Air Superiority Fighter Competition Unlimited [ON HOLD]

[Box of Stardust]

Battle:

Spoiler

Missilebrick continues its run, facing off against @panzerknoef's UT-7-B4.

 

 

 

 

After Action Report:

Spoiler

Aircraft Statistical Analysis:

Aircraft	Flt. Dyn.	Propls.	End.	Size	Damage Mtgtn.	Offnsv. Capblts.	Flt. Ctrl.
Missilebrick	8	9	10	6	8	11	10
Zircon UT-7-B4	9	7	8	7	7	8.5	8

Analysis:

The UT-7 tried its best, and it clearly displayed its aggression. However, it just couldn't do anything in the face of overwhelming firepower.

The UT-7 flies very well, and it was able to fire missiles back very frequently due to good flight control. But that just wasn't enough. While it could continue flying after taking a hit, it very frequently was no longer a threat after taking that first hit, if it survived at all.

By contrast, Missilebrick has enough armoring and extraneous parts to protect against the occasional missile hit, ensuring that a massive arsenal of missiles remains flying. And, of course, its immense firepower means it has near-endless missiles to throw at the enemy team, so the game of statistics of what Sidewinder doesn't get distracted by flares just turns into a waiting game... which usually ends in overkill.

While weapon payload is important, at this level of ASC, the ability to take hits is essential. Even Missilebrick's large frame, which is generally more fragile than "standard" ASC drones, it does have a few ablative layers that allow it to eat a missile or two, as well as redundant rear control surfaces that also eat missile blasts. As well, its unique "missile box" design meant its armament was generally protected in the case of any hits.

Missilebrick continues its... unique journey up the leaderboard.

 

[Box of Stardust]

Battle:

Spoiler

Missilebrick vs @ZLM-Master's X-Fighter Hunter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Action Report:

Spoiler

Battle Report:

Aircraft Statistical Comparison:

Aircraft	Flt. Dyn.	Propls.	End.	Size	Damage Mtgtn.	Offnsv. Capblts.	Flt. Ctrl.
Missilebrick	8	9	10	6	8	11	10
X-Fighter Hunter	7.5	7	9	9	7	8	7

Analysis:

X-Fighter Hunter is a small target, and that's its big advantage. Sidewinders are less likely to proximity detonate, it seems, just due to size alone. It's also nimble and can take a few hits here and there and still remain flying. While maybe not as combat-capable after taking a hit, it's still an aircraft that's up and attracting the attention of enemy aircraft.

Still, it's not enough against Missilebrick's overwhelming firepower, which is really the constant theme of this run up the board. Overwhelming firepower seems to solve all problems. Any glancing gunfire was shrugged off by armor plating and redundant control surfaces. It ends up winning 3 of 5 battles uncontested, with Sortie #4 being close and only absolutely losing Sortie #3. Yet despite this win rate, Missilebrick did have to work for this victory it seems.

Missilebrick continues on, and will face the Du-15-20 next battle.

 

 

[Box of Stardust]

Battle:

Spoiler

Missilebrick vs @dundun92's Du-15-20.

 

 

 

 

 

After Action Report:

Spoiler

Battle Report:

Aircraft Statistical Comparison:

Aircraft	Flt. Dyn.	Propls.	End.	Size	Damage Mtgtn.	Offnsv. Capblts.	Flt. Ctrl.
Missilebrick	8	9	10	6	8	11	10
Du-15-20	8.5	7.5	10	7	12	10.5	7.5

Analysis:

What a battle. This one proved to be Missilebrick’s toughest fight, and it’s all because the Du-15-20 just won’t go down.

This battle was the best showcase of Missilebrick’s maximum potential, utilizing its ultimate power: Sidewinder Stream. A full launch of a stream of 6 Sidewinders at once is Missilebrick’s full salvo potential, and it utilizes it to extreme prejudice against the enemy drone that refuses to die like anything else after two or three missiles.

Between flares and the pure resilience of the Du-15’s airframe, a full overkill of four to five missiles to down a target seemed to be a frequent occurrence in this battle.

Normally, Du-15 is the one spamming missiles at its targets, but even Missilebrick’s ridiculousness was too much for it. Still, the Du-15 is a hard target, rarely receiving critical hits, and the Missilebricks were often left very low or even empty on their missile stores.

Du-15’s weakness is, as often stated, its flight control. It leaves enemies with enough openings to exploit back, and Missilebrick was given more windows of opportunity to attack.

With this, Missilbrick moves on to fight the DF-2 Yari.

 

Edited June 8, 2019 by Box of Stardust

[Box of Stardust]

Battle:

Spoiler

Missilebrick vs @sturmhauke's DF-2 Yari

 

 

 

 

After Action Report:

Spoiler

Battle Report:

Aircraft Statistical Comparison:

Aircraft	Flt. Dyn.	Propls.	End.	Size	Damage Mtgtn.	Offnsv. Capblts.	Flt. Ctrl.
Missilebrick	8	9	10	6	8	11	10
DF-2 Yari	9.5	6	7	6.5	11	10	8.5

Analysis:

Unfortunately for the Yari, it's not tanky against missiles the way that the Du-15 is, so it succumbs to the Sidewinder Stream from Missilebrick a lot faster than the Du-15s. Missilebrick has the TWR to keep the Yari at medium ranges, running away before the Yari is able to exert any of its close-range power.

This puts Missilebrick at the top of the board, and I will probably run tests against the Gauntlet at some point, but honestly, I think we can guess the outcome of those battles already.

 

[Box of Stardust]

Battle:

Spoiler

Most of you already know it, but the cutting edge of ASC's standard drones, PEGASys-K2, starts its run up the board against @panzerknoef's UT-7-B4.

 

 

 

 

 

After Action Report:

Spoiler

Battle Report:

Aircraft Statistical Comparison:

Aircraft	Flt. Dyn.	Propls.	End.	Size	Damage Mtgtn.	Offnsv. Capblts.	Flt. Ctrl.
PEGASys-K2	10	8	10	7.5	10	10	10.5
Zircon UT-7-B4	9	7	8	7	7	8.5	8

Analysis:

Ah yes, the PEGASys-K2, at its time of release a few months ago, the cutting edge of ASC drone technology, and to this day, still very competitive.

And yet, sometimes, the flares and missiles just work right for one team and not for the other (lol).

K2's first foray into ASC's leaderboard didn't go completely without a hitch, sometimes RNG just favors the other guy a lot more, and the UT-7-B4 is still quite a good aircraft in its own right. It has good enough control for the Sidewinder snapshots, and that's a quality that will get a plane pretty far in ASC's environment. And it shows, managing to grab one win against the K2.

However, the K2 is, as far as I know it, the toughest knife-fighter in ASC yet, and when it comes down to guns and general close-quarters fighting, it's an incredible dogfighter. It has damage mitigation that's pretty good, and seems to be able to shrug off the occasional missile with minimal damage, the other requisite ASC quality at this point.

PEGASys-K2 will continue up the board.

 

[Xd the great]

Are multiwings (X-wing like) accepted? Because it makes every plane much more powerful.

[Tsar_bomba]

Has mine Been used yet _{plees say no}

[Lapis]

I have not been on the forums recently, did my craft ever get used?

 

[panzerknoef]

1 hour ago, lapis said:

I have not been on the forums recently, did my craft ever get used?

 

Challenge is basically closed because of technical issues rn

[Tsar_bomba]

22 hours ago, panzerknoef said:

Challenge is basically closed because of technical issues rn

Okay, please never use mine.

[Guest]

I'm building some fighters, and having problems making ones that can evade an AM-RAAM and get into close range. Anyone have any general tips that can help with this? I have a chaf pod on the planes.

[Hojoz]

On 12/25/2019 at 1:47 PM, Dale Christopher said:

I'm building some fighters, and having problems making ones that can evade an AM-RAAM and get into close range. Anyone have any general tips that can help with this? I have a chaf pod on the planes.

I tend to aim for a small lock-on range to make sure that they don't lock or have a hard time locking in the first place. I achieve this mainly through building small aircraft, but I'm sure the guys that participate in this competition are more experienced in this kind of thing.

You can see what lock-on range your plane has by  checking the BDA RCS tab in the lower right of the VAB and SPH.

You can also opt to mount any number of ECM jammers. These pods jam the radar and, given that they're active can make it harder or even impossible to lock onto a target for the enemy aircraft.

[Xd the great]

On 12/26/2019 at 9:45 PM, Hojoz said:

I tend to aim for a small lock-on range to make sure that they don't lock or have a hard time locking in the first place. I achieve this mainly through building small aircraft, but I'm sure the guys that participate in this competition are more experienced in this kind of thing.

You can see what lock-on range your plane has by  checking the BDA RCS tab in the lower right of the VAB and SPH.

You can also opt to mount any number of ECM jammers. These pods jam the radar and, given that they're active can make it harder or even impossible to lock onto a target for the enemy aircraft.

I personally like to mount a bunch of flares and chaff for this purpose.

[Xd the great]

Will this challenge be updated to KSP v 1.8?

[Box of Stardust]

The specific Unlimited challenge, probably not (as we seem to have exhausted all possibilities to boost performance), but there's a possibility of a new ASC in a few months, depending on how things are going on our end internally.

For most people that might be interested, however, the changes in competition rules might be negligible, since the proposed idea so far is moving away from hyper drones and back to normal fighters, which is a rather more accessible environment (though perhaps in some ways less intensive for learning design skills).

[Xd the great]

On 11/12/2019 at 3:17 AM, panzerknoef said:

Challenge is basically closed because of technical issues rn

Purely curious, what happened?

[panzerknoef]

On 1/31/2020 at 5:01 AM, Xd the great said:

Purely curious, what happened?

My pc doesn't get along with the camera in ksp anymore, can't properly zoom in or out anymore, not to mention that it's just aging too much to record at a more or less acceptable framerate... And for that zoom issue, idk what causes it, but I've already tried everything to fix it, nothing works... 

