3rd/4th gen Aerial Brawl (FAR + BDAc)

[Pds314]

Sigh.... It's so easy to accidentally break things using the alt-F12 menu. Often not even the thing you're trying to move.

[Pds314]

Alright. I'll upload my crafts, download your crafts, and start the first match tomorrow. It's much too late/early right now.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

My first aircraft, the Dingbat - 003 "Greyfox"

It's a 53% Panther-powered single-engine air superiority fighter with a vulcan and one of each type of missiles. It turns well at any speed but because it's only got a single vulcan, it needs to rely on riding its opponents tail and peppering them with bullets.


 

[Pds314]

My second aircraft: Dingbat - 006 "Pitviper"

It's an interceptor powered by dual Whiplashes but they're at only 24.5%. The subsonic TWR is anemic. But at high altitude it can break Mach 3. It relies mostly on its arsenal of missiles, to which 70 of the craft's points are devoted. It has two AIM-9s and two AIM-120s, and if that fails it will automatically eject the pilot and crash into the ground as hard as possible to prevent recovery by the enemy resort to it's 30mm chaingun. What it lacks in rate of fire it makes up for in hopefully superior numbers, as it would be rather surprising if the enemy doesn't lose anything to all those missiles.


 

[Pds314]

Alright, as all aircraft currently have two victory points, I will roll two D6's until I don't get doubles to figure out which craft are in the first battle.

It looks like the first combatants will be @Xd the great's A-10 vs my Db-006 Pitviper.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Will it be a macross missile massacre or will @Xd the great's A-10 and my Db-006 Pitviper dance to their deaths trying to destroy or at least outlast each other with their questionable cannons and cautious flying style?
 

 

Spoiler

Twelve. Seconds. Of. Fuel. Remaining. The Pitviper just needed to wait a few more turns and the A-10s would run out of fuel and crashland or get shredded on their way to crashlanding...

Well congrats to Xd the great. Your A-10 now has 4 victory points because there were two survivors. My Db-006 has 1 Victory point because there were no survivors.

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Alright, random generator from all the pairings of planes with 2 victory points, with the exception that I'm gonna veto if it's IA-103 vs IA-102.

Looks like the next round will be @SuicidalInsanity's IA-103 Strato Spear vs. my Dingbat - 003 "Greyfox"

Edited August 17, 2020 by Pds314

[Xd the great]

That is what I call the art of fueling.

Jokes aside, I never thought FAR dogfights would require that much fuel.

Edit: After watching the video, I figured I need to re-tune my plane. And add more fuel. It stalls to easily.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Xd the great

[Pds314]

5 hours ago, Xd the great said:

That is what I call the art of fueling.

Jokes aside, I never thought FAR dogfights would require that much fuel.

Edit: After watching the video, I figured I need to re-tune my plane. And add more fuel. It stalls to easily.

They shouldn't normally. Those planes seem uniquely unable to get guns on target. Especially on each be other. Most battles don't last anywhere near that long unless the planes are in some kind of stalemate like that.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Alright. A supersonic plane that won't turn with one missile vs a transonic plane that will turn with two missiles.
@SuicidalInsanity's IA-103 Strato Spear vs. my Dingbat - 003 "Greyfox"
 

 

Spoiler

I let it go a bit longer after I stopped the recording. If it hadn't run out of ammo it would have eventually caught up due to the Greyfox's higher altitude performance, but then the Greyfox may have run out of fuel eventually.

Congrats SuicidalInsanity on making something so fast powered by junos lol. The Strato Spear is virtually uncatchable at sealevel. As there was one survivor, it now has 3 Victory Points and my Greyfox has 1.

 

As they're the highest ranked planes with equal numbers of victory points (2), The next match will be between @SuicidalInsanity's IA-102 Super spectre and @Xd the great's Su-47.

[Pds314]

@Xd the great's Su-47 against @SuicidalInsanity's IA-102 Super Spectre. A plane that wishes it were a prototype Russian fighter with excellent post-stall maneuverability characteristics against a plane that wishes it could reach Mach 1.1
 

 

Spoiler

That was absolutely brutal lol. The Su-47 seems to be uniquely vulnerable to missiles. Or should we call them hittles? I ran this match before and one of the Super Spectres failed to take off on the rough terrain and the Su-47s still got crushed before the merge.

