> the server can use it's own timestamping upon arrival to at least see how far apart the order of operations occur.
The server's timestamp isn't going to be representative of the user's actual input when you're using UDP. Especially over consumer wifi which is hardly the most consistent network, but is still used by a majority.
It sure doesn't. Any reason you couldn't just slap a TCP connection on top of it to make your replication log for analysis though?
As I mentioned in my last comment, someone would need to design a system to better deal with this type of stuff. The way things are stem from decades of decisions made, starting with more design constraints than we have today.
TCP still doesn't solve timing of packets not matching the timing of the inputs because of jitter, retransmission, and other overheads. You would still have to rely on user client reported timestamps to tell how far apart actions are taking place.
Seems like a non issue to me, time is just relative. Analysis on receipt is still possible, because you can calculate latency.
I'd recommend checking out Leslie Lamport's work, you can probably derive some ideas. I'm not be prescriptive here because this isn't a space I plan to work in to solve problems since it's just games. Entertainment isn't really my thing, I tend to lean heavily into systems and security knowledge which has served me well broadly.
The server's timestamp isn't going to be representative of the user's actual input when you're using UDP. Especially over consumer wifi which is hardly the most consistent network, but is still used by a majority.