WW2 BAD-T IV BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[Pds314]

Alright, I have submitted the Shadowbird for combat. I have no idea how it will perform, especially considering it generally did less than ideal vs my two-engine plane.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Pds314

[Pds314]

And here is my plane meant to take crazy amounts of hits before dying. This is not a submission and not a very competitive plane without a numerical advantage, but it is pretty tough.


https://kerbalx.com/pds314/Russian-Bias-tuned

Edited October 27, 2018 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

Last call for submissions, get them in before tomorrow morning; lets call that 12 hours as of this post.

[sturmhauke]

Mine turns pretty nicely. I just hope the guns are enough.

[aleksey444]

A suggestion:

I don't know how many planes have been submitted, but based on the number of people posting on this thread, it seems to be a lot less than last year for BAD-T III.  One solution is to add some bots to increase the numbers.  But, maybe the competition format could be changed, where each airplane has a fight with each of the other airplanes.

A win could be one point, a loss could be -1 or 0, and a tie could be 0 or 0.5.  The airplane with most points at the end is the champion.  It seems we'd get more quality matches this way, people would be able to see their planes in action more than once or twice, and the victor would be the most balanced airplane, instead of one that possibly got lucky with bracket placement.

But, of course, this might result in a very large number of matches.  And it also might not be fair to change the competition rules at the last minute.

What do you guys (and most importantly, SuicidalInsanity) think?

 

[sturmhauke]

This is my first year competing, so the particular tournament format isn't that important to me. You're talking about a round robin format, which makes sense if there are only a few entries. Another possibility is Swiss, which is basically a limited round robin where everyone has a set number of matches but not all possible matches. That can also be paired with a finals bracket, which is how a lot of pro sports do it.

[aleksey444]

16 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

This is my first year competing, so the particular tournament format isn't that important to me. You're talking about a round robin format, which makes sense if there are only a few entries. Another possibility is Swiss, which is basically a limited round robin where everyone has a set number of matches but not all possible matches. That can also be paired with a finals bracket, which is how a lot of pro sports do it.

Swiss+finals bracket - is that how FIFA does the world cup?

[sturmhauke]

24 minutes ago, aleksey444 said:

Swiss+finals bracket - is that how FIFA does the world cup?

Let me modify that statement a little, sorry. Apparently traditional pro sports tend to have specialized tournament formats, which may or may not be related to Swiss format. Other sorts of games use Swiss format more often, like esports, chess, wargames, and some card games. Swiss format examples

FIFA breaks teams into groups. Each group does a round robin, then the highest ranking teams go to a single-elimination bracket. FIFA finals

The NFL uses what you might call a modified Swiss format for the regular season (each team plays a specific number of games against teams from specific regions, according to a ranking formula), and then a single-elimination bracket. NFL regular season NFL playoffs

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

I received 10 entries, fewer than I'd hoped, more more than I feared, so adding bots is a given. Since I would rather not add 6 of them for a nice 16 bracket ladder, some sort of modified tournament format will be required.
Current thoughts are to either A) add 2 bots, and then have everyone do pairs of matches for 24 brackets, for a modified elimination-style tournament. Since this does run the risk of potentially facing yourself, I'm considering in those situations allowing players to challenge another aircraft that they haven't faced yet as an exhibition match instead; though this does leave potential problems if this occurs in the finals.
or B) use a modified Swiss, tournament with placement determined by kills/losses. This would ensure everyone gets a guaranteed number of matches, but would be more complicated to set up.
 

Edited October 27, 2018 by SuicidalInsanity

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

I received 10 entries, fewer than I'd hoped, more more than I feared, so adding bots is a given. Since I would rather not add 6 of them for a nice 16 bracket ladder, some sort of modified tournament format will be required.
Current thoughts are to either A) add 2 bots, and then have everyone do pairs of matches for 24 brackets, for a modified elimination-style tournament. Since this does run the risk of potentially facing yourself, I'm considering in those situations allowing players to challenge another aircraft that they haven't faced yet as an exhibition match instead; though this does leave potential problems if this occurs in the finals.
or B) use a modified Swiss, tournament with placement determined by kills/losses. This would ensure everyone gets a guaranteed number of matches, but would be more complicated to set up.
 

hmmm... and I was the first entry ...

[sturmhauke]

I suggest using challonge.com to handle the tournament math and matchups. It has various options, including Swiss, and you can even do a two stage format with say a Swiss leading into a single elimination.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Craft review is done, pretty much everything checked out, though the following edits wee made:
-P-009 BDA AI and Weapon manager replaced with AA antenna
-K-1 armament reduced to 2 Vya-23, original craft was 11 points over the limit
-Deimos engine swapped out for a Buzzer+Proc fuselage segment, maintaining original mass/length/CoM, original craft was 4 points over limit.

