Unfortunately there isn't a way. I do hope they will make a "start raid" button soon. It really is frustrating doing a solo raid and having to wait despite being ready to play.
It would even be useful when playing in a group on higher tiers because sometimes everyone is well prepared and has a team ready in like 10 seconds.
Avoid 2-minute timer?
Is there any way to avoid the 2-minute countdown for raids? Is there a launch button if you do a private raid? I do mostly solo where I'm located so I'm not really waiting for anyone, and I have my party situated beforehand. I know it's just two minutes, so it's not that big a deal, but if there's a trick to forcing the raid to go quicker that'd be nice :)
Answers
No, and I've been saying for a while now there definitely needs to be. "Vote to skip" is pretty common in many multiplayer games and I'd like to see it implemented in Go, at the very least for private lobbies. It sucks trying to squeeze a solo in before work or something and just staring at the screen for a full 2 minutes.
There's a second distance threshold? I know you have to be within the range of the Gym to start to raid, but once the battle begins you can leave the range. Is there a maximum distance you can travel away from the gym while doing the raid/catching the Raid Boss? The farthest I've gone is about 1km (hard to tell as the distance walking is 1.2km, but as-the-crow-flies is noticeably less - could be as little as 750m) and had no difficulty in either beating the raid boss or catching it.
i can see it form both sides, the wanting to go in faster and get it done if you're solo/duo, but also give people who need more time to load in to do so. if anything they should add it for the lower tier raids, tier 4-5's make sense to not have that because they do take more people, and not everyone has the optimal team set up to duo every tier 4, but for tier 1-3, theres no reason not to have them
Public lobbies are most likely never going to get a 'start raid' button, but private lobbies might as well get one. It would also be good, if the 2-minute timer stayed in public lobbies, and private lobbies would have no timer at all, so people could just patiently wait, if someone is still missing. And if a raid is about to end, you can still connect at the last minute to a public lobby and try to complete the raid or if you connect to a private lobby, then it would have a timer starting at the moment the raid closes, so that nobody would be able to sit there as long as they please.