Juno Ace Ultimate Free For All

[Pds314]

Juno-powered dogfight competition ultimate free for all:

This will be a BDArmory dogfight competition for KSP 1.5.1 and FAR.

The catch is that the only engine allowed is the Juno. Make the best fighter you can with the smallest jet engine in the game!

 

Craft restrictions:

1. You can only use the Juno Engine. No other engines are allowed. You may have multiple engines but read on.

2. AIM-9 missiles will be allowed. All fixed guns are allowed. AMRAAMs, Pac-3 missiles, and turrets are not permitted. Don't mess with BDA armor values or armor plates. Aerospace-grade parts such as reaction wheels will not be allowed and nor will cockpit torque.

3. Your craft must have a cockpit with a Kerbal onboard. Something that you personally would be willing to fly an aircraft sitting in. A lawn chair haphazardly duct-taped to the fuselage is not a cockpit. You may however build open or constructed cockpits if you wish.

4. You may use procedural wings and procedural parts mods, as well as adjustible landing gears from Kerbal Foundries. Tweakscale is allowed, but please don't use it on wings or engines or intakes or cockpits or BDA parts. If you want to use a part from another mod I will review the mod and part and decide whether add it to the list of allowed mods or not.

5. There will be a limit of 60 parts per craft.

6. There are no restrictions on wing configuration. If you want to submit a biplane, triplane, TIE fighter, ring wing, etc, feel free to do so.

7. Every weapon, countermeasure, or engine on the craft will cost points. Specifically:

Juno: 10

AIM-9: 5

GAU-8: 12

Vulcan: 7

.50 Cal: 1

Flare dispenser: 1

8. Minimum empty weight categories will be imposed for different point values of craft.

11-30 points: unrestricted weight.

31-40 points: must be over 2500 kg empty weight.

41-55 points: must be over 4000 kg empty weight.

56-75 points: must be over 6500 kg empty.

76-100 points: must be over 10000 kg empty.

101 points and up: barred from entering at any weight.

 

Rules of engagement:

1. Craft will fly to the 8000 meter competition distance. If your craft dies before combat begins, I'll give it one do-over. After that, I will just run the battle and if it dies, it dies.

2. Rounds will be best out of 1.

3. Last plane in the air wins, unless one team has been completely disarmed, in which case, the armed side wins immediately.

4. G-force-induced loss of consciousness will be enabled. Pulling sustained 20 G turns is not a good idea. All planes will have fully-upgraded pilots.

5. I'm not gonna make you take off from a mountaintop or the middle of the ocean (unless you submit a seaplane), but please at least try to make a plane that can take off from terrain that isn't a flat kilometers-long runway at sealevel.

 

Tournament structure:

1. Combatants will be selected at random.

2. If a combatant loses a round, it is temporarily dead.

3. If a dead combatant is avenged by the one that beat it being killed, it is resurrected.

4. New combatants may enter the fray at will.

5. Only one entry per person.

6. You may modify or replace your entry, however, it will only be updated when it has no winning streak.

7. Entries must be posted publicly with a download link available to all. No copying someone else's plane and submitting that.

8. There will be a leaderboard for longest win streak.

9. Assuming at least two aircraft are available to fight, competition will begin on the 20th of December,  2018. You may still submit entries beyond this date.

 

Good luck, and may the best plane die horribly crashing into a mountain after its wing is shot to pieces win!

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

Sounds interesting. I was considering a Dawn-of-the-Jet-Age BAD-T V sometime first quarter 2019, but this works too.
Some rules clarification questions:
-Only Juno allowed; are multiple Junos allowed?
-I assume BAD-T IV constructed cockpit requirements?
-Aerospace parts? SAS/A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S/cockpit reaction wheels?

-Also, do you want my BADT ammo gauge/UI team icon BDA tweaks?

[Wanderfound]

Looks fun.

As above: are multiple Junos allowed or not? I'd suggest that a single-Juno limit would be more interesting, but it could work either way.

You might want to ban torque wheels and require cockpit torque to be disabled; tiny planes can manoeuvre on torque alone if you allow it, so you end up with flying bullets as the dominant airframe.

[Pds314]

  On 12/17/2018 at 1:11 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Sounds interesting. I was considering a Dawn-of-the-Jet-Age BAD-T V sometime first quarter 2019, but this works too.
Some rules clarification questions:
-Only Juno allowed; are multiple Junos allowed?
-I assume BAD-T IV constructed cockpit requirements?
-Aerospace parts? SAS/A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S/cockpit reaction wheels?

-Also, do you want my BADT ammo gauge/UI team icon BDA tweaks?

