Squad Ranks (What does it mean)

[Lusche]

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.

1+2 ENY has no influence on score or ranking whatsoever. It only is important for getting perk points. The true scoremonkey flies Tempest in fighter mode
"3. Always try and LAND, avoid dying, even if it means no fun" - not really. To get a high rank you don't only have to kill, but also to kill QUICKLY. Protecting K/D in expense on K/H may easily cripple your rank. See Steves and mine explanations in this thread.

[Chalenge]

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)

This is misleading because it really doesnt matter what A8TOOL does depending on what you consider that word 'well' to mean. If you die frequently then you are not landing points and points WILL make the difference quickly depending on the number of sorties flown. Of course if you put in 500 fighter sorties then it will be hard for someone with just 50 fighter sorties to catch you but if you (A8TOOL) die every sortie then it will be very possible for someone landing their kills to outscore you. It does matter how quickly you kill how well you shoot and exactly WHAT you shoot. Surprisingly GOONS are worth the most points of any airplane so those conga lines you see chasing fighters should really be after the goon kill and not some silly fighter.

[A8HatTrick]

179
112
174
224
New Baby in the house X 4 Months
267
99
117
100
192
179
151
95
119
107 (Tour 97)

Tired of looking it up. Regardless, it works for me, I fly by those rules the first 2 weeks of the tour, then play normal the last 2 weeks of the month.  Keeps my score respectable. But typically I am sub 100 prior to "letting loose" for the rest of the month.

I am sure there are more specific strategies, but it works for me. Especially the bomber, where I am typically in the top 50 If I only fly JU87's and dont fly the normal bombers.

[A8HatTrick]

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.

But yeah, my Fighter is always mid 900's, my K/D and hit % are great, but I get maybee 20 sorties in a month in Fighter, and my Kills per hour are always horrible. Still haven't found the magic to get my fighter score down.

But I only do the score to help the squad out a bit and to keep at least some resemblance of my A Type personality happy.

EDIT:

Exactly Snailman, per our messages, I am going to try some new concepts per your advice.  Don't know why I had in my head that ENY was a score multiplier.

[Lusche]

One thing I may add for every aspiring scoremonkey:

Doing things FOR score isn't wrong and can be fun too.
However, your road of enjoyment may lead downhill quite quickly if you start to stop doing certain things that you would enjoy otherwise, because they will "hurt" your score.
For example you would like to fly a Hurricane I or C.202, but you don't as they can fly only in fighter mode, which could be hurt by dying a lot in those "lousy" planes.
Or you feel like doing a few bomber sorties, but you can't because they reduce your damage hit%
This is the way to obsession and can quickly kill your enjoyment of Aces High.

And, unless you go for #1 rank, they aren't necessary, even if you still go for score. Only for the extreme top ranks such measures are necessary, staying in top 50 is very easily possible without limiting yourself too much. If you can't even make it to top 100, you "should" work on your general skills first.

I do one SdKfz sortie each tour, a few (2-5) strat runs in wirbel and B-25 per tour. That's about it what I do for score. What is helping in addition to that is that I rarely bomb GV'S (I kill em with guns) and I love to sink cruisers with my F6F. But I still occasionally deack or kill LVTs in fighter mode If I have to, without much adverse effect on my score.

I once tried to really play for score alone in LW arena - it was exhausting, boring and not much fun. And in the end my rank wasn't any better


And on fighter rank: In tour 113 I was flying mainly Tempest and 262 - ended up #2. In tour 112 I did fly 109G-2 (a 30 eny) plane, and still ended up #10.
In the end, no one cared about either result at all but me.

Always remember: The ones that you can impress by rank are surely not the ones you want to impress at all...

[A8HatTrick]

Always remember: The ones that you can impress by rank are surely not the ones you want to impress at all...

Dunno about that, My wife said I was sexy yesterday, I had just finished cutting grass, and I was pretty rank................ (Rim Shot)

[Chalenge]

One thing I may add for every aspiring scoremonkey:

Doing things FOR score isn't wrong and can be fun too.
However, your road of enjoyment may lead downhill quite quickly if you start to stop doing certain things that you would enjoy otherwise, because they will "hurt" your score...

I dont think thats always the case. I think its just a matter of balance and opportunity and opportunity can be gamed unfortunately. Balance of activities you involve yourself of course. Opportunity will be hit or miss unless you are proactive about it or gamey.

[A8TOOL]

This is misleading because it really doesnt matter what A8TOOL does depending on what you consider that word 'well' to mean.

My definition of well in this statement was referring to landing versus ditch or bail,....dieing is a whole nother matter. You'd never catch me falling to ground missing a wing or tail unless I had no choice due to time to impact.

Ditching was a common occurrence for me. If i got caught trying to make it home I would never EVER bail on the guy and take the chance of incurring a death hoping first that a wing would come off giving me the opportunity to bail honorably.  Just my way and no one but myself cared.


Land, Ditch, Bail, is the order in which your scored. There is not such a huge difference between the three as long as you live. Lusche??? Am I right?

If you die frequently then you are not landing points and points WILL make the difference quickly depending on the number of sorties flown.
If your aim is good you can offset racking up points by obtaining a high hit %. 7 is a good average for anyone to obtain. 12+ i was able to constantly achieve and made all the difference.

It does matter how quickly you kill how well you shoot and exactly WHAT you shoot. Surprisingly GOONS are worth the most points of any airplane NEVER KNEW THAT.  In fact like A8Hatrick, I thought you got more kill points for killing low eny planes in a higher eny plane. LUSCHE????  Whats the verdict on that?

