Air Superiority Competition Unlimited Re-Continued - Now in KSP 1.4 and BDA 1.2!

[Box of Stardust]

We're doing the queue in order, so we have to finish up the 1.3.1 + BDA 1.0 queue first. 

You could do some Tier 2 leaderboard battles, since I haven't started the next series for that.

[ZLM-Master]

My 1st Craft for BDAc 1.2 is ready to take off  It's a Hunter version of the X-Fighter .

Just in case , BDAc 1.2.1 has been release !

Edited May 5, 2018 by ZLM-Master

[Box of Stardust]

@goduranus's Vampire Squirrel Re-Advancement match against PEGASys-D3:

 

 

 

 

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Battle Report:

Analysis:

You couldn't ask for a closer match, really.

These are just the three battles I filmed for the series. I was curious and decided to run more 5v5 matches, and margins of victory in a 5v5 are way more luck-based than a 3v3. Sometimes the planes will just do the right moves, go for the right target, get the right hits. And sometimes they won't.

But I think being able to get close battles like these on a fairly regular basis (throughout my continued testing), as well as the previous 'margins of victory' point applying to both sides, just proves that Vampire Squirrel and PEGASys are really for the most part evenly matched in terms of performance. The results in my continued battles weren't really skewed to one side or the other significantly- even the 5-0 or 5-1 games..

The MLRS really helped take the initiative on the VS's part, but the VSs had to take advantage of it, because if not, it was either team's game, and PEGASys is pretty good at dodging.

Unfortunately in the last match, the PEGASys just wouldn't release its Sidewinder for some reason, and wasn't able to ward off the head-on pass, nor switch to guns quickly enough. The extremely fast time-to-kill means whoever hits first in a head-on pass will always win, something we won't see in BDA 1.2 with more survivable aircraft and what feels to me, far better AI maneuvering that results in far less head-on passes in the first place.

Vampire Squirrel wins its re-advancement match and takes the #1 spot... and Basilisk now re-continues its climb up the board.

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by Box of Stardust

[Box of Stardust]

Basilisk continues its leadboard climb, going up against PEGASys.

 

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Battle Report:

Analysis:

Probably not the expected result.

So what happened here?

Well, first off, despite being an 'older' aircraft, the D3 is still no pushover. PEGASys showed itself capable of beating out pre-routing device craft, stopping Vampire Squirrel's first run (though, that was before these new spawn locations, so who knows what difference that would make).

Next, I don't know if I ever tuned Basilisk to a state where I figured it was perfect. It was always 'close enough'; wings with anhedral are waaay harder to tune than just level wings. Meanwhile, PEGASys is a far stronger dogfighter than Basilisk because of being far easier to tune.

Also, Basilisk was built to fight against PRD-equipped aircraft, firing from a range farther than the VS MLRS, so that it would have weapons release first. Against PEGASys... well, the range seems a little too far to be fully effective. The PEGASys seems to regroup and reposition enough in the time it takes for the Basilisks to get over.

So, PEGASys is able to hold its #2 spot and Basilisk stays at #3, though I don't worry too much about Basilisk's ability to get a Re-Advancement run. Except for the part where we have to figure out what to do with the leaderboard when we move onto 1.4.x + BDA 1.2, since all aircraft have to be re-equipped with all BDA parts.

 

[Box of Stardust]

Okay, so the next plane in the Tier 1 queue is Vampire Squirrel B.

I'm going to make an executive decision and just replace Vampire Squirrel in the leaderboard with VS B because it's literally just part angle changes. That's hardly worth the effort of a full combat test again... plus I don't want to have to deal with the probability that a variant doesn't make it far enough to face itself... since I'm not sure if there's an established rule for that situation yet.

