I like this idea. It just seems right from a historical perspective. Kills were and still are awarded to pilots who cause enemy planes to crash due to their actions. Some examples:
- First night of Desert Storm: An EF-111 was intercepted by a Mirage F1 and chased. The 111 evaded at high speed and low altitude, eventually causing the Mirage to crash trying to follow his maneuvers. The 111 was awarded the kill. There are some sources online that state that a nearby F-15 was awarded the kill, but my understanding (and I was first told this during my initial officer training course) is that the 111 was given the kill.
- Just after Desert Storm: An F-15C fired a missile at an Iraqi fighter, killing it. Another Iraq aircraft nearby (PC-9) witnessed this, and ejected, knowing (correctly) that he was next. The Eagle driver was awarded 2 kills.
- In WW2: Chuck Yeager approached firing position on a pair of Bf-109s, one of which maneuvered hard, running into its wingman, destroying both. Yeager was awarded both kills.
Ideally the proxy system would only award kills caused by the opponent's actions. Such as I pull a hard turn and the aircraft following me stalls, spins, and crashes. Or I dive straight towards the ground in a P-40, and the Bf-109 following me compresses and crashes. Or due to maneuvering in mountainous terrain, I cause my foe to hit the side of a mountain. Even cases where somebody recognizes the inevitable and decides to bail out similar to the F-15 incident detailed above (Me-262 encounters a Mosquito XVI for instance) should result in a kill being awarded.
However, I recognize that the game cannot tell intent, and it often falsely assigns credit for an unearned kill. That is a technical limitation and I am OK with that, but the ack situation is different. It would be easy to determine if the ack did the preponderance of the damage, and the kill should be awarded accordingly. It has nothing to do with liking to vulch or not.
