Probability of a fork with round-robin consesus

Question

Lets say we have a blockchain with 5 nodes, all running on the exact same configs, and mining-diversity is set to 0.5

Now during the first round of mining. any of the 5 nodes can mine the next block. Since there is no PoW, won't all the 5 nodes have an equal chance of creating a block at the same time? (as all params and system config is identical).

Even for subsequent rounds, when more than 1 node is eligible to create the next block, what stops them from creating a block at the exact same time?

Or is there some negligible amount of work involved which creates the difference? And if yes, to what extent? Are internal adjustments made to this if forks keep occuring?

Answer 1

Forks can indeed happen, but they are dealt with by the nodes and automatically resolved. The logic is the same as for the bitcoin blockchain - whichever fork is extended first becomes the "correct" one.

But forks are not so likely as you think. First, all the eligible nodes apply a random time delay (close to the target block time) so a fork will only happen if two nodes create a block close enough in time that it does not get a chance to propagate.

Second the mining-turnover blockchain parameter can be set to 0.0 to prevent forks completely, so long as all the mining nodes are active and behaving correctly.