DJA 1946 BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[SuicidalInsanity]

Dawn of the Jet Age - BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

With the release of BDAc for KSP 1.7, it's time for a new BDA tournament. Like the previous BAD-T's I've run, this will consist of 2v2 dogfights featuring vintage aircraft. While this isn't an official BAD-T, its ruleset will be similar, if less strict, with some experimental additions, and is a way to have some fun until the next official BAD-T comes along.

Contestants will submit a craft, which will then be pitted against other submitted craft in a standard tournament ladder format, with fights recorded and posted to YouTube.

Defeat means a craft is out of the running, success means it moves up to the next bracket. depending on the number of entries, a second-tier ladder may also be run, featuring craft that lost their first bout.

To enter, simply create a post WWII-ish (~1946-1952) themed first/second generation jet. Replicas of real world aircraft are permitted, but not required. Craft design, AI configuration and armament are entirely up to you. As long as it follows the rules and looks like it could have been a real aircraft from around that era, it's a valid entry.

The following mods are required:
FAR 0.15.10.1 "Lungren" for KSP 1.7
Aviator Arsenal AA also requires a compatibility patch for KSP 1.2+. The one I'm using can be found here.
BDAc 1.3.SI, with DMG_MULTIPLIER = 300 in the GameData/BDArmory/Settings.cfg. Stock BDAc 1.3 is also acceptable, if you don't want want to keep track of a modded version.
BAD-T Jet pack

Additionally, the following mods are permitted, but optional:
B9 Proc wings
Procedural parts
Adjustable landing Gear using the 1.7 recompile for KSPWheel

Brackets

Aircraft Classes:
Entries will fall into one of two categories, Fighters and Heavy Fighters.

Fighters are single engine aircraft.
They have one engine.
They must have a dry mass of at least 2500 kg*.
They can use up to 100 points worth of engine and armament.

Heavy fighters are heavy twin engine aircraft.
They have 2 engines.
They must have a dry mass of at least 5250 kg*.
They can use up to 150 points worth of engines and armament.

*Dry mass is the empty weight of the craft, wet mass is the loaded weight of the craft with fuel and ammunition. Resources like Monoprop and Ore which aren't used as fuel or ammo can be used as ballast and count towards dry mass.

 

Points:
Weapons cost their diameter in mm, rounding down.
-7mm weapons were obsolete by this point in time, and will only cost 5 points each.

Engine price is listed in their part name and description. (J-C32 G "Goblin" is worth 32 points, etc.)

Ammo is free, carry as much or as little as desired. However, if your planes run out of ammo during a match, it will be considered a loss by default.

Rules:
-Craft should have no more than 60 parts, please.
-Part Armor is remain at default values.
-Only Aviator Arsenal weapons permitted, with the exception of the Ball Turret. No more than 6 ShKAS per plane.
-Only BAD-T Jets allowed (Gremlin, Kobold, Nibelung, Goblin, Geist, Spectre, Phantom, Warlock)
-Airbrakes are fine, A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.s are not. No aerospace grade parts permitted– A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S, radiators, RCS, heatshields, etc.
-No reaction wheels. Cockpit reaction wheels must be disabled.
-Craft must have at least 1 Kerbal, either in a cockpit, or a constructed open cockpit using a command seat. Stock cockpits are heavy; using a stock cockpit part grants a +20 point bonus to your weapon/engine budget if building a single engine Fighter.
-Part clipping is allowed, within reason. No clipping resource containing parts into other resource containing parts please. Fully clipping ballast parts into other stuff is fine.
-No text editing.
-The Edihill Clause: While cheesy Min-Maxed designs that take advantage of loopholes or game exploits may be technically legal, I ask that contestants respect the spirit of the competition, not just Rules As Written.

Recommendations - Optional, but might be a good idea:
-Use the AA Communications antenna - it's a combination Weapon Manager/AI pilot. Saves on part count, also stylish.
-If using a constructed cockpit, consider making it enclosed – it will generate less drag, and minimize the risk of your pilot being hit or killed by incoming fire (unsurprisingly, if the pilot dies, the plane will crash)
-Try to have at least 15 minutes of fuel.
-AI min alt should probably be above 300m.
-Test your plane against the Dummy. if nothing else, this certifies that your craft possesses basic flight-worthiness. Paintball mode may be useful here.

