multiplayer

[kindred widget]

Your issue is timing. Chances are that your multicast is arriving on your clients long before your actor is.

For the immediate issue. Frequency should probably be a replicated float on the actors that has an OnRep. InitializeGeneration can be called on server when spawned and on client when OnRep runs.

For a more robust method with a ton less networking, consider simply replicating Frequency strictly from the AChunkWorld where it already exists. You can develop a way to stably name your actors created here and network them that way so that your client can locally spawn everything here without any networking besides the single main frequency float in the AChunkWorld

[honest rain]

I see, so the actor would go get the information directly from querying the necessary informations when they need to ?

[kindred widget]

Not sure what you mean by this? There's no querying. The actor simply doesn't exist on the client yet.

Your initial issue is basically a shipping problem. You put a package in the mail(replicated actor). It'll arrive at some point later on. Then a minute later while your package is still at the shipping place you directly call the destination it's going and tell them to do something with the package you've sent. They have no clue what you're talking about. No package exists. You get hung up on.

Instead, you need to put directions in the package. IE putting replicated float on it. This will most likely arrive when the actor is first replicated. Then the people on the other end know what to do with said package.

Instead of making calls everywhere(RPCs), just put instructions in your packages(replicated state). Stuff just gets gracefully handled when it exists.

[honest rain]

When you talk about replicated float, you mean for example ReplicatedUsing = OnRep_Function ?

I understand the issue indeed

[kindred widget]

Correct. For example if you put it in the ChunkWorld. The Client's ChunkWorld can run that the moment it has a valid float to work with. The only issue with that will be networking. Those actors won't be name stable, so you'd need to name them uniquely yourself to network them and set.. Can't remember the variable, NetLoadOnClient or whatever I think? to true. May be other requirements for that.

[twilit radish]

Vori made a topic about as well which is in the channel pins 😄

Also net load on client is not for dynamically spawned actors. It's meant for one's inside the map that were placed and are replicated.

[kindred widget]

Right, right. That's the one I had to turn off for some actors on the map.

But yeah. Would recommend that pin as well if you're doing heavy world spawning like this. 😄

[honest rain]

oooooooooh Actualy, I did what you mentionned, which works since it accesses local float values, but also I discovered that my Actor World.cpp which is in the world at start of the game, had no owner.
It seems that this was not any problem server side, but Client side would not executes functions called without owning...
I fixed that but forcing set owner in blueprint after the game started, and it works now.
I wonder if we have to set it on all clients in begin play and assigning Player controllers so it runs fine client sides

[twilit radish]

I mean generally you don't go assign player controllers to every random actor for the reason that you only can have one owner per actor and it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But yes, you can't call a RPC from client -> server or server -> to a specific client without an owner.

That's why the player controller as an example is pretty handy as every client has their own one 🙂

But in the specific case of chunks, yeah not so ideal if you want to use actors for them.

[honest rain]

it doesn't seem to be a problem for the chunks, but more for the WorldManager itself, and since there is only 1 in the world, I guess it would be fine to assign it Clients as owner ?

[twilit radish]

If you have one per client I guess.

Because if you only have one world manager in the entire game you get the problem what if a different player wants to do something with it?

[honest rain]

Hum thats a good point, although I can't assign anything else other than PlayerController as owner right ? :/

[thin stratus]

That or whatever is owned by the PC

So a chain works

But you can still only assign one owner at a time

So best is to route (server) RPCs through owned actors (like the PC) and then access your world actor on the server

[honest rain]

I am getting a bit lost sorry. World Manager exists from the beginning in the world, for both server, and clients. So you mean that before calling any functions from that World Manager, I need to access the world manager through the PCs first right ?

[thin stratus]

Depends

This is about the client performing local actions that need to run on the server

Then you need to RPC first

In the PlayerController for example

If you are already on the server, then that's redundant

[honest rain]

right, but since this is more something that supposed to exists on all clients from the begining, I guess assigning from the beginning the locally controlled PC makes sense

this is quite complex concepts to grasps I found when you are not used to it xD

[twilit radish]

But that's the point Cedric and I were trying to make, you can't do that. You mentioned there's only one world manager in the game right? You can only assign one controller at the same time per actor, so lets say you have two clients then only one of two could be assigned. That's why Cedric is suggesting to use the Player Controller.

[thin stratus]

Yeah only one can be the Owner

And that has to be set by the Server

So you would have a Chicken/Egg situation

If you can get to the server to set the owner, why needing the owner? :D

[twilit radish]

Why is that called the chicken/egg situation 🤣

[thin stratus]

IDK

[honest rain]

well because on client side it is asking me to set the owner 😆

[thin stratus]

What comes first, the RPC to set the Owner or the SetOwner to allow the RPC

DON'T JUDGE ME

[twilit radish]

You can't set the owner of a replicated actor on a client.

[thin stratus]

🐔🥚

[twilit radish]

Judges anyway.

❤️

[thin stratus]

🥲❤️

[honest rain]

this is so confusing 🤣 So my worldManager actor lives on the server, and I need to set the owner on the server, and I am using the player controller as the owner to launch whatever function lives on it. But this is wrong since only 1 owner can be set on the actor, and since there would be multiple player controller in the session ,I cant do that

this is correct right ?

[twilit radish]

That's what we are trying to tell you, there's no need to set the owner as it's pointless because there's only one of your world managers. But yes what you explained is the problem. There can only ever be one owner per actor and no more. So what Cedric suggested is that you place the RPC inside the player controller (as each player has their own player controller) and then from there on grab a reference to your world manager and do whatever you want.

[thin stratus]

You should read the ownership part of the compendium if this isn't clear yet

[twilit radish]

Compendium has some good stuff yeah 😄

[honest rain]

I think this is why I dont get it, since my world manager is used to spawn actors ( replicated ) in the world, it seems wrong to call RPCs from each PCs as this will continously spawns already existing actors ?

[honest rain]

I think I definitely go back to this, this is the situation where I felt pretty good about my overall comprehension of ownership 1 hour ago, now I feel soooooo lame 🤣

[thin stratus]

Well I'm not sure what the origin of this discussion is

[quasi tide]

Speaking of compendium...where is that hot new wiki-like site for the compendium Cedric?

[twilit radish]

I also wasn't there at the very beginning. But what I understood was there's one world manager on the server with clients wanting to make RPC calls to it. Which just doesn't work.

[thin stratus]

Like an RPC is only needed if you have some local event that then has to move to the server. Like an input press or a UI interaction

Most other events are usually server side anyway

[thin stratus]

Honestly not much further. I haven't really had time the last 2 months.

[quasi tide]

Tell your clients to stahp

[thin stratus]

):

[twilit radish]

"Please give me free money while I do fun things."

[quasi tide]

👆 that too

[honest rain]

Right, so with my world manager being used to spawn actors from the beginning of the play session, up until now that didnt work client side since it asked me for an owner to execute the functions in that world manager ( functions that are being called in the begin play of the actor), thats why I was looking at setting the owner of this instance from the beginning ^^

[thin stratus]

If you just need it to spawn actors from Beginning of the Session, all you need to do is use its BeginPlay, slap a SwitchHasAuthority into it and then call SpawnActorFromClass with a replicated actor class

[honest rain]

😮

[thin stratus]

On the Authority pin fwiw

[honest rain]

omg and this is type of stuff I already did but in blueprint, totally forgot about this.... thanks many thanks

[twilit radish]

I still hate that Epic did not expose net modes to BP.

[quasi tide]

Be the change you want to see in the world

[twilit radish]

To then get ignored on Github? No thanks 😂

[quasi tide]

I was able to get something merged 😈

[twilit radish]

You used your one free PR per century card. Rip.

[quasi tide]

I'll be making more PRs in the future. Just not about to sit through a 2 hour compile for each PR 😅

Plan on upgrading my CPU later this year.

[real ridge]

Can I send replicated variable to widget?

or its impossible?

[clear island]

this is something I wonder about alot, like how do people who work on the engine actually, you know... work on the engine, compile times are so bad

even on epic's source build instructions they say build times are between 10 minutes and 40 minutes, like, has anyone ever compiled UE from source in 10 minutes on one single machine? or are they using build farms or something

[quasi tide]

Epic's machines are extremely beefy

[clear island]

10 minutes on a single machine? no way thats real, maybe these numbers are from older UE versions?

I mean if my daily job involved compiling even for 10 minutes every single time I wanted to test my changes, I'd probably just quit and find somewhere else to work 😄

[fathom aspen]

Build farms are crucial

[quasi tide]

#gameplay-ai message

Under 10 minutes

[fathom aspen]

I don't think any real company would let you work without them

Not if you don't have a decent PC

[clear island]

thats crazy, I wonder what cpu was used there

[quasi tide]

64 core threadripper

256 GB RAM

Like I said - beefy machines

[clear island]

ok then thats more bearable

[real ridge]

slowly getting there lol

still have som problems

now everyone has different XDDwhich stayed from blue team before I changed their team ah

do you think guys this value can be right if I am trying to send it to this widget replicated?

sending it like this

[dark edge]

What's your goal? Color is based on if the other pawn's team matches your team?

all this multicast stuff is goofy

you should just have a repnotify on some data and that's it

simple

[modest crater]

Hey there, I'm trying to bind my widget to a delegate inside my player state, but, my playerstate cast is returning null for clients (not listen server tho), this function is being called through the SetPawn() function on the player controller

void UMinion_Widg_KillScore::InitilizeWidget(AController* owningController)
{
    if (owningController) 
    {
        AMinion_PlayerState* ownerPlayerState = owningController->GetPlayerState<AMinion_PlayerState>();
        if (ensure(ownerPlayerState))
        {
            ownerPlayerState->GetOnScoreChangedDelegate().AddUFunction(this, "UpdateScore");
        }
    }
}

[modest crater]

Im passing this

Ive tried passing the playerstate through to but its null

only for the server

So what are you saying?

