Air Superiority Fighter Competition Continued

[BlueCanary]

6 minutes ago, Box of Stardust said:

I feel that luck should begin during the merge, not before it. Those Squirrels were in a fairly loose formation, which indicates a 'false start' sort of takeoff. A 'correct' takeoff for 3 planes puts them within 300m of each other after takeoff, which is easy to achieve from KSC due to how spawns work, but not from Island.

Considering how little we have control over with the BD AI, I don't think significantly differing formations are fair. Now if we could put our aircraft in a specific formation and spacing (like, say, if we were able to program Wing Commander and have that apply to in-combat) different formations would be fine, but we can't.

That's just my perspective on 'fairness' for the competition, at least.

Tuning the AI pilot is, for some, a major part of this competition. Most current aircraft here are all built with an extreme degree of maneuverability, so it comes down to tuning the AI pilot to fly at the limit, but also fly stable. Some competitors here sort of get away with just setting steering and damping to max though.

You're free to privately test your plane against the leaderboard and the queue if you'd like, or at least download them for some pointers. 

Also, your link doesn't work. 

Yep, I think I've managed to tune it to be somewhat decent but it's still not perfect. My hope is the low wing loading will help it maintain energy and iron out some of the iffy bits of the AI setup. 

Looks like I forgot to publish! How's this link? https://kerbalx.com/BlueCanary/F-20-Pirate

[Box of Stardust]

54 minutes ago, GillyMonster said:

I has another idea to maybe make setting up fights a bit easier and fair?...how much easier I have no idea.  BUT have one team start on the grassy side of the runway facing east, the other on the opposite side facing west.  Its all in the same area, plenty of room to take off with no obstacles and when the fight distance is reached they all have to do a 180 degree turn.  Reduced to minimal variables with both teams starting on equal footing.

That was how the original ASC was done way back when. I'm not entirely sure why exbyde changed the format. Maybe because KSC buildings pose some sort of terrain problem? idk.

Interestingly, this method is either more fair or less fair depending how you view it. Aircraft are in formation up to the starting points, but performing the 180 turn can leave a lot of variation in aircraft formation. Some planes seem to turn well in formation, others don't. It's a lot more random, I think.

I don't think you'll be more consistently fair than the current method.

I think the most fair you could get is to download Kerbal Konstucts, pick some place out somewhere as the arena, and place runways facing directly to each other and launch teams from there.

51 minutes ago, BlueCanary said:

Yep, I think I've managed to tune it to be somewhat decent but it's still not perfect. My hope is the low wing loading will help it maintain energy and iron out some of the iffy bits of the AI setup. 

Looks like I forgot to publish! How's this link? https://kerbalx.com/BlueCanary/F-20-Pirate

Link works, will check out plane.

I can tell you this much though: bog standard manned fighters are usually outpaced by the current hyper-drones.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Box of Stardust

[53miner53]

I think we should do the current spawning, but then start the battle with the battle thing in the settings set to 20km. It will give at least some time for formations to be created while keeping the planes from having to turn around. 

[Box of Stardust]

34 minutes ago, 53miner53 said:

I think we should do the current spawning, but then start the battle with the battle thing in the settings set to 20km. It will give at least some time for formations to be created while keeping the planes from having to turn around. 

Starting competition turns on guard mode, and they will approach each other regardless of the distance in the settings. Aircraft will only go into formation if the start distance is farther than the current separation.

You could probably interrupt the approach by turning on Peace Mode or something, but aircraft will then begin patrolling and circling their current position while they get in formation.

[53miner53]

20 minutes ago, Box of Stardust said:

Starting competition turns on guard mode, and they will approach each other regardless of the distance in the settings. Aircraft will only go into formation if the start distance is farther than the current separation.

You could probably interrupt the approach by turning on Peace Mode or something, but aircraft will then begin patrolling and circling their current position while they get in formation.

If it’s closer, they’ll wait to turn on guard mode until they get to the set distance, and will get in a formation. I’ve accidentally set 20km instead of 30km before, and they didn’t turn on guard mode until I stopped the competition. 