Submissions:
Submit craft by the the deadline, 11:59 PM, Tuesday, July 9th.
To submit, upload your craft to KerbalX or similar, and send me the download link via PM.
Sharing links to your crafts in the thread is fine, but only craft I've been sent via PM will count as entries. (This is mainly to make sure that entries don't get accidentally skipped or lost in the thread.)

F.A.Q.
Can I submit more than one craft?
-Yes. In the interest of getting enough planes to have a decently sized roster, you may submit up to 2 aircraft

I submitted my craft already, but it (accidentally) breaks the rules, what happens now?
-If your craft is an illegal design, I will PM you, and give you the chance to correct the design and re-submit.

I've updated my craft after submitting it, can I resubmit?
-No, simply to keep the logistics of managing entries simple, one submission per aircraft per person. You can edit your submission's KerbalX upload or similar as long as it retains the same name before the deadline, but no submitting multiple craft (i.e. you submit a plane, then resubmit a mk2 version later, then a tweaked mk3 after that...)

I'm bad at building craft in FAR, should I still submit something?
-Yes. Sure, there will be some entries that are hyper-competitive, but for the most part, this tournament is aimed at having fun, watching submitted craft fight bravely and die gloriously.A FAR tutorial will be posted, and either myself or other FAR vets in the thread will probably be happy to help should you have questions.

The rules said something about constructed cockpits?
- Take an External Command Seat and use parts to build a cockpit for the Kerbal. Or don't. Just keep in mind strapping Jeb to the top of a plane is going to generate a lot of drag, and Kerbals have a low tolerance for hot lead poisoning.

What's up with the custom BDAc the tournament will be using?
-BADc 1.3.SI is a custom re-compile of BDAc1.3 for the tournament, and adds in stuff that previous tourney participants felt were missing. Includes the ability to have multiple engagement ranges for weapons in a group, some new advanced AI tweakable settings, and an experimental Reckless AI personality that places less focus on evasion; should help it retain more energy and stay on target, at the cost of nigh-suicidal disregard for safety in some instances. Also includes paintball mode for craft testing. If you already have a copy of the latest BDA and/or don't want to keep track of a modded version, the vanilla version will still work, you'll just not have quite as many options for craft tuning.

Tips & Tricks

Spoiler

-Manually fly your craft at least once before handing it off to the AI. This lets you make sure it flies as you expect, and is capable of hard turns/coming out of a dive without ripping a wing off.

-Determine what the minimum altitude your aircraft needs to pull out of a dive from is, and set the AI accordingly. Last thing you want is for the AI to lithobrake your plane during a battle.

-Test your craft against the Dummy. The dummy is a sub-optimal design that exists to be shot down; if your craft cannot shoot down the Dummy, it probably won't perform well against tuned competition aircraft.

-Check your wing strength/mass settings. Right click on a wing part to see a slider to adjust the wing's mass and strength. Be careful not to increase or decrease it too much, though. Too little strength and the wing will snap off during maneuvers, too much mass and the plane becomes unnecessarily heavy.

-Ammunition is heavy, so consider how much you need. Having a single box of ammo per cannon is generally enough, while machineguns can usually get away with one box per 2 guns.

-FAR changes how the CoL indicator in the SPH works; it now shows the center of aerodynamic pressure of the aircraft, rather than the sum output of all lift generating parts. Instead of trying to line up the CoL and CoM indicators, try to align the main wing with the CoM.

-The AI is not by any means a proficient marksman. It may be a good idea to lower max gun range down to something in the 800-1250m range. True, the AI might hit something at 2.5km out, but chances are all it will be doing is wasting all of your ammo at that range.

-Pressing F2 in the editor brings up aim vectors for all guns on a craft, useful for gun calibration if you i.e. want weapons to converge at a certain distance.

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by SuicidalInsanity
Updating OP

[Me1_base]

I will call more ppl come

On 5/5/2019 at 8:53 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

The one I'm using can be found here.

link dead

[SuicidalInsanity]

Fixed

[Guest]

@SuicidalInsanity Your BDA fork has a BDArmory.dll in the gamedata/bdarmory folder. BDA wont work until its removed

[Guest]

Just a test battle with my design. Current armament is 2x 23mm, and 1x 30mm. Definitely will experiment with 12.7 mm MG+Cannon tho :

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Guest

[Me1_base]

my plane, BTW is there a way to solve the problem that ksp lags every few seconds while flying?