The function is being called from a delegate inside of SetPawn(), I was passing through "this" as SetPawn is inside the playercontroller

void AMinion_PlayerController::SetPawn(APawn* InPawn)
{
    Super::SetPawn(InPawn);

    if (IsLocalController() && InPawn && InPawn != currentPossessedPawn)
    {
        OnNewPawnPossessedDelegate.ExecuteIfBound(InPawn); // this will call OnNewPawnPossessed()
    }
}


// This is the function that runs from the delegate
void AMinion_PlayerController::OnNewPawnPossessed(APawn* newPawn)
{
    if (!newPawn) { return; }
    currentPossessedPawn = newPawn;
    CreateOrUpdateUIOnPossession(newPawn);
}


void AMinion_PlayerController::CreateOrUpdateUIOnPossession(APawn* newBody)
{
    /** If we have a widget already added to the screen but the owner has possessed a new pawn */
    if (IsValid(instanceOfMainHUDWidget) && IsValid(newBody))
    {
        LogServerOrClient(this, "Widget being Updated", FColor::Orange, 5.0f);
        instanceOfMainHUDWidget->UpdateWidgetsOfNewPawn(this, newBody);
        return;
    }

    
    /** If possessed a new pawn but dont have a HUD */
    LogServerOrClient(this, "Widget being Created", FColor::Orange, 5.0f);
    instanceOfMainHUDWidget = nullptr;
    instanceOfMainHUDWidget = CreateWidget<UMinion_Widg_MainHUD>(this, mainHUD_WidgetSubC);
    if (instanceOfMainHUDWidget)
    {
        instanceOfMainHUDWidget->InitilizeWidgets(this, newBody);
        instanceOfMainHUDWidget->AddToViewport();
    }
    
}

probably is but this was the only place I found that runs on both client an server where the pawn is valid so I can bind to the health delegates an what not when respawning or possessing a new pawn

it works fine for the server but for clients its returning null on the playerstate so I assume its too early to try call it an bind to a delegate inside

here im using the word HUD but its really just the main widget with the health an default stuff you would see on a HUD

maybe I just find somewhere else to bind to the Player State delegate, its too early here

[modest crater]

alright, no matter it seems to be null so I'm doing something wrong, ill investigate haha

[real ridge]

goal is to have dynamical health bar of you are blue and friend blue u see him green if third is red u see him red and he sees you red and your friend red too but now it's stil not working good

[dark edge]

ok so have a team variable with repnotify

on the playerstate or pawn

and if team = local player team, show it green, otherwise show it red

that simple

Player seeing their own hp bar -> pawn team matches player team -> green
Player seeing an allies hp bar -> pawn team matches player team -> green
Player seeing an enemy hp bar -> pawn team does not match player team -> red

[real ridge]

but do comparing inside widget or pawn?

[twin juniper]

Hey, is it possible that net dormancy (dormant all) stop RPC replication or this is only bug in old (4.22) unreal? I noticed that I can't send rpc from dormant actor's because channel has been closed

[chrome bay]

By design

It's not a bug, a dormant actor has no actor channel

That's what it's meant for

[twin juniper]

thanks, where I can find more details about it? wiki?

[chrome bay]

Probably not. Dormancy isn't well documented. If you make an actor dormant, it can no longer send any requests from clients. If you want to send data from server, you need to "wake" it first. That's about it.

But key things to keep in mind, waking from dormancy is a similar cost as spawning a new actor as far as networking is concerned. ALL changes properties are sent when you wake it, not just what was changed.

Including Initial_Only properties. It's treated like a "new" actor, except it doesn't spawn one.

[twin juniper]

ALL changes properties are sent when you wake it, not just what was changed. this is probably the worst in this concept :/

[chrome bay]

Yep, you have to pick and choose when to use it

Not something you use a lot

[spring peak]

Hello guys! I'm have problem. Car's working on the Chaos wheeled vehicle movement component, and after spawn wheels collision stay on spawn point on server-side. At same time work is stable on client-side. Version 5.0.3. I will can remove wheel collision from phys assets but it's not need me.
Because of this problem car other clients can stuck and solution - destroy car.

I read hotfix 5.1 and 5.1.1 but they not decided solve

[twin juniper]

how can the client update something on the server with actor's dormancy?

[chrome bay]

It can't

The server decides on dormancy

But it would be very strange for a client-owned actor to go dormant anyway

You can still send references to it through RPC,s just can't call the RPC on the dormant object

[pallid stone]

Do instance static meshes replicate the instances by default?

[chrome bay]

no

[pallid stone]

Best way would be to ask the server for all its generated instances then give them to the client to make on their end?

[polar wing]

https://twitter.com/MothDoctor/status/1626515562275786753?s=20

Krzysiek Justyński (@MothDoctor)

Mhm, Network Prediction Plugin got a big update to its overview Readme.
Screenshot shows just the first part.

https://t.co/nAyIdsrNff

Twitter · Feb 17, 2023, 9:35 AM

[real ridge]

ok i do have rep notfy and local player team but how to compare it with all others?

[prisma snow]

it depends, specially if it's lots of them (hundreds-thousands)

what determines the instances trasforms in the first place?

[jolly delta]

hey, anyone that has already use a FSocket and have a public code snip to look how you use it ?

[pallid stone]

Can you put tmaps into replicated functions?

I know you can't replicate a tmap itself

But can it be passed as a variable?

[chrome bay]

Negative

[pallid stone]

But you can pass a struct via a rpelicated function?

[chrome bay]

A struct yeah

[pallid stone]

Man, that is soooo stupid

[chrome bay]

But if the struct contains a TMap, then no

Well it's inherently unsafe to send TMaps over the network

If the keys can't be resolved, you can't have a valid map

Plus it's terrible for efficiency, an array is preferable

[pallid stone]

A struct of a Umaterialinstance* as a key and a tarray of transforms would be fine?

[chrome bay]

No it wouldn't

In fact using an Object as the key is the most unsafe use of a TMap

[pallid stone]

No I mean in a struct

[chrome bay]

Ah I see, yeah that's fine

[pallid stone]

My current setup is storing a instanced static mesh component in a tmap, with the material instance as its key

[chrome bay]

But obviously you have to ensure that objects will resolve at the other end

UMaterialInstance should be fine since it's an asset

And will send using the path name

[pallid stone]

At the moment, my creation of the uinstance static mesh components is the following

{
    UInstancedStaticMeshComponent* createdISMC = NewObject<UInstancedStaticMeshComponent>(this, UInstancedStaticMeshComponent::StaticClass());
    createdISMC->RegisterComponent();
    createdISMC->AttachToComponent(RootComponent, FAttachmentTransformRules::KeepRelativeTransform);
    createdISMC->SetRelativeLocation(FVector::ZeroVector);
    createdISMC->SetIsReplicated(true);
    createdISMC->SetFlags(RF_Transactional); 
    return createdISMC;
}```

That then gets added to the tarray

to the tmap*

[real ridge]

i did rep notify but I dunno with what team to compare my local team make event and multicast team of everyone to another pawn and take this or what?

then widget looks like this

[pallid stone]

Since it is replicated, and just sort of floating around, what is going to be the best way of getting the same reference on the client side so I can just create the same instances? @chrome bay

[chrome bay]

My question would be why created replicated components at all

Unless they have collision or something

Hard to give any advice without context

[pallid stone]

One mo, let me get a screenshot

[chrome bay]

The way you don't want to do procedural generation is replicating lots of ISM's with their transforms, that's the main thing

Usually you send a seed, clients rebuild locally using that seed.

And you ensure the generation is deterministic

[pallid stone]

So it's being generated (by a seed yes), and the floor, parallax and decals are all instance static mesh instances. The tress, rocks, villages are actors because they are usable by the world and are spawned, but they also use the seed to decide if they should be there.

So those actors are made on the server and replicated, so the client doesn't need to spawn on their end, that already happens, but the instances aren't being updated

Would passing in the seed to the client, telling them to run the details, but skipping any spawning then be the best way?

Instead of just passing a large tarray of transforms and saying to remake those instances on the certified ustaticmeshcomponent?

[chrome bay]

Yeah so the way to do this is not spawn any replicated components/actors at all

For a decent sized level that's way too much info

Take a look at this: https://vorixo.github.io/devtricks/procgen/

[pallid stone]

Oh thank you

[earnest comet]

Hello folks, a smol question if I may.

Is there a way for server to know how much time it took to send a response and get a response back?

I just want to press a button on host and check how long it took client to get that "Hello" Print String

in blueprints that is

[prisma snow]

mmm ping value should be close, but for a specific message, if you want to see the exact time since a client sends it and recieves a response back, can just encode the current time into the message and compare it to current time when recieveing it back

[earnest comet]

Thanks for response. If I do this in "make client send message and get it back", it works. It takes 0.4 seconds ( I am testing via 400ms lag emulation so its correct).

However I am unable to find how to do it as the "make host send message to client"

the same system gives like 0.02 seconds response time, which is obviously wrong

[prisma snow]

maybe send timestamp in the server and compare with current time in client. But that could be subject to clock variations so I woldn't count on it

[twilit radish]

Could also depend on how you're using the emulation profile.

[prisma snow]

exactluy

some profiles affect only server on only clients so it is a possible outcome

[twilit radish]

I would not do this. Devices rarely ever have the exact same internal clock time.

[prisma snow]

yeah exactly

[twilit radish]

I had 2 PCs at some point next to each other that had over an entire second of difference between their clocks.

That was probably a bit of an extreme case, but the point stands that they can definitely desync from each other / aren't perfectly in sync.

[earnest comet]

I am using this bad boy and it works for client.

