Squad Ranks (What does it mean)

[A8TOOL]

hello gents,



My take on scoring in AH goes like this: its supposed to be a simulator (says so right on the homepage) and, therefore, balance is very important.  We have a squadie who is a great pilot but refuses to land.  He just flies until he is killed or runs out of fuel.  Occasionally he'll run out of ammo and then he'll land, if its close enough, to rearm.  If its not close enough he just bails.  As a result his score sucks.  WRONG    You don't need to land to score well



 

You don't need to land to score well.  If you checked you'd notice I hardly ever land. I fight till dead, out of fuel or ammo and then return home only if I felt like it or was challenging enough (ie 1/2 wing/ Pilot Wound)

 1/3 of my lands scored were due to being at the wrong base, having the wrong loadout, wrong squad skin for a mission or was in a gv already on base.

I understand that some people try their best to stay alive and landing successfully is very important to them. For me doing that just took the fun out of the game. Trying to stay alive means running and I'm not a runner.....unless resources like ammo, fuel, blood or parts were almost gone.

Everyone plays the game differently but for me taking bases, fighting till dead and completing squad objectives was where it was at. i could always get another plane.


In Mid War I (A8T00L with zero's) was able to rank #1 back in Sept. 08 tour 104 doing just that. My squad name was The Low #Side and I switched sides often and fought the hordes there alone while looking for a new squad to hang with. If your well rounded score will just happen on it's own and you don't need to land to obtain it.



Late War Tour 113 Statistics for TOOLS

   Fighter     Bomber     Attack     Veh./Boat     Total
Kills     77    0    392    85    554
Assists    8    0    59    22    89
Sorties    51    11    281    168    511
 Landed    7    6    59    42    114
 Bailed    7    0    18    0    25
 Ditched    2    2    11    8    23
 Captured    14    1    37    10    62
 Deaths    19    1    148    107    275
 Discos    2    1    8    1    12
Time    10:27  3:05    51:00  17:00 81:34
Rank    167    50    65    109    24

Late War Tour 110 Statistics for TOOLS
   Fighter     Bomber     Attack     Veh./Boat     Total
Kills         100    0    499    50    649
Assists    10    0    93    17    120
Sorties    42    13    346    137    538
 Landed    13    9    55    38    115

[Lusche]

We have a squadie who is a great pilot but refuses to land.  He just flies until he is killed or runs out of fuel.  Occasionally he'll run out of ammo and then he'll land, if its close enough, to rearm.  If its not close enough he just bails.  As a result his score sucks. 

Actually, he can get a great fighter rank that way, because most players overrate the effect a high K/D has over K/H and K/S.
Fly 5mins, fight 5mins and kill 4 enemies, then bail (or die) and repeat, instead of flying home, will give you a great K/H.
The benefits of having a high K/D which many players strive to achieve, are quickly diminishing above ~4-5. But having a K/H of 12 instead of 8 makes a huge difference.
He most probably would have a much better rank than a survivalist like me with a K/D of >10, but a much lower K/H.

[zack1234]

  boring boring boring boring boring

[Steve]

Actually, he can get a great fighter rank that way, because most players overrate the effect a high K/D has over K/H and K/S.
Fly 5mins, fight 5mins and kill 4 enemies, then bail (or die) and repeat, instead of flying home, will give you a great K/H.
The benefits of having a high K/D which many players strive to achieve, are quickly diminishing above ~4-5. But having a K/H of 12 instead of 8 makes a huge difference.
He most probably would have a much better rank than a survivalist like me with a K/D of >10, but a much lower K/H.

Lusche is right.  Once you get past a K/D of 5, there are significantly diminishing returns as far as rank goes. From a rank perspective, if your K/D was 5 or over, you'd be better off augering, instead of rtb'ing,  and thus not hurting your K/H, as the snail mentioned.

[Shuffler]

A high score means your better at nothing than the other guy. You want a good score auger into an enemy field ever so often. You want a good score... fly through enemy hangars while ack is up, over and over till missing parts prohibit controlled flight. You want good score fly into a mob and see how many you can get before you either get shot down or your plane doesn't have enough control surface to dance.

I swear.... I sometimes think you get score for how many new birds they have to supply you because the others were shot out from under you. I get shot down a whole lot. Folks in our squad just seem to shoot way more down than they do of us. Skill?? Luck?? Planet alignments? Who knows....... but it is fun...... Have "FUN" and all the other less important things will come in line on their own.

[CAP1]

A high score means your better at nothing than the other guy. You want a good score auger into an enemy field ever so often. You want a good score... fly through enemy hangars while ack is up, over and over till missing parts prohibit controlled flight. You want good score fly into a mob and see how many you can get before you either get shot down or your plane doesn't have enough control surface to dance.

I swear.... I sometimes think you get score for how many new birds they have to supply you because the others were shot out from under you. I get shot down a whole lot. Folks in our squad just seem to shoot way more down than they do of us. Skill?? Luck?? Planet alignments? Who knows....... but it is fun...... Have "FUN" and all the other less important things will come in line on their own.

what is this "fun"  you speak of??   

[Nutzoid]

I suck at this game! My K/D sucks, my K/H sucks, my rank sucks, everything sucks about my stats! Bottom line though, I do love this game and I have FUN! The AH community is the best damn group of folks I've had the pleasure to come in contact with, bar none! 

I would like to say one thing about rank however, and the misconception that "rank" somehow indicates a pilots skill. Try this.... log off the game for a few days, I know it's darn near impossible, then log back in and see where your rank is. Now I'm not sure what all of the computations are in sorting it out, but I would be willing to bet ones rank changes, and my guess would be for the worse. Again, I'm not trying to knock anyone's rank, or skill or whatever, just making a point that even if you don't do a thing in-game, your rank will change and chances are, not for the better.

