- Official Post
Since the other thread went a bit off topic, here is its content about the multiplayer copied over, so that we can have a longer discussion.
Since the Robin 400 is a popular towplane, is or could it be possible in multiplayer for a player+player tow for a glider? ie. the Robin is flown by a player, and the glider is flown by a player?
The major issue is the ping between the two devices. Some people are pleased with 10ms ping but others have 300ms. So worst case: each person has a ping of 300ms, then you lose 0.6 seconds just by sending the data back and forth. If you have to calculate something based on that data, you easily lose 0.7 - 0.8 seconds total. In that time the dr400 moved almost 30 meters, so you really would have to extrapolate the position of the aircraft well in order to get a smoth experience. You can't just have the towing plane jump left and right, up and down for more than a few centimeters in an instant, otherwise you would get in trouble with the rope physics calculation. Or you leave away the physics, so that the towing plane is never affected by any rope forces...
And for a formation flight of F18s near Mach 1.0 it could quickly be 250+ meters. So when one player sees the other player at its side the other player sees him 250meters behind, unless you find a way to synchronize the times, maybe give every player itself a delay of 100ms that isn't to noticeable but still send its actual position to over the network... receieved data could be interpolated and then both pilots would see each other at identical locations.