Necropost alert!!
I've just read the entire thread and I see a lot of denial that pilots exploit warp on demand as well as accusations of warp on demand that could be either high latency or unintentional lag events.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I've spent some time experimenting with warp in warbirds, freehost, air warrior.....but not here yet since I am on a cell phone connex using edge network and any connection funny business just drops the connection entirely.
Nobody has complained that I am warping because my connection is stable even if the latency is relatively high but the 300ms connex could eventually show itself when in a wild turning fight with lots of reverses.......it just hasn't yet because Aces High has some pretty good smoothing code.
Unintentional warping can benefit or hinder either party in a 1 VS 1 battle without favoring one exclusively through the length of the battle.
Here is one scenario with two different actions by the "chasee" just before and during the lag event.
BEING THE CHASER IN A TAIL CHASE SCENARIO WITH CHASEE EXPERIENCING UNINTENTIONAL LAG:
If you're closing while tail chasing someone and they experience a lag event, the smoothing code will display thier plane on your front end to continue doing whatever the server's last update has thier control position.
If thier controls were set for straight and level at the time of lag, thier plane will continue straight and level even if they pulled hard just after the lag event.
If they were in the act of pulling at the time of the lag, the server will show them to continue turning even if the person reversed or relaxed input just after the lag event.
During this lag, the server is using only your front end as reporting "the truth" concerning position....until the lagger's connection returns and reports his new position, speed, attitude, and control deflection.
1. So.....you're chasing a con in a straight and level tail chase who experiences unintentional lag just as you close to gun range......he's making no course correction....
Your opponent will continue straight and level and your shooting his plane that is displayed on your front end should land the hits (lets say lethal cannon hits) during this period and his front end will record the damage once connection is re-established and he blows up .......pretty much where you expect him to be and you might not notice that there was any lag event at all.
2. So.....you're chasing a con in a straight and level tail chase who experiences unintentional lag just as you close to gun range......he's made a hard break just after the lag event began.
In this case, he will still show up as still flying straight and level as mentioned in instance #1 above and your landing lethal cannon hits will still count once connection is established.
The difference is that, on re-establishing connection, his plane will be yanked away by "the hand of god".
Luckily you landed letal hits and he still blows up.....just somewhere other than in front of you.
3. So.....you're chasing a con in a straight and level tail chase who experiences unintentional lag just as you close to gun range......he broke hard just before the lag event began.
You will see what looks like a normal instantaneous turn rate that will start looking more and more unreal as time passes.
Once the lagger's connex has returned, the "hand of god" will pull him to the position reported by his front end.
If he simply held the turn during the event, the "hand of god" will probably put him relatively near to where you expect him to be with only a small amount of deviation.
If he reversed or leveled during the lag event, the he will likely disappear from your field of view and end up somewhere you did not expect once connection has returned while you continue to follow his break turn wondering where he went.
This is just one scenario with a few different actions just before and during the lag event.
It's also possible that there are varying degrees of lag and that certain information such as position data making it through while other information such as control inputs does not .....or maybe everything but hit reporting gets updated.....not fully sure on aces high.
Knowing how the smoothing code works is how intentional warpers use it to thier advantage.
A good "warper" using "warp on demand" can exploit the program to benefit himself in most any scenario whether defensively, offensively, in a HO, a tail chase....etc.
I won't mention how these exploits are performed because it will surely spawn people trying it in the arenas but I'm sure there are many pilots here who know how it is done and have the ability to distinguish warp on demand from either random unintentional events or just high latency.