Synchronization of Race Start Times

[Sewer56]

The Wait Signal

Game execution pauses when the initial stage intro cutscene is skipped by any user.

If the player is a host:

• Wait for all clients.
• Send resume signal.

If the player is a client:

• Send ready signal.
• Wait for resume signal.

Skipping of the cutscene should be synchronized if possible but it's optional.
At this current time it requires more reverse engineering.

The Resume Signal

One method of implementing resuming after all players are ready would be to simply have the host send a "ready" signal to the player and everyone would resume game immediately. This is naive and would create a host advantage.

Instead, we are going to do the following:

• X: Host calculates highest ping of all players and doubles it.
• Y: Host calculates time from now (in UTC) + X.
• Host sends Y to players. Host and players spin the thread waiting until time is later than Y.
• Everyone resumes the game.

[Sewer56]

Implemented