WW2 BAD-T IV BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[SuicidalInsanity]

Round 11, between my IA-23 Caelus II and @Noir's Snowpiercer Mk XI:

 

[Pds314]

3 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

Round 11, between my IA-23 Caelus II and @Noir's Snowpiercer Mk XI:

 

Wow. So far probably the most competitive fight we've seen between the more all-around capable planes.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

Round 12, between @Van Disaster's D.A.C. Deimos Mk X and @dundun92's Tallyhawk Mk XIVb:

I'll be out of town for the next few days, so BAD-T IV will be going on a one-week hiatus.

[Pds314]

Behold: the least airworthy plane that could be entered into BAD-T. It has a Buzzer and  two Mk108s and it has a wingspan of 2.80 meters (measured).

Even very modest pitch input adversely effects lifting efficiency and lift-induced drag of the aircraft's blended annular wing surface to such an extent that -0.2 pitch allows an L/D of up to 7.5 at 5 degrees, while +0.2 pitch will cut it down to an L/D of 2.0.  Above 0.4 and pitch = brakes.

Takeoff speed of whatever it feels like. It depends heavily on the exact aerodynamic interactions of the "wings." and control surfaces.

It can, however, go quite fast for a plane with one buzzer engine. Level flight at sea level can reach 243+ m/s. Ironically, even though it can do 270 m/s dives, it has great difficulty keeping that speed into the climb because of the loss of lifting efficiency and increase in drag from pitching up.


 

Edited November 23, 2018 by Pds314

[Pds314]

WRT damage changes and the 1.5.1 with BDA 1.2.3 meta:

I've found that while bullets don't necessarilly do much more damage than before, most parts have much lower hitpoint values than before, with the minimum being 100, not 500.

The Shadowbird now gets kills on the merge with ever so much as a glance from its four 15mm cannons.

The way part health is calculated seems to have changed too. Some parts like the guns and antennas seem to have VERY excessive health (like 10s of thousands of health per gun and 5800 health per antenna), but at the same time, some of the parts I was using as reinforcement are now marginally-useful at best, while some of the ones I was using as things like leading edge flaps are now quite durable. Possibly the most egregious reduction in hitpoints was that the buzzer engine on the Shadowbird previously had like 1500-2000 hitpoints or something and now has 100. The same is true of pilot seats. Before, these had 1500 hitpoints. Now they have 100.

The result is that combat with a damage multiplier of 750 is very dangerous indeed. Even a single stray .50 cal can take out some parts.

It does still seem that long narrow wings have decent amounts of health, but still, only the tail of the shadowbird has over 1000 hitpoints. The wing spars do not.

Add: mass is now fully-unrelated to health AFAIK. My super tankie plane's root part now has 100 hitpoints when before it had several thousand. The decorative fuselage also has more health than the spine of the aircraft now, and the tailplane spars have less health than the control surfaces.

EDIT 2: it seems like the amount of health parts have is now much more consistent, but also that small wing and fuselage parts are quite weak. Large ones, however, appear to have similar health to before. I.E. The dummy didn't get weaker. Very large parts are tougher than before.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Pds314

[Mr. Peabody]

20 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

WRT damage changes and the 1.5.1 with BDA 1.2.3 meta:

I've found that while bullets don't necessarilly do much more damage than before, most parts have much lower hitpoint values than before, with the minimum being 100, not 500.

The Shadowbird now gets kills on the merge with ever so much as a glance from its four 15mm cannons.

The way part health is calculated seems to have changed too. Some parts like the guns and antennas seem to have VERY excessive health (like 10s of thousands of health per gun and 5800 health per antenna), but at the same time, some of the parts I was using as reinforcement are now marginally-useful at best, while some of the ones I was using as things like leading edge flaps are now quite durable. Possibly the most egregious reduction in hitpoints was that the buzzer engine on the Shadowbird previously had like 1500-2000 hitpoints or something and now has 100. The same is true of pilot seats. Before, these had 1500 hitpoints. Now they have 100.

The result is that combat with a damage multiplier of 750 is very dangerous indeed. Even a single stray .50 cal can take out some parts.

That seems very wrong.

[Pds314]

36 minutes ago, The Dunatian said:

That seems very wrong.

Well, we can just set the damage multiplier back to like 100-300. That would definitely make planes similar to how they are in this challenge, although it would not make wing spars tough again or flimsy but big wings weak again. Nor would it prevent ShVAK cannons from having 155100 HP....

Also engines seem to have very inconsistent HP between different engines. The Buzzer has 100 but the Merlin has 800 (at least when it's covered in other parts, not sure about on its own). In reality it should be the reverse. Radials work much better with damage than normal V-18 or whatever piston engines.

EDIT: hmm... apparently though the dummy is still quite tough. Possibly as tough as before or maybe more so, so perhaps  reducing bullet damage back to normal is not a good idea. It looks like the main takeaway here is that what were reasonable strategies before for making tough planes now result in airplanes about as durable to bullets as a wineglass.

