If it helps think of your Front End and his FE as being wonder woman's invisible plane. No one can see it, but you can see out of it. Since you can't fight what you can't see, HT coaded it so each of those invisible planes tows the image of your plane behind you.
When your shooting, your in the invisible plane, shooting at the target towed by the other guy.
Its done on your end with your FE. If you manage the lead and the timing correctly you'll hit the other guys towed target. At that point AH sends the other guy a packet of info that says you've been shot in (this location) with (These guns) taking (this much) damage. Your FE calculates the damage, your wing falls off, your pilot is dead you go poof.
So the gunnery side is actually pretty simple, with one minor caveat.
When your in a fight with someone, your not seeing his invisible plane where he sits with the guns.
Your seeing the plane shaped target that he is towing behind him. And the rope length towing is is directly tied to his connection to HTC. So he is actually closer to you than it appears, he may be a lot closer. He may in fact be almost ready to shoot, depending on where you see his towed target, and what maneuvers your both doing.
Now with collisions the same situation apply's, but remember, you can't see, or run into him, in his invisible plane. You can only run into his towed target. But the ropes are not the same length! So you have no way of being able to tell where he is. All you can see is his towed target. This is why you can not "ram". In order to do a true ram you would have to know how long his rope is, then try to fly ahead of his towed target so that he runs into your towed target. But you don't really even know how long your rope is, much less his.
So up to this point no one has ever posted film proving that it is even possible. So there is no "Ram"
So on his FE, he see's you coming, he sees that you are going to run into each other, and he jerks his stick, causing his plane to move and just miss hitting your towed target. So on "His FE" there was no collision. He saw a miss, no collision happened, so he took no damage. Not from a collision, if you were shooting yes he'd take that damage. But he has not run into anything. So he will not take damage from running into something.
On your invisible plane you didn't see it happening quite in time. So you run into the plane shaped target he's towing. Your FE goes "Danger Will Robinson!" Does the math to see which parts intersected with which parts, does the damage to your plane, and sends him the message that on your FE you ran into him.
Remember, you did not run into him, you ran into his towed target. You can't run into him, because he's in Wonder Woman's invisible plane.
The other thing that comes into play, is that just before you run into his towed target, the other guy may be shooting at you as well. So you get all the damage all at once, from both his guns, and your collision.
And you go Poof, and your back in the tower shaking your fist and cursing the other guy.
When you should be looking in the mirror and saying "Grow UP" Cause only you can prevent collisions.
Only you can educate yourself so that you understand what happens and how to avoid it.
If you were in a collision, its Y O U R fault.
Your control of your airplane put you in that situation.
No exceptions, no excuses, no whining.
Fly to miss the other guy, and you will.
