Countdown item theory partial explanation

=== ITEM LIMITS ===
Some items prevent you from getting the item while you're using the item. this only applies to you and not other players:
- Triple Bananas, Triple FIBs, Triple Greens: you cannot get the item while you are holding at least one of the stack. HOWEVER, countdown will allow you to have two sets of triple reds (I think this was custom coded in)
- mega mushroom: you cannot get the item if you are already in a mega mushroom

There is a limit to how much of an item can exist within the race. based on what I read, I believe this takes the sum of both the number of players holding the item slot, and the number of items "in play" (e.g. someone holding a star, someone in a star, and a star on the ground counts as three uses)

Below is what I believe happens (this may not be 100% accurate, and it is based on Xer's post and some reasoning/inference of my own):
- Firstly, look at all items which are at their limit. For each of those items, keep note of how many of those items existing in the race can be despawned. Xer's writeup gives an example of someone pulling Bananas which causes the game to remove Bananas on the ground. I do not know if this also applies to items in motion (e.g. thrown green shells). It may also be possible that it doesn't apply to all "on the ground"/"in motion" items, e.g. maybe the Bob-omb can't be despawned. Regardless of what counts as a despawnable item, take note of all of the items in play which apply.
- When a player touches an item box, the item itself is decided. I'm not 100% sure how the item gets decided, but here are two of my educated guesses:
  - The game will remove all items in the pool who are subject to the above limits (triple, megas, and cooldowns) OR [have exceeded their limit AND cannot be despawned BEFORE deciding the item to roll]. If this results in no items, give the player a Shroom Green.
  - The game will roll the item, and if the item is subject to the above limits, OR [it has exceeded its limit AND cannot be despawned], give the player a Shroom Green.

- If the player got an item but it was on the condition that there were available items to despawn, despawn that item. What probably happens is the oldest item gets despawned first, but this is just an educated guess.
- Once the player has decided the item, broadcast that they have obtained the item to every other player in the room.
- However, in the time it takes for that message to reach everyone else, if someone else had touched an item box and rolled the same item, the game does some additional logic to avoid exceeding the limit (TODO: how does this work with multiple players touching at the same time?)
- To avoid exceeding the item limit, the game randomly decides that one player will get the item, and one player will get a Shroom Green (Mushroom in regular races). This Shroom Green does not count towards the item limit, and thus will not despawn ground Mushrooms.
- Until both players receive the message as to who gets the item and who gets the Shroom Green, the item roulette will lag on both sides. The more lag in the room, the longer the item roulette will spin. **This is what causes the item roulette to lag sometimes.**
- Xer's writeup states "If somebody lags a lot, the limit may be exceeded". What I presume is that there is a limit to how long the item roulette can spin, and if someone lags too long, the game will give up trying to avoid exceeding the item limit, allowing it to be breached.

For triple items (name marked with asterisk), what I presume is that items in the item slot count as 3 items. for dragged items, I am not sure whether the game counts the stack as 3 items, regardless of how many items are in the stack, or whether it counts the remaining number of items in the stack.

I am not 100% sure about Stars. The limit is 3, which means that 2 people in a star, and one of them holding a star, would reach the limit. However, according to Xer's page, "Stars in use do not count…", which suggests that the game only keeps track of how many players are holding a Star. However, I cannot remember a single time where more than 3 people were in a Star. This may just be because of RNG and how people play. One possibility is that the game will count both holding a Star and being in a Star as one use, which seems most like to my experience.