Eddie you're awesome! BTW, the one in the back with the suit and cigar is me.
From what I can tell, "skill" is calculated as follows:
weapon factor * (victim skill * skill fraction)
Where "weapon factor" is a number based on the difficulty of the weapon used, "victim skill" is the victims' current skill level and "skill fraction" is a set number that affects how fast the skill level rises and falls.
In the examples I've seen, skill fraction = 1/1000. A skill fraction of 1/100 would mean you would get 10 times as many points gained or lost than if it's set to 1/1000.
Your victim also loses the amount of skill you win, so it's essentially "stealing" their skill points.
Example:
If an LR300 has a weapon factor of 2, your victim has the default start skill level of 1000 and the skill fraction is set to 1/1000, the equation is as follows:
2 * (1000 * 1/1000)
Which in this case, results in "2". So you gain 2 points and your victim loses 2, so they now have 998.
Of course, if you kill players with a higher skill level, you get more points. Using the same example of the LR300 having a factor of 2, but this time you're attacking a player with 2000 skill points, you get this:
2 * (2000 * 1/1000)
Which results in 4 skill points being awarded to you, and 4 taken away from them. Your victim now has 1996 skill points. So basically, if you want to get to higher skill levels fast then you need to kill the players who are at the top of the table.
I wouldn't worry about this too much though, we are revising our stats system in the future and it may not calculate skill this way. In fact, if anyone has any suggestions as to how they think skill should be calculated, let us know!