I also checked it. Emulation for server is same. I mean the message is sent in 0.4 seconds but difference between "first game seconds" and last one are wrong

ugh I am not getting paid enough for this! Not even a penny T_T

[prisma snow]

yeah totally makes sense

iirc somebody did a synced network clock

but idk the precision

[twilit radish]

I mean the message is sent in 0.4 seconds but difference between "first game seconds" and last one are wrong
Can you show what exactly you're doing to measure that? If your emulation is setup properly it should show the emulation time obviously, then it sounds like something else is wrong 🙂

Also that node you're using suffers from latency, just FYI.

[twilit radish]

Vori did, it's in the pinned messages in here 😄

[prisma snow]

ahhh great I'll have a look since I was considering in using it

[twilit radish]

Although one choice I still don't really understand from that post Vori made is why the buffer only gets used upon hitting the limit of 10 entries. Just seems like a lot of unnecessary delay in the beginning of the game. @pallid mesa we need answers 👀

[earnest comet]

Thanks! Hold on, showing it now.

PS: I will bother with latency laters, for now game is 60 fps ^-^

This is where as a HOST I press Left CTRL click

and sending the server time

This is where the event triggers in 0.4 seconds

but Server World Time here gives almost exact same value

so the difference is minimal

Could it be because it is the Host that is also the Server that values are same?

almost, that is

[pallid mesa]

Because its going to be inaccurate anyways, so there's no point 😄

[twilit radish]

If you're wondering why for the host, then yes. It doesn't send out any network calls to it self, it just processes it immediately because it's local. The server is already the server and doesn't need to process it other than just directly locally calling whatever it needs 😉

[earnest comet]

But the "Send Host Time" is a multicast. Sure, it casts instantly for itself but I have a Switch Has Authority, that has 0.4 delay as it meant to be.

Like it triggers after 0.4 seconds.

[twilit radish]

Yeah but now it's even more inaccurate 😂
Why not just process it by the amount of elements it has and then cap that to ten or whatever?

[earnest comet]

But still gives the same World Time seconds? o_O

So in this case, should I get the Client's World Time instead?

[twilit radish]

An authority switch does not have any delay. Not sure what you mean.

[pallid mesa]

its more inacurate for - (period*10)

if you suggest any improvement with proven numbers, feel free to do a PR over the article, I'll accept it happily

[twilit radish]

Lol sure. Expect a PR today xD

[earnest comet]

That Event triggers twice, one for server and one for client. So it is instant once and delayed (as it should be) for client.

[pallid mesa]

and don't forget the numbers 👀

evidence

[twilit radish]

In this case what you're doing is you're sending the server's time over to the client with that multicast as GetServerWorldTimeSeconds on the gamestate is just the server time on the server. Then your subtracting the servers replicated time (which is very similar by the time your multicast arrives) by the server time. So well yes you're going to get a very similar result if subtracting the almost same numbers by each other.

[earnest comet]

You are correct. Thanks for the help. What I also understand is, by the time the request is send to client to ask for what the time is, it is already the same time.

Client is following from behind 0.4 second. So when the request is send from the host, 0.4 second time already passed.

Aka, the same result almost is being told.

[twilit radish]

You're doing basically the same the game state does with this yeah, although the game state smooths things out by caching more data to prevent spikes.

[earnest comet]

[twilit radish]

And yes, correct.

[earnest comet]

Thanks for the help. Now I understand it more clear.

[twilit radish]

👍

[cold moat]

round 3 of ruining your feng shui with spazz questions:
Currently our game runs in listen server mode, but it 100% has to work with dedicated server
The way grenade throwing is synced -> we play the animation and it produces an event when you are supposed to throw a grenade
It wont work with a headless dedicated server, right?

"play animation" makes no sense for a dedicated server

(right?)

[chrome bay]

Depends

you can play them on servers if you want, but usually you don't

[cold moat]

the actual throw im trying to make into an instant triggered by tag ability

i guess i could replicate the tag instead?

[chrome bay]

If you play a montage from the ability, the montage notifies should trigger

The raw anims may not play, but the montage should IIRC

[cold moat]

yeah, it uses a custom ability task "PlayMontageAndWaitForEvent"
so, the montage itself will still work for timing on a dedi?

[chrome bay]

It should do yeah

[cold moat]

thanks!

[chrome bay]

The animation won't be evaluated (unless you force it to), but montage notifies should work

[cold moat]

i guess even if it doesnt work for no reason, a workaround wont require a massive reengineering anyway, so, shouldnt worry about it

thanks again

[old sequoia]

AFAIK if you play an animation on a dedicated server it will evaluate just like on any other machine.
Otherwise shooter games / Unreal Tournament wouldn't have functioning hit detection

[cold moat]

i guess it makes sense, havent thought of that, im still beating on the grenade system and had a random thought of "animations -> wait, thats graphics?!?!" lol

but yeah, the server has to know where things are lol, should have thought about that

[old sequoia]

The only thing skipped on a dedicated server is rendering and audio, everything else is just the same. Picture it as everything existing in complete darkness and silence

[cold moat]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Ability/SendGameplayEvent/
this also inherently does some form of replication, right?

[earnest comet]

Dear ultracute people, how reliable is this node from 1 to 10?

It seems to update per second but I might be wrong, just wanted to hear opinions! Thanks!

[cold moat]

define reliable

[earnest comet]

does it immediately update itself if someone suddenly gets laggy?

pretty new in multiplayer business so sorry if it doesn't make much sense what I ask

[cold moat]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/API/Runtime/Engine/GameFramework/APlayerState/GetCompressedPing/
depends what you are trying to do

[earnest comet]

will check, thanks!,

[cold moat]

serious question though

gameplay events somehow replicate internally, right?

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/API/Plugins/GameplayAbilities/FPredictionKey/

[fleet viper]

Trying to make a server callback for my interaction event. It of course only executes on client, but my server rpc is never called, it should tho right? Yes I checked, the class has replication turned on

[kindred widget]

Only ClientOwned actors can ServerRPC. I assume you don't and shouldn't give ownership of a mission to a client.

[fleet viper]

oh right

[fleet viper]

are they still able to replicate lets say a bool?

[kindred widget]

If it's set on the server.

[fleet viper]

ok

Same pattern inside of my game state. Server RPC's are not being called

[kindred widget]

Client also doesn't own the GameState. It's a server owned actor. The only three things a client can ServerRPC through by default are their PlayerController, PossessedPawn, and PlayerState.

[fleet viper]

oh well ok

[gray latch]

Hello brains trust. I am having trouble showing an AActor when it is 'equipped' on an client (from another client's perspective). I played around with it, and it seems that if the server equips the item, all clients can see it on the server's character, but if a client equips, no other clients nor server can see it. I equip the item using a function with the NetMulticast macro. Any hints would be highly appreciated

[cold moat]

outside of not very helpful "your client isnt properly replicating the action" its hard to say anything

[gray latch]

That actually is not a horrible hint. It sounds like perhaps my DOREPLIFETIME is not being fired properly

[cold moat]

you probably should do a quick debug to check if the net multicast is even being called on the client

[gray latch]

Just to be sure. If I have 2 clients running, the multicast should only be called on the client that actually equips the item, right?

[pale obsidian]

Don't forget that replication occurs from Server->Client, not the other way around. If there's a change you need to make for a Client but you want the Server and other Clients to see the change, the change should happen on the Server instead.

[cold moat]

well, the client obviously can communicate with the server, i think to put it better, only the server can make authoritative changes

[gray latch]

Thank you for the input Shiro, and it's a good point. I am indeed spawning the AActor object on the Server, where I also set it to be owned by the relevant client. Then I call the NetMulticast function where I attach the spawned object to a certain socket on the client mesh

[cold moat]

so the client can tell the server "do something", but not just doing something itself and hope for the best

i guess i made it super confusing xD

[gray latch]

Hehe yeah I completely understand what you're saying emp 🙂

[pale obsidian]

So are you calling the NetMulticast from the Server or the Client in question?

[gray latch]

I am calling it from the server

I have a feeling that perhaps I am somehow forcing it to only exist on the server

[pale obsidian]

Is the spawned object replicated? Or do you have each client spawn the actor themselves? We might need to see some code if you're able to share it.

[gray latch]

the object has bReplicates = true. Oh and of course, I'll find the relevant snippets!

[pale obsidian]

@gray latch Do you have a _Validate function as well for your Server RPC?

[gray latch]

Sorry to be ignorant here, but what is "RPC"?

[pale obsidian]

Remote Procedure Calls; when you specify UFUNCTION(Server) or UFUNCTION(NetMulticast) etc. you're saying this function is a RPC.

[gray latch]

Ohhh that is good to know!

Can you link me to some documentation on this validate?

I think I need to read a bit before continuing 🙂

[pale obsidian]

This isn't specifically for validate (although it's in there), but this network compendium has a good deal of info about UE Network topics. I'd recommend checking this out: https://cedric-neukirchen.net/Downloads/Compendium/UE4_Network_Compendium_by_Cedric_eXi_Neukirchen.pdf

[gray latch]

Awesome. Thanks a lot. I will study this for now

[pale obsidian]

For validation in C++, check out page 68.

Good luck

[gray latch]

Thank you very much - this is brilliant information

[twin juniper]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-to-approach-networked-procgend-worlds/121592/5 Anyone has any ideas for this?

I'm doing procedurally generated streaming worlds, where each world chunk is an actor. Because its fully deterministic and procedural, I dont need to replicate anything, just make sure that the server in fact has the same chunks streamed in as all players do combined. I do this by iterating over the PlayerControllers and getting their pawns, and adding these as "observers" for the streaming. This works on both server and client as expected, and seems to stream in the right chunks.