[53miner53]

I was doing some testing with Flash, and it doesn’t seem that the updates broke anything on it. I might try to switch the wings out for the B9 PWings version, because it seems that PWings is no longer supported, but the mod works unmodified on 1.4.2, so I’m not too worried about that. I’ll have to try to do some thorough testing against the leaderboard to make sure(and probably make improvements)

[goduranus]

I like how the each missile in Basilisk's MLRS has an angle offset to make them spread out.

  On 5/6/2018 at 2:07 AM, Box of Stardust said:

@goduranus's Vampire Squirrel Re-Advancement match against PEGASys-D3:

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This one is really really close.

[Box of Stardust]

Next Tier 1 series: @dundun92's Du-5Rs starts off against Gunbrick.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Battle Report:

Analysis:

Du-5Rs is a re-submission of the Du-5R, because the Du-5R completely committed suicide when it launched its MLRS.

This one... still has problems with it. Formation-related? Potentially, but can't be too sure.

Would it have made a difference if all 3 survived?

Not at all.

It combines two opposing strategies: pre-routing device and gun merge. The Gunbricks are routed, but the Du-5Rs is set to a low max speed as if it were to gun merge, which means it's not fast enough to take advantage of the rout. So what happens is... the Gunbricks turn around and it turns into a traditional merge. And it doesn't have TFD 2.1's excessiveness to compensate (nor did it have TFD 2.1's higher speed to begin with).

 

 

  On 5/6/2018 at 3:33 AM, goduranus said:

I like how the each missile in Basilisk's MLRS has an angle offset to make them spread out.

This one is really really close.

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While impressive and scary-looking, honestly lol, I'm not sure how much difference the missile spread makes. It's like the RWR only detects the initial launch. Maybe the missile angles do something, maybe they don't, I never really determined it through the many, many tests I did. I just kept it just in case it did though.

  On 5/6/2018 at 3:31 AM, 53miner53 said:

I was doing some testing with Flash, and it doesn’t seem that the updates broke anything on it. I might try to switch the wings out for the B9 PWings version, because it seems that PWings is no longer supported, but the mod works unmodified on 1.4.2, so I’m not too worried about that. I’ll have to try to do some thorough testing against the leaderboard to make sure(and probably make improvements)

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We were told by the BDA team to replace all BDA parts, or at the minimum, the weapons, so I recommend doing so. Sidewinders actually got adjusted (larger default proximity detonation range), so that's kind of important, plus maybe some other hidden values.

[Box of Stardust]

I felt like filming one more battle, but I'm really quite tired of missile salvos being thrown at each other or massive amounts of gun fire, so here's the start of the next Tier 2 series.

@GillyMonster's quite conventional Dart II is up. In many BDA competitions, it probably wouldn't look too far out of place, but here in ASC, it is a stranger in a strange land indeed, facing off against a very unique assortment of aircraft- drones, actually. And what better aircraft to exemplify that than @ZLM-Master's wiry V-TEK.

 

 

 

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Battle Report:

Analysis:

I think Dart II's series will be an interesting look into how ASC has evolved, and what kind of craft are viable here.

Well, I can't find anything fundamentally wrong with Dart II's design. It's very basic and sticks to the principles of what would make a good fighter design. In fact, other than its size, I'm not sure I can pin down any real feature about the design that would preclude it from doing poorly in this competition. At most... probably the spread out gun mounts.

Dart II isn't a slug to turn; it can show itself to be fairly maneuverable, at least enough to keep up in a turning fight; I expect that it would probably be enough to keep up with the V-TEK. It's fast and has lots of excess thrust for acceleration. So on the flight dynamics end, it seems sufficient enough.

From my observation, it's the utilization of this platform that brings down the Dart II. Its flight tuning is minimal, meaning it can't maximize the advantages of the airframe. The weapons suite does not work together smoothly. And in combination, it just can't hold itself steady to gun down the fairly small drones.

Note, though, that gun inaccuracy vs V-TEK is something we've already seen, with Berzerker. But Berzerker was definitely more maneuverable than the Dart, and it was compliant in actually pointing itself at the target. Dart felt... hesitant and uncooperative.

