Aha.
I checked the site and saw this and thought I would post. Hi to everyone I know.
1. Get rid of the trackball. Like immediately. Like in the next two seconds.
2. BF42 plays best on ME (it was optimized the best for that OS but XP is almost as good).
3. If you're using ME or XP then there are a bunch of steps you should take to optimize (like defragging, there was a post by the head of that Aberdeen tank clan (EA 10?) that had all that info but I'm too lazy to look for it, but you probably have a newer operating system so it shouldn't matter).
4. Ping is king. 60 is fine. You should be fine with anyone with a ping between 15 and 140ish but if you're in an infantry battle with someone with a ping below 15 then you will probably have trouble. If someone's ping is over 150 then you and they will start having issues almost equivalent (almost!) to the warping in pre-2000 games.
5. There has never been any damage hacks. Damage is server side. Your opponent can hack the shit out of you but if you're standing behind someone and shooting them in the back then you or they are causing or experiencing a problem but you're not missing them because of something like a no-damage hack.
6. Don't bother getting super serious as a pilol You should just do it for fun. If an old schooler comes on and cornholes you then you're just going to get frustrated. You got the game too late.
7. If you're playing as infantry then at this point when you go up against someone good then you're playing against someone who has close to 5000 hours of experience. What do you think is going to happen. They are also probably younger than you and have faster reflexes.
8. Get in a tank. Tanking is the most ping forgiving. There are the fewest hacks in the game for land vehicles than for infantry weapons or planes. Because probably so few really good pilots are playing you probably won't have to worry a lot about getting steamrolled by an alt-whore which used to be worst thing that could happen to you in a tank..
9. You should be able to get really good in a tank quicker than you can get good in a plane or as infantry. When you're on the server and there's not very many people playing, ask a tank whore stuff like what the weak spots of the tanks are. You should be able to one-shot kill anything with the Tiger, the M10 or the mother of all tanks which is the cute orange one on Kursk. Since you say that you're older, tanking is an older player's game. If you took the age range of the best players in the first five years of the game, then top tankers were probably 10 years older than either infantry or pilots. There's a lot of reasons for that. There were a lot of 14 year-old all stars playing as pilots or infantry and almost none as tankers.
10. Turn off your sound. It makes you better.
11. Change the color of your crosshairs, preferably to a color like purple. If it works for Barney it can work for you.
12. Change the pick-up kit key to "G".
and most importantly, lucky number
13. Stop giving a shit what the game on your monitor looks like. Play at the lowest possible graphic settings (the game should look like the Flintstones). Turn off every other thing that is designed to make the game look good. A lot of the code for the original 1942 is terrible and sloppy and you really don't need to admire the twilight on Gazala. If it looks shitty it will play better.
Good luck.