I also make sure that the world chunk actors have the same FName across clients/server. However, every now and then I still get that warning, and it has led to player position desync when testing.

[peak sentinel]

https://vorixo.github.io/devtricks/procgen/

is this what you are looking for by any chance

[twin juniper]

I think I just solved it, thanks a ton though I'll read through it!

[twin juniper]

hi guys i need to make a system on unreal by which vehicles/structures are serialized and then recreated serverside as players approach/move away from them and im not sure of the best way to go about it, my first thought is to run a check for every structure/vehicle currently spawned in and destroy/serialize them if they are not near any player, and then check the proximity of players to serialized entities and respawn them accordingly but the implication of this is running a function every tick to do these checks, which i feel would be bad for performance and especially bad if there is more people substantial amounts of people on the server or substantial amounts of structures/vehicles, does anyone have any ideas for how i can go about doing it? Its kind of an integral system so i dont wanna mess it up and need to totally rework it down the line. would prefer to get it mostly right (atleast conceptually) from the beginning. Thanks!

[green fjord]

hey i want to have run mechanism on my character this is my blueprint:

however it make stuttering effect on the character movement when walking or running on the client side
i already call the timeline node both on server and the client side
i want to incrementally the max walk speed using timeline both on ther server and client

[twilit radish]

I would very much recommend just seeing it from a regular save game perspective first but with multiple people who are able to load/unload things. Look around and see what kind of save systems there are in general and what fits your game, we don't know your game so it's difficult to say "just do this" as if that's wrong you're going to have to do it all over again in the end regardless. That's pretty much why I'm recommending to look around your self some more as a save system is a very important part of most games. Some general things to consider though is how much you're going to save and thus need:

• Is the world endless or big enough that I need to consider that by splitting up files? (Chunks).
• Can I get away with perhaps defining / saving distinct areas?
• Can I get away with just throwing it all in one big save file?

[twilit radish]

It probably has to do with the issue that the character system and your BPs don't match up. The character system has a bit of a complex system behind it to prevent cheaters from doing whatever they want to but that makes it basically impossible to do stuff like this BPs. It will likely also not work very well with rollbacks this way.

If you're not afraid to use C++ you can look in the pins for some examples on how to extend the CMC (Character Movement Component). If that's not an option you could consider allowing client authority on the movement. If both are not an option then I don't have a solution any more.

[real ridge]

guys how I can make this health + name widget for seeing it on others but not at me?

when I set visibility I Dont see it anywhere

any tips?

I clicked owner no see but I still see it

[solar stirrup]

Yeah but not for components heh. And yeah what Jambax said

[twin juniper]

the issue im worried about isnt so much saving, that should be pretty simple, im more worried about server performance in an open world with player made structures and player owned vehicles which could be great in number

so i want to serialize these structures/vehicles when noone is around to save server performance

cuz the game simply wont work otherwise

the world isnt infinite maybe ~12x12km

but when a player base could have 2000 structure entities and however many other shit this becomes a problem

[glad escarp]

Hey guys. Quick question. I have a world space widget component on my items that the player can interact with (pickups, buttons, switches etc). I display that widget when the player looks at it (line trace) but it displays to all other local players. Is there a way to only change visibility of the widget for the player that is looking at it?

[real ridge]

guys I Do have problem I am calling this event from event tick, when I will fly to wall or anything its called and I will die and last is function for restart/respawn player but when I am shooted down and call it over on damage Its not called

[winged badger]

IsLocallyControlled/IsLocalController for the Pawn/Controller

[glad escarp]

I tried that. Doesn't work for local multiplayer because every pawn is locally controlled. I'm wondering if I can get the widget visibility to show up in only one pane of the split screen if that makes sense. Sorry I didn't specify local multiplayer.

[winged badger]

Trace itself should be gated with local control

Ah

[glad escarp]

Yeah. It's a conundrum.

[winged badger]

You dont really need to use a widget component at all

Just put a canvas, deproject actor to screen and add interaction widget there

One canvas for each player

Also much more performant

[glad escarp]

I don't really want a screen space widget though. I want the widget to hover over the item contextually.

I've done "LookAt" messages before that set variables on the player HUD but that's not what I'm looking to do in this instance if that makes sense.

[final quest]

I have a problem in my local multiplayer project where the a bunch of static meshes are flickering for the second third and fourth players unless I am really close to them(the static meshes). can anyone help me

[gaunt cliff]

I haven't found a linux/server dedicated channel so I think I might get help from this one:
i uploaded my dedicated server build to the master server and when trying to execute it I get the following error: "./Server-Arm64.sh: 5: /home/dsuser/TestGame/Binaries/LinuxArm64/TestGameServer: Exec format error"

[latent heart]

"to the master server" ?

[gloomy tiger]

Not sure how common this question is but - DormantAll vs. Replicates = false. What's the technical difference between them?

[gaunt cliff]

the main server where we have a process to "clone" the build into instances depending on matchmaking etc...

[latent heart]

Have you run the arm64 build on it before?

[gaunt cliff]

nope, should I try building and uploading an arm build (no 64)?

[latent heart]

You should find out what you actually need to run on that machine

[gaunt cliff]

sadly its weekend and I don't have direct ssh access T_T

[real ridge]

how I can make client call from server call?

because when I die on damage event is server only

and after I have 0 life

I am calling respawn

but its only on server

😦

[real ridge]

problem is I want call event for client from this event any damage but it cant be called because event damage is authority only

so whats then... I need call it onclient which is taking damage

so he will create widget

already calling this on it but its not working as its called on server and not on local player

when I use switch has authority and put "pan died" to remote its not working neither

[unkempt tiger]

How do I net serialize a float with an explicit amount of bits optimized for an explicit range?

Say I want to net serialize a float that's always in [0, 1] range and use X bits just for that range

Oh with Write/ReadFixedCompressedFloat

[quiet fjord]

Guys I have a problem I want to save an actor type variable with some properties in a component of my character where it manages the weapons. Well, it turns out that when I save that variable and try to access it, it says that its parameters do not exist and it gives me an error, does anyone know why? I have everything replicated in a RunOnServer

[shrewd tinsel]

Only Owner See

Owner No See i mean

[heady python]

If you have a replicated reference, set it and its saying that the reference doesnt exist, my best guess is that youre setting the reference on the client, not the server. You only want to set replicated variables on the server.

[final quest]

do local multiplayer projects use multiple game instances?

[quiet fjord]

I already found the problem, it turns out that the variable that does not save me is an actor type variable

It turns out that the other types of variables do save them for me

[heady python]

Kinda. Theres a game instance for every machine running the game, but its client only, so not a lot of uses for it when it comes to multiplayer

[heady python]

replication should work on references(Actor variables). You have to make sure the actor is replicated and is spawned by the server for it to work though. are you able to post screenshots of your issue?

[final quest]

so for splitscreen it only uses one because there is only one machine

[heady python]

oh no i mispoke, its per player.

[quiet fjord]

If the problem is that the parent variable is not replicated and that is why it is giving me an error, if I solve the problem I will tell you

[final quest]

okay thanks. so would the first player essentially be the server?

[heady python]

if youre using listen servers then yes, the person that creates the lobby will be the server

[real ridge]

solvved

[real ridge]

solved

thx for help

[heady python]

Im talking about the actor itself. if you go into the class, is Replicates set to true? if it is then ensure that its being spawned on the server and you should be good

[real ridge]

guys how to make healthbars visible only for some range?

in mp

[quiet fjord]

ready i got it

[prisma snow]

"range"?

[final quest]

okay i'm having an issue where a bunch of walls are flickering for non clients. Is there something that would affect those clients and not the server that would cause that type of thing?

the walls are just static meshes

[real ridge]

for example i will be 6000+ "range"points away from enemy so his health bar will disappear

when I will be close enough it will show again

[prisma snow]

that is distance then right?

[real ridge]

now its like this

distance yep

but its not working heh

[prisma snow]

well

you need to calculate distance, either every frame or at. regular rate

to make it cheaper this case would benefit of comparing squred distances, it avoids a square root operation

Unreal's vectors have functions for this in C++, probs also in blueprints

[real ridge]

ok i dont care what distance it will be problem is how to set it for some players visible and for some no

not

so first problem i need solve it how to show it for some and for some not in same time

as someone should be not far and someone not

[prisma snow]

well need to iterate through the actors and check distances for each one of them

also this is barely multiplayer, UI is client side only

[real ridge]

ik i am doing it all in pawn

kekw

[prisma snow]

or maybe in tick for all pawns of the relevant class, they can do the distance check to the locally controlled pawn

[real ridge]

lol its working now

[prisma snow]

🎉

[real ridge]

https://tenor.com/view/hide-the-pain-harold-harold-laugh-confused-gif-21810289

[real ridge]

ok guys I know I am asking it here 151515x times but finally want to finish dynamical healthbars /allies are green for allies and enemies are red but for their allies also green how i can compare alll other players teams with mine and set color to healthbar

i have variable enum teams

every player has it its replicated

and it has only 2 values red or blue

doing it like this and also its comparing fine when i print I see false sometimes when enemy is there

but he dont change color anyway

he is like immediately rewrited with true

[teal frost]

Anyone able to help with this?
I've Got an event with a timer I'm trying to set.

Upon interaction - everything works normal and replicates to all clients when calling from the server window.
Calling from a client window - Only replicates the event, not the timer.

If I hook up the event tick node I'm using to count down the timer to say the branch after the input/interact button node, the event fires on overlap without pressing the button as normal, and everything including the timer is replicated across the board.

This works regardless if the client or server overlaps it.

[kindred widget]

First of all. The Interface event being called on the Timeline's update is unncessary. That should be a simple CustomEvent and called directly.

The likely issue you're having here is that you cannot ServerRPC from a client through an actor that is not client owned. Client does not own this MRI machine, and they should not.