[A8TOOL]

Take it from a score junky

Doing things FOR score isn't wrong and can be fun too.
However, your road of enjoyment may lead downhill quite quickly if you start to stop doing certain things that you would enjoy otherwise, because they will "hurt" your score.

Or you feel like doing a few bomber sorties, but you can't because they reduce your damage hit %  Guilty of that but was never big on being a bomber anyway. Having a good hit % here is part of keeping your score low if bombing is not for you. One Strat sortie will do just fine but you can still end up w a good % hitting a town with a 2000 pound package and good aim

 staying in top 50 is very easily possible without limiting yourself too much. TRUE

If you can't even make it to top 100, you "should" work on your general skills first. Very True

I do one SdKfz sortie each tour,  I love to sink cruisers with my F6F. But I still occasionally deack or kill LVTs in fighter mode If I have to, without much adverse effect on my score. All True

I once tried to really play for score alone in LW arena - it was exhausting, boring and not much fun. And in the end my rank wasn't any better[/b]   Very true for those who have tried hence the JUST LET SCORE HAPPEN ON IT'S OWN statement.



In the end, no one cared about either result at all but me. Agreed, it's about you and no one else...unless your whole squad decides to go for rank a particular month.

Always remember: The ones that you can impress by rank are surely not the ones you want to impress at all...

[Vudak]

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?

Go fight someone significantly better than you in the DA for an hour or so.  Then practice a few months and try it again.  You'll both be able to tell if you've gotten better.

[LYNX]

Some of you may be aware I consistently rank top 10 over all.  However, if you look at each category individually there anywhere from 10 to 80's or even higher.  Playing all the game all the time coupled with being a strat player and survivalist at heart, marries itself with the ranking system.  I'm not the best at this or that just a Jack of all trades and master of none.

Some folk think it's a magical feat to attain a high rank.  It's really comparatively easy.  Where it gets nasty and what Snailman alluded to is the top 5 over all or in each category.   I did dipp my toes into the dark side last tour (tour 114) and obtained front page news  as number 1 over all.  I can tell you I'll never do that again.  Talk about boring but add in 6 tea spoons of pointless and you have a cuppa with a bitter after taste.....never again.

Look at me...err this.  I meant this...honest I did.   



To get these individual ranks I had to be what I would consider selfish as a strat player.

Fighter
Couldn't up at a bases with any kind of cap.  Couldn't get within 6k of a cv for fear of the puffy ack.  Couldn't go on long extended hunting sorties.  Because I'm a survivalist I couldn't spend much time out of the happy place i,e my own territory.

I don't set up vulches or pick fests and didn't attend any either.  Most of the fighter kills were bombers hence the hit % / points.

Attack
Had to do trips to strat repeatedly.  Whacked a lot more cruisers and cv's where normally I would have taken bombers and sunk the bleeders.

Bombers
Couldn't whack to many cv's.  Couldn't pork bomb in me 26's or 17's at all.  Obtained the majority of bomber class captures the gamey way by bailing LVT or M'3 with troops on the run.  (Glad that's gone now)  Couldn't bomb the whole of a strat factory only the juiciest parts.

GV
The PT is dead long live the 251.  Did a few 251 rocket runs to strat (pointless when considering the damage it does) especially when I missed Cv's with torps or rockets.  Did a lot more GV runs to strat than normal.  Didn't do hardly any resupply runs.

Field guns
If only 1 gv or plane was about I didn't up a sortie I got em with an ack gun or 5 inch.  Often use guns for recon in my normal game but found I was searching for a fighter mode opportunity a lot.  Coincidental my highest amount of kills was in a field / 5 inch gun.

[DMBEAR]

  Playing all the game all the time coupled with being a strat player and survivalist at heart, marries itself with the ranking system.

Wow.  One of the things I've noticed about you that you failed to mention was the importance of an aggresive wingman that is willing to set you up.   

[Lusche]

"It does matter how quickly you kill how well you shoot and exactly WHAT you shoot. Surprisingly GOONS are worth the most points of any airplane "NEVER KNEW THAT.  In fact like A8Hatrick, I thought you got more kill points for killing low eny planes in a higher eny plane. LUSCHE?  Whats the verdict on that?

ENY doesn't matter for score in any way. If it would, you wouldn't see Pacerr only flying the Tempest in fighter mode
Score points are simply damage points (+1 lousy single point for the kill). It's the amount of damage your bullets inflict on the enemy. Thus, killing buffs gives you more scorepoints than killing Spits, because bombers can endure much more damage.

I had several tours, where I was #1 in scorepoints, but far from being #1 in total amount of kills. That's because my main duty in AH is hunting buffs.

Example: Tour 112.
Snailman: 100K points, 446 kills = 224 points per kill. I was flying ENY 5 planes mostly
TonyJoey: 39K Points, 385 kills = 101  points per kill. He was flying Spit 9, ENY 20

Despite flying a high eny plane, he only had half my points per kill. That's because he killed a lot of fighters, I killed mostly heavy & medium bombers (more than 300)

[Getback]

It means you're anal retentive! 

[Yarbles]

I still dont understand how the squad rank is calculated. Is there not some simple formula. Or more complex formula.

(BTW here is the formula for the Chessboard Problem as in you put 1 grain of rice on square 1, 2 on 2, 4 on 3, 8 on 4, etc. I worked it out the other day and was very pleased with myself 2 to the power of 64 minus 1)

If there are deficiencies in the score system we should seek to rectify them surely not just give up on score. Most games have some meaningfull score sytem and rankings why not AH2?