No kills/death is accurate, because death can be skewed by milk runners, perk farmers, 2 week newbies using crutches, timid cowardly pilots, attacking ground targets, NOT attacking ground targets, meanwhile the kills could all remain very high, while deaths fluctuate wildly.
Wrong again Krusty. Total Kills tells almost the exact same information as the stat of Plane Popularity does. K/D shows to what degree that plane in particular is dominating. As popularity increases, game play variation that you described above goes to the norm of the MA. The reasons you listed above are why you can't only look at K/D when popularity might be low. (Less than say, 5% of total kills) So I guess I'd agree with you k/d is a worthless stat if there isn't a high sample size...just like any other stat.
So what popularity numbers in combination with what k/d numbers constitute a perk justification?
Good question. It would vary to some degree but there probably are some minimum values that need to be achieved first. Both would have to be quite high compared to the other unperked aircraft and the greater standard deviations one is further from the norm, the less the other would have to be.
If I had to throw some random stats out there for you, I'd say plane popularity would have to be in >15% range of total sorties. K/D would have to be maybe in the range >1.4? And depending on exactly where each number falls in, the other wouldn't have to be quite as high to justify perk.
If the Ta152 could quadruple its following and still maintain a dominating K/D, I think you could almost justify perking it again. I don't think that's possible though because it shouldn't be a perk worthy plane performance wise, and I have a hard time believing it could quadruple its following and have all those new 152 pilots dominate with it like the few that do currently. If however it could somehow acquire a massive following that learn how to use it to its strengths and crush the MA, it would be affecting the balance of the MA. Perk would be necessary.
On the same token, if the Spit16 could raise its average K/D of say.. 1.1 to 1.6, then you can talk perk. This is where the whole balance thing comes into play.