What you should do is make a generic interact RPC in your character or controller. And call that by passing in the MRI machine as a generic Actor reference type. Then you can call a generic Interact function on the MRI machine on the server version of the player's controller or pawn. This is where you would start your logic on the MRI machine.

[real ridge]

hah sorry guys again me but i have no idea why my bars still not working when i change team enemies will change to red but enemies still see me as blue this is how i am doing it

via time function

its on begin play

any ideas whats wrong?

[dark edge]

I'd probably have an overlap sphere on my pawn that detects other pawns and calls show / hide hpbar on begin/end overlap

Gate by Locally controlled or disable collision on overlapper if not locallycontrolled

Or a sphere overlap on a timer

[kindred widget]

Indicator system would be much better for this.

Widget's indicated component's screen space projected Z value can determine if it's too far away to be shown.

[dark edge]

@real ridge repnotify my dude

[dark edge]

Would my approach be good if there was other stuff that cared about nearbyness?

I was mostly thinking in terms of having an up-to-date list of nearby actors of interest for whatever mechanic, not just displaying health bars

[kindred widget]

Possibly. Probably cheaper than a tick check at least. But that depends on the amount of movable things triggering the overlap checks. Still probably cheaper than a tick check.

[teal frost]

Trying to work through what you said. Sorry I'm new to this. By the interface being called on update do you mean the event dispatcher? If So that is how I was shown to replicate that event through my playercharacter bp as shown in the ss here. This is driven by my interact system (also attached) It may not be 100% set up right cause I've been experimenting with it in probably the dumbest of ways.

I'm sorry if I'm just outrageously dumb. I'm trying to fix that too.

[dark edge]

Pawn. Or widget, doesn't matter really. The repnotify will be in pawn

Just check if the widget's pawn's team matches the LOCAL player's pawn's team.

[kindred widget]

Ah, that's my bad I thought that was an interface event. A dispatcher there is fine. Can I ask what this MRI machine is supposed to do exactly? I feel like this is maybe being made a little too complex.

[dark edge]

@teal frost what's the high level gameplay mechanic you're trying to do here?

[teal frost]

It's supposed to use the timeline to pull in the scan bed into the scanner, when that happens a timer is supposed to start here.

The first part works.
I can activate and see the scanner run on and from both client and server.
However, the timer only activates/replicates when activated by the server window.

[teal frost]

Only the most basic of actions.

[dark edge]

I mean just tell me what happens when you activate this thing. Character walks up, activates it, what happens?

[kindred widget]

I would start with that generic interaction thing I mentioned before. Your core problem here is the Actor's Ownership. You cannot ServerRPC through this actor. Which is why it only works for the host.

•Make a new ServerRPC in your PlayerController that takes in an actor reference.
•Make a new Interface and a function in it that takes in an Actor reference.
•Make your current control press that interacts call this ServerRPC in the local PlayerController, passing along whatever you're trying to interact with, in this case you'll pass a reference of the MRI machine.
•In the ServerRPC function, call the interface function on the actor reference from the RPC.
•Implement the interface in your MRI and call your multicast from this function call.

[heady python]

a lot of stuff could cause the client and server to see different things. if youre able to post screenshots of your bp i could help you.

[dark edge]

In your character:

InputAction -> Run on Server Event -> Choose what to interact with -> call interact on it.

The Client -> Server RPC needs to happen in the pawn or playercontroller.

Then you're serverside, and can do whatever you want.

[prisma snow]

can I have a party?

[dark edge]

I would probably do this in scanner:

InteractionEvent -> Set bool bIsScanning(replicated, repnotify)

OnRep_bIsScanning -> update state based on the new bIsScanning, call an event to fire off a timeline if this is a timeline thing

That simple

One Run On Server Event(in pawn), One RepNotify(in scanner)

You could use a multicast instead of the RepNotify but I prefer repnotify pattern myself

[teal frost]

Thanks guys! Gonna try to work through what you've both said for educational purposes.
I appreciate the input!

[dark edge]

Sure, go for it. Just repnotify it, otherwise late guests won't see the party.

[prisma snow]

wow didn't realise that, thanks for the mp tip

[real ridge]

this one I already solved thanks anyway

I used comparing self with pawn of my type

and get distance to and set visibility

on event on timer

[real ridge]

Now I have timer event on loop where I do compare self -> get team == cast to pawn --> get team and then setting it sometimes it's working but not correctly

[final quest]

I removed manure and it’s working now. Not sure why nanotechnology would vary from server to client but whatever. Thanks for the help

[real ridge]

but how to get "widget's pawn's Team ? local I can get ..... also I need check it every sec in case someone will join so use event tick?

[dark edge]

You use a repnotify

Team should be a replicated variable with a repnotify

every time the repnotify fires, you update Color

[real ridge]

team is replicated now yea

hm so let's say

Begin play-> set rep notify team -> in rep notify ( do comparing) cast to widget and set colours)?

[dark edge]

that's not what casting is

[real ridge]

comparing = get local player pawn -> get team = get somehow other pawns

[dark edge]

Make a function in the pawn to calculate the color. Have it read the pawns team and the local player's pawn's team. Have it set color

You don't need the other pawns, this is happening on every pawn

Every pawn looks at their own team, and the LOCAL player's team, and chooses color based on that

on every machine

[real ridge]

bruh but this will set only color for myself

[dark edge]

You can trigger it with a repnotify or just do it in a binding.

[real ridge]

u don't get my point meh

[dark edge]

If you have 4 players, 4 pawns will do this on every machine

[real ridge]

I will try explain

4 players yes?

2 in red team 2 in blue team

Red = Roger Simons Blue=Zed and Karlas

now

they are in game

[dark edge]

Say it's on Roger's screen

Simon's pawn is red. Rogers pawn is red. Simon's bar is green.
Rogers pawn is red. Rogers pawn is red. Roger's bar is green.
Zed's pawn is blue. Rogers pawn is red. Zed's bar is red.

that's how it works

[real ridge]

Roger sees Simons as blue , roger sees zed and Karlas as red but Karlas sees zed as blue and Roger and simons are red for him also for simons is Roger blue but zed and Karlas red and for zed is Karlas blue and Roger and simons red

i mean sees as blue ( his healthbar is blue)

[dark edge]

just remember that the health bar color is NOT replicated

Roger's pawn has a friendly healthbar on his and Simon's screen. He has an enemy healthbar on Zed and Karlas screen.

[real ridge]

https://youtu.be/MuplGw2sNrY

i need exactly this

what is in this plugin check

[dark edge]

OK do exactly this. Do you currently have a team variable that is replicated?

[real ridge]

Yep

it's enum team replicated

posted it above check

here is how I am comparing now

works only sometimes

[dark edge]

It's really simple to do with a binding. In the UI widget, for the bar color binding, check if the widget's pawn's team matches the LOCAL PLAYER PAWN's team.

that's it

[real ridge]

oh shit this is good idea

should I go try it on computer?

[dark edge]

That's simple enough and will update for any team change.

[real ridge]

and I was doing this above....

let me try it

[dark edge]

You'd want to use a repnotify if you had some more complex UI but binding is fine for simple stuff if there's not an insane amount of UI around.

[real ridge]

literally nothing only color

make bind on variable or as Function?

[dark edge]

as function

your widget will need a reference to the pawn it's on

you should have one already for getting the hp value

[real ridge]

i don't have I am sending hp via

repnotify

[dark edge]

You can send team via repnotify too if you want

[real ridge]

no sorry I am just getting health bar reference then getting progress bar and setting percents

for life

no repnotify nothing

[dark edge]

Just give the widget a ref to it's pawn.

[real ridge]

problem is now I am trying to get local player but I can get from it tean

team

i need cast

[dark edge]

yeah you'll need to do a cast here

[twin juniper]

I'm trying to use projectile movement to have players drop an item

Does this require a multicast or is dropping it on the server enough since projectile movement "replicates"?

[real ridge]

hm

[dark edge]

not owning local player

[twin juniper]

I'm pretty comfortable replicating custom events and all that but I'm not 100% certain about projectilemovement.

I've heard it's great for replication. Is that because it's very easy to share the values via multicasting or because UE already has replication built-in just like with charactermovement?

[real ridge]

just player pawn?

[dark edge]

that's local pawn

[real ridge]

so far I did this

@dark edge

now call it on tick on pawn?

[dark edge]

Nothing to call here, this should be it.

binding runs on tick

assuming you're passing the right pawn ref to this

[real ridge]

but I am not sending anything inside function yet

from pawn

[dark edge]

you don't need to send anything

[real ridge]

just asking if send it on begin play or tick

[dark edge]

it gets what it needs

dont' send

it gets

it jsut needs to have a ref to pawn it's on

[real ridge]

what but it's custom function in health which is called nowhere just variable color is binded

and I am nowhere sending pawn inside it

pawn ref is empty

i thought i need call it in player pawn

[dark edge]

Set it at begin play

[real ridge]

nah my only problem is I can't get pawn of other kek

[dark edge]

This simple

[real ridge]

so let's check

[dark edge]

You aren't understanding what a binding does

The binding runs every frame

just make sure the widget has a set MyPawn ref and you're golden

[real ridge]

k i need edit it

[dark edge]

You don't need to call the binding

[real ridge]

I do have binding on variable color, not on function

aware

[real ridge]

this should be fine or?

casting to variable color, sending my replicated pawn to widget

in widget compare local with replicated ones

setting color

[dark edge]

Your whole setup is a mess

[real ridge]

lol why

[dark edge]

Literally just do this.

[real ridge]

same as yours

it's same bro instead my pawn i do have player

and instead bool I have enum

[dark edge]

why is Pawn a variable and why is it replicated?

it's just self

[real ridge]

because I can send pawn of others to your widget without replicating it or?