Edited May 8, 2019 by Me1_base

[Me1_base]

Battle Test,will consider removing some ammo to save weight. MAYBE Someone can teach me how to tweak the ai to do defensive maneuvers more often when enemy is on the 6.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Me1_base

[SuicidalInsanity]

On 5/7/2019 at 9:21 PM, dundun92 said:

@SuicidalInsanity Your BDA fork has a BDArmory.dll in the gamedata/bdarmory folder. BDA wont work until its removed

How did that happen? BDA fork should be fixed, thanks for the catch.

On 5/8/2019 at 6:59 AM, Me1_base said:

my plane, BTW is there a way to solve the problem that ksp lags every few seconds while flying?

Are you using ALG landing gears? That issue was identified back in the JAU and BAD-T IV on craft with them that was solved by removing their KSPWheelMotor Module. Guess the code wasn't updated between then and now. Try adding the below code into a MM patch and see if it fixes your problem.
@PART[KF-ALG*]
{
        !MODULE[KSPWheelMotor] {}
}

As for the battletest, it looks like you're running the Reckless AI personality? Standard personality will use more aggressive evasive maneuvers.

[OmegaForce]

I'm Looking forward to this competition and hopeful we'll have many entries submitted. Hats off to the custom made engine's.

I am a bit confused about a few of the settings in the AI. A complete list of definitions for the various parameters would be helpful especially for beginners.

[Me1_base]

15 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

How did that happen? BDA fork should be fixed, thanks for the catch.

Are you using ALG landing gears? That issue was identified back in the JAU and BAD-T IV on craft with them that was solved by removing their KSPWheelMotor Module. Guess the code wasn't updated between then and now. Try adding the below code into a MM patch and see if it fixes your problem.
@PART[KF-ALG*]
{
        !MODULE[KSPWheelMotor] {}
}

As for the battletest, it looks like you're running the Reckless AI personality? Standard personality will use more aggressive evasive maneuvers.

Thanks for your information, i have never participated in this kind of tournament before. Will you participate the tournament? I would like to know how top players design their aircrafts.

[SuicidalInsanity]

The promised FAR tutorial:

Spoiler

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, etc.

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 as a whole, 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 (Cm): 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, this is generally undesirable.
Here, the example craft is fairly stable, at least up to 40 degrees AoA.
-Red (Cd): 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 (Cl): 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 (L/D): 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 Stability Derivatives window is likely where the most time will be spent tweaking a craft in FAR. The Flight Conditions allows the user to select the planet, altitude and speed in mach you want FAR to simulate the craft in flight at, which will affect all the data values below the Calculate Stability Derivatives button.
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 almost certainly change, perhaps drastically. Setting altitude to 0 and airspeed to 0.2 mach (~68m/s, simulating takeoff)  would show needed AoA has jumped to 8.4 degrees for the example craft here, for example. Wing incidence (rotation of the wing along the Pitch axis to provide intrinsic AoA while flying prograde) can reduce this.
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.
Finally, Aircraft Properties simply measures wing dimensions and wing area.

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 for stable flight, 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. Try shifting either the CoM or the main wing around to bring the CoM closer to what in stock would be the CoL indicator.
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 (Wing is angled, with wing tips higher than the wing toot) improves this.
Lß: When the lift vector and gravity don't line up (when the craft has rolled and is not parallel with the horizon), sideslip occurs. Does this induce the craft to roll? Generally going to be green unless tiny tailplanes and/or excessive Anhedral(Wing is angled, with wing tips lower than the wing root) 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. Fix with either a larger tail or a longer empennage)

The last tab is the Stability Derivative Simulation. This just takes the data from the latest Stability Derivatives calculation in the Data+Stability Derivatives window. The Stability Deriv Sim isn't something I've ever really used, and is entirely optional, it is entirely possible to design excellent FAR craft without even opening this window.
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+SD 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.

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. The other option is increasing craft thrust - higher thrust can get away with smaller wings, and vice -versa. 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?

