DJA 1946 BDAc AI Dogfight Tournament

[Me1_base]

suggestion: Add smoke trails for better visual effects

[Jeb-head-mug kerman]

Wow, okay I'll give this thing a go!

[Me1_base]

with some smoke

[aleksey444]

I scanned the previous BAD-T IV, III, and II threads, and compiled a list of everybody who posted in them, excepting those I already noticed posting in the current thread. I assumed that if you posted in the BAD-T threads, you have an interest in such competitions, and therefore might wish to participate in this one.

Some people haven’t logged in in months or years, but many are active. My hope is that if your name is mentioned in this thread, you will receive a notification and decide to join in. The more the merrier!

So, I would like to invite the following people to join in this fight:

@53miner53, @Adam Kerman, @adamgerd, @Aerolfos, @Alioth81, @alp3r, @Arvolder, @Astrofox, @Azimech, @BahamutoD, @Bananders, @blackheart612, @Bob_Saget54, @Bottle Rocketeer 500, @Brice04, @Combatsmithen, @crashsolo36, @DIMASARM, @DoctorDavinci, @Doke, @Draconiator, @dundun92, @dundun93, @Dwerto, @Eidahlil, @ferram4, @g00bd0g, @Gnoyze, @gridghost, @Ironsights, @JagerVonSmith, @Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut, @Joseph Kerman, @KamikazeF0X, @keptin, @Kronos1174, @KSP Bros KS, @luftein, @MarvinCZ, @Matuchkin, @MightyDarkStar, @Murican_Jeb, @NKL, @Noir, @OmegaForce, @OrbitalBuzzsaw, @Orenstix, @pyrosheep, @RedPandaz, @SasquatchM, @Sidestrafe2462, @SpannerMonkey(smce), @sturmhauke, @TangerineSedge, @Temeter, @tetryds, @The Fedora Astronaut, @The Optimist, @theonegalen, @TheSealBrigade, @TheSpaceManiac, @Van Disaster, @Vanamonde, @Vexnium, @Vigelius, @Wjolcz, @Wolf123.

If I’ve not mentioned you, I apologize. Going through three threads was a tedious task, as was typing everybody’s name here. If you see this, please join in.

I want to hear your lamentations over losing, instead of lamentations over missing the competition. Let’s swamp @SuicidalInsanity with so may submissions that he will be running battles for the next few months!

Come and fight with us!

Edited June 8, 2019 by aleksey444

[Joseph Kerman]

@aleksey444

As much as I'd like to exercise my FAR skills, I'm afraid I don't have the time to invest, with school around the corner and an inferior computer. Though when the fifth BAD-T comes around, I'll be sure to try my hand at it.

[Wjolcz]

Noice. I will definitely build something for this.

Edit: btw @SuicidalInsanity, or whoever will be running the fights: the last time we did this we used radiators as armour (IIRC the rounds would damage parts by overheating them) and the wings had to have a minimum thickness to them. If they are too thin round hits don't register because of KSP's engine limitations (pretty sure it's about frames).

Edit: Also, what about all-moving surfaces? I don't think even the most advanced early WW2 jets had those?

Ok, nevermind, even Eindecker had those.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Wjolcz

[SuicidalInsanity]

@Wjolcz: No radiators. BDAc switched to a HP damage model back with BDAc 1.0 or 1.1 (which means radiators could, technically, still serve as armor, just not in the way you expect) so thermal control is obsolete and unnecessary. That said, covering a plane with radiators trying to armor it would be both rather heavy and trying to armor a plane in such a way to provide protection to everything while still being flyable would be a challenge.
One of these days I'll finally to get around to messing with BDA's intrinsic armor to have it so non-default values finally add commensurate mass increases to a part, giving players an option for armoring craft for contests. For DJA, though, I expect that most of the planes will be somewhat fragile, which is fine. I'd rather not have battles that take forever with armored juggernauts that take hundreds of rounds to slowly whittle away at each other.

