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The lockstep protocol is a partial solution to the look-ahead cheating problem in peer-to-peer architecture multiplayer games, in which a cheating client delays their own actions to await the messages of other players.[1] A client can do so by acting as if they're suffering from high latency; the outgoing packet is forged by attaching a time stamp that is prior to the actual moment the packet is sent.
To avoid this method of cheating, the lockstep protocol requires each player to first announce a "commitment" (e.g. hash value of the action); this commitment is a representation of an action that:
- Cannot be used to infer the action; and
- Easily compares whether an action corresponds with a commitment.
Once all players have received the commitments, they reveal their actions, which are compared with the corresponding commitments to ensure that the commitment is indeed the sent action.[2]
- ^ Algorithms and Networking for Computer Games, Jouni Smed and Harri Hakonen
- ^ "Cheat-Proof Playout for Centralized and Distributed Online Games", Baughman and Levine, 2001