AI settings. The modified fork of BDA DJA is has a few extra AI settings to play around with:

Default Alt. is the AItitude the AI wants to stay at in flight.
Min Alt  is the minimul altitude the AI will fly before breaking off whatever it's doing to climb and gain altitude.
Steer Factor is how much control deflection the AI will use when flying the plane. Similar to, but slightly different from Steer Limiter. Think of it as how hard the AI will pull back on the control stick to perform maneuvers.
Steer Limiter clamps max allowed deflection of all the control surfaces on the craft. A quick way of reducing the max maneuverability of a craft without having to manually tweak each control surface, but is a blanket setting.
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.
Speed Adjusted Steer Limiter (NEW) is a secondary Steer Limiter is a multiplier applied to the Steer Limiter that is used once the craft has reached a certain speed to have the AI use lower (or higher) control surface deflection past that speed. Useful if you want, say, to have a maneuverable fighter at sub-mach, but not have the AI rip the wings off at trans-mach speed. Leaving this at 1 will result in no change to flight characteristics regardless of speed.
Adjusted Limiter Speed (NEW) is the speed at which the AI will begin to use the Speed Adjusted Steer Limiter.
Steer Damping  is how aggressively the AI will try to damp out over steer.
Max Speed and Takeoff Speed should be fairly self-explanatory.
Min Combat Speed is the threshold the AI will use to determine if it needs to break and extend to regain energy or can continue combat maneuvers.
Extend Distance (NEW) is the distance the AI will extend to when breaking and regaining energy. Primarily there for craft the AI just wants to fly to the sunset with instead of fight, but can be used to force turnfighting. Setting it low to 100 is probably suicidal, though.
MIssile Evade Dist (NEW), irrelevant here, but is the 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.
Max AoA and Max G are the maximum angle of attack the AI is to use and the maximum Gs the plane is to pull during maneuvers.
AI Personality (NEW) is a toggle between vanilla and Reckless AI behaviors. 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!!
Unclamp Tuning removes the limiters on the AI and takes things up to eleven. Max values pretty much everything can be set to is massively increased.
Disable/Advanced Settings (NEW) - On by default. Disables advanced settings, and hides them from the GUI, reverting AI to vanilla functionality.

Edited May 12, 2019 by SuicidalInsanity

[Me1_base]

AoA sweep

 

battle test2

Edited May 13, 2019 by Me1_base

[OmegaForce]

Thank you for the AI definitions and the very detailed tutorial. The Stability Derivative Simulation section of FAR is something I never knew how to use till now.

[Mr. Peabody]

On ‎5‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 8:53 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

<snip>

In all the years I've been playing KSP, I've never played with FAR, and only once have I played with BD Armory. This is good though, you tempt me...

I'll do it! 

By the way, a fellow has got to appreciate the brilliant way you set up this thread. Everything is perfect and in-order. Great job mate!

[aleksey444]

I really want to participate, but I don't have time to build now.  The earliest I can start building will be the first week of June.  My BAD-T IV craft took me about a month of building and testing (and was time well-spend, I think -- I took second place  ).

Any chance you can postpone the submission date by a couple of weeks?

Edited May 15, 2019 by aleksey444

[Me1_base]

On 5/16/2019 at 1:41 AM, aleksey444 said:

I really want to participate, but I don't have time to build now.  The earliest I can start building will be the first week of June.  My BAD-T IV craft took me about a month of building and testing (and was time well-spend, I think -- I took second place  ).

Any chance you can postpone the submission date by a couple of weeks?

Building one plane in ksp is easy, just clip the wings of old badt plane to your new design, they will have basically the same performance. Looking forward for your participation for the sake of having fun.

[aleksey444]

2 minutes ago, Me1_base said:

Building one plane in ksp is easy, just clip the wings of old badt plane to your new design, they will have basically the same performance. Looking forward for your participation for the sake of having fun.

LOL, no.

The heaviest part, the engine, is in the front for BAD-T-style propeller-driven planes, and in the rear for jets.  It's a whole different ball game.

I get my fun from building.  But if I'm going to participate, I intend to put in the effort to try to win.

[Me1_base]

3 hours ago, aleksey444 said:

LOL, no.

The heaviest part, the engine, is in the front for BAD-T-style propeller-driven planes, and in the rear for jets.  It's a whole different ball game.

I get my fun from building.  But if I'm going to participate, I intend to put in the effort to try to win.

The one i have tested is built by such method，wings designed back in 2016 for early jet (J35 from aje which later replaced by j85), still extremely maneuverable, wings can tolerate up to 33Gs. 15g sustained at specified speed and altitude. Best fit for old AI. I don't know much about the new one.

