phentop,
glad to hear you are practising offline too, it does help.
Try this: Use the target function offline to test how your guns work. Type .target 1200 into the text buffer then turn to the North and shoot at the suspended target.
Do it again with .target 400.
Notice the difference. At 1200 you are lucky to even hit near the centre of the target. When your bullets do arrive from 1200 yards away they dont have enough energy to do any real damage so unless you are flying cannon armed planes forget it.
My advice is to hold your fire until you are within 500yds. 300 yards is good, 200 even better. Practice doing this offline with the drones an experiment with convergence settings in the 400 - 200 yd range. Find a setting you like and stick to it for a while.
What this all means is that you need to be able to get your aircraft to "whites of the eyes" range before you open fire. This will take some pratice but when you start getting there you will find it very rewarding. Suddenly Victory # 5 messages are not just for other people
Good luck. Stick with it and enjoy.