TeeDefense, like many multiplayer games, likely synchronizes clients and the server through a combination of techniques. While the specific details of TeeDefense's networking code aren't provided in the reference information, we can infer some common practices that are typically used in games for synchronization:
### 1. Client-Server Architecture:
- **Server as Authority**: The server acts as the "source of truth" for the game state. It processes game logic, enforces rules, and ensures consistency across all clients.
- **Client Input Handling**: Clients send their inputs (like movements, actions, or commands) to the server. The server validates and processes these inputs and then sends out the updated game state to all clients.
### 2. Network Messages:
- **State Updates**: The server periodically sends state updates to the clients. These updates contain information about the game world, such as player positions, object states, and game events.
- **Event Messages**: When significant events occur (like a player scores, an item is picked up, or a tower is placed), the server sends out event messages to all clients, informing them of the change.
### 3. Prediction and Interpolation:
- **Client-Side Prediction**: To reduce lag perception, clients predict the outcome of their inputs locally. If the server's response matches the prediction, the game continues smoothly. If there's a discrepancy, the client corrects its state to match the server.
- **Interpolation**: Clients interpolate between received state updates to smooth out movements and actions, especially over slow or unreliable connections.
### 4. Reliable and Unreliable Protocols:
- **Reliable Messaging**: For critical information (like player actions or game state snapshots), a reliable protocol ensures that messages are delivered without loss and in order.
- **Unreliable Messaging**: For non-critical information (like chat messages or visual effects), an unreliable protocol can be used to reduce overhead, accepting that some messages may be lost.
### 5. Concurrency and Thread Safety:
- **Thread Safety**: As seen in the provided code snippet, the use of mutexes (`SQL_Lock`) suggests that the game ensures thread-safe access to shared resources, which is crucial for maintaining a consistent state across multiple clients.
### 6. Connection Management:
- **Client Connections**: The server manages client connections, authenticates new clients, and handles disconnections or reconnections.
- **Rate Limiting**: The server may implement rate limiting to prevent abuse and ensure fair access to resources (e.g., `RateLimitServerInfoConnless` function).
### 7. Error Handling and Cheating Prevention:
- **Validation**: The server validates all incoming data to prevent cheating and ensure that the game state remains consistent.
- **Reconciliation**: In case of discrepancies between the client's predicted state and the server's actual state, the server reconciles the differences.
### 8. Game Loop and Tick Rate:
- **Game Loop**: The server runs a game loop that updates the game state at a fixed tick rate. Clients also run a similar loop that synchronize with the server's updates.
- **Tick Rate**: The server's tick rate determines how often it processes game logic and sends updates to clients. A higher tick rate can provide smoother gameplay but requires more network bandwidth and processing power.
In TeeDefense, these synchronization mechanisms would be implemented using the networking classes and functions mentioned in the code snippets, such as `CNetServer`, `CServer`, `CNetChunk`, and the various callback functions. The game would likely use a combination of these techniques to ensure that all clients see a consistent and smooth game world, despite the variable and often imperfect nature of internet connections.