Expand  

OH. I should mention that.

Yes muiltiple Junos are allowed.
No A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S. No reaction wheels.
Yeah constructed cockpit rules are the exact same as Bad-T IV.

It would be definitely useful to have those so I don't have to have full UI.

  On 12/17/2018 at 2:08 AM, Wanderfound said:

Looks fun.

As above: are multiple Junos allowed or not? I'd suggest that a single-Juno limit would be more interesting, but it could work either way.

You might want to ban torque wheels and require cockpit torque to be disabled; tiny planes can manoeuvre on torque alone if you allow it, so you end up with flying bullets as the dominant airframe.

Expand  

Yes multiple are allowed but see the rules on points vs weight restrictions. If you stack like 4 Junos on one aircraft you're gonna end up with a big, heavy plane. 4 tonnes empty as a mass limit even if it's very minimally-armed. See below: These planes are 55 points with 2 engines, 3 Vulcans, 2 AIM-9s, and 4 Flare launchers each. Giving them 4 engines would add 2.5 tonnes to their minimum legal empty weight.

Playtesting. Flares might be a bit powerful. This plane cannot turn well at low speeds but both planes launched both of their missiles within the first couple turns. All four missiles hit the flares since each of these planes has 4 flare launchers.

Still, flares won't stop a bullet, and they certainly won't stop 275 exploding 20mm bullets per second.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[Ultimate Steve]

I'm making something for this challenge. It's being built in 1.4.5, though, although I don't think it will cause any problems.

How different do planes fly in FAR? I'm testing in stock aero. Should anything that can reasonably fly in stock be able to fly in FAR?

[Pds314]

  On 12/17/2018 at 3:19 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

I'm making something for this challenge. It's being built in 1.4.5, though, although I don't think it will cause any problems.

How different do planes fly in FAR? I'm testing in stock aero. Should anything that can reasonably fly in stock be able to fly in FAR?

Expand  

Well, the biggest issue is that control surfaces and such are not going to be differentiated since they are set with sliders in FAR. The second issue is that it is possible something that is smooth and agile in stock is twitchy and uncontrollable in FAR. The third issue is that it will probably run into a brick wall when it comes to transonic drag unless you area-rule it very efficiently. FAR aerodynamics is based on shape except for a little bit of wing-related code, so I'm not sure it will fly well if you optimize it for stock 1.4.5. The fourth issue is that most designs have much better lift and higher drag in stock. The fifth issue is your wing masses will change and this could require me to increase their mass/strength if they lighten your plane or could make it unnecessarily heavy if they increase the weight.

 

The other thing is that BDA part health is very different in 1.5.1. Most small parts have like 100-300 HP. Big parts have LOTS of HP, and weight doesn't seem to effect HP.

 

I'll still take submissions designed in stock but I don't see them doing especially well at the whole maneuvering thing.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 12/17/2018 at 3:28 AM, Pds314 said:

Well, the biggest issue is that control surfaces and such are not going to be differentiated since they are set with sliders in FAR. The second issue is that it is possible something that is smooth and agile in stock is twitchy and uncontrollable in FAR. The third issue is that it will probably run into a brick wall when it comes to transonic drag unless you area-rule it very efficiently. FAR aerodynamics is based on shape except for a little bit of wing-related code, so I'm not sure it will fly well if you optimize it for stock 1.4.5

  

The other thing is that BDA part health is very different in 1.5.1. Most small parts have like 100-300 hp. Big parts have LOTS of HP, and weight doesn't seem to effect HP.

  

I'll still take submissions designed in stock but I don't see them doing especially well at the whole maneuvering thing.

Expand  

Okay, I guess I'll try FAR. I think I'll stay in 1.4.5 but I decided to check and I can't find a BDA that is updated to 1.5.1. Do you have a link?

[Pds314]

  On 12/17/2018 at 3:34 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Okay, I guess I'll try FAR. I think I'll stay in 1.4.5 but I decided to check and I can't find a BDA that is updated to 1.5.1. Do you have a link?

Expand  

BDArmory versions up to 1.5.1: https://github.com/PapaJoesSoup/BDArmory/releases

Also with FAR, you'll need ExtremeTrader's patch:

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Aaaaaa this is why I don't use FAR. I cannot get anything off of the ground.

Edit: I think it's installed wrong. Going at 200m/s with a fairly realistic looking plane with lots of wings and low mass will not lift off, and after I pass the end of the runway it will nose up and drop like a rock, never gaining altitude. The game lags like crazy, the log is spamming exceptions, the AoA and Mach sweep things won't work, and the center of lift icon will not move.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[Pds314]

Missile kills are not, however, impossible at close range from a tail-chase aspect. Although this craft originally had 3 missiles and the other two missed by miles trying to launch at several kilometers from head-on against quadruple flairs.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[FahmiRBLX]

  On 12/17/2018 at 4:01 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Aaaaaa this is why I don't use FAR. I cannot get anything off of the ground.

Expand  

I also agree with your, but I don't use FAR however, so how could I rate it?

Anyhow, I'm happy with a challenge with no FAR-obligatory. @Pds314, how about that? Is it fine?

Edited December 17, 2018 by FahmiRBLXian

[SuicidalInsanity]

  On 12/17/2018 at 2:58 AM, Pds314 said:

It would be definitely useful to have those so I don't have to have full UI.

Expand  

Here ya go. Ammo gauges are presently always-on, though I can make it a toggle. Everything else is can be enabled/disabled in the BDA settings menu. F4 disables the stock vessel icons, Icon Names requires Team Icons enabled.

Edited December 17, 2018 by SuicidalInsanity

[Pds314]

  On 12/17/2018 at 4:38 AM, FahmiRBLXian said:

I also agree with your, but I don't use FAR however, so how could I rate it?

Anyhow, I'm happy with a challenge with no FAR-obligatory. @Pds314, how about that? Is it fine?

Expand  

Well, the issue is that I really can't make stock aircraft fight FAR aircraft without picking one aerodynamic system or the other, so it's either gotta be obligatory FAR or obligatory souposphere, unless I had two entirely-separate tournaments.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[FahmiRBLX]

  On 12/17/2018 at 5:24 AM, Pds314 said:

 ... souposphere, ...

Expand  

Wait, I thought 1.x no longer have Souposphere!

Anyways, is tweakscale allowed? I mean, not rescaling the Junos, but other parts (E.g adapters, etc.)

Edited December 17, 2018 by FahmiRBLXian

[Pds314]

  On 12/17/2018 at 5:36 AM, FahmiRBLXian said:

Wait, I thought 1.x no longer have Souposphere!

Anyways, is tweakscale allowed? I mean, not rescaling the Junos, but other parts (E.g adapters, etc.)

Expand  

Hmm... Tweakscale is fine if only used on structural elements and fuel tanks and such. Please don't use it on cockpits, wings, BDA parts, intakes, engines, etc.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Quick question - are AA antennas allowed, or just the BDA AI+weapon manager?

[Pds314]

  On 12/17/2018 at 5:44 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Quick question - are AA antennas allowed, or just the BDA AI+weapon manager?

Expand  

Hmm.. I don't see why not. I have them anyway and it isn't a huge advantage over people who don't want to download AA. No AA WW2 weapons though please.

 

The first aircraft can get missile kills as well, which is not surprising considering the other plane was at quite low energy.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Also BTW, in testing I have so far encountered high speed chases at up to around 270 m/s, close to top sealevel speed for for Canyon Chaser, which can do 305 m/s before hitting serious transonic drag.

The Agitator fighting against itself actually got a disabling hit to the other one's engine at 310 m/s in one fight.

It's quite possible some aircraft will be going supersonic in this challenge. The Agitator Mk0 can do 365 m/s right at sealevel in clean configuration although it bleeds a lot of energy in turns so it rarely goes anywhere near that. A 2-Juno aircraft I built earlier that isn't meant as a fighter does 440 m/s.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

  On 12/17/2018 at 3:39 AM, Pds314 said:

Also with FAR, you'll need ExtremeTrader's patch

Expand  

There's also the more recent continuation by dkavolis that's a bit more up-to-date and fixes some NRE bugs and some other stuff, and doesn't involve having to figure out how to patch the 1.3.1 version:

Since FAR is involved for this, this might be a good thing to re-post as well:
FAR 101 (spoilered because wall of text)

  Reveal hidden contents

Building a plane in FAR is no different than in stock - CoL behind the CoM, wheels just behind the CoM, try to have fuel tanks placed so that CoM moves forward as fuel drains, remember to have proper control surface inputs for the control surfaces.

Where FAR differs from stock is the level of granularity of the aerodynamic model being used, the level of control the user has in tweaking and tuning a design, and the data the user gets from the editor about how their craft will perform. In the stock game, adding wing parts and an engine is all you need (usually) to make something that will fly. FAR is a bit more complicated, in that it calculates the aerodynamics of the craft, rather than simply adding up all the lift produced by wing parts on the craft and seeing if the lift value is enough to counter gravity. That said, if a craft built with FAR looks like a plane, it will likely fly like one. But how well?
Clicking on the FAR icon on the toolbar in the Editor brings up the FAR Analysis window. This window has several sub-windows that all display information about different aspects of the craft's flight-worthiness.

Here is the default window that is opened, the Sweep Analysis window. There are several data fields that values can be entered, and a Graph readout.
The Lower, Upper, and Mach data fields allow specifying the range of Angles of Attack for FAR to calculate on a craft. Num Pts can be ignored, for the most part, it simply controls how many datapoints are calculated for the graph. More points, the finer resolution the graph ranges are.
Flap Settings allow calculating flap deployment if the craft has any, and what level of deployment, from none (0), to fully deployed (3).
Pitch setting is what level of deflection any control surfaces with Pitch enabled are deflected, ranging from 0 (no deflection) to 1 (full deflection).
In the example above, a sweep graph has already been plotted, testing craft performance from -15 degrees AoA to 40 degrees AoA, at Mach 0.5 (~168m/s). This yields 4 colored lines.
-Yellow: The Yellow line is a measure of Pitch movement, and can be read as an indication of craft stability. Ideally, this value decreases as AoA increases, such a craft will want to return to a neutral AoA in the absence of Pitch inputs; an increasing value as AoA increases means the craft has pitch instability – it will want to lawn dart or stall if subjected to control surface Pitch inputs.
Here, the example craft is fairly stable, at least up to 40 degrees AoA.
-Red: The Red line indicates the coefficient of drag. Generally linear at low AoA, becomes non-linear at high AoA.
Here, craft drag is fairly low up to ~20 degrees AoA, and begins to rapidly increase past that.
-Cyan: The Cyan line is the coefficient of lift. This stays more or less linear up to critical AoA, at which point maximum lift is achieved and past this point the craft will go into a stall and begin losing lift.
Here, the craft will begin to stall at around ~22 degrees AoA.
-Green: The Green line is simply a measure of the Cyan line divided by the Red line, and acts as a general measure of how efficient the craft is at producing lift.
Here, best lift vs drag is achieved at ~5 degrees AoA

What does this tell us? At ~170m/s, the craft is stable and will return to prograde in the absence of control inputs, it will begin to bleed energy past ~5 degrees AoA, and past 20 degrees AoA the craft is in danger of stalling.
But what about Yaw or Roll stability, or general information about the craft? Clicking the Static Analysis button in the top left allows transition to the Data+Stability Derivatives sub-window:

Lots of scary numbers.
The Aircraft Properties are simply raw data about elements of the craft. Of immediate usefulness are the Level Flight data. Here, Altitude and Airspeed have been set to 1.5km altitude and 0.5, and from here, the analysis states what that airspeed is in m/s, the coefficient of lift and drag the craft will have, and the necessary AoA required to maintain level flight. Checking various speed and altitude combos is a good idea, as needed AoA will change. Setting altitude to 0 and airspeed to 0.2 mach (~68m/s)  would show needed AoA has jumped to 8.4 degrees for the example craft here, for example. Wing incidence can reduce this.

Aircraft Properties are just general stats, and the Inertia fields state what sort of torque is generated during roll/yaw/pitch movements, with X = Axis of Roll, Y = Axis of Pitch, and Z = Axis of yaw.
The Longitudinal and Lateral Derivative numbers come in 3 flavors: Green, White, and Red. White numbers are neutral, and their values are simply data values. Green numbers indicate that that particular aspect of craft performance is within expected tolerances, and Red numbers indicate instability in that particular aspect of craft performance.
Of the values listed, some of the main important ones:
Mw: Is your CoM in the right place? If this value is red, the craft will try to nosedive or back flip.
Yß and Nß: Yaw sideslip stability, does the plane want to fly straight?. Unless the tailplane is huge (i.e. large enough to be generating substantial amounts of lift), likely to be green. Dihedral improves this.
Lß: When the lift vector and gravity don't line up, sideslip occurs. Does this induce the craft to roll?
Generally going to be green unless tiny tailplanes and/or excessive Anhedral are present.
Mq, Lp, and Nr: Pitch, Roll, and Yaw rotation stability. If the craft undergoes rotation, will said rotation damp out? Generally not going to be red unless other things are also red.
Lr: Does the plane have a vertical stabilizer? If red, the craft lacks sufficient Yaw stability, and will want to flatspin.

Now, interpreting FAR analysis data has been covered, but what about tuning? In stock, Control surfaces have togglable pitch, Yaw, and Roll inputs, and deflection amount can be changed. In FAR, instead the Control Surface options become this:
Pitch, Yaw, and Roll inputs can be customized, in this case, the inner aileron here has full Roll input, and will provide a 20% Pitch input as well. Control Dflect is the same as in stock, except it is now in degrees rather than percent of the stock control surface's max deflection as listed in it's part description.

AoA% allows the control surface to respond to craft AoA. Setting this to 100, for example, would mean that if, say, the craft pitches up and increases AoA by 5 degrees, the control surface would deflect down an equal amount, the practical effect of which would be damping sudden increases in AoA. Setting it to -100%, likewise, would cause the control surface to deflect up 5 degrees, remaining parallel with the prograde vector and providing Pitch input after Pitch control Surfaces have ceased input.
BrakeRudder allows the control surface to be used similarly to A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.s with Yaw inputs enabled, and permits Yaw inputs without needing vertical stabilizers/rudders.
Lastly, Mass-Strength Multiplier % allows tweaking the mass of the wing or control surface. Default Mass-Strength is somewhat heavy – the example craft has a mass of ~4200 kg with all wing parts at 1.0; reducing M-S Mult to 0.5 dropped the craft weight to ~3500kg. The lower the strength, the less aerostress the wing can tolerate before failing, but the lower the mass, the less the overall mass of the craft. Finding the ideal setting may take some trial and error, but main wings and control surfaces with more than 10 degrees of deflection should probably remain above 0.5.

Flight with FAR. As mentioned earlier, if a craft looks like a plane, chances are it will fly like one. But what if it doesn’t? Some things to check, then. What is the Lift Coefficient of the aircraft, and what AoA is required to generate lift at takeoff conditions? If the Lift coefficient is small, consider increasing the wing area of the craft by adding more wing. If the AoA required is high, consider adding some Angle of Incidence to the main wing – AoI is the measure of the angle of the main wing compared to the fuselage, with the leading edge of the wing higher than the trailing edge (usually). Be careful when adding AoI, as more than a few degrees of tilt to the wing may result in needing negative AoA at higher speeds to maintain level flight, as well as adding unnecessary drag. If both cL and AoA are acceptable, check CoM and Landing gear placement. If going for a modern tricycle arrangement, are the rear wheels just behind the CoM to permit the aircraft to pivot the nose up during takeoff? If going for a inverse tricycle arrangement, are the main wheels providing enough elevation relative to the rear wheel to add some extrinsic Angle of Incidence when the craft is a rest or taking off?

Once the craft is airborne, do the control surface deflection settings permit a level of response appropriate to the craft? Most turns are accomplished by rolling, then pitching, rather than via yaw; Does the craft have a good roll rate, and sufficient pitch authority? If not, consider increasing either control surface deflection or more/larger control surfaces. Is the CoM more or less centered on the main wing to permit the craft to easily rotate around it for pitch maneuvers? If using a multi-fueslage design, is the CoM centered with the Center of Thrust, and/or is there sufficient dihedral or tailplane area to prevent sideslip and yaw?

 

[FahmiRBLX]

  On 12/17/2018 at 5:24 AM, Pds314 said:

Well, the issue is that I really can't make stock aircraft fight FAR aircraft without picking one aerodynamic system or the other, so it's either gotta be obligatory FAR or obligatory souposphere, unless I had two entirely-separate tournaments.

Expand  

So the point is, FAR-Obligatory, isn't it ?

Edited December 20, 2018 by FahmiRBLXian
Typo

[Alioth81]

I assume part clipping of structural elements allowed similar to BAD-T? (e.g. wings clipping into other wings or fuselage)

Another example would be to clip parts like a fuel tank or weapon into an empty structural part or the custom Cockpit.

Can i use the BDAc version of SuicidalInsanity? 

Autostruts? (I generally try to go without them but just to be sure)

[Wanderfound]

Here's a quick submission to get things started:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o1f8ry4c2hzyii6/Juno Fighter One.craft?dl=0

Three engines, two AIM-9, two GAU-8, one flare dispenser. 55 points, 4,000-6,500kg class.

 

[SuicidalInsanity]

Alioth81 -  Can't provide an answer on the part clipping beyond "it's probably fine, within reason", but you're free to use the tweaked version of BDAc I posted.

And here's a second entry: IA-25 Meteor VII
Originally a BAD-T III airframe built for an engine half as powerful and three times as heavy, so it should have decent performance. Weird to think of the Juno as an upgrade.
Unrestricted; Juno, 2x AIM-9, Vulcan, 3x Flares - 30 points.
 

[Pds314]

Part clipping is fine unless you're clipping unreasonable parts together like 3 fuel tanks occupying the same exact position. I'm gonna run the first round ASAP.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Pds314

[Pds314]

@Wanderfound do you have a name for your craft besides "Juno Fighter One" or is that it's name?

Edited December 21, 2018 by Pds314