CFS2 Quick Combat Scoring Algorithm?

[RichNagel]

Does anyone have any idea how the scoring system works for CFS2 in Quick Combat? I swear, sometimes it doesn't make any sense.

*MOST* of the time I'll receive 500 points for an aircraft kill, but not *ALL* of the time. It doesn't seem to be affected by hit accuracy, or the amount of time that it takes me to shoot down an enemy aircraft either.

I just did a test. I set the realism at the hardest/most realistic setting (100%, which is the way that I normally fly), along with "Ace" skill level for the enemies, and "Neutral" for the enemy spawning condition. The number of enemies was set for 1, and were also set to respawn.

I was flying the Corsair, and my enemies were Georges.

Outcome:

1st enemy shot down: 500 points
2nd enemy shot down: 100 points
3rd enemy shot down: 500 points
4th enemy shot down: 300 points

...for a total of 1400 points.

A lot of the time running the exact same test, I'll see 300 points for the first kill, and then 500 points for each preceding kill, but that doesn't seem to be consistent... sometimes it's 500 for EACH kill, sometimes NOT.

So.... what the heck gives here? Doesn't make any sense to me (?).

[glh]

My GUESS is that your points are calculated on:

1.) WHERE you are hitting the enemy aircraft and

2.) QUANTITY of ammunition used

You will get a lot more points with a 1-second burst that kills the pilot (fight's over) than a 5-second total burst
that shreds the plane and eventually drops it from damage effect.

[SW]

Very interesting question.

I've noticed before that I might get 95 points for the first kill, then 100 or 200 for the next kill. I suspect it has something to do with the enemies - when you set the enemy level to Veteran or Ace I've always assumed that not *all* of them are Veteran - i.e. they are a mix of rookie and veteran.

Therefore you would get 95 for victory over the rookie but a higher score for a veteran. Perhaps I see a start score of 95 often 'cause the rookie obligingly turns right in front of you at the start of the fight??

I have no idea if there's any validity in what I'm saying, it could be complete and utter rubbish!

Cheers,

Steve

[RichNagel]

My GUESS is that your points are calculated on:

1.) WHERE you are hitting the enemy aircraft and

2.) QUANTITY of ammunition used

You will get a lot more points with a 1-second burst that kills the pilot (fight's over) than a 5-second total burst
that shreds the plane and eventually drops it from damage effect.

I'm not sure if that's a factor (although it should be IMO). I've seen 500 points when using a lot of ammo to shoot down an enemy (as can be seen on the Advanced Info map screen, in the hit/miss percentage of the "Stats" section ), as well as 300 points when using an extremely small amount of ammo.

P.S. One way that I've been testing this is by using the "Slew" feature... you can slew directly behind a paused enemy, fire a short burst, and down the enemy hardly with any ammo at all. OR alternatively, fire a lot of ammo at the outer portions of the enemy's plane (making contact, but directed towards wingtips and such; that are registered as actual hits, but take more ammo for a kill).

I've noticed before that I might get 95 points for the first kill, then 100 or 200 for the next kill. I suspect it has something to do with the enemies - when you set the enemy level to Veteran or Ace I've always assumed that not *all* of them are Veteran - i.e. they are a mix of rookie and veteran.

Therefore you would get 95 for victory over the rookie but a higher score for a veteran. Perhaps I see a start score of 95 often 'cause the rookie obligingly turns right in front of you at the start of the fight??

I've always thought that all of the enemies were the same skill level, unless you have them set for random skill. Generally it comes out to 100 points for Rookie, 300 for Veteran, and 500 for Ace (IIRC).

That being said, maybe the game does indeed actually spawn enemies of different skill levels, regardless of what you set before Quick Combat.


Anyways, thanks for the input, guys. Really a strange thing, they should have documented the scoring better in the game's docs.

On the other hand, the info would PROBABLY be INCORRECT in the first place (you know, coming from Mickey$oft)... e.g. "Enter your score at the end of Quick Combat on the top-ten screen" LOL!

[RichNagel]

BTW, I recently did a few tests with a custom single mission. Note that for missions, you require the addon module "CFO_Weather.dll" in order to display the current score when playing missions or campaigns (the score is displayed in CF2's windowed-mode title bar).

It appears that any enemies that you shoot down that are set for "Ace" indeed reward 500 points, and fixed preset lesser amounts for "Veteran" and "Rookie". This scoring scheme seems 100% consistent, regardless of amount of hits, time it takes to shoot down the enemy, etc...

This leads me to believe that what SW theorized just might be the basis of the problem in Quick Combat.

I have a hunch that it just might a bug in CFS2, whereby the game doesn't always spawn the skill of enemies that you have configured before starting a Quick Combat game.

(Who wouldda thunk... a BUG in a Mickey$oft product? Naaaahhhhhh... LOL!)

[bearcat241]

Rich,

Just to add a recent discovery to this topic, i've been going through my hangar selecting some alternate choices for certain mission/campaign installations. I like to use Quickcom to qualify my selections, so i've been working in this mode a lot lately. To your question about the scoring algorithm, it seems that the number of enemies (E/A) per wave vs number of F/A has a huge bearing on the scoring. When i go one-on-two i score fewer points per kill, but when i go one-on-four or more, the points per kill is much higher and the score builds faster.

[RichNagel]

Thanks for that research and info, bearcat241!

I'll have to check that out. It definitely would make perfect sense if it is consistent. As, the more of a disadvantage that the player is, the more the scoring multiplier.

That would also explain why I've seen so many 300's for my first kill during an 8 vs 8 QC game, and then higher (500's) for each kill afterwards (when some of my wingmen have been shot down).

[RichNagel]

I've been doing a bit more testing with 1 vs 1, with enemy aircraft respawns enabled.

It seems that if I set the enemy skill level to "Rookie", the outcome is always 100 points per enemy downed. Similarly, if I set the enemy skill level to "Veteran", it's always 300 points per enemy downed.

Now, if I set the enemy skill level to "Ace", that's were I'm seeing a combination of 300's and 500's (and maybe 100's as well) for the downed enemies.

It's weird... it's as if that the "Ace" enemy skill level is bugged in the game, almost as if the game is confusing/mixing the "Ace" and "Random" enemy skill level settings.

Anyhow, I haven't tried multiple enemies vs multiple friendlies yet, but the above is what I noted with 1 vs 1.