Please change the way kills are scored.

[g00b]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Sorry, no argument can change the fact that if you did not kill the nme, you should not get the kill.

We have a fundamental disagreement here, fortunately I believe you are in the minority. The rest of us believe that the person who did the most damage deserves the kill.  In fact, I and many others will attempt to NOT steal a kill by shooting a damaged and fleeing aircraft as minimally as possible to remove them as a threat but give credit to the one who probably did most of the work. This is SOP in my squad and an unspoken ettiequitte amongst most of the more experienced players (IMHO). This is called team spirit.

1) If you did 95% damage I would expect to see vapor/smoke trails, missing parts, something. However, that is not what I am seeing in the examples I cited. I am talking about nme aircraft with no "visible" signs of damage, that are not trying to land, ditch, or run away, but functioning, in the fight aircraft.

Since a plane can be 95% damaged with no visible effects, this is a pretty null point.

2) If you are on a nme and shooting him up, then have to break off for some reason and the con is still flying around shooting at people, then I bring him down, yes, I should get the kill. You didn't finish the job. Sorry, but that's real life for ya. If you have a job and complete 95% of it before you leave the company, then I come in and finish it, I get the credit for it, not you.

If I fought some guy down from 20K to the deck and after a good 10-15 minute fight you come along and do some minor damage and finish him you should get the kill? You'll probably say yes, but again, basic disagreement.

3) In your example, you could spray all over the nme plane, but no where particular. In this way you are scoring a lot of total damage, but nothing crucial. I come along and fire very specifically into the root of his wing. It breaks off, he flips over and dies. Should you get the kill? No! All you did was slap him
around. I delivered the knock out.

No... A better analogy would be,  I beat the crap out of him, and you came up and gave him a little girly slap and he falls over. Do you think you should be able to say you kicked his arse?

4) You have created a straw man to say that I am talking about putting two bullets into a nme con so I should get the kill. In any example I could cite, I have put in at least a full burst (6 x .50 cals, 8 x .50 cals, cannons and .50s, all cannons, whatever), if not more. I agree that if I only ping up a con that has been getting spanked, then I should not get a kill. However, that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about blowing off critical components that cause the nme con a loss of flight control.

This is just silly. Even if you put 100 rds into him the point I was making is still the same. You put in the minority of damage. How do you determine "agree that if I only ping up a con that has been getting spanked, then I should not get a kill. However, that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about blowing off critical components that cause the nme con a loss of flight control. " You seem to contradict the very first statement in your post you made. Use math or some sort of logic to determine this. I don't think it would be possible to program.

5) Please don't lump us all together. I think maneuver kills should stay too. I have flown people into the ground as well and I believe that counts as much as anything else.

Well of course I'm gonna lump you all together. Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is always a collective them. I'm not going to single out each perspective while commenting on them.

Blauk put it very well. It is the guy that gets the job down that should get the credit. There is no argument that can negate that position. Causing loss of flight control should be the main determiner of who gets the kill.

Here's another analogy for ya.

Some guy is laying concrete. He spends days pouring, shaping and smoothing (fighting an nme con). His buddy doesn't do a whole lot, but right before the job is finished and the boss is due to check it out he levels and smooths the final part (puts in the final amount of damage). The boss (the AH server) sees this and gives the "buddy" a raise (perk points).

Dude number one did 90% of the work, why does he not deserve the credit for the job?

I see you as dude #2, the lazy buddy.

g00b

[BlauK]

Goob... the client pays for a the smoothed finished concrete, not for unfinished work. It is all or nothing. Either he pays or does not.

All that work goes in vain unless the other skillful and smart (you say lazy )  guy comes in and finishes the job in time.

Just like in sports there is lots of good work and team spirit and effort... but if the lazy forward does not score the goal, there are no scores.... meaning, the enemy escapes and flies back home.

Visible and decisive damage are (again IMO) the best indicators for succesful effort. If you just spray around but the enemy is still 100% functional, why should you get any credit when your countryman comes and puts a bullet between enemy pilots eyes?

If you do visible damage which truly hurts the enemy (makes it hard for him to fly) then you are a candidate for the kill. IMO, the visible damage is the only damage to count towards a kill.

