Originally posted by Ripsnort
Time online=More kills=Higher ranking. Period.
For the most part I agree with you. It's doubtful you'll find anyone who flies an hour a day achieving the kind of points necessary to rank highly. Ceteris parebis, the guy who flies more frequently always ranks higher.
Wotan also clearly understates the case for vulching, as many "elite" pilots plan to participate in missions or sorties with a high probability of vulching involved. So it's not so much a matter of someone who, as Wotan states, "vulches just like you all the guys that are ranked lower." It's a matter of degree. Vulching almost always increases K/D, K/S, K/T, and hit percentage. If you vulch far more than the average player, these stats will reflect that. In any event, it wouldn't be uncommon to score vulch-likely sorties in the Fighter category and other missions as Attack, thereby inflating Fighter stats.
Case in point: I usually score my missions as Attack because I'm lazy and don't care about score anyway. One tour (32 I believe), the only fighter missions I flew were in Seafires from CVs parked right near enemy bases. The result of such easy access to vulching: K/D of 6.6, K/S of 4.0, K/T of 20.16, and a hit percentage greater than 20%. Skillful? Not really, but the stats reflect my greater than average propensity to vulch that tour. Only points kept me from achieving a higher overall fighter rank (based on ranking by individual stats) because I didn't fly enough total hours to engage in even more vulching opportunities.
-- Todd/Leviathn