[dark edge]

you don't do that

here's all you do

and it's all local

each widget checks if it's pawn's team is equal to the local pawn's team

that's it

[dark edge]

You just do this to let the widget know what pawn it cares about

[dark edge]

And then you do this to set the color

[real ridge]

i did

it's now working same as my previous not for 100 % weird

[real ridge]

check

and here is test

maybe problem is I am on same machine :/ u see also my team on the left upper corner and name color is related to name too

[dark edge]

Player is confusing, call it MyPawn or something

it's the widget's Pawn it cares about, not a player.

[real ridge]

okay

need to package it and test on 2 different machines bcs

now it's messy on one propably

[dark edge]

You don't need to package, you can just launch

[real ridge]

because I am setting team in menu and I can't here set it before game because my menu is joining me to session on dedicated server so I have to test it packaged with running server on my server

[real ridge]

btw how it is possible that self (pawn) which I am passing it to widget gets there and is not same as local player pawn which I am getting in widget? it it's not replicated how I can get there 2 different pawns in widget running on local machine

it's confusing my mind

[dark edge]

Because on my machine, your pawn is not my pawn

On my machine, my pawn is LocalPlayerPawn

Your pawn and my pawn both exist on both machines

[real ridge]

how they can if it's not replicated?

i can't understand ah

i thought i can send something to you only only if I replicate it

[dark edge]

if what's not replicated?
The pawn and the pawn's team are replicated. That's enough

LOCALLY, the hp bar color depends on if the pawn and the LOCAL player's pawn have the same team.

[real ridge]

yes

[dark edge]

Team is replicated, Friend/Enemy is not, it's derived by whether the teams match.

[real ridge]

hm did u see video ? what it was doing on one side it was fine on second it was weird I will test it tomorrow hope it will be good

[real ridge]

yep

[real ridge]

ok ok I was just wondering about your example u sent there u didn't have set anything as replicated that's why asking

[dark edge]

yeah Team would be

[real ridge]

okay sorry for confusing discussion but I had really exploded brain from it

i will try test it Tommorow in real match and hopefully it will be fine

( that team changing in game) i do have only because testing when I don't have time to package and test server

[low niche]

Hi, I'm starting to lose my mind, I want to send a server RPC from a client owned actor but it just doesn't fire
1- The node gets called because the print string after it does work.
2- Verified that the actor is owned by client when I set owner from server
3-all actors involved are replicated
I'm pretty sure its a dumb thing I forgot or something not right with project, any help is appreciated thanks.

[fossil spoke]

Have you checked the Output Log? It may indicate why.

Typically a Client Actor cant send an RPC unless it has a NetOwningConnection.

[low niche]

@fossil spoke Thanks for reply, no log, I do set the owner of actor from server if that is what you mean

[fathom aspen]

Do you have access to C++?

[low niche]

I can try but I want it in blueprint because prototyping

[fathom aspen]

Well the point is to find out why the RPC is "failing"

You can keep guessing or you can debug the RPC and find out what's going on

Another reason why BP can even limit you when you prototype 😔

[low niche]

Will try thanks for input!

[fathom aspen]

If you get to try, breakpoint AActor::CallRemoteFunction and good luck on the debugging journey 😉

[mortal tusk]

Anyone know why this is happening?

[polar wing]

Do you mind showing more of the graph to the right there where you attach the weapon?

[upbeat basin]

I'm going to make a blind guess and say that you attach the weapon directly on the locally controlled character instead of the character that is overlapping the sword, which we will probably figure out how/why if you show what you do on the body of the for each loop as KyleL also asked for

[surreal plaza]

If I have a server function for some action, in this case, spawning a game relevant object, do I need an authority check anywhere or do I just call MyServerFunction() and in either the case of the client or the server, I know that the server processes it?

[frail barn]

sry if this question is stupid, but i dont know how to ask it correctly
if i made a moba game, do i need to store champions information using Data Registries, or it can be stored in a blueprints, different for each champion?
do i really needs all these Data Tables, or it is an overkill in my case?

[dark edge]

Either/or. It's all data assets in the end

Think about how character selection works.

Where does the selection info come from?

[frail barn]

right now selection works fine, because there's no multiplayer and only 2 characters in one blueprint, just to see, how it works
but, before i start to place another characters, i need to understand, how to do it correctly, before they hit 50+

[surreal plaza]

gg

Lol, oops.

[twin juniper]

game prints the name of the pawn I'm passing through

game simultaneously insists that no value is passed

[dark edge]

You'll probably at least want to end up with a datatable with a row per character, with a soft pointer to the character BP class, and other data like descriptions, name, icons, etc

[twin juniper]

OnPossess is something that does not seem to trigger on clients

I eventually found this thread: https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/in-a-networked-environment-when-does-the-players-pawn-actually-get-created/66413/18

I don't see where I'm going wrong. Really, PossessValid shouldn't even have an input, it should just get the possessed pawn.

I'm so lost. If Possess isn't triggering, then why is the client's camera snapped to the pawn, as if it's possessing it?

[fossil spoke]

I would be more concerned about CPU. But the main thing that you should be doing is Profiling. Every game is different, you wont know what you need until you test it yourself.

If RAM is the bottleneck (which is unlikely), then focus your optimization efforts on improving that.

Same goes for any other bottleneck.

It requires testing and profiling.

What do you mean? Host however/wherever you like.

[wheat niche]

Hey, how can i check if steam is opened

[fossil spoke]

Can you explain in more detail exactly what your asking? Thats a pretty broad question that could imply a lot more than what you may think.

[wheat niche]

i want to create a function in c++ that checks if steam is in the background active (windows)

[fossil spoke]

You want to know if another program is open in the background?

The Steam integration with UE should provide that functionality for you. It will tell you if Steam is available, but not necessarily if its in the background to the degree which I think you are asking.

[twin juniper]

the client just returns nothing when I ask what its possessing, which is a bit of a problem since I have a reference to the possessed character

what I think should be happening is the game mode runs its event that spawns a pawn and tells the player controller to possess it. As far as I can tell, that happens

Then I want the client to set a reference to the character it's possessing, and add its HUD. And add the appropriate mapping context based on what it's just possessed

that's not happening

listen server works great though

[cosmic yew]

Was curious to check out multiplayer and set the clients to a size of 2 and listen to server option. Launched in Unreal and when I attempt to interact with a door I made that normally rotates, it doesn't rotate on the other screen. Also noticed my widget I add to viewport for walking near a door is displayed on 2nd client as well. Any advice?

[twin juniper]

you need to look into replication. I imagine you have some event called like "OpenDoor" or something that opens the door. When the server opens the door, is the server the only one that sees it open?

are clients the only ones that see it open if they open it?

If you haven't put any work into replication at all then that's probably the case.

What you need to do instead is have players not just directly open the door, but send a message to the server that the server should open the door. The server will then activate a multicast event that tells all the clients that the door is open.

You should also probably have a RepNotify on the door for "IsOpen" or whatever you measure that with. If its true, set the door to the open position, if its false, set it to closed.

You can trigger the RepNotify at the end of the server's door animation. That seems to work really well for me

[twin juniper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVeo3cVTIcU&list=PLNb7FZ2Nw2HTcJ9Qvy8n2Ou-ZVbsDOMFh&index=4

check this series out

[cosmic yew]

Sorry, had to leave for a moment. I had an event that opens the door and yes it only works for client when the server opens. When I attempt on the client, it doesn't show the change on the server.

[weak linden]

If you want to do this to prevent the game from launching without steam being open, the Steamworks SDK has the ability to apply Steams DRM wrapper to the executable as part of the upload process, documentation is available here https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm

You will likely also need bRelaunchInSteam=True in your DefaultEngine.ini under the [OnlineSubsystemSteam] section

[twin juniper]

nice, yeah I don't think networking is as hard as people say but it definitely took me a few weeks to get familiar with

I can do really basic stuff like doors, inventory, shooting, etc but I'm having a higher level issue. Watch that series a few times and just do your best

[cosmic yew]

Ok, thank you.

[dim trail]

does a server->client rpc take as much resources as client->server?

[dark edge]

probably

[glossy kettle]

depends on NetDriver

default UE one wont cut it in 2023

for more than 2plyrs

[twin juniper]

"higher level"

If I pass the character through an RPC I don't think that does what I want. Because now the client is trying to control a reference to the server's version of the pawn?

this seems so basic.

[fossil spoke]

If they have identical signatures then for the most part yes.

[glossy kettle]

what if server has DMA NICs and no syscall ring buffer SKBs w/ custom NetDriver

[twin juniper]

if I do a delay or manually wait before pressing Z here the HUD appears on the screen for one frame then disappears but my mapping context stays

[dark edge]

What if it doesn't.

[tranquil swallow]

Hey guys I'm creating a weapon system and I'm wondering if this would be one of the better ways to replicate the shooting aspect of it.

Player Shoots > FireWeapon_Client is called > Calls fire weapons server > Calls fire weapon all (multicast) which then calls my fireweapon method which then gets handled in the weapon

Is there a way to do this better or what would you suggest.

[twin juniper]

Functionally this is good from what I can tell but there's an issue you'll notice when this is put into action

When a client fires their weapon they're now waiting for their message to get to the server, and then the server to get back to them.

You'll want the local client to see the montage and any related visuals basically instantly, even though they're not practically doing anything

[tranquil swallow]

So anything visual I would want to handle in the client and the server?

[twin juniper]

Pretty much? Things like blood splatters you might want to wait for the actual server confirmation though. MOST players will not know with certainty that their shot "should" have hit from their perspective.

But they will know, "hey I shot this gun .6 seconds ago, why hasn't it shot yet?"

