Thanks reyalp and mphx - I will use the chdkptp - after reviewing this topic again that will provide what I need.
Note that chdkptp will not give you the same level of sync available with USB remote. If you want to capture moving objects, then it probably won't be good enough.
My biggest issue - If I'm taking a few shots in a row a random camera will miss a shot.
The best solution to this would be to figure out why they are missing shots and fix it. With some additional information like
1) what cameras you are using
2) what commands you are using to shoot
3) what canon settings you are using on the camera
we may be able to help.
A couple items off the top of my head.
1) If the camera is in auto mode (probably also some scene modes) it may simply refuse to shoot if it can't find focus. Manual or P modes generally shoot even if they can't focus.
2) There are some issues related to the flash which can make chdk get_shooting() not work right. I expect using the camera flashes would be problematic multicam anyway so turning them off in the canon firmware might be a good idea.
If you are using multicam, it will probably time out somewhere, which will be returned in the status if you use cmdwait. If you look at the mc:testshots function in multicam.lua, it returns the exposure count before and after the shot. You could do something similar to check if a shot has been taken.