Say I see in my hostcatcher screen, a slew of IPs with lots of files worth many gigs. How many connections, both out and in, do I need to make in order that my searches infiltrates them all?

Does it matter that I connect to someone with files? Do I have access to his and others? or do I need multiple connections?

4-5 connections usually works good for me, any more tends to hog bandwidth. You don't have to be connected to someone with files in order to get search results - in theory, just connecting to one person will get your search requests out far enough to find any matches. Redundancy is a good thing, though, so try to keep several connections active.

Shaun