I dont even think that kill stealing would be so easy or common. Just imagine that you have smoked the engine (50% of engine points) and destroyed 1 aileron (100% aileron points) and both elevators (100% of both). It is clear that he is going down... Then some "no-good idiot" comes and shoots a wing off the enemy (gets 100% of wing damage points) and the plane goes all the way down and explodes or the pilot bails. At that final moment all the damage points that were still left in that plane should be awarded to the pilot who has caused most visible damage (not just undecisive points). Therefore you would still getthe kill since you had done most decisive damage.

The idea is simply to award all the points from one part of the plane to that pilot - and only thet one-  who causes it to fail. To that guy who really does the damage, makes it real and makes it count.

Imagine a tank with 40mm of armor in the front. One guy shoots at it 10 times to make a hole in it. The tank still functions 100%. Then another hits it once in the same spot , penetrates the armor and the tank explodes.... honestly.. who killed the tank?

The current most damage points is really a very socialistic way of all counting all who contribute to the task. Lets include the mechanicians too. The pilot could not shoot his guns if they had not maintained them. They had worked with the plane much more than the pilot. So why weren't they awarded the kills that the pilot got?

[SlapShot]

I dont even think that kill stealing would be so easy or common.

I disagree. If blammo's idea becomes a reality (which I strongly doubt), kill stealing would run rampant and the whines would be deafening.

[Blammo]

Well, g00b, you are right.  We have a fundamental disagreement.  I believe the guy that got the kill should get the kill.  You believe that the guy that worked the hardest should get the kill.

Working hard does not equal working smart.

I agree that it would be very frustrating to work and work a con only to have someone else come in a get the actual kill shot, but how is that any different from the way it is now?  I drop in on someone and work them (turning, looping, jinking, the works) pinging them up along the way and when I finally get the kill shot (blow his wing or tail off, kill the pilot, blow him up, whatever), the kill is award to someone else that did "the most damage" to him before I got on station.  Why is that somehow fairer/better/more logical that I am propsosing?

Also, the argument keeps being made about how difficult this would be to code.  I don't see it?  Now, granted, I don't know the code for AH or AH2, but, as a previously mention, we are only talking about an IF or IF, THEN or IF, THEN, ELSE statement here.  If the game is capable of tracking individual component damage (which it is), then it is possible to say "IF DAMAGE=TAILGONE OR RWINGGONE OR LWINGGONE, THEN AWARDKILL=DAMAGEOWNER" and "IF RWING OR LWING OR TAIL=GONE, THEN STOP ALL DAMAGE TRACKING".  After all, the game is tracking who does damage, how much damage and possibly even what damage.  If so, then once again, fairly simple change.

I am not saying they will or they have to, but I still think the current system is flawed.  I would love to hear the reasons why it is not, but it seems to me that it was a design level decision and that is the model they intend to keep.  And concerning the "You shoot the left wing off, but I shoot the right wing off at the exact same moment: who gets the kill?" question: that is when I would revert to the who did the most damage part of the question.  Still fairly simple in my estimation (granted, conceptually speaking).

A side note:  I don't want someone elses kill.  I want mine.  To me, if the guy is still in controlled/recoverable flight, you didn't do the job.  If I blow a wing completely off, that's a kill.  If I shoot an aileron off, get the oil leaking a hit the pilot (but not bad enough to kill him), that is not a kill till he goes down for good.  If someone else finishes him off, then they get the kill.  What is so difficult to understand about that?

No... A better analogy would be, I beat the crap out of him, and you came up and gave him a little girly slap and he falls over. Do you think you should be able to say you kicked his arse?

Comedic sarcasm is obviously not your forte.

I can turn it around really easy:  You are working some thug over.  Punching him, kicking him, body slamming...and yet, he is still beating the snot out of your six friends.  I come in a cap him...end of story.  Yeah, you would have gotten him there, maybe.  But I ended it.  As I said before, I am not talking about "girly slaps" as you put it.  I am talking about putting enough rounds into a con and in a focused enough place to cause catastrophic loss of flight control.

Proposal:

1) Stop damage tracking once catastrophic damage is inflicted.

2) Award the kill to the person that caused the catastrophic damage.

Otherwise, it should be a shared kill or everyone is awarded assists.

Causing catastrophic loss of flight control should be the main determiner of who gets the kill.

[hitech]

Of anything discused here the only thing I would consider is ending damage after inner wing, or or horiztonal stab is gone. I.E. prevent kill stealing. But quite frankly kill stealing is not very prevelent so not sure its worth the time.

