Please explain for my understanding warps, if you will. This being the extreme example of what I am trying to describe or grasp. The poor Joe, bouncing all over the sky, every couple of seconds, what is his computer telling the servers different on his end that gets garbled on my end? (Again, I know this is extreme, but I am aware that packet loss is something that I will never defeat with my type of connection, but work darn hard to get it minimized.)
Lets say the other computer tells you where he is once every second (the send rate is irreverent for this discussion). Your computer now simply draws him at that position each time it receives the packet. What you would see on your computer is his plane jump from 1 position to another every second.
Obviously you do not wish to see this so instead of just position he also sends his current speed and direction.
Now instead of seeing him in 1 position every second your computer continues to move him at the speed and direction he received.
Now say he starts a turn immediately after sending you a packet. Your computer would be drawing him in a straight line, but when the next packet came in he would not be where your computer expected him. So his new position would have to be drawn.
Now as long as everything is consistent, you will receive a packet every second no mater how long it takes for it to get to you , Lets say a 5 second lag, you will get the 1st packet 5 seconds later, but after that you will receive a packet every second and things will be just as smooth as if there was a 0 second lag.
Now what happens if some times the lag is 1 second and some times 5 seconds. Or if you receive 1 packet and then 4 packets are lost , and then you receive a packet again. Your computer will continue to display him using the last packet received information. When the new one comes in many seconds later it must correct for the error where it is drawing him.
This is what causes a warp. Dropped packets or inconstancy latency/lag. Ah is extremely tolerant of both latency changes and dropped packets. But when those changes are in the many seconds range, things start to warp.
What I have described is a very simple version of what AH really does, the total complexity and precision needed to make planes look smooth is far outside the scope of this discussion.
HiTech