How does server connection/matchmaking work?

Yea im not going to sit here and claim im the greatest pilot ever...and frankly speaking im in my mid-late 30's now.  My reaction times arent as great as these kids.

But im not bad either.  Lots of experience with fighter sims, and I played th ehell out of XvT and XWA more than most.  Took home plenty of KD Ratio, top tournament player and top guild trophies when there were tournaments for XvT.   But given this isnt that game, im older etc - i dont expect to be that elite anymore.

However my results with the multiplayer here are a mixed bag.  Today I only played 4 matches.  I took top in none, second on my team in 3.   Reasonable scores.  I can live with that.

My last Fleet Battle stood out though:

A guy flying a Tie Bomber scored 24 kills - the next closest was 13.   I have run into him before, I can tell he's a good pilot.  But I dont believe he's THAT much better than I am skillwise.  A few things I did notice from the kill cams:

I went head-to-head with him 3 times.  Im in an X wing.  Twice with pumped shields and set double forward.  Each time he manages to beat me out.  Case 1: We sight each other about 1500m out, he's using rapid fires so his range is 600m.  Im using standard.  so im firing at him for a couple of seconds before he starts in.  Ims eeing every shot land, neither of us veer away...im dead and partly my fault for being slow on his missle lock.

Second time, very similar circumstance, except this time I veer off and use my maneuverability to get around him...we circle... i keep pegging away...then Somehow he's behind me and im gone.

the third time I got the jump on him from behind, im tearing into him...he turns into me at 700m, im still blasting away  and again, he manages to rip me down.  On te kill cam he was sitting at 60% HP when he turned into me and started shooting back.

All things considered, there is NO way a TB takes the punishment from an xwing at 60% HP, after being jumped on and turning directly into the fire and manages to deplete my shields (set double front) and armor before he's smoked.

Not unless theres some type of ghosting and latency on my end and his ping is better.


And thats the deal:   Two pilots, on the same skill tier - latency is always going to be the deciding factor.

IF EA and Motive cant come upw ith some more transparency and solutions to this for multiplayer its going to become an issue.