I am playing on a 60 ms ping server (according to F1, though it's probably higher than that as we are cross coast north america). When ships are flying in a direction at a good speed (like >1000m/s) I have to aim ahead of them in empty space with my lasers to do damage. See attached video of me shooting ahead of this ship with lasers and railguns and getting damage numbers, and then shooting the ship directly (end of the clip) and not getting damage numbers.
510273418_hitboxaheadofmodel.mp4