A quick test showed even min thickness proc wings still getting hit properly. I can do some more testing, and if it turns out that there are circumstances where such wings can ignore bullets, I'll throw up an announcement on a rules change for wing thickness, but there's still the Eidahill Clause and no benefit to making wings unnecessarily fragile, so wing thickness I think should be okay.

[Pds314]

On 6/8/2019 at 10:33 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

@Wjolcz: No radiators. BDAc switched to a HP damage model back with BDAc 1.0 or 1.1 (which means radiators could, technically, still serve as armor, just not in the way you expect) so thermal control is obsolete and unnecessary. That said, covering a plane with radiators trying to armor it would be both rather heavy and trying to armor a plane in such a way to provide protection to everything while still being flyable would be a challenge.
One of these days I'll finally to get around to messing with BDA's intrinsic armor to have it so non-default values finally add commensurate mass increases to a part, giving players an option for armoring craft for contests. For DJA, though, I expect that most of the planes will be somewhat fragile, which is fine. I'd rather not have battles that take forever with armored juggernauts that take hundreds of rounds to slowly whittle away at each other.

A quick test showed even min thickness proc wings still getting hit properly. I can do some more testing, and if it turns out that there are circumstances where such wings can ignore bullets, I'll throw up an announcement on a rules change for wing thickness, but there's still the Eidahill Clause and no benefit to making wings unnecessarily fragile, so wing thickness I think should be okay.

I would say we should probably still not allow like 4-centimeter-thick wings, if for no other reason than that it's not structurally plausible that they would have such high strength/weight ratio. Wings are thick because you can't make a spar super thin and have it remain a strong cantilever. Remember, a 7-tonne plane in a 15-G turn is exerting over 100 tonnes between both wings, from a center of pressure probably over 2 meters from the root. That's a MegaNewton*meter of torque per wing. If we imagine a hinge in the center of the wing spar then that means that for a 4-centimeter wing, the top of the wing spar has 50 MegaNewtons of compression and the bottom 50 MegaNewtons of tension. I'm sorry but that's just never gonna be something steel will withstand without unacceptable weight involved (read: the wing spar would weigh as much as the aircraft).

Edited June 10, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Not really a proper fighter design but a modified version of one: (chopped the wings off).

Unless someone is a much better aero-optimizer than me, I doubt any vehicles will be going much over mach 1. This thing has a 6.25-meter wingspan and still can't break mach 1.2 at sealevel. It can however do some pretty aggressive supermaneuverability stunts at 50-200 m/s, but supermaneuverability without regular maneuverability is rather pointless. Especially when the AI is the one using it. Pugachev's Cobra is not a good way to shoot things.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Going down the "really small sleek boxwing jet" train of thought (This is derived from an actual fighter, but that one has an 8m wingspan instead of 2 meter). I don't know if the AI can handle this plane. It is not particularly stable on any axis below 300 m/s. Even with SAS. It can go supersonic at sealevel but just barely, because wingtip vortices are not totally absent even if they are quite reduced by the wing configuration.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

On the other end of the spectrum... we have a light bomber being used as a fighter. It's tougher than most planes and packs quite a punch, while retaining enough energy in a turn to fight against planes with nearly double its TWR.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

A battle between my big plane and my box-wing jet
 

 

Edited June 11, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Question: Are jets with zero rearview visibility acceptable?
Should I alter the FOV of the plane's AI module if so?

If you're worried that lack of cockpit drag will give it an unfair advantage, I assure you that this thing isn't getting any speed awards. Its top speed is like 267 m/s and it has over 1 m^2 of transonic wave drag area.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Attempting to make the dummies fly in a not-quite-completely-flat environment.

The ground wins.

 

Edited June 12, 2019 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

19 hours ago, Pds314 said:

Question: Are jets with zero rearview visibility acceptable?  Should I alter the FOV of the plane's AI module if so? 

DJA wasn't and isn't intended to be as strict as the BAD-Ts, so as long as the plane is kerballed, somehow, somewhere, it's fine (rules as written, in DJA it's legal to have Jeb sitting in a lawnchair bolted to the top of the plane. I don't recommend this, for a number of reasons, but it would be a legal setup). As for FoV, if you really want to?  Otherwise, craft AI FoV will just be left at the default 360 deg.