The first 3-0 round so far. Which means the Super Spectre now has 5 Victory points and the Su-47 now has 1.

As I don't want to run matches of the same creator against themselves when another match is equally viable, the next match will be the plane that lost this round vs one of my planes. Flip a coin and... It will face off against my Dingbat - 006 "Pitviper". To the death.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Pds314

[SuicidalInsanity]

Not going to lie, I was not expecting a clean sweep from the Super Spectre.


 

[Pds314]

Alright: Battle #4.

This one is to the death. Whichever side loses, that plane will be eliminated, as both sides have only 1 victory point.

My Db 006 Pitviper vs @Xd the great's Su-47.
The plane that can't shoot vs the plane that can't dodge.

Spoiler

Not necessarily surprised at the outcome, but very surprised at how long the last Su-47 waited to fire its last missile. That was like.... 5 minutes into the round or something. And that my plane was able to evade it under those circumstances.

Also yay! Finally guns blowing up planes!
Xd the great's Su-47 had one survivor and so now is back to 2 victory points, having saved itself from the chopping block. My Pitviper, however, is now eliminated. I may end up replacing it later or making serious modifications and re-entering a better version.

 

As no planes currently have equal Victory Points, the 5th match will be between the highest pair that are one point apart. This can only be @SuicidalInsanity's IA-102 Super Spectre vs @Xd the great's A-10.

[Xd the great]

2 hours ago, Pds314 said:

@Xd the great's Su-47 against @SuicidalInsanity's IA-102 Super Spectre. A plane that wishes it were a prototype Russian fighter with excellent post-stall maneuverability characteristics against a plane that wishes it could reach Mach 1.1
 

 

  Hide contents

That was absolutely brutal lol. The Su-47 seems to be uniquely vulnerable to missiles. Or should we call them hittles? I ran this match before and one of the Super Spectres failed to take off on the rough terrain and the Su-47s still got crushed before the merge.

The first 3-0 round so far. Which means the Super Spectre now has 5 Victory points and the Su-47 now has 1.

 

Huh. Interesting. For this plane I sacrificed a lot of flares and stuff for more twr.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Xd the great

[Xd the great]

And given how badly my planes currently performs, if any one of them gets knocked out, this is my replacement: https://kerbalx.com/Xdthegreat/Delta-wing

[Pds314]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

And given how badly my planes currently performs, if any one of them gets knocked out, this is my replacement: https://kerbalx.com/Xdthegreat/Delta-wing

Nice. Just to clarify, you want to replace only if they get eliminated, not intentionally retire anything right?

[Xd the great]

8 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Nice. Just to clarify, you want to replace only if they get eliminated, not intentionally retire anything right?

Yes.

[Pds314]

Experimental aircraft that does up to M2.5 at sea level and regularly breaks mach 2 in combat. Lost intakes and Gau-8 from a Sidewinder.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

The issue with it is it's really easy to lose consciousness and when that happens, the only hope is that it will decide to take a journey to the mesosphere. Losing consciousness during a mach 2 maneuver that isn't pointed up results in barrel rolling into the ground. And even if you're lucky enough not to be sustaining any g forces, it's often too late to pull out.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Pds314

[Xd the great]

Going slow is the only way to survive. Which also means you need to turn sufficiently quickly.

BUT, if someone builds a slow-turning high-altitude missile lobber and just out-last enemies...

Oh, and I personally hate heavy cockpits. The thrust loss from using lawn chairs is less than the weight penalty of a cockpit.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Xd the great

[Pds314]

12 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Going slow is the only way to survive. Which also means you need to turn sufficiently quickly.

BUT, if someone builds a slow-turning high-altitude missile lobber and just out-last enemies...

Oh, and I personally hate heavy cockpits. The thrust loss from using lawn chairs is less than the weight penalty of a cockpit.

It depends. One thing to keep in mind is that missiles seem to have an easier time dealing with very slow (M < 0.5) than moderately fast (M ~= 1), at least if it can maneuver effectively. Staying super slow also limits the AI's ability to be efficient in turns or use its energy, and means energy generation is lower, also having large enough wings to turn efficiently while slow means you probably can't roll effectively and are not very stable in yaw.