HiTech

[SlapShot]

I am not saying they will or they have to, but I still think the current system is flawed. I would love to hear the reasons why it is not, but it seems to me that it was a design level decision and that is the model they intend to keep.

I think that it was more a "whine level decision".

Blammo .. all your reasons are very sound, completely logical, and fundementally, I agree with you.

This cut-n-dry schema would work in an arena where pilots repect each other and wouldn't swoop in to kill a enemy that is obviously in serious trouble and only seconds away from death by the fellow countryman. But that is not the norm as we all have been witness to.

Since this type of behaviour is practically impossible to stop, I believe that HTC uses the current format so as to allievate any/most arguments that would result from the "kill steal".

Could you imagine the amount of in-country arguments that would result if your cut-n-dry system were to be implemented ? It wouldn't be a pretty sight IMO.

[SlapShot]

Originally posted by hitech
Of anything discused here the only thing I would consider is ending damage after inner wing, or or horiztonal stab is gone. I.E. prevent kill stealing. But quite frankly kill stealing is not very prevelent so not sure its worth the time.

HiTech

Kill stealing is not all that prevelent because I believe that most know that when serious damage is already done, your just wasting your ammo to only get an assist.

Your considerations would eliminate further, the pilots that insist on following and spraying a one-wing, wingless, or tailess plane to 100 ft AGL trying to cause the plane to blow up and hoping that they steal the kill.

It would be great if you implemented that.

[Blammo]

Originally posted by SlapShot
Kill stealing is not all that prevelent because I believe that most know that when serious damage is already done, your just wasting your ammo to only get an assist.

Your considerations would eliminate further, the pilots that insist on following and spraying a one-wing, wingless, or tailess plane to 100 ft AGL trying to cause the plane to blow up and hoping that they steal the kill.

It would be great if you implemented that.

Yeah, I agree with that.  Stop tracking the damage to a plane once those critical elements of the aircraft are destroyed.

By the way, SlapShot:  Thank you for your reasoned response to my suggestions.  It is refreshing.  I may be a minority and a may be hoping against hope, but I can dream

[BlauK]

It seems like the agendas here are "the concern of kill stealing" and the "concern for not getting a kill from 100% functioning plane".

I personally would allow all kind of kill stealing any day over the situation where I am ALONE with an enemy who IS 100% FUNCTIONING and whom I kill after a huge duel but only get an assist... because someone else has sprayed more damage which has not caused the enemy any hindrance.

This has happened to me much more often than someone stealing my kills. But it seems that we will keep on finishing kills for others who are not even present anymore.

Sure it is amusing to get kills while I am RTBing after an attack, but at the same time it is a great pity for those who finish the kills some 20 miles away from me.

[Blammo]

Originally posted by BlauK
It seems like the agendas here are "the concern of kill stealing" and the "concern for not getting a kill from 100% functioning plane".

I personally would allow all kind of kill stealing any day over the situation where I am ALONE with an enemy who IS 100% FUNCTIONING and whom I kill after a huge duel but only get an assist... because someone else has sprayed more damage which has not caused the enemy any hindrance.

This has happened to me much more often than someone stealing my kills. But it seems that we will keep on finishing kills for others who are not even present anymore.

Sure it is amusing to get kills while I am RTBing after an attack, but at the same time it is a great pity for those who finish the kills some 20 miles away from me.

Well put.  I couldn't agree more.

[WarLover]

I believe that some air forces in WWII actually awarded fractional kills rather than assists (e.g. - three a/c combine to bring down an enemy they each get 1/3 of a kill). If you wanted to get real fancy you could award the kills on the percentage damage done but I think that might be overkill. Perhaps this system would eliminate the issue issue of the assit vs kill all together. It still doesn't solve the problem of deliberate kill stealing but I think that it would proportionatly reduce the incentive to attempt the steal in the first place (best you're gonna get is half a kill). You could still award the perks to who does the most damage.

On another note, I think the proxy kill need some work since i got one sitting on the runway in AH2 last night when someone augered d800 away. Never fired a shot nor forced the auger.

Finally, I believe collisions where both a/c go down should not generate a kill for either a/c or both a/c should be awarded kills.  Perk points shouldn't be given out for collision kills if they are going to be awarded. It seems way too one sided at this point. (I'll be the first to admit I don't understad the model.)