Also, yeah, the dummy was intended for runways/flat ground, so not surprising. What's the proper terminology for topography that's been awarded Ace status?
 

Edited June 12, 2019 by SuicidalInsanity
the hills are bloodthirsty

[sturmhauke]

40 minutes ago, SuicidalInsanity said:

DJA wasn't and isn't intended to be as strict as the BAD-Ts, so as long as the plane is kerballed, somehow, somewhere, it's fine (rules as written, in DJA it's legal to have Jeb sitting in a lawnchair bolted to the top of the plane. I don't recommend this, for a number of reasons, but it would be a legal setup).

So A-wings are legal then? I mean the Flying Pancake was an actual prototype aircraft, although not a jet.

[SuicidalInsanity]

More or less? The A-Wing is something I could easily see a Junkers-Horten collaboration coming up with as a prototype in ~1950; there were a lot of wacky real-world designs for early jets, and I don't want to restrict people's ability to be equally creative (Y-Wing or TIE fighter I'd veto though). The request to build a period-ish aircraft in the rules is there mainly to prevent people from showing up to a early jets themed contest with something blatantly anachronistic like a Su-47 berkut knockoff.

[Alioth81]

I try to build something for this competition.

But I have some problems with procedural wings or FAR linked here.

It seems the main wings sometimes loose their Voxels. Did someone ever experience the same? If yes what did you do?

 

Edit:

It seems updating to FAR 15.10.1 does the job - the link in the rules points to 15.10.0 however.

Additional question? Are Autostruts allowed or just rigid attachment?

Edited June 14, 2019 by Alioth81

[SuicidalInsanity]

Thanks for the catch. FAR link updated.

2 hours ago, Alioth81 said:

Are Autostruts allowed

Yes.

 

[Pds314]

I checked the flight logs. This wasn't a mid-air collision. It was a one hit head-on gun kill at all of 20 meters.
 

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Another quick fight. One plane makes a wrong move and is harshly punished.

 

[Pds314]

On 6/12/2019 at 8:35 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

More or less? The A-Wing is something I could easily see a Junkers-Horten collaboration coming up with as a prototype in ~1950; there were a lot of wacky real-world designs for early jets, and I don't want to restrict people's ability to be equally creative (Y-Wing or TIE fighter I'd veto though). The request to build a period-ish aircraft in the rules is there mainly to prevent people from showing up to a early jets themed contest with something blatantly anachronistic like a Su-47 berkut knockoff.

Regarding A-wing like designs, The SAAB Draken first flew in 1955 (which, ok, to be fair is a bit late, especially since it wasn't introduced until 5 years later) While we can't replicate it due to its single oversized engine and it would probably be OP because it's mach 2 capable, it does at least have a slightly A-wing look to it that isn't quite just a delta wing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_35_Draken

Edited June 16, 2019 by Pds314

[sturmhauke]

Well FAR is kicking my butt again. I think I just got lucky in BAD-T IV. The plane I made for Juno Ace had yaw instability I couldn't figure out, and I ultimately didn't enter. This time around I have abandoned the A-wing idea because it inherently has too much lift in front. My conventional twin-engine fighter looks like it should work, has good area ruling, but somehow has pitch instability at low speeds. The AI can't take off without crashing, and even with manual control it's tricky.

[Me1_base]

battle tests

[SuicidalInsanity]

Someone mentioned flying wing designs a while ago, and got me experimenting around with a few:

Serious kudos to anyone thinking of entering one. These things are far more difficult to get working well than standard designs.

 

On 6/18/2019 at 12:55 PM, sturmhauke said:

Well FAR is kicking my butt again.

Try moving the CoM forward a little, or increase elevator size for the pitch instability? Can't really offer better advice than that without a pic. Is the manual control proving tricky for the takeoff, or flight? If takeoff, try turning off steering on the landing gears and setting the friction control for the forward wheel to something low. Alternatively, add some wing incidence to lower takeoff speed?