Also being fast means hard turns almost guarantee missiles can't follow the turn. For example, in one test, I saw a plane at 700 m/s dodge 8 missiles straight in a row. The last 4 of which were in an unconscious 12 G barrel roll.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Pds314

[Xd the great]

1 hour ago, Pds314 said:

It depends. One thing to keep in mind is that missiles seem to have an easier time dealing with very slow (M < 0.5) than moderately fast (M ~= 1), at least if it can maneuver effectively. Staying super slow also limits the AI's ability to be efficient in turns or use its energy, and means energy generation is lower, also having large enough wings to turn efficiently while slow means you probably can't roll effectively and are not very stable in yaw.

Also being fast means hard turns almost guarantee missiles can't follow the turn. For example, in one test, I saw a plane at 700 m/s dodge 8 missiles straight in a row. The last 4 of which were in an unconscious 12 G barrel roll.

So the problem boils down to whether you want to pass out or get shot down by a missile.

If I remember correctly G-LOC locks all control surfaces. Which means your plane will keep doing 12G turns until it runs out of fuel/get shot down/crash into the ground. Unless, that is, you are allowed to use probe cores...

Edited August 18, 2020 by Xd the great

[Pds314]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

Going slow is the only way to survive. Which also means you need to turn sufficiently quickly.

BUT, if someone builds a slow-turning high-altitude missile lobber and just out-last enemies...

Oh, and I personally hate heavy cockpits. The thrust loss from using lawn chairs is less than the weight penalty of a cockpit.

Regarding floating halfway to outer space lobbing missiles at the hapless planes below, there are a few problems.
1. The maximum possible missile load is 6. That's not that many more than 4, but requires considerable design compromises, such as using a single lower limiter engine or a giant array of low thrust limiter Junos. It's very possible that either the missile lobber gets shot down or the missiles fail to clean sweep. If they do, then presumeably a plane designed to cruise fuel-sippingly at 15+ km high will be inneffective against a plane designed to come up on a half-power whiplash and shred it with Gau-8 fire.

2. Missiles can perfectly well be lobbed upward. There's not that big of an advantage to lobbing missiles from above. Especially since the missiles have limited range.

3. A missile lobber needs enough power to actually climb that high in a sensible amount of time and without stalling out under AI control. Any good missile lobber could probably function just fine at low to moderate altitude as a missile fighter/interceptor. Bringing us back to the whole TWR and engine cost issue again.

4. A missile lobber still needs a gun and accessible ammo or I DQ it by lack of armament once it runs out of missiles.

7 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

So the problem boils down to whether you want to pass out or get shot down by a missile.

If I remember correctly G-LOC locks all control surfaces. Which means your plane will keep doing 12G turns until it runs out of fuel/get shot down/crash into the ground. Unless, that is, you are allowed to use probe cores...

Probe cores would defeat the point of G-LOC. If they just cancelled all control in puts upon going unconscious that would be fine, although I think still pretty dangerous because that would mean you'd just keep going straight or whatnot.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Pds314

[Xd the great]

1 hour ago, Pds314 said:

Also being fast means hard turns almost guarantee missiles can't follow the turn. For example, in one test, I saw a plane at 700 m/s dodge 8 missiles straight in a row. The last 4 of which were in an unconscious 12 G barrel roll.

Interestingly, rewatching footage from the IA102 and Su47 shows a failure to dodge missile at 260m/s, despite dumping huge amount of flares...

[Pds314]

10 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Interestingly, rewatching footage from the IA102 and Su47 shows a failure to dodge missile at 260m/s, despite dumping huge amount of flares...

Yeah I think it greatly depends on the energy and trajectory of both the plane and the missile and precisely where the flares end up. Missiles can definitely end up re-locking a target after the flares go off, depending on how much heat and stuff the ship is making. The actual way BDA computes missile locks is super complicated but suffice to say you usually need a combination of speed, flares, a strong maneuver that the missile has to compensate for, and sudden flipping of direction. I'm not entirely sure spamming a bunch of flares in different directions is the most efficient thing though.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Pds314