How come you can't see SNACs hit you client side?

[Haste]

Damage is clientside. As in, what the 'firer' sees happening on his screen is what ends up being reality. They miss on their screen, no damage is done. They hit on their screen, damage is done.

This is why you can die to a lagging capital ship that fires a massive burst of fire in a random direction away from you but, on their screen, they just spent five seconds filling a drifting snub with secondaries. This is why a mini razor can fly straight past but at the same time burn a hole in your hull. This is why a SNAC that flies three ship sizes past you can still make you explode.

Fortunately, if someone misses you, yet you see a hit on your screen, you don't take damage either.

As aerelm pointed out, the margins in the case of snubs are rather small, so the odds of a single shot being properly 'synced' between two clients aren't too great.

It's somewhat important to note aerelm didn't mention position interpolation, something clients obviously do. You don't see ships hop from place to place as you receive packets telling you where they're supposed to be. The client 'guesses' what the likely path between two positions was. In case of significant lag where the client doesn't receive a packet for a longer-than-usual time, the guess might be very wrong, leading to a ship visibly 'spiking' around. However, a 100% accurate guess is almost impossible, so there's always a slight difference between 'guessed position' and 'actual position', leading to this weapon desync, for one.

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