[Xd the great]

35 minutes ago, panzerknoef said:

My pc doesn't get along with the camera in ksp anymore, can't properly zoom in or out anymore, not to mention that it's just aging too much to record at a more or less acceptable framerate... And for that zoom issue, idk what causes it, but I've already tried everything to fix it, nothing works... 

Oh well, this takes the fun out of flying. Sorry to hear that.

[Xd the great]

@Box of Stardust @panzerknoef Not sure where to ask, but any idea if there is a separate challenge for FAR dogfights?

Edited February 28, 2020 by Xd the great

[panzerknoef]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

@Box of Stardust @panzerknoef Not sure where to ask, but any idea if there is a separate challenge for FAR dogfights?

Not afaik. At least not in the spirit that this challenge was. There are plenty of FAR bda challenges, but none of them are a counter part of ASCU here. 

[Xd the great]

@Box of Stardust @panzerknoef What does Steer Ki do?

[Xd the great]

On 1/24/2020 at 9:21 AM, Box of Stardust said:

moving away from hyper drones and back to normal fighters

What do you mean?

[Guest]

I kinda soured on the fighter contest idea (not this one specifically, just in general) I did a lot of testing on my own with different designs and putting up the same designs against themselves and after watching a lot of duels, a major deciding factor seemed to be the AI deciding to be retarded during key moments. (Meaning it didn’t perform consistently over all planes or duels.) 

has anyone else’s noticed this stuff O_o?

Edited March 2, 2020 by Guest

[Xd the great]

1 hour ago, Dale Christopher said:

The AI deciding to be retarded during key moments. (Meaning it didn’t perform consistently over all planes or duels.) 

has anyone else’s noticed this stuff O_o?

Me. I am a horrible builder, but sometimes when my planes are being shot at, it just rolls around but not pitching to evade bullets.

Or simply yawing instead of a roll-and-pitch manuver.

[Box of Stardust]

7 hours ago, Dale Christopher said:

I kinda soured on the fighter contest idea (not this one specifically, just in general) I did a lot of testing on my own with different designs and putting up the same designs against themselves and after watching a lot of duels, a major deciding factor seemed to be the AI deciding to be retarded during key moments. (Meaning it didn’t perform consistently over all planes or duels.) 

has anyone else’s noticed this stuff O_o?

We have done a lot of testing, and a few of us have competed in different competitions with different formats, and we've come to the conclusion that there is a point at which this becomes a noticeable factor, but that point (for most builders) is... a fair bit far off. There are a slew of things you can influence to put fights into a craft's favor, part of which is knowing how the AI and how BDA itself works (which here at ASC we've pretty much sorted most of it out) and applying it to craft design and setup.

Said things to influence can also be format-dependent (for example, BAD-T, SuicidalInsanity's WWII-prop-fighting tournament here... really brings out the stupidity of the AI due to the factors in speed of aircraft and behavior with guns).

I've written a BDA combat manual (see flair) and it has generally held true for at least the past year of my BDA dogfighting "career". The point where AI influence comes in has really only been encountered in the higher tiers of BDA combat... which, coincidentally, ASC:UL is one of the very few.

So in some ways, you're right, and that's why this particular thread has stagnated; we, the thread regulars, have run out of room to innovate and it comes down to really minor things like AI and weird craft quirks. However, I'd still argue for most other players, there's plenty of room to learn in all aspects of BDA craft design and setup if "performance" is the goal.

The built-in AI routines only become the limiting factor once the limits of craft design and weapon setup (both competition/environment-specific) have been reached and the AI settings (which can be craft-specific) are set properly. The AI settings are especially important because if the settings are set right, the AI will be able to execute its intended maneuver and therefore reduce the frequency of "AI stupidity" moments.

7 hours ago, Xd the great said:

What do you mean?

Air Superiority Competition: Unlimited has basically been all about, well, having an incredibly loose rule set that allows builders to just submit whatever craft possible. For the upper level of ASC:UL, it's been compact high performance drones, which now at this point have gotten almost pretty same-y. We've extracted near-maximum performance possible out of the combinations of craft and AI we could figure out, and in the process, experimentally learning exactly how the BD AI works. In a weird way, ASC:UL has become a "solved problem"; you follow a formula and will meet a certain performance metric.

Now, I know for anyone passing by and just casually entering, that isn't exactly the case, but the main showcases in this thread have primarily been these "hyper-drones", which the competition has kind of taken as its theme and ran with it. The leaderboard document is set up in a way to be divided up so that casual entrants are still welcome, but... it creates a bit of a mess when the challenge's theme if you actually read through the thread are these "hyper-drones".

So, basically, from this point, I'd figure that ASC:UL is probably at a wall, at least for the regulars here. It may still continue (we've got someone else that might help record matches) just for the fun factor if that remains an interest, but for me personally, I'm slightly more interested in moving to a different format that is also perhaps "more open" in a weird way, such that the aircraft in focus aren't the deadliest dogfighting drones to ever be created in BDA, but instead, more "normal" planes that are in some ways more accessible.

That said, a lot of the design and craft setup nuance I referred to still and always will apply to BDA combat, so make of that what you will in terms of creating a competition.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Box of Stardust