As for V-TEK, though the highly damaged one in the first match was definitely still flyable thanks to being damaged symmetrically, that is considered too battle-damaged to count as 'survived', so it counts as a kill.

Dart passes through V-TEK, a decent showcase in the latest in ASC developments. It'll go up against the P-5 Flash next, which is something similar, yet different.

But for my quick opinion on craft viability? Well, we all went smaller and smaller primarily for radar signature, as well as some size advantage in dodging. That's why it's all drones here. But for the most part, I don't think aircraft design fundamentals change, and, especially with BDA 1.2, a decent portion of winning is knowing your weapons and making them work together well. As always, the best BDA competition designers, no matter the series, will make sure every part of their aircraft works in conjunction with one another to carry out an intended strategy. And that's really the key to success right there, drone or not.

 

[53miner53]

  On 5/6/2018 at 3:54 AM, Box of Stardust said:

We were told by the BDA team to replace all BDA parts, or at the minimum, the weapons, so I recommend doing so. Sidewinders actually got adjusted (larger default proximity detonation range), so that's kind of important, plus maybe some other hidden values.

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In that case, expect a rebuilt version soon!

[Box of Stardust]

Hey guys, tentative rule adjustment.

So, we have a 'no text-editing' rule, but who thinks it would be fine to text-edit engine thrust limiters? Heat rating scales with thrust, so giving an engine higher thrust balances out by being easier to heat-lock.

[Piatzin]

  On 5/6/2018 at 2:25 PM, Box of Stardust said:

Hey guys, tentative rule adjustment.

So, we have a 'no text-editing' rule, but who thinks it would be fine to text-edit engine thrust limiters? Heat rating scales with thrust, so giving an engine higher thrust balances out by being easier to heat-lock.

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@exbyde?

[Box of Stardust]

  On 5/6/2018 at 2:45 PM, Earthlinger said:

@exbyde?

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[SuicidalInsanity]

So the idea is a Juno could now have the thrust of a Goliath, but will become gloriously incandescent in doing so?
Wouldn't it be simpler to increase engines' heatProduction value, which would maintain standard craft construction metas and performance while making all craft hotter (possibly deincentivizing all afterburners, all the time and/or see a sudden viability of prop craft vs hypersonic darts jousting at each other?)

All I can say on this is, regardless of what form the edits take, it would almost certainly be more consistent, accurate, and expedient to do via a MM patch instead.

[Box of Stardust]

  On 5/6/2018 at 6:34 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

So the idea is a Juno could now have the thrust of a Goliath, but will become gloriously incandescent in doing so?
Wouldn't it be simpler to increase engines' heatProduction value, which would maintain standard craft construction metas and performance while making all craft hotter (possibly deincentivizing all afterburners, all the time and/or see a sudden viability of prop craft vs hypersonic darts jousting at each other?)

All I can say on this is, regardless of what form the edits take, it would almost certainly be more consistent, accurate, and expedient to do via a MM patch instead.

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Hm? Not sure what you mean here.

I was thinking about allowing designers to mess with their thrust limiters so they could set it to the amount of thrust they want out of an engine. Within reason, probably, so maybe a max of 200% for an engine. Kind of like simulating improving engine technology to get more output of an engine design.

And if you're saying that it could be a problem for a plane being hotter because of increased thrust, I don't see that as a problem since I figure it works as a balance parameter. 

I'm not implementing rules against engine clipping here, so just clipping engines into each other is still valid and doesn't increase heat. You could say this simulates better engine technology in a different way, through increased weight. 

So now there would be a choice for tradeoffs: weight or heat detectbility. Or do a mix of the two and increase engine outputs slightly to get a little more performance without drastically increasing heat. 