[SuicidalInsanity]

On 5/15/2019 at 10:41 AM, aleksey444 said:

I really want to participate, but I don't have time to build now.  The earliest I can start building will be the first week of June.  My BAD-T IV craft took me about a month of building and testing (and was time well-spend, I think -- I took second place  ).

Any chance you can postpone the submission date by a couple of weeks?

I think that would work - I might not have quite as much free time as I initially thought early June, so an extension isn't out of the question. It would both give people more time to work on craft and potentially allow more people to enter - BAD-T 4 had a number of people show up after the deadline lamenting not seeing the tourney sooner - so lets say... Friday, June 28 as the new deadline.

[aleksey444]

2 hours ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

I think that would work - I might not have quite as much free time as I initially thought early June, so an extension isn't out of the question. It would both give people more time to work on craft and potentially allow more people to enter - BAD-T 4 had a number of people show up after the deadline lamenting not seeing the tourney sooner - so lets say... Friday, June 28 as the new deadline.

Sweet!  Thank you!

I have a suggestion.  What about inviting every person from previous tournaments to participate in this one, by writing their name (like @this).  Some people might miss the tournament thread, but if mentioned by name, they will receive a notification.  Everybody from BAD-T 4 and 3 (and even 2 and 1, although I can't find those threads anymore), the somewhat recent Juno Ace Ultimate Free For All, and any other competition you might think of.  In fact, if you'd like, I can do it -- I will find the time for that.

Basically, I've noticed that BAD-T's participation has been declining throughout the years.  So I'd like to do something to advertise it (and DJA) to bring in more people.  Maybe I could even make a thread of reddit's /r/KerbalSpaceProgram to interest some new folks.

Let me know what you think.

[Me1_base]

New 50G rated brand new designed wing stacker.

[Me1_base]

1 vs 1, stock wings are kind of weird. BTW does anyone consider posting their design here other than me and dundun92? 

Stock wings have 500-1000 hit points while b9pw only have 100-300 depends on size, will there be any balance on that?

 

[OmegaForce]

On 5/17/2019 at 6:55 PM, aleksey444 said:

Sweet!  Thank you!

I have a suggestion.  What about inviting every person from previous tournaments to participate in this one, by writing their name (like @this).  Some people might miss the tournament thread, but if mentioned by name, they will receive a notification.  Everybody from BAD-T 4 and 3 (and even 2 and 1, although I can't find those threads anymore), the somewhat recent Juno Ace Ultimate Free For All, and any other competition you might think of.  In fact, if you'd like, I can do it -- I will find the time for that.

Basically, I've noticed that BAD-T's participation has been declining throughout the years.  So I'd like to do something to advertise it (and DJA) to bring in more people.  Maybe I could even make a thread of reddit's /r/KerbalSpaceProgram to interest some new folks.

Let me know what you think.

Anything to bring in more people would be helpful as these competitions are at their best when you have a variety of different plane designs and many participants.

[SuicidalInsanity]

On 5/26/2019 at 2:27 AM, Me1_base said:

Stock wings have 500-1000 hit points while b9pw only have 100-300 depends on size, will there be any balance on that?

At present, the 'balance', such as it is, between stock and proc wings is stock wings are heavier, will give you a lower critical Mach number (due to thicker cross section), a higher part count, and possibly the Edihill Clause. Most of the stock wings are okay HP wise, the only real offender is the Structural Wing C you're spamming due to its bizarrely high HP/size ratio. If necessary I can always add a MM patch to bring its HP down to a more appropriate value. That said, I don't really expect such a design strategy to offer substantially more longevity, in terms of benefit/cost, against the larger caliber weapons; the MG151/20 and the 23-30mm weapons do enough splash damage to melt the whole wing anyway, and the 40mm simply won't care.
 

On 5/17/2019 at 6:55 PM, aleksey444 said:

Basically, I've noticed that BAD-T's participation has been declining throughout the years.  So I'd like to do something to advertise it (and DJA) to bring in more people.  Maybe I could even make a thread of reddit's /r/KerbalSpaceProgram to interest some new folks.

Let me know what you think.

Sure. Go for it.

[Pds314]

Oh ok I'm definitely gonna make an entry.

 

My IRL situation kinda hit the fan when I was running my own early jet challenge and this one is probably better anyway. Also I don't need to run the battles.