The answer is because there's .6 seconds of latency for them. But you can disguise that by having them see an animation play and particle effects fire and all that

you're basically lying to them, like every other FPS on the planet

[tranquil swallow]

Also if I have a bp and it has many variables, if I tick is replicated for the bp does it replicate all the values or is it only the ones i manually set

[twin juniper]

that I'm not as sure on but I do know that if you're not replicating a variable or passing it through RPCs there's no way for networked players to see their values

so like your gun firing is a multicast, right? That's because you want all the relevant clients to see that the gun fired.

Your ammo though should probably be a RepNotify. That way if a player joins late or becomes relevant after the gunshot they will have the correct ammo-count replicated to them

[tranquil swallow]

Oh thats what rep notify does?

[twin juniper]

Yeah, if a player joins late, anything handled exclusively by multicasts won't show up. Because they weren't connected when it happened

[thin stratus]

Same goes for when they are out of relevancy range

[twin juniper]

so for like doors opening, on the server I play the animation, and I do a multicast to tell everyone a door is opening. And then only on the server when the door finishes I use a repnotify to show that the door is open/closed

[tranquil swallow]

that makes a ton of sense

[twin juniper]

Does anyone know if Lyra has genuine network stuff inside of it? I'm downloading it now to see what their solution to my problem was but if they don't do networking there's no point

[thin stratus]

The whole game is multiplayer

Anything else depends on what your problem is

[twin juniper]

why didn't I think of this 16 hours ago

righteous thanks

I just switched over from having assigned a default pawn in the game mode's default classes to having the game mode spawn and assign controllers and it totally ruined everything

WHOA WAIT A MINUTE I read your compendium at work yesterday! You're a legend thanks a ton for that

[dark edge]

Is there a way to do that with repnotify and some sort of timestamp?

So you can detect old state that just got replicated in vs fresh state that should have sound and animations etc?

[twin juniper]

like compensate for latency?

Or like, a player walks into the scene as the animation finishes, and so they suddenly see the door snap open?

Because that second example is probably pretty rare if not impossible in a lot of setups

[dark edge]

I mean instead of haveing an RPC and a repnotify for everything that happens over time like a door opening

Basically to tell the difference between an incoming repnotify that's fresh vs an old one (late join, relevency)

[twin juniper]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh

[dark edge]

I suppose you could make a struct for your state that includes a timestamp?

It'd be like

bDoorIsOpen
float TimeStamp

[twin juniper]

idk I've just kept all my stuff totally separated between mulicasts and notifies

[dark edge]

And in the repnotify you play the animation if Timestamp is recent and just snap the door angle if it's not

[twin juniper]

that's interesting though

is the idea that you'd be saving resources?

[dark edge]

More like saving programmer headache and time

Repnotify all the things

[twin juniper]

Hmm, I'd say once you're really familiar with it its not that bad

I was furious a few weeks ago trying to figure out what the differences between all these options were and now I appreciate them since it helps compartmentalize everything

[dark edge]

Like say I late join and there's a bunch of nearby doors that are open.
All the repnotifies would notice that the doors were last modified over 1s ago (server time), and just snap open and skip playing the sound etc.
But if I watch another player open a door the repnotify would be within the time window and I'd see the animation and hear the sound.

[twin juniper]

I basically divide everything up into RepNotify = "info a player who JUST joined would need to access"

and Multicast = "show current relevant players an animation or something"

[dark edge]

Yeah I'm talking about just jamming it all into the repnotify. Might be worth trying I think. I haven't tried it myself yet.

[twin juniper]

they do this already though? If you joined late and the doors were all already open they'd just spawn open due to the notify

I have tried and failed miserably haha

[dark edge]

If your notify plays an animation and sound then you'd hear 100 doors open at once.

[twin juniper]

I'm not the best at this stuff though so who knows

Yeah but that's why you'd multicast the soudn and animation

cramming it all into notify may be doable tho

[dark edge]

Yeah im talking about ditching the multicast. I'm sure someone's done it.

[graceful flame]

If you ever find yourself using a multicast and adding variables such as a vector into it, it’s probably better to stop and refactor the blueprint to use a repnotify for a single boolean and then get the vector without sending it over the network.

[dark edge]

Where do you get the vector from?

if it's a replicated variable you're not assured that it's up to date when the boolean repnotify fires

and if it's not a replicated variable then why were you RPCing it

It's presumably some vector the server cooked up that the clients gotta know about

[twin juniper]

Lyra does not have easily accessible blueprints for things like their controllers so I actually cannot find a solution here. Damn

[graceful flame]

I found that when I was first using multicast I’d be sending vectors over the network without realizing I didn’t have to. But a repnotify removes that temptation.

[dark edge]

Hell yeah lets go

Testing my graph / network simulation plugins I'm making, working with indices into FStruct arrays is scary but it's zoomy.

TSparseArray is awesome

whoops this isn't cpp

[mortal tusk]

I need to equip the weapon that is spawned by another player...
any idea how?

[dark edge]

lemme stop you right there

Spawn a REPLICATED actor on the server

don't multicast the spawn

[mortal tusk]

omg it works

thanks

[dark edge]

Pretty much don't multicast anything. You'll find yourself using it mostly for unimportant stuff like cosmetics

not a hard and fast rule but your code will be much better if you use replication and repnotify

[mortal tusk]

ok imma gonna note that

[dark edge]

Basically instead of MulticastOpenDoor, you'd instead want to have a boolean bIsOpen, and in the repnotify for it, do the stuff that should be done when that changes

[torn obsidian]

Guess I will ask here since I'm not sure where else... I have a game using VR and Desktop. They have to be in the same scene. But there's stuff I want to disable in VR for performance reasons, foliage for example, I've been looking at data layers and the older sublevel stuff and I can make it somewhat work with sublevels but I'm having a lot of trouble finding a way to do this. Anyone have ideas? Most stuff I'm trying to load or unload will get done on all instances...

[soft relic]

is it possible to replicate a UObject instead of an actor?

[chrome bay]

Not without an actor

[soft relic]

I see

[twin juniper]

Hey, if I set dormant all on actor then how can I use RPC? Is it possible? or is there any workaround?

[chrome bay]

no

Clients can't call RPCs on a dormant actor

Server can, but you need to wake it

[twin juniper]

is it possible to disable diff or check replicated properties in each actor? because if actor isn't dormant and uses RPC (client / server) then game server (cpu) checks this actor and his properties all the time

[chrome bay]

Nothing you can do about that

If an actor goes dormant it's network data is destroyed. Waking it means it creates all that again

[dire tusk]

Hi peeps!
I was wondering about network testing a basic asset.
Nothing fancy, I just want it to play an animation.
The blueprint does have a few variables like a bool to toggle the actor on an off.
The animation is playing fine on both machines?
I launched 2 game instances and it looks like it is replicated perfectly on the other machine.
I have not added anything for networking or set up anything specific for replication.
Or set any variable for replicating or anything at all?
Is this just UE5 default behavior duplicating my object on the other client?
Or is it just an editor thing and I should be testing with a dedicated server?
From what I'm seeing I'm making the assumption animation play just easy replicates in networking?

[hushed rain]

How would one approach a rank system in a listen server game? Is it possible to secure it against hacking ranks?

[short arrow]

Nope it's gonna be hacked

Hosts will 100% cheat. As far as sending off the match results, the server has to do that aswell...

I dont know what dead by daylights solution was because they had a ranking system in their listen server game. Which is weird because that meant they were trusting the server host to send data about the match results which I believe could have been hacked

But the hosts were definitely cheating quite often, or they would leave as soon as they were about to lose to avoid match results being sent

[hushed rain]

hmmm, thats interesting about DBD... thanks, i thought that was the case sadly lol.

[short arrow]

Yeah it slowly became unplayable. They had no choice but to switch to dedicated servers

[elfin sail]

hi , I am getting an issue , when 2nd player join it does not have first player state data but 1st one have data for both

any idea what i am doing wrong

[short arrow]

Show your vode

Code

[elfin sail]

void AMirrorCharacter::OnRep_PlayerState()
{
    Super::OnRep_PlayerState();

    PawnExtensionComponent->HandlePlayerStateReplicated();
    if(GetMirrorPlayerState() && IsLocallyControlled())
    {
        if(UMirrorGameInstance* MirrorGameInstance = Cast<UMirrorGameInstance>( GetGameInstance()))
        {
            UpdatePlayerDataOnServer(MirrorGameInstance->MirrorSaveGame->PlayerProfile);
        }
    }
}

this how i am updating data on server

[twilit radish]

I think the assumption can be made that by far not all players on a certain game cheat though, so you can probably assume that a good amount of games will just bring back fair results of who won/lost. To prevent cheating to some amount however you could probably just keep track of what matches have been started by the matchmaking system and keep track of who played, then you can not just 'randomly' ruin people their ranks beyond at best one game IF just the host sends back the results. If you go a step further you could have all players in a game send over their match results and if they differ you just invalidate the match results. That would eliminate the scenario of "the host said they won" because then it doesn't match up that 2-3 other player say they won instead.

Still not perfect whatsoever in the end. Although the last scenario overall sounds decent-ish in general, it's basically impossible with random matchmaking to get a full game of cheaters and even then obviously they all want to "win" so the match result will just be disregarded. But that does suck in the scenario of people who just want to see the game burn and ruin random matches. But I don't think that's fixable whatsoever no matter what you do without dedicated servers.

But again, the chance of that being such a big problem in the first place seems small to me. That's never going to be the majority of people 😄

[eternal canyon]

Could technically use a hybrid model which clients validate each other including the server

Maybe

[twilit radish]

If you go a step further you could have all players in a game send over their match results and if they differ you just invalidate the match results.
I got

[eternal canyon]

Oh I mean also for validating player actions

But that might be a lot of data

[twilit radish]

You can to some degree, but I don't think that's worth the headache of dealing with stuff like that whatsoever. Also it's still very much a game you will lose in the end. People will find new ways to cheat and there's also going to be stuff you can't really validate. It's basically the same madness as with GTA V.