All that to say this, shouldn't, couldn't a better way to measure ones skill progression be devised than the one we now have?

Just a thought.

[Shuffler]

Odd..... mine gets better if I don't fly  what's up with that?

[BlueNova]

Nutzoid,

As I was trying to say and clearly failing that its how one uses the metric that matters.  Damn me for being inarticulate.  Its not about "skill" but about measuring compliance with a balancing mechanism.  I have the same problem with some of the guys in the gym.  The think its called weight lifting and not weight training.  They get all caught up in the 'how much' they lift and not if they doing it correctly or other aspects of health.  However, just because how much weight one lifts does not determine your health it does not mean it isn't worth tracking.  You just have to use the metric in the way it is intended.  In this case the score is not intended soley to measure ones skill at a particular task.

[xbrit]

Odd..... mine gets better if I don't fly  what's up with that?

Baaah   you only shoot those big fighters !!

[Shuffler]

My B-38 has a hole in it from the factory. I have problems with folks thinking they can fly through it.

[Pawz]

I looked just now for the first time in a while and the 80th is 2nd in fighters, and 42 overall.  Considering we're furballers at heart I guess it confirms that because of the fighter rank but I still don't think it means much.

2nd? Oh boy when I get back I'll just have do something about this.

[Big Rat]

Well one of the great things about this game is you can fly it for whatever goals you want to achieve.  If you are going for score then so be it, not my thing anymore, but I won't begrudge those that do.  If I go into the MA's it's to have fun, with my online friends.  Whether I'm fighting with them or against them I find it fun either way.  I'd deffinitly not put my score ahead of my squaddies or friends for that matter.  I once sacrificed one of my precious hogs for a squaddie to get away with a wounded bird. Repeatedly forcing the bandit off my squaddies 6 and then forcing the fight with the more maneuverable plane when my squaddie was going on final approach with half a wing.  It was a fun running fight to the end, when my main goal was getting my squaddie back safe, rather then protecting my score. My goals in this game have changed over the past three years from, going for the good score and high K/D ratio to trying to teach others what I have learned.  So I tend to spend more time in the TA then the MA's anymore.  But occasionally I have to go in the MA's to get my CAS support fix by trying to find lligaf or Ratpack and throw eggs at their tanks with my A20 .  And there's always FSO

 
BigRat 

[A8HatTrick]

In order to achieve a good pilot score you need to do the following:


GV's :

1. Take a GV with rockets and destroy a building with as few rockets as possible.
2. Take a Wirbel or LVT to a Strat Target and level the whole thing solo, then land it on cement at the strat. Do this as often as possible.
3. Get at a minimum 2 GV Base Captures
4. Then just do your normal tanking... and the better the K/D Ratio the better

Bombers :

1. Take a JU87 with the big bomb, go hit a City or at least a Strat, and aim for a cluster of buildings. You will destroy 10-25 buildings with 1 bomb, go land and re-arm, rinse repeat until you get notices or it gets hairy. Try and land it if you can. Do this as often as possible.
2. Get at a minimum 2 Base Captures.
3. Never fly another bomber sortie. 300,000 points per sortie, 1,200,000 total points, 15-20% Bombing.

Attack :

1. Do the same JU87 Trick as often as possible that you did with bombers. This should keep your bombing % above 1% along with all the normal egg dropping you will be doing.
2. Take a P51B of high ENY 38 and kill GV's when they are attacking your base, safe and easy K/D ratio work, land and rearm as they continue to respawn.
3. Fly your normal Attack routine and you should be fine.

Fighter :

1. Fly a High ENY Cannon plane (190A8) and go bomber hunting as often as possible, big points there.
2. Stick to furballs when you can, helps keep your time score down (Kills per hour) and fly mid range ENY acft if ya can. 15-20's.
3. Always try and LAND, avoid dying, even if it means no fun.  If you want to just whack a mole till ya die, go in Attack Mode, you can make up the K/D ratio by killing GV's there.
4. Never straffe ground targets or GV's, or take ord on a fighter, your only hurting your score and the kills dont count that you get from Air to Ground.


Notes:

1. If you do this, you can end up with a mid 100 rank with about 15 hours of playing time.
2. Accept the fact that you are now a score weenie.

If you want to know how to get a high Squad Score, have everyone in the squad do this, and have a few people Drop off troops, and as they are running to the map room, have them exit the sortie, and launch in attack mode.  Individual score does not track Attack captures, but a glitch in the scoring system does it for Squad score. This will help a ton.

K/D & Fighter/Attack Gun Hit % are the only true measure of talent in the game, not score.  But "Your Score" is usefull if you like to challenge yourself. Just accept the fact that doing any of the above is only cheating yourself. They are just loopholes in the methodology of the scoring system and the top 50 Players in the game know all of these secrets and use them in one form or another.

[Steve]

1. Fly a High ENY Cannon plane (190A8) and go bomber hunting as often as possible, big points there.
2. Stick to furballs when you can, helps keep your time score down (Kills per hour) and fly mid range ENY acft if ya can. 15-20's.
3. Always try and LAND, avoid dying, even if it means no fun.  If you want to just whack a mole till ya die, go in Attack Mode, you can make up the K/D ratio by killing GV's there.
4. Never straffe ground targets or GV's, or take ord on a fighter, your only hurting your score and the kills dont count that you get from Air to Ground.

well 1 out of 4 is correct. "How to" is well documented elsewhere.  Suffice it to say that 1-3 are wrong, or at least there  are much more effective ways.