideal.

That craft would have done pretty well in the tournament ( judged from a couple of test fights ), well done! you missed disabling the reaction wheels, btw, otherwise ( other than armour which I don't know how to judge ) it appears legal.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Van Disaster

[Alioth81]

2 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Why can't you insert quotes into posts when you're editing.. apologies for double post then.

Yes i will try to do that - I have to get to know the forum a bit better.

 

2 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

First pass shootdowns, not much you can do about that.

Thanks it is good to know that you have to design around that

 

2 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Gun balance - tetrydis put hours into those

I am sure that is true it was more a subjective feeling that explosive ammo does not always "work" whereas the AP ammo types seem a bit more reliable (this could be realistic).
For sure I put 30mm on my plane to have a good chance to destroy whatever is hit :-)
What would you think about some restriction about how many large caliber cannons you can mount/clip into the engine (which was for sure a real restriction)? A limit of 30 mm per engine in total would be a limitation for cannons but you still can mount 2x 12mm or 4x7mm? At first I had my 30mm shooting through the propeller but it just did not feel right.
This way if you want multiple large guns you would be limited to wing positions outside the propeller diameter where they are a bit less effective. (or have an inverted propeller design where you need an appropriate nose cone.

2 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

There's a G-limiter, it just doesn't seem to work too well.

Ok that is good to know too. I guess the g limit is than enforce by structural/weight limitations :-)

 

2 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

That craft would have done pretty well in the tournament ( judged from a couple of test fights ), well done! you missed disabling the reaction wheels, btw, otherwise ( other than armour which I don't know how to judge )

Thanks - I will check about the reaction wheels 
 

[tetryds]

@Alioth81 about the guns:

There are no ingame physical restrictions to putting two 30mm guns behind an engine, thus this restriction will not be enforced on BAD-T.

If it does not feel right you can simply avoid it on your own design no problem.

The weapon count is already balanced through the point system, which ended up being much better than I first expected.

Explosive shells always work, but if it explodes somewhere where the nearby parts heat tolerances and mass are high it is not going to look like any damage was inflicted, but that is untrue. Just turn on the craft heatmaps and you will see.