Giving authority to a random client is just never going to be trustworthy 😄

[grand hatch]

i have this code to decide for the ai what player to chase but it doesnt work properly for some reason. The ai only chases the host unless the player being chased touches the ai then the ai for some reason swaps target.

[dire tusk]

Hi peeps,
My blueprint plays an animation and its working by default in both clients?
But I didn't even enable my blueprint to replicate.
I'm just trying to understand if skeletal mesh animation plays just network properly by default.
Or should I be safety adding anything?
I figure if it does just "work" then my safety layers is just networking what manipulate calling the 'skeletalMesh Play'

[unkempt tiger]

If a replicated component is created serverside and immediately multicasts a reliable RTPC, that reliable multicast is likely not to make it to clients, right?

[rotund onyx]

Is there a way to send a small array of bytes (limit in UE is 65,000 I think?) from client to server without making a whole new replicated variable?
For reference I'd like to send teeny tiny files from client to server or vice versa

[rotund onyx]

Probably not, you might be better off using it's begin play on clients or RepNotify

[elfin sail]

I have replicated variable , its correct on server but not updating on client

what i am doing wrong ?

[dull tinsel]

Hey anyone know a reason that a server event would lose a reference to a replicated variable? (whether it was passed in as an input or attached directly)

[elfin sail]

what you mean by ref ?

[dull tinsel]

I got a client who is making a VR naruto game and they're trying to replicate the hand animations but whenever they try to send the reference to the new animation it comes back accessed none on the server

[dire tusk]

I just want to hire someone for 2 hours to talk unreal network and blueprint designing and call it a day lol

[indigo brook]

Hey, what's the game flow to do a win state?

Example, if player reaches the button and interacts with it first, they are the winner. I'm having a bit of trouble with the pipeline.

So like, does the PlayerState tell the GameMode, or does the actor that I interact with tell the GameMode?

[quasi tide]

There are a couple of ways to do it. Completely up to you.

1. Actor can tell the GM, sure.
2. Actor can tell the GameState.
3. Don't forget to notify all the clients that the match is won

[indigo brook]

Aye, I'm mainly having an issue with telling the owning widget to use a binding. So if winning, they see a winner text on their screen, if loser, they see loser on their screen. I seem to be screwing up on that part

[quasi tide]

Get the widgets PlayerController, then do a server RPC.

[quasi tide]

Most all UI stuff will be routed through the PlayerController in a networked scenario

[indigo brook]

Like this? The GM is GameMode and PC is Player Controller

[quasi tide]

Yeah

[indigo brook]

@quasi tide Also, thanks for answering

[quasi tide]

Compendium and practice.

[indigo brook]

So I do that, the widget does come on, but I'm trying to also set a tag or variable that when that owners widget pops up, if they arn't the winner, they see loser. I have the binding all ready but it seems like the Server is the winner, and the client is the loser, even if the client wins

[dire tusk]

Yeah but It doesn't help when I feel I understand the concept.
I see videos using the concepts how I thought they worked.
But not see the same outcomes on my end lol
So its like I get the subject matter and concept but I'm obviously leaving out small mistakes or miss understandings.
Got used to class environments for studying I guess lol

[quasi tide]

Just need to track who is the winner and then pass a simple bool "bHasWon".

[dire tusk]

95% of the time I talk to someone and I go "oh got it" or "i see what you were going for you were close" lol

[quasi tide]

That's a practice issue.

You just need to do it more frequently. Make small games.

Super small games.

[dire tusk]

Yeah I haven't been knee deep in networking in a bit lol

[low helm]

I'm thinking about the cheapest way to send a weapon fire notification down to clients(BP only). I've seen plenty of warnings against multicast, that replicated variables are generally cheaper. Would it make sense to send weaponfire notifications simply as an OnRep Byte that increments

[quasi tide]

Multicast is fine. Just depends on what you are trying to do.

[gaunt cliff]

ControlChannelClose is being shown in the server log and the clients cant do anything
no google search results...

[low helm]

Well I'd like rapid fire machine guns, why not Byte OnRep

Or as rapid as I can get it

[indigo brook]

Agreed. Just seeming to not make the right connection haha. I'm not sure if it's because I'm calling things weird. It makes sence

1. Character interacts with interactable actor
2. Actor casts to GameMode and tells it to run the ShowWinScreenGM event
3. GameMode tells PlayerController to fire event for ShowWinScreenPC
4. ShowWinScreenPC event opens widget on owning clients
5. Widget opens up and the player can see if they are a winner via text bind or loser

[quasi tide]

Look into burst counters. Jambax has an article that gives you the idea.

[low helm]

Thank you

[quasi tide]

You just need to track who is the winner, then in the client rpc, pass that value.

[indigo brook]

The winner is whoever interacted with the button

So pass that through to the GM event maybe from the Actor

[quasi tide]

Okay. So whoever flips it, get their controller and flip the bool to true and then notify the game mode.

[indigo brook]

Gotcha

I was trying to use tags and stuff first haha

[quasi tide]

Then the game mode just passes that value from the PC into the client rpc

So when the client gets it, they just need to check if it is true or false

Because this is specifically about the end game, part, onrep doesn't really matter. Going to be going to a new map anyway.

[indigo brook]

True, alrighty, I'll give the bool variable inside the PC a try

[indigo brook]

@quasi tide Alrighty, I'm still having the same issue. Where am I going wrong?

[quasi tide]

Get PC controller. In the interaction, get the interacting character, then get the controller from that. Don't rely getting the controller the way you are doing it.

[indigo brook]

roger, I'ill give that a shot

[quasi tide]

You're always getting the first PC (which will be the server or some random one on dedicated server). So it is not reliable.

[indigo brook]

?

[quasi tide]

Yeah

And this should be getting ran on the server

1. Client tells server it wants to interact with object
2. Server validates and processes the interaction

[indigo brook]

This worked!

Both times, the correct player I was playing as got the winner status

[quasi tide]

🥳

[indigo brook]

@quasi tide Thanks for rubber ducking man. Turns out the whole time I had to get the char ref, then get owner...

[quasi tide]

When I do networking code, it helps just thinking about what computer I am on in the flow of events.

[indigo brook]

I tried at first with adding a tag to the player character, but that seemed to not work originally.

[dire tusk]

Question about RunOnServer replication.
I'm noticing sometimes calling a RunOnServer function does nothing?
It won't enter the function at all? I was thinking it would always call onto the server to use the event?

[quasi tide]

Won't work if the actor is not owned by w/e connection is trying to do the server event

[indigo brook]

So using GetPlayerController to cast was not getting the right controller? But using the character ref then controller from that was. My brain is blown haha

[dire tusk]

currently its a button on the ground that any player can walk on and there's a dispatch on the level blueprint to use the RunOnServer event.
On what the button triggers.

[quasi tide]

Yeah. In networking, that static function can be tricky. So often times it is just best to avoid it. Can always get the controller in some way that gives you the correct controller.

I'd recommend doing a BPFL to handle some of these cases, so you don't necessarily have to keep doing the same few nodes (get pawn -> get controller -> cast to blah, etc..)

[indigo brook]

Agreed

[quasi tide]

Still depends on who "owns" the button.

[grand hatch]

I managed to figure out the issue wich was that the ai perception was just finding two of the same actor and therefor didnt work properly. Does anyone know if there is a way to get the ai perception to see the player character instead of the actor?

[quasi tide]

You have to configure it to do so. Just have the character be a stimuli source (or w/e it is called)

And make sure to turn off the setting where all actors auto-register as a source

It's in some .ini file, I forget where

[dark edge]

Button tells Gamemode or Gamestate

[dire tusk]

So this is what I have
LevelBlueprint has a dispatch for an overlap pressed that's set on the button.
I added an event in the level blueprint to do something when the button is pressed.
When you walk onto the button a gate opens. The gate I'm working on networking.
I was thinking that gate could use the RunOnServer but if RunOnServer functions only work for whom ever owns the gate.
Then when the button is pressed do I have to some search for the gate owner then call the gate open?

[grand hatch]

thats what i currently have but it still just sees the characters as if they were the same.

[indigo brook]

Thanks. In this case, I sent it to the GameMode. Typically, GameStates just hold variables eh? No scripting? Same with PlayerState?

[dark edge]

I think so. I like to think of GameMode as GameController

It's the brains, the GameState is just the state

[indigo brook]

Thanks, you guys are helping me wrap my brain around all this 🙂

[quasi tide]

Use GameState to do any GameMode desired communication to the clients.

Because GM only exists on server, GS exists on clients as well.

[indigo brook]

For sure. Next course on the menu is when to make variables replicated and during what use is and isn't acceptable

[quasi tide]

I use GM to literally set the rules. GameState tracks the progress of stuff.

[quasi tide]

Don't use level BP. It is shit.

[dire tusk]

i know it is but for this thing is just a sample for proof this object works and done. Its not a video game level.
It was for an asset example.

[indigo brook]

So does that mean you have events that fire off from the GameState to the GameMode when things in the GameState get to x level. Say you got 10 kills for your team, once getting the 10th, does it send a message to the GM that that team won?

[quasi tide]

Do it right. Don't cut corners.

Make a BP button. Make a BP gate. Link them together.

When player crosses BP button's trigger box, open the BP gate.

[quasi tide]

Each kill, GS checks the GM if the score limit was reached. At least that's how I do it.

[dire tusk]

you're still going to end up on the exact situation I'm in already.
Player walks on button triggers overlap event, the function to trigger the gate

thats the key to level BP or internal BP

[quasi tