Things that feel like cheating but are not(?)

[Oldskool0482]

Or when I am (double)jumping to avoid the rockets fired on the ground I always receive splash damage (about 30points each time!!) whereas some players (again the better ones ...) don't; as if they could jump higher or further or something.

and honestly, I won't blame this all on my own missing aiming skills.

There is your problem, stop double jumping, it isn't worth it and most of the time against someone skilled they will pick u off easier than u can say pie. Learn to dodge every where and anywhere and especially when someone is shooting at you, the reason they are jumping higher and farther is because they are dodging most likely and not jumping.

As far as direct hits not hitting someone, its probably lag/Ping, even with low ping you can still have packet loss and lag from the server, you still have to lead a bit as well. Flak especially.

[Carn4ge]

I notice the direct hits not doing any damage fairly often, whether it be my shots not doing damage to an opponent, or me taking direct rockets or link and nothing happening. It's always a shock to me when I catch a rocket in the face but no damage is taken.

[recoiledsnake]

There are a LOT of bugs in the game which can make you die in the most bs ways possible. Avrils can do a damage of 0, 200 or 400 randomly. It's usually 200 but 0 and 400 sometimes happen too(400 usually when I'm in a raptor with a deemer). Then the the vehicles you kill can kill you by their wreckage. This usually happens with mantas. Yesterday I was jumping down while avriling a manta, the manta died and the wreckage falls on me and I die. WTF?

Then the invisible wreckage that you can shoot into and kill yourself. Getting out of the darkwalker and being crushed by it while it comes down. Vehicles spawning on you and killing you. Deemers not registering. Nearby 'vehicle explosions' killing you. Need I go on?

[JohnDoe641]

Indeed there are some terrible bugs in this game. Hitting someone straight in the body with a rocket and getting a dud on them could make some players think they other guy is cheating yet it's the games terrible netcode that produced it. But what I find is that the majority of people accusing me and others of the occasional cheat are simply terrible players who haven't understood/can't understand the games mechanics.

[Ga-Reef]

Sometimes although rarely, it seems I've taken direct hits from rockets typically 2 or more/3 on foot and have taken no damage. I wonder if that's related to lag or to the bug of the manta's indestructable nose? Allow though it seems nice when it happens, it's just not fair, but I can't help the fact it happens by chance sometimes.

EDIT: Nevermind JohnDoe said it already. :'(

[Boksha]

Actually the "dud" rocket bug is as old as the original Unreal.
It's caused by an oversight in the netcode; basically not only is the rocket trajectory handled clientside (which is OK, since rockets travel in a straight line) but whether it explodes or not (more accurately whether it displays an explosion) is also handled clientside. So when you see an explosion that doesn't do any damage, what happens is that your PC (or console) thinks the rocket hit something (and therefore shows an explosion and removes the rocket from the screen) while the server thinks that it didn't (and the server decides on what does damage). This also means that other players may or may not actually see the rocket explode (but instead see it flying on)

So how come your client and the server disagree on this? There are lots of possible causes for this. For one, a rocket's starting position and direction are not replicated accurately; when the server sends you the info, it converts the rocket's position and rotation vectors to sets of integers so they take up less bandwidth. This causes rounding errors. For that matter, the same thing is done with player locations and velocities, which is a second source of inaccuracy. The third is that your client probably calculates the state of the game more often than the server (clients generally run 90 frames per second while servers are generally around 30-40) so interpolated states never exist on the server.
If a rocket hitting you in the face without doing damage though, the most common cause is that movement on your client is instant while it takes a while for the server to recognise it. So for example when you accidentally move in the direction of a rocket (instead of away from it) chances are your client is a little ahead of the server, so it may think you hit the rocket while on the server you're still a little away from the rocket. I think the only time I managed to replicate the bug on a LAN it's caused by this effect.
Do note that this also means you don't have to feel guilty if you don't take damage from a rocket's explosion; chances are your opponent doesn't even see an explosion but instead sees the rocket missing you by a small hair.

A small addition: I more often see the opposite of this bug, where a rocket did actually hit someone on the server (and therefore does damage) but doesn't explode on my screen (while my opponent does explode). This makes it look like my opponent was... run over by the rocket or something. Really odd.