[Box of Stardust]

11 minutes ago, 53miner53 said:

If it’s closer, they’ll wait to turn on guard mode until they get to the set distance, and will get in a formation. I’ve accidentally set 20km instead of 30km before, and they didn’t turn on guard mode until I stopped the competition. 

I start the competitions with the current cross-water spawn points with a separation distance set to 8km; basically, I don't touch the setting at all. Competition begins right as they all get off of the ground.

Maybe you had peace mode turned on?

Reverting to a quicksave while aircraft are in flight in competition mode will also require restarting the competition. 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Box of Stardust

[ZLM-Master]

 

Just a idea but we need 2 Distances in BDAc . The 1 st distance ( the actual ) Place plane to start position still in formation then turn in idle mode . And 2nd distance ( 1 KM less ) Engage All Crafts .

All plane will face each other in formation . Well just an idea !

[ZLM-Master]

A formation setup sould be great too !

[Box of Stardust]

19 minutes ago, ZLM-Master said:

A formation setup sould be great too !

It would. Currently, in the Weapons Manager, there's the Wing Commander, which has some basic settings for formation flight. It would be more ideal for people to arrange their formations tuned for their aircraft.

This would all be best discussed in the BDAc mod thread. 

[Steven Kerman]

Dunno just wanted to share this

This is really manueverable for something i did in 2 minutes...

I would share the craft file but internet B R O K E and im posting this on LTE

[DoctorDavinci]

5 hours ago, ZLM-Master said:

 

Just a idea but we need 2 Distances in BDAc . The 1 st distance ( the actual ) Place plane to start position still in formation then turn in idle mode . And 2nd distance ( 1 KM less ) Engage All Crafts .

All plane will face each other in formation . Well just an idea !

 

5 hours ago, ZLM-Master said:

A formation setup sould be great too !

 

4 hours ago, Box of Stardust said:

It would. Currently, in the Weapons Manager, there's the Wing Commander, which has some basic settings for formation flight. It would be more ideal for people to arrange their formations tuned for their aircraft.

This would all be best discussed in the BDAc mod thread. 

Good ideas, although a more effective way of having the team look at this is by making a feature request on the BDAc GitHub ... We use the GitHub Issues tracker to keep track of bugs, enhancements and feature requests so as to not lose good ideas like these in the inevitable burying of posts that happens on the forum

Here's the link to the Issues section on our GitHub: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDArmory/issues

Open an issue and detail your idea, that way we can track it

[GillyMonster]

Does anyone have a link to the Radar Cross Sectoion tool?

[Box of Stardust]

Just now, GillyMonster said:

Does anyone have a link to the Radar Cross Sectoion tool?

It comes with BDAc.

[ZLM-Master]

@DoctorDavinci Yep thx , i post a thread on Github with more detail purpose , & some enhancment to fix our issue . Let's see if they like that idea !

Edited March 21, 2018 by ZLM-Master

[Piatzin]

Dead....? Semi-dead? Not yet dead...?

[Dimas152]

7 hours ago, Earthlinger said:

Dead....? Semi-dead? Not yet dead...?

kinda dieded

[Piatzin]

A lot of threads seem to be dying nowadays...

 

At least, the combat ones..

[Box of Stardust]

1 hour ago, Earthlinger said:

A lot of threads seem to be dying nowadays...

 

At least, the combat ones..

Maybe just waiting for a move to 1.4.1?

For here, at least, exbyde kept saying he'll 'resume on Monday'... for like, a month. So... maybe today? (Probably not, I feel...)

In any case, it's barely been a week, and there was a note that we might take a break until mods update accordingly to 1.4.1, so I wouldn't worry too much at this point, at least for ASCc.

Also, when mods are updated for 1.4.1, I'll be posting up a light drone offshoot since building small seems to be a trend.

[Wolf5698]

Is this thread still alive? I've still got more planes I wanna throw at the leaderboard

 

[Box of Stardust]

1 hour ago, Wolf5698 said:

Is this thread still alive? I've still got more planes I wanna throw at the leaderboard

 

Err... not sure.

We're kinda waiting on exbyde. Or April 6 or BDA 1.1 for KSP 1.4.1.

If exbyde doesn't come back by then, I suppose some of us will take over. As well, I'll be posting up my Light Drones competition on the release of BDA 1.1 for 1.4.1.

