Imprecise turret targeting in space.

[demonfiren]

First issue report, if I'm missing something please inform me.

Created a spaceship with vanilla BDA/BDAc turret guns (M1 Abrams gun, .50cal dual MG, laser), brought it on a rendez-vouz trajectory with a space station, desired distance well within radar (TWS) range, and locked from "behind" the target, that is: closing in at higher velocity and passing by. Slaved turrets to radar and test-fired. Test results: .50cal and tank gun generally missed the target firing too close to the planet, whereas laser consistently fired too far from it.

Ran a second test, this time slaving FLIR targeting ball to radar data, and activating CoM track and slaving turrets to FLIR. Laser was perfectly on target, bisected space station within seconds. However, the projectile guns failed to acquire at all, facing straight forward while turret slaving was engaged.

[jrodrigv]

Thanks for testing this @demonfiren. I'm going to tag this as an enhancement because I don't think BDArmory was developed with space battles in mind, but it would be very nice to have BDArmory fully working when in space

[TheDestroyer111]

If BDA is not for space battles, then what is an Airborne Laser and High Explosive Kill Vehicle doing in it? :P //EDIT I know YAL-1 was for intercepting missiles, but even with this potential use, the BDA ABL is kinda useless outside of space IMO.

[demonfiren]

Well, the YAL-1 was intended for intercepting missiles shortly after launch, so not for space. As for the space-worthy missiles, I've heard rumours going around that they were put on the backburner originally because space was secondary.

Personally I think it's BS and encourage features granting the ability to blow stuff up in any environment, but this isn't my call.

[PapaJoesSoup]

I personally see no reason that the battle cannot be taken to space.. that is the next great frontier. That being said, there is a fair amount of work to be done to work out the bugs that exist, and to restructure BDA to be both more stable and a better performer, especially given the work Squad has done to improve performance, if you remember NathanKell's squadcast on the peek at 1.2 .

Even from a realism point of view, there is no restriction on the concept of space warfare imho.

[demonfiren]

Of course space warfare won't ever reach true realism, given the complications involved in building whipple shields and the restriction against nuclear weapons, to say nothing of realistic weapons and detection ranges (or to mention those again, actually). On that note, nevermind that the most impressive ones - like Casaba howitzers - are apparently nigh-impossible to code.

[KerbalPete]

I can't imagine the turret system is taking how orbital mechanics are effecting the motion of the vessels into account correctly. Maybe something for the future?

[Gedas-S]

Gun aiming in space should be a lot better since #488 It's not exactly perfect, and iirc radar slaving has a bit of jittering (i.e. it doesn't update every frame), but visual guard mode can aim turrets mostly fine. Shooting up or down (i.e. aiming at surface from orbit) will have a significant error though, because we're not (yet) taking into account the changing bullet speed from gravity in the trajectory calculation.