Obligatory group photo

Average craft mass: 4365kg
Average wingspan: 14.1m
Most popular armament: MG 151

Due to number of craft, BAD-T IV will be done as a four round Swiss tournament format.

 

[sturmhauke]

How I feel right now:

Spoiler

 

[Guest]

And in case anyone is interested, here's my entry:

https://kerbalx.com/dundun92/TallyHawk-MkVIb

(This is an old screenshot btw)

Edited October 28, 2018 by Guest

[Pds314]

4 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Obligatory group photo

Average craft mass: 4365kg
Average wingspan: 14.1m
Most popular armament: MG 151

A few interesting things here.

1. Middle heavy has a really interesting engine config.

2. I'm curious how the shorter-winged crafts will perform. They should roll pretty well but I wonder about energy maintenance. Reminds me of my Bad-t I illegal 4-meter-wingspan craft that basically said "screw physics, I use magic to fly." But I don't see magical design elements meant to give unbelievable aerodynamic performance to them by giving them crazy spanwise efficiency and eliminating LID so I'm curious if they can turn or climb sustainably.

For reference, the orange one is the craft that I made for Bad-T I which had crazy energy retention and turn rate with a 4-meter wingspan. Every single wing part on the plane must be in the place it is or the magic stops magicking. Something about FAR, at least back then, allowed you to cancel out the harmful effects of badly-designed wings with more wings placed just so (I mean, I guess the entire craft is basically a crazy over-engineered winglet)



Standalone of the crazy craft. This was typical. It would do one insta-turn without losing hardly any speed, get behind the dummy, then turn it to dust.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Pds314

[Noir]

24 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Middle heavy has a really interesting engine config.

It's not the most practical, but it gives it a very interesting look though.
https://kerbalx.com/Noir/Snowpiercer-MkXI

[Pds314]

1 minute ago, Noir said:

It's not the most practical, but it gives it a very interesting look though.
https://kerbalx.com/Noir/Snowpiercer-MkXI

I like how it doesn't really look like 2 separate planes.

[Noir]

Thanks. I would have made the centre tube/fuselage wider, to make it more seamless which is how the Mk.I was. But, I didn't want  to cover up the engines to much and be consider cheaty or anything. That part isn't even connected to anything, it's just there for looks.

This is what I was originally basing the design on. The British also had a bi-plane with a similar configuration.

[sturmhauke]

Here's my official entry: https://kerbalx.com/sturmhauke/SAI-K9-Krakenhound

Spoiler

Mine seems to have the largest wing area. I hope that means I have achieved a maneuverability advantage, and not just a giant flying target.

Edited October 29, 2018 by sturmhauke
worrying about stuff

[Pds314]

2 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Here's my official entry: https://kerbalx.com/sturmhauke/SAI-K9-Krakenhound

  Hide contents

Mine seems to have the largest wing area. I hope that means I have achieved a maneuverability advantage, and not just a giant flying target.

Wow. That thing must have a really tiny stall speed.

[sturmhauke]

1 hour ago, Pds314 said:

Wow. That thing must have a really tiny stall speed.

Yeah, I haven't fully tested it though. It's about 58 m/s with no flaps and somewhere around 50 m/s with full flaps. It can also pull a horizontal turn at 130 m/s with a very small radius - I spent a lot of time tweaking the AoA deflections and mass/strength ratios so that they just barely didn't break off under load.

[Pds314]

26 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

Yeah, I haven't fully tested it though. It's about 58 m/s with no flaps and somewhere around 50 m/s with full flaps. It can also pull a horizontal turn at 130 m/s with a very small radius - I spent a lot of time tweaking the AoA deflections and mass/strength ratios so that they just barely didn't break off under load.

"58 m/s with no flaps."

Is that stall speed or the speed it lifts off at? That feels a bit high for such a massive wing.

[sturmhauke]

22 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

"58 m/s with no flaps."

Is that stall speed or the speed it lifts off at? That feels a bit high for such a massive wing.

Er, yeah liftoff is at 60. I was pointing at the horizon and throttling down until I began to lose altitude, but that's not right. Let me get back to you.

[Pds314]

xD, semi-related, I made a stock prop plane and strapped some Berezin UBs on it... but it has no interrupter gear so when the prop RPM is lower than about 415, this happens:

Edited October 30, 2018 by Pds314

[sturmhauke]

You seem to be missing a propeller blade there...