You can throw some (well, one, at this point I think) planes at this guy if you haven't already.

 

[Piatzin]

8 hours ago, Box of Stardust said:

We're kinda waiting on exbyde

His life probably got in the way

I can imagine him going....

....now that everyone is waiting on him to do something

[Box of Stardust]

1 hour ago, Earthlinger said:

His life probably got in the way

I can imagine him going....

....now that everyone is waiting on him to do something

He's the one that said he'll keep doing it, so a bit of mixed messaging here. 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Box of Stardust said:

Err... not sure.

We're kinda waiting on exbyde. Or April 6 or BDA 1.1 for KSP 1.4.1.

If exbyde doesn't come back by then, I suppose some of us will take over. As well, I'll be posting up my Light Drones competition on the release of BDA 1.1 for 1.4.1.

You can throw some (well, one, at this point I think) planes at this guy if you haven't already.

 

Ill reboot it if exbyde doesn't appear after the 6th.

[Box of Stardust]

Hey guys,

Another comparison up to fill the time. As I may have mentioned, I'll be posting up a Light Drones competition offshoot on release of BDA 1.1 for 1.4.1, and I'll be taking entries here that will fit the parameters (they're not that strict really). The primary Light Drone craft parameters are: 4.0t maximum dry mass (empty of all fuel, missiles and pre-routing devices (e.g., MLRS), gun ammo, and chaff+flares), 5.5t combat weight (as loaded on the runway), and 1 Vulcan per 0.9t of empty aircraft weight (inclusive). Here are there contenders, and as per usual, some currently unlisted projects of mine:

 

 

And because I was really scratching that air superiority itch, here are the stats, mass (empty, as-loaded) rounded to nearest hundredth of a ton:

@dundun93 A26	3.00t	5.58t
CShRAID Type 2b	3.49t	5.19t
@dundun92Du-8C	2.15t	2.95t
@Wolf5698 Lynx	2.40t	5.19t
@53miner53 P-5 Flash	0.90t	2.85t
@goduranus Vampire Squirrel (B)	3.27t	5.73t
@ZLM-Master X-Fighter 2 EX	2.47t	4.48t
PEGASys-E4	3.60t	5.50t
CShRAID Type 3c	3.00t	4.60t

All aircraft on the list meet all the requirements, including Vulcan amount limitation (well, actually the A26 doesn't; it's 1 Vulcan over). The two that exceed the 5.5t limit require minimal modification (remove 1 ECM from the MLRS).

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Box of Stardust
the forum table function is really dumb

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Box of Stardust said:

Hey guys,

Another comparison up to fill the time. As I may have mentioned, I'll be posting up a Light Drones competition offshoot on release of BDA 1.1 for 1.4.1, and I'll be taking entries here that will fit the parameters (they're not that strict really). The primary Light Drone craft parameters are: 4.0t maximum dry mass (empty of all fuel, missiles and pre-routing devices (e.g., MLRS), gun ammo, and chaff+flares), 5.5t combat weight (as loaded on the runway), and 1 Vulcan per 0.9t of empty aircraft weight (inclusive). Here are there contenders, and as per usual, some currently unlisted projects of mine:

 

 

And because I was really scratching that air superiority itch, here are the stats, mass (empty, as-loaded) rounded to nearest hundredth of a ton:

@dundun93 A26	3.00t	5.58t
CShRAID Type 2b	3.49t	5.19t
@dundun92Du-8C	2.15t	2.95t
@Wolf5698 Lynx	2.40t	5.19t
@53miner53 P-5 Flash	0.90t	2.85t
@goduranus Vampire Squirrel (B)	3.27t	5.73t
@ZLM-Master X-Fighter 2 EX	2.47t	4.48t
PEGASys-E4	3.60t	5.50t
CShRAID Type 3c	3.00t	4.60t

All aircraft on the list meet all the requirements, including Vulcan amount limitation (well, actually the A26 doesn't; it's 1 Vulcan over). The two that exceed the 5.5t limit require minimal modification (remove 1 ECM from the MLRS).

 

 

Just remove one Vulcan and a ECM/Chaff/Flares maybe?