Speaking of giving a Juno the thrust of a Goliath, I'd be interested in doing a quick test of setting its thrust limiter to the requisite value and seeing what the BDA debug readouts show for heat level.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Mutual confusion, I guess; that's what it sounded like you were suggesting - I thought the whole point was to boost heat levels (via thrust increases) for longer range sidewinder locks. My comment about messing with heatProduction instead was due to thinking that would be a easier way of boosting heat than massively increasing thrust to boost it.

Quick test with a hacked Juno with thrust limiter set to 1500 (static thrust 300, effective flight thrust of ~250 KN) gives a heat value of ~3100 at mach 2; limiting it to 200% it hits ~480 heat at mach 1, standard juno is ~370 at mach 1. Panther in AB for comparison are ~2500. Panthers (in AB) boosted to 200% get interesting. Panther at mach 1 is ~4500 heat, panther at mach 2 is ~26000, mach 2.5 is ~60000.

Edited May 7, 2018 by SuicidalInsanity

[Box of Stardust]

  On 5/7/2018 at 12:03 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Mutual confusion, I guess; that's what it sounded like you were suggesting - I thought the whole point was to boost heat levels (via thrust increases) for longer range sidewinder locks. My comment about messing with heatProduction instead was due to thinking that would be a easier way of boosting heat than massively increasing thrust to boost it.

Quick test with a hacked Juno with thrust limiter set to 1500 (static thrust 300, effective flight thrust of ~250 KN) gives a heat value of ~3100 at mach 2; limiting it to 200% it hits ~480 heat at mach 1, standard juno is ~370 at mach 1. Panther in AB for comparison are ~2500. Panthers (in AB) boosted to 200% get interesting. Panther at mach 1 is ~4500 heat, panther at mach 2 is ~26000, mach 2.5 is ~60000.

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From experience, I can say that heat under 400 is pretty good for thermal stealth, heat at 500 above is prone to getting heat-locked at ranges beyond 3km. Panther at dry at max throttle around Mach 1 runs about... mid-500s - low-600s I think?

The ever-popular Tiger engine runs about 400-420 at about 120% and max throttle on dry.

It would be an interesting dynamic to have for sure, even to the point where I was wondering about disallowing engine clipping but allowing thrust limiter editing, but not allowing engine clipping seems too drastic of a change to the spirit of the competition, at least the way I see it right now.

 

 

My theorycrafting on the effect of opening up thrust limiter editing isn't that it'll cause a huge change in the construction meta, but with enough engines, boosting their output by a relatively low amount can amount to the equivalent of an additional engine or two (though BDA 1.2 actually encourages having *more* parts to spread out damage).

I dunno, this is all kind of mad rambling from someone whose designs are built around clipped engines for aesthetics and low profile, and even has a design with 3 groups of 3 engines clipped together.

[Box of Stardust]

@GillyMonster's Dart II continues its series, going on the offensive against @53miner53's P-5 Flash:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Battle Report:

Analysis:

Probably not the expected result.

So what happened here?

The perfect storm of attributes, that's what.

Dart runs hot, which actually turns out to be an advantage, on top of the extra thrust+acceleration capability that this heat results from. That means Sidewinders lock onto it far away, which means the P-5s launch their Sidewinders at a distance from which they are unable to effectively take advantage of the missile routing/dodging effect.

P-5 has an MLRS, but it isn't fast enough to rush in close enough to put the Darts on a hard defensive, nor trigger the Dart's 2.5km gun range. It also, again, uses its Sidewinders up too early since the Darts were easy to lock onto.

And in the wise words of @exbyde from the Tiger vs Rafale a few months ago:

"You forgot the chaff, my dude."

Except I'm not sure if it was actually 'forgotten', or just completely disregarded due to the competition meta and the expectation that its extremely small radar cross section would make it immune from AMRAAMs.

Well, apparently not. So, every time an AMRAAM was able to be fired, that was a death sentence for a P-5. When the P-5s got into gun range though, they were dominant, still possessing incredible accuracy with the single Vulcan and great maneuverability, but unfortunately, the P-5s just couldn't get into that range often enough. The Darts also seemed to have enough stability to get guns on target once pointed the right way, which proved valuable in the few times they did have the chance to use guns.

Thanks to a perfect storm of attributes from both aircraft mixing on the battlefield, the Dart II lands at the #7 spot on the leaderboard.

 

@dundun92 The next Tier 1 series is supposed to be Du-6s, but I kind of remember saying you wanted that replaced? Are you going to replace it or not? Or do you just want it taken out of the 1.3.1+ BDA 1.0 queue completely and just put something else new for BDA 1.2?

Edited May 7, 2018 by Box of Stardust

[Piatzin]

  On 5/6/2018 at 2:25 PM, Box of Stardust said:

So, we have a 'no text-editing' rule, but who thinks it would be fine to text-edit engine thrust limiters? Heat rating scales with thrust, so giving an engine higher thrust balances out by being easier to heat-lock.

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Would this increase fuel consumption as well?

[Box of Stardust]

  On 5/7/2018 at 6:36 AM, Earthlinger said:

Would this increase fuel consumption as well?

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Yes.

[Piatzin]

  On 5/7/2018 at 10:11 AM, Box of Stardust said:

Yes.

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Hm

[53miner53]

  On 5/7/2018 at 3:30 AM, Box of Stardust said:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Battle Report:

Analysis:

Probably not the expected result.

So what happened here?

The perfect storm of attributes, that's what.

Dart runs hot, which actually turns out to be an advantage, on top of the extra thrust+acceleration capability that this heat results from. That means Sidewinders lock onto it far away, which means the P-5s launch their Sidewinders at a distance from which they are unable to effectively take advantage of the missile routing/dodging effect.

P-5 has an MLRS, but it isn't fast enough to rush in close enough to put the Darts on a hard defensive, nor trigger the Dart's 2.5km gun range. It also, again, uses its Sidewinders up too early since the Darts were easy to lock onto.

And in the wise words of @exbyde from the Tiger vs Rafale a few months ago:

"You forgot the chaff, my dude."

Except I'm not sure if it was actually 'forgotten', or just completely disregarded due to the competition meta and the expectation that its extremely small radar cross section would make it immune from AMRAAMs.

Well, apparently not. So, every time an AMRAAM was able to be fired, that was a death sentence for a P-5. When the P-5s got into gun range though, they were dominant, still possessing incredible accuracy with the single Vulcan and great maneuverability, but unfortunately, the P-5s just couldn't get into that range often enough. The Darts also seemed to have enough stability to get guns on target once pointed the right way, which proved valuable in the few times they did have the chance to use guns.

Thanks to a perfect storm of attributes from both aircraft mixing on the battlefield, the Dart II lands at the #7 spot on the leaderboard.

 

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I basically designed it so that nothing could get a lock beyond 2km, and I figured that by that point, everyone would switch to the guns. Worked flawlessly in testing (which was mostly against RS and VS, with some against F3Mk2, 3, or 4), so I sent it in. 

[Guest]

@Box of Stardust, keep the Du-6S in.

[exbyde]

  On 5/6/2018 at 2:45 PM, Earthlinger said:

@exbyde?

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  On 5/6/2018 at 3:50 PM, Box of Stardust said:

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look at him' he's the captain now. My thought would be no dice. Text editing isn't something in-game, can really change performance of missiles and the like , and isn't something a noobie will catch onto. But again, he's the captain now.

[goduranus]

Normally, to add 100kN you'd have to add 1.5 tons, not just weight of the extra engines, but also counterweight elsewhere to maintain balance, extra fuel to push the extra weight and maintain the same endurance, as well as weight of extra wings to lift the added weight. Allowing text editing engines would increase of planes' maneuverability far more than one might expect. There's really no downside to compensate for this advantage that text editing brings.