LaserSailor-
I don't think you know very much about what you're asking, or you would never have mentioned it. You obviously never flew AW or you'd know that whatever it's problems, client-side gunnery like in AH is so much better than server-side gunnery that it's like night and day. Also, AFAIK, connection speed has no effect on what different players see. But I'm less sure about that so I'll save it for later. I'm absolutely certain about the problems of host-side gunnery, however, so I'll explain it first.
Server-side gunnery TOTALLY bites. This is because it creates 3 different opinions on where you are compared to the target: yours, the target's, and the host's. And guess what? Only the host's opinion counts. But the host's opinion NEVER agrees with that of any player, because of the inevitable lag between host and FE.
The result is that the target is NEVER where you see it on your FE. That's the ONLY thing you can be sure of. So when you take a shot, you look at the target as you see it, and have to guess where the host thinks it is. Normally, due to lag, the target is further along than you see it. Thus, you have to lead WAY more than it looks like you need to. Your lead has to double the amount of lag because now gunnery computations have to go 2 ways, PLUS whatever lead the deflection calls for. So you put your bullets way out into empty space and it looks to you like a complete miss. But if you're LUCKY, your bullets happen to intersect with where the host thinks the target is and so you get hits. Conversely, if you see your tracer going right into the target as you see it, you can be certain you're missing because you know the host doesn't think the target's there.
Given this outline, you can easily see how other problems can arise from this system. Blanks, for example, in zero-deflection shots. There, lead doen't matter, but if the target's warpy and he's really elsewhere according to the host, you can't hit him at all. What folks call "blanks" in AH is something else entirely and is nowhere near as bad, nor as common, as true blanks in server-side gunnery systems. So all things considered, AH's system is way better than any host-side system can ever be.
Now, as to connection speed, AFAIK it has no effect on what folks see. In peer-to-peer TCP/IP games, connection speed makes a huge difference. And is a big advantage. However, AH is client-server and the AH host, AFAIK, talks to everybody at the same speed. This speed is slow enough not to tax dial-up players, and because it's equal for everybody, nobody's got an advantage or disadvantage based on connection speed. Those with broadband just don't use much of their capacity when playing AH. After all, it's just some numbers about positions and speeds that get exchanged--all the graphics are done on your FE. It's amazing how little bandwidth it really takes to run a game like AH.