EDIT2: yeah ok very long procedural nosecones now have like 3100 HP if they are connected to other parts. The Foxhound engine also has like 1000 HP.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

Module manager patches can/will alleviate this. But yes, some sort of refactor of part health/weapon damage would be needed prior to any future contest; but that's something I've had to do anyway for the BAD-T's I've hosted.

Should have the next match up soon-ish.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Match 13, between @dundun93's P-009 and @53miner53's Delta:

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

Match 14,  @sturmhauke's SAI K9 HellhoundKrakenhound, up against its second bot opponent, Bot Tetra's DUMMY Strikes Back. Will Tetra do better than Maxim?

Some... interesting flying by the AI in this one.

Edited December 2, 2018 by SuicidalInsanity

[sturmhauke]

A 5-1 win is cool, but... what the *bleep* was that *bleep*?! My ace pilots ran into each other twice! And that final win by attrition was less than satisfying. Oh well, still a win.

[aleksey444]

On 11/30/2018 at 10:06 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Match 13, between @dundun93's P-009 and @53miner53's Delta:

 

Did anyone notice, none of the Delta's were actually shot down? More like chased into the ground.

[Guest]

On 12/2/2018 at 8:27 AM, aleksey444 said:

Did anyone notice, none of the Delta's were actually shot down? More like chased into the ground.

spoiler alert

[53miner53]

On 12/2/2018 at 9:27 AM, aleksey444 said:

Did anyone notice, none of the Delta's were actually shot down? More like chased into the ground.

I feel like I would be first if I had made it with a larger vertical stabilizer. 

[Alioth81]

Oh no missed it again  I hope I will get another chance!

How do you prevent kerbals from fallling/getting forced out of self made cockpits if you fully enclose them? I always had problems.

Will try to see if I can make it work in 1.5.1 and fight with myself

@SuicidalInsanity

What visual mods are you using for your videos? kerbal konstructs? destruction effects? Others?

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Alioth81 said:

 

Will try to see if I can make it work in 1.5.1 and fight with myself

If you look a couple pages back, you'll find the links for our designs.

19 hours ago, 53miner53 said:

I feel like I would be first if I had made it with a larger vertical stabilizer. 

Yea the deltas a great plane otherwise. 

[SuicidalInsanity]

Delta likes to go into unrecoverable flatspins. Small vertical stabilizer and short empennage means poor Yß at lower speeds, and once it starts sideslipping, it doesn't really have the stabilizer size or enough leverage about the Yaw axis to make use of what it does have to stop.

@Alioth81: Not sure why kerbals aren't getting forced out due to collider interaction even when some planes seem like they should be affected by this. Could be a side effect of using Take Command to spawn kerbals in the command seats instead of manually seating them.
Visual mods are just Kerbal Konstructs+BADT Arenas and Airfields for the additional airbases and DestructionFX.
 

[SuicidalInsanity]

15 matches in, and we get our first initial joust kill, between @Noir;s Snowpiercer Mk.XI and @Pds314's Shadowbird Mk IV:

 

[sturmhauke]

[Noir]

4 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

5 matches in, and we get our first initial joust kill,

Spoiler

3 in a row no less.

Also, Snowpiercer is meant to fire it's cannons in burst(?) mode (firing all 3 at once), but it looked like it was firing it in the other mode (whatever that's called). Not that it's a big deal, the guns aren't working the way I wanted them to anyway.

[Pds314]

7 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

15 matches in, and we get our first initial joust kill, between @Noir;s Snowpiercer Mk.XI and @Pds314's Shadowbird Mk IV:

 

Whoa... I had no idea the Snowpiercer could get so many jousting kills.... I knew I wouldn't win when it said said I was against the Snowpiercer since it pretty much out-everythings my plane, but I didn't know it could be that accurate.

Add: It's aim is just impressive all around. Look at the shots where it's in a turn-fight with my Shadowbird? Any time the shadowbird tries to change direction it takes damage, and not just a single hit from a low caliber weapon here or there either. That would not happen in my testing with my aircraft. It would most likely get away with fraction-of-a-second passes through the firing arc.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

16 hours ago, Pds314 said:

 I knew I wouldn't win when it said said I was against the Snowpiercer since it pretty much out-everythings my plane, but I didn't know it could be that accurate.

First the Benign Lurker, then the Delta, then the Snowpiercer. I'm not sure if this is simple bad luck, or if the tournament sorting algorithm actively hates the Shadowbird (just watch as it decides it's to fight the Caelus next... ), but at this point I'm willing to offer a consolation prize in the form of a battle against the opponent of your choice so we can see how the Shadowbird performs when it isn't against something sporting a 30mm murdercannon.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Match 16, between my IA-23 Caelus II and @Van Disaster's D.A.C. Deimos Mk X:

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

Match 17, between the K-1 and the RF-7 Crossbow:

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

The final match of the third heat, between @dundun92's Tallyhawk Mk.XIVb and @aleksey444's AF-516 Benign Lurker: