Juno Ace Ultimate Free For All

[sturmhauke]

3 hours ago, aleksey444 said:

I still don't really understand what pitch Ki does, for example.

It's for focusing your internal energy when you want to influence the airflow to change your altitude. Before we can master the elements, we must master ourselves.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Ha, whoops, meant Alioth81, not aleksey444; my mistake.
Changes in the SI BDAc branch from base BDAc 1.2.3:

Spoiler

UI changes
- Ammo gauges - staging icons UI now has ammo gauges alongside fuel gauges. Gauges are labeled with ammo name for the associated weapon
- Overheat gauges - switching to a vessel with overheated weapons now properly displays remaining time before weapon is usable again
- Togglable Team Icons w/ distance readouts for vessels and missiles
- Togglable Team Icon name labels
- Togglable Strict Window boundaries - allows ability to move BDA windows (partially) off-screen; useful if you don't want the Radar display taking up 1/4 of your screen. Toggling this off will snap any off-screen windows on-screen.
- Changes to bullet rendering, now bullets+tracers, instead of tracers and less-bright tracers

Gameplay changes
- Paintball mode - changes all bullets to harmless paintballs (missiles will still kill you) for easy craft accuracy tuning/fun/etc.
- Weapon Groups - can group non-missile weapons into custom groups the player/AI will use in place of individual weapons if so desired
- AI tweaks, disabled by default, enable via the Advanced Tweakables game option
- Speed Adjusted Steer Limiter - Secondary Steer Limiter the AI will use instead of the primary Steer Limiter when the craft is at high speed. Can be set to provide either lesser or greater control authority; Use this to prevent your agile craft from ripping the wings off at transonic speed, or prevent something tuned for transonic speeds bleeding too much energy at low speed.
- Adjusted Limiter Speed - Minimum craft velocity for the AI to switch to the SASL
- Extend Distance - allows setting a custom distance range when the AI is extending; bombing ground targets will still use 4500m
- Missile Evade Dist - Distance at which a craft will break and evade an oncoming missile; mainly intended to stop crafts from breaking and burning energy to evade that AMRAAM that's still 10km away.
- AI Personality: Reckless - AI places less focus on evasion; should help it retain more energy and stay on target, at cost of nigh-suicidal disregard for safety in some instances. !!EXPERIMENTAL!!
- Disable/Advanced Settings - On by default. Disables advanced settings, and hides them from the GUI, reverting AI to vanilla functionality

SteerKi (used to be Pitch Ki, but it's used for both pitch and yaw now) is the user-determined value for Ki, the integral gain in the AI's PID controller, and is used for tuning the system to eliminate errors in the output( in this case, input magnitude to control surfaces); in layman's terms, it's a measure of how aggressively the craft will oscillate on the Pitch/Yaw axis to counter oversteer while coming to a new heading. Less is better if smooth steering is desired, which is why previous BDA contests have had people advising setting it to 0, but doing so will result in initial errors from the AI steering math going uncorrected (translation - your gunfire is missing 20m to the left) - some small amount should be present for more accurate outputs.

Edited January 4, 2019 by SuicidalInsanity

[Alioth81]

@SuicidalInsanity

Thanks so much for this updated version :-)

To celebrate it I created my first true YouTube video a showcase between your Fishtank and my Reefshark (they were meant to fight each other based on names alone). 

I had to replace the front landing gear of the Fishtank with the double wheel as it went off course with its single wheel during take off and allowed full steering with some offsets at high speed with the advanced parameters.

The reefshark was supposed to be my original entry but it rammed itself into the ground all the time. (It still does but I can fine tune that now I believe and I will upload it to KerbalX when a bit polished).

As I love your FAR tutorial. Can you also explain how to use the simulation tab?

I get the other three but this is a mystery to me.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2019 by Alioth81
corrected video link

[aleksey444]

@Alioth81, could you share a link to your Reefshark?  Also, if there's a fixed version of @SuicidalInsanity's Fishtank, I'd like to have it, too.

Thanks.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Took another look at the Fishtank, and you're right, that front gear is the source of it's woes; replacing it with a stock small gear and setting friction to 0 fixes all takeoff issues the plane has; aleksey444, you can grab a fixed version here: IA-31 Fishtank.

As for the Simulation tab in FAR... I can give a basic rundown, but it's something I've never actually used, so I can't describe its function in any sort of detail.
FAR 101: Addendum
Stability Deriv Simulation
Once you've run a Data+Stability Derivatives calculation, you get the aircraft's flight stats - properties, longitudinal derivatives, and lateral derivatives.
Switching to the Stability sim tab ports the D+S numbers into the sim, and presents you with a subset of those numbers, a graph, and some data inputs.
For the longitude sim, these are: init w - downward velocity, in m/s; init u - forward velocity, in m/s; init q - pitch rate, in rad/s; and init theta - pitch attitude, in radians.
For the lateral sim, these are: init beta - sideslip angle, in radians; init p - roll rate, in rad/s; init r - yaw rate, in rad/s; and init phi - roll angle, in radians
EndTime is how long the sim will run for - i would suggest changing this to ~30 or so to get a better idea of overall stability.
dt I don't know, but it appears to change Y-axis graph scale.

What the sim panel is used for is determining flight stability in response to deviations from the initial static stability values calculated earlier - the stability deriv panel gives a snapshot of how the aircraft will perform in any one specific state of altitude, speed, and orientation; the sim panel shows how stable the craft is when subject to changing states.
when you enter a number into one or more of the initX fields and click the 'Run Simulation' button, you get a graph output with four colored lines , each corresponding to one of the 4  derivatives, that show the change in flight state that the specified deviation. This output will likely be an oscillating waveform. A craft that is stable should have a waveform that damps out and decreases toward a neutral rest state as time increases.. An unstable craft will have a waveform with increasing magnitude and frequency as time increases

So if you wanted to, say, see if a plane is stable pitching up 5 degrees from a 1km ASL level cruise at mach 1, you would go to the stability deriv tab, enter in the appropriate flight conditions, then go to the Sim tab and run a simulation with init theta set to 0.0872 (1 radian = ~57.3 deg; 5 deg = pi/36). If you wanted to see how it performs at 2km, you'd have to go back to the stability tab, run another stability calculation, and return to the sim tab to run another sim, etc.

For the most part, the vast majority of seeing if an aircraft is stable will be done in via Data+Stability calculations; the Sim tab is mainly there to give an idea if an aircraft's oscillations damp down in flight. It's a tool that's there for those who know how to use it, but is by no means essential for successfully building something in FAR.

Edited January 5, 2019 by SuicidalInsanity

[GDJ]

@Pds314:

What mods would be acceptable to you: I know SQUAD, BDA, FAR, P-wings and Fuselages. Any other mods okay?

Just don't want to submit a craft file that you can't use. It's a bit embarrassing.

[Alioth81]

@aleksey444 and others who want to download it.

Here is the link to the Reefshark https://kerbalx.com/Alioth81/AL-11-Reefshark

let me know what you think.

it is underpowered but accurate once it can point its guns at a target.

What I do not understand is how the missiles work. Often they explode after a few hundered meters (target loss?). And sometimes they are just fired without target lock often resulting in targeting the wrong (an own plane) or just flying into the sky.

@SuicidalInsanity

Thanks for the explanation I will try it out 

Edited January 6, 2019 by Alioth81

[sturmhauke]

7 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

dt I don't know, but it appears to change Y-axis graph scale.

Derivative of time, maybe? Anyway, thanks for the info. When I get back to this competition it will probably help me figure out why the stability derivatives are green but it still tumbles on maneuvers.

[GDJ]

Okay, I may have a contender for the last IA-31 Fishtank.

The AVRO Banshee.

https://kerbalx.com/GDJ/AVRO-Banshee

It's reasonably fast, quick, and smooth. All-in-all a good fighter/interceptor.
It's a bit old fashioned looks wise, but so far it does the job.

-Single hidden vulcan (7)
-twin Juno engines (20)
-Two AIM-9 missiles (10)
-Two flare canisters. (2)
-Light part count 
-minimal mods

So unless I miss something I'm running at  39 points

Edited January 11, 2019 by GDJ

[Pds314]

Hey. Sorry for not posting the next round yet. It's been busy but I think I will be able to post tonight.

