I can understand some of the complaints about scores but it has it's advantages. For one thing, we all prize "realism" in the game, right? Since we have the ultimate "unrealism" of being able to immediately reup a new plane there is little motivation for flying smart and flying smart is what made the best aces, not just "stick and rudder" skills. If you look at the best RL aces, you'll find the same thing. Wasn't it the Baron that said something like 80 percent of the guys he shot down never saw him? My point is that keeping score motivates some to fly smarter and thus more realistically. Is it irritating when a guy dives through a furball, picks off one or two, then zooms away, and lands his kills (and perk points)? Sure. I really like the hurri but then I have a hard time chasing down an M-8 so I'm at a huge disadvantage against these guys but I don't have a problem with someone who is motivated to do something other than knife-fight. Sure, I might taunt the guy to try to get him to do something stupid but ultimately, he plays his games and I play mine. If he's motivated by his score or perk points, great, its the only way we have of stimulating a need for "self preservation". If you want a strong argument for keeping (or even expanding) the score and perk point system look at the most irritating and unrealistic thing (besides the uber knife-fighting IL-2s) in this game. The suicide 190 porking a base. The guy probably doesn't give a damn about his score and thus does something incredibly unrealistic. (Show me the guy in WWII that would take a mission like this just to kill some tents) Wish we could find a way to up the cost to the players for doing stuff like this but I don't have any idea how we'd do it. But if we could maybe we'd see a lot more teamwork and coordinated attacks.
Mace