It seems to me that ENY values are being lowered as aircraft usage increases, but not raised as aircraft usage declines. To test this I looked at the stats pertaining to the A6M5b from Tour 9 on. I have listed the stats for each tour and commented no my interpretation of what they seem to indicate in the following report. Feedback is welcome.
Tour 9
Aces High v1.04
A6M5b ENY value: NA
All planes have 116003 kills and have been killed 116003 times.
The A6M5b has 1470 kills and has been killed 2475 times.
The A6M5b has 1.3% of the total kills and 2.1% of the total deaths.
Tour 10
Aces High v1.04
A6M5b ENY value: NA
All planes have 106554 kills and have been killed 106554 times.
The A6M5b has 1648 kills and has been killed 2734 times.
The A6M5b has 1.5% of the total kills and 2.7% of the total deaths.
Tour 11
Aces High v1.04
A6M5b ENY value: NA
All planes have 86195 kills and have been killed 86195 times.
The A6M5b has 1295 kills and has been killed 1934 times.
The A6M5b has 1.5% of the total kills and 2.2% of the total deaths.
Tour 9, Tour 10 and Tour 11 are control groups. They were selected to act as control groups for the following reasons:
1: The A6M5b is not crippled by the pre-1.04 flight model.
2: The recent addition of aircraft carriers has not increased the A6M5b's use due to novelty.
We can see from these tours that the A6M5b, in a non-naval, non-novelty environment will probably be responsible for 1% to 2% of kills and 2% to 3% of deaths. Presumably HiTech Creations used these numbers to set the A6M5b's initial ENY value at 35, and presumably if the A6M5b's numbers remained in these ranges the ENY value would remain at 35.
Tour 12
Aces High v1.05
A6M5b ENY value: 35 down to 25
All planes have 229821 kills and have been killed 229821 times.
The A6M5b has 8362 kills and has been killed 10308 times.
The A6M5b has 3.6% of the total kills and 4.5% of the total deaths.
Tour 12 introduced Aces High v1.05 which added carriers, the naval oriented "ndisles" map and the ENY value. The novelty of aircraft carriers, a map that strongly encourages their use and having the A6M5b as the only Axis carrier capable aircraft seems to have caused the A6M5b to more than double in use in relation to earlier tours. This increase in use is certainly responsible for the gradual decline of the A6M5b's ENY value over the course of Tour 12.
Tour 13
Aces High v1.05
A6M5b ENY value: 25
All planes have 154979 kills and have been killed 154979 times.
The A6M5b has 4160 kills and has been killed 6056 times.
The A6M5b has 2.7% of the total kills and 3.9% of the total deaths.
In Tour 13 the same version and same map are used, but the novelty of aircraft carrier operations is wearing off. The A6M5b's use, while still significantly higher than in Tour 9, Tour 10 and Tour 11, has fallen off of its high use in Tour 12. Despite this decline, the A6M5b's ENY value remains at the level set by its peak usage.
Tour 14
Aces High v1.06
A6M5b ENY value: 25
All planes have 188892 kills and have been killed 188892 times.
The A6M5b has 2604 kills and has been killed 3937 times.
The A6M5b has 1.4% of the total kills and 2.1% of the total deaths.
Tour 14 introduced 8 new aircraft, the non-naval oriented map "sfma" and the second half of the perk system. Two of these aircraft, the Fw190D-9 and La7, were highly anticipated additions and were introduced as non-perk aircraft. The novelty of these, and other, new aircraft along with the de-emphasizing of the naval aspect, seem to have reduced the use of the A6M5b to lower levels than it enjoyed in Tour 10. Despite the A6M5b's return to pre-1.05 usage levels, its ENY value remained at the level set by its peak usage in Tour 12. The possibility that the novelty of the new aircraft caused this decline and it would return to higher usage once the novelty wore off cannot be used to explain why the A6M5b's ENY value remains low. The A6M5b's ENY value was, after all, lowered during a novelty phase.
Tour 15 through April 8th
Aces High v1.06
A6M5b ENY value: 25
All planes have 35065 kills and have been killed 35065 times.
The A6M5b has 616 kills and has been killed 931 times.
The A6M5b has 1.8% of the total kills and 2.7% of the total deaths.
Tour 15 returned the Main Arena to the naval oriented "ndisles" map and lowered the ENY value of multiple aircraft. Though this tour is incomplete we may still obtain usage trends for the A6M5b. Although the return of aircraft carriers as a significant part of the Main Arena environment has caused an increase in the use of the A6M5b it has not come close to returning to the usage levels it saw in Tour 12 and Tour 13. Despite this lack of a significant increase in use the A6M5b's ENY value remains at 25. As a contrast, the ENY values of the Fw190D-9, La7, P-51D, Spitfire MkVb and Spitfire MkIX were all lowered. No ENY values were raised, so far as I could tell.
The Spitfire MkVb's ENY value is now 30 as is the P-38L's ENY value, however the Spitfire MkVb is used more frequently than either the A6M5b, ENY 25, or the P-38L, ENY 30. The Spitfire MkVb seems about right at an ENY of 30, how ever the A6M5b and P-38L would seem to have ENY values that are too low to be explained by their usage.
Looking over this data it seems that ENY values are reduced as needed and indicated by their usage. However it does not seem that ENY values are raised as needed and indicated by their usage. If this is the case a prime opportunity afforded by the perk system is being lost, the opportunity to encourage the use of infrequently used aircraft through higher rewards. If the ENY values only move downward the variance between the ENY values of different units will be minimized while the usage and performance differences are not changed, or are changed negatively as the reason to use less effective aircraft is reduced by the narrow band of ENY values.
The ENY value needs to be able to be raised as an aircraft's usage is reduced just as easily as the ENY value is lowered as an aircraft's usage increases.
------------------
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother
Bring the Spitfire F.MkXIVc to Aces High!!!
Sisu
-Karnak