[GDJ]

10 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Hey. Sorry for not posting the next round yet. It's been busy but I think I will be able to post tonight.

Hey don't sweat it. REAL life takes priority.

[Pds314]

On 1/3/2019 at 10:58 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Did some poking at the AI and managed to fix this so the AI will still engage planes with KO'ed pilots. -BDAc 1.2.3.5.SI. Compiled for 1.5.1, since that's what the JAU FFA is using, but will work in 1.6 as well. I also implemented and expanded upon the AI tweaks aleksey444 proposed:

...I may have gone a little overboard. All advanced settings are disabled and hidden by default, so they shouldn't impact any currently competing craft, but they're there for personal use outside the context of this competition by those who want to.

Hmmmmmm. These are some useful- looking settings too. Maybe at some point we could update the rules and allow them.

[GDJ]

Just now, Pds314 said:

Hmmmmmm. These are some useful- looking settings too. Maybe at some point we could update the rules and allow them.

I would use this version of BDA. It's quite good.

[Pds314]

On 1/10/2019 at 7:05 PM, GDJ said:

Okay, I may have a contender for the last IA-31 Fishtank.

The AVRO Banshee.

https://kerbalx.com/GDJ/AVRO-Banshee

It's reasonably fast, quick, and smooth. All-in-all a good fighter/interceptor.
It's a bit old fashioned looks wise, but so far it does the job.

-Single hidden vulcan (7)
-twin Juno engines (20)
-Two AIM-9 missiles (10)
-Two flare canisters. (2)
-Light part count 
-minimal mods

So unless I miss something I'm running at  39 points

Just a quick question will this be an entry? Can I put it against the Piglet?

Edited January 14, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Oh... wow. Okay.... This thing can turn with a prop AND it can go 390 m/s on 2 engines, and retains energy in a turn. I can't upload a battle yet though because I wanna be sure GDJ is intending to fight the piglet.

 

The question is.. what sort of armament should it have...

Edited January 14, 2019 by Pds314

[goduranus]

Got a hastily modified plane built without FAR, maybe it won't even fly? Just sending it in to see how it goes.

https://kerbalx.com/goduranus/J7W2-Shinden

[GDJ]

7 hours ago, Pds314 said:

Just a quick question will this be an entry? Can I put it against the Piglet?

Sorry for the delay in replying. Had to retire for the night.

1) Yeah I'll call it an entry.
2) I guess it can go against the Piglet. I have no idea how it will do since I set it up for going against the Fishtank, but go ahead. 

[Pds314]

4 hours ago, goduranus said:

Got a hastily modified plane built without FAR, maybe it won't even fly? Just sending it in to see how it goes.

https://kerbalx.com/goduranus/J7W2-Shinden

"Built without FAR"
Oh! lol. This will be fun! xD

3 hours ago, GDJ said:

Sorry for the delay in replying. Had to retire for the night.

1) Yeah I'll call it an entry.
2) I guess it can go against the Piglet. I have no idea how it will do since I set it up for going against the Fishtank, but go ahead. 

Alright. I ran a match already I just need to edit and upload.

[SuicidalInsanity]

21 hours ago, Pds314 said:

Hmmmmmm. These are some useful- looking settings too. Maybe at some point we could update the rules and allow them.

If you choose to go this route, I've updated my branch of BDAc against the latest official release for 1.6, so there's also the option of staying with the 1.5.1 version, or updating to the 1.6 version if you want BDAc 1.2.2.4's AP+ HP bug fix.

[OmegaForce]

I missed the BAD T IV competition but found this one mentioned in it's thread and thought I might give it a go. Should we be using 1.6 and latest version of BDA or the one mentioned above?

[SuicidalInsanity]

You should be fine using the official BDAc release; the main difference between the official release and the one posted above is the AI has additional tweak options available, but at present the rules don't permit them. The other differences between the two are just UI/QoL improvements - there's a full changelist near the top of this page. I think @Pds314 is running battles in 1.6, but 1.5.1 craft should work correctly.

[Guest]

is this still a thing? id love to enter.

[Pds314]

On 4/18/2019 at 4:01 PM, dundun92 said:

is this still a thing? id love to enter.

My real life situation was kind of a mess for awhile and I couldn't really run the challenge.