Ranks

[Fariz]

Eskimo explained it good. You can find how the scoring system works in the AH help, or read Eskimo post. Better do it both. Actually to be high you need to be good in everything. Some games "features" or "bugs" can improve your ranking big way also, like the latest bug with getting capture in attacking category.

Those who say that rank is nothing, and those who overprise it are both wrong. Actually, you are fighting pilot, not his rank. If he fights good, gives you a hard time, and even kills you -- send him <S>. If he is 1st or 1000th does not matter here, he put your abilities close to extreme and still showed you that you have some space to progress.

I once payed a lot of attention to ranks, now I fly for strat almost exclusively -- and I found that any way you play is justified, while it is interesting for you and you have a respect for other players.

Fariz

[GRUNHERZ]

The most important factor is gunnery hit %.

I can have very high K/D of 5/1 or over 10 to 1 or better if I try and fly carefully.

I can have very good kills per sortie.

I can have kills/time in the .30s.

But my gunnery is very low, something like .05 .

So I always rank very low in fighters, i rarely if ever get into the 100s.

[GRUNHERZ]

But sometimes its a complete potato peelin mystery to me. Ive seen a few times where im significantly higher than a guy in every fighter category yet he is ranked much better in figters.

So after seeing things like that I just dont care!  

[eskimo2]

GRUNHETZ;
The most important thing for YOU is hit %.
For me it is either K/S or Points.
They are all weighted the same.
Whatever your weakest area is, is most important for you, not everyone.

eskimo

[LLv34_Snefens]

Eskimo got it all right.

What you need to improve your rank is individual. To gain rank fast, improve the stat you are doing worst in.

Speaking of fighter rank I personally need more points. I don't fly much so I am pretty low in that catagory. Rest of my skills are around average excecpt my hit% which is good.

[SirLoin]

I feel the scoring is definitly porked...Last tour Terror had very average stats(no offense Bro Terror) but was ranked #1 for some time comapred to others that had better stats in every category I noticed..In fact it was a joke..Also I find if you do well in the first week with kills,shoot % etc..for some reason your ranking seems to remain high as opposed to trying to climb in the latter weeks,even if you score very well...I know I'm wrong with this analogy,but this is my impressions of how the rankings has worked for me.

[Durr]

I dunno about that.  I hardly got to fly last month because of working until the end of the month. Going into the last week I was ranked like 1200.  After about five days of intense flying i moved up to 356 for the final ranking. After playing almost every night this month so far I am pretty much about the same place (370 i think) after briefly being as high the upper 200s. Two good spells of futile efforts at defending airfields against overwhelming numbers of vulchers dropped me back and murdered my k/d ratio.  So I dont think first or last of month has much to do with it.  It is a purely mathematical system and as such, just like the BCS system for determining which teams play in the national championship bowl series in college football, it will get criticism for not taking into account more subjective factors.  However as has been well stated in previous posts, take it or leave it, it does what its intended to do. Those that dont like it, what would you prefer, not having one at all?  In that case, just ignore it.  Those of us that like it can enjoy browsing through the statistics to our hearts content.  I think there is something genetic in guys though that just causes us to like useless statistics.  What else can explain the popularity of sports statistics that are kept on everything conceivable. example: "Joe Blow is at the plate, he is .500 against lefthanded, Catholic pitchers from the Northeast." Why else would I happily sit here eating pizza, drinking coke, and poring over endless pages of AH statistics dating back to the summer.    

[eskimo2]

There is a bug that ranks a few folks unusually high or even #1, for no apparent reason.  Usually it is temporary (an hour or two), but sometimes they hold a high rank at the end of a tour.

eskimo

[stegor]

Ive got the sensation that rank is not useful in judging the skill everyone flies.
I mean if u fly conservative and u try to land safely, u have a small number of kill and so little death, u have a high K/D but sure your K/time on line is very small, u will never had a position in the first 100.
If u fly furball,u  kill a lot but die a lot as well, your k/D is poor but u have a high K/time on line, and your position is surely higher.
Despite the fact that everyone is free to fly as he likes, what u think is the more realistic between two, and which of two would be encouraged with a good pointing system??
Anyway i agree that statistics are useful for personal use, to improve the way you flight, to know what are your improvement areas, and not to compare players skillness (almost not all)

[WxMan]

I had to pick up the con (get him to follow me) south away from the field. I was low on fuel and knew I would lose those 8 perk points, but that wasn't important. The important thing was to drag that P38 as far south as I could and not kill him. If I kill him he ups back at his base where our goon is. So, in order to reach our goal I had to get killed.  I ran outa fuel and let the P38 kill me. He was 15 miles away from his field.  

hblair I was the 38, flying it for the 1st time in months. I was aware of you dragging me south to accomplish your mission <S>. I was surprised I achieved a victory, even more so when I discovered it was you. Now that I know the circumstances, I know how lucky I was.

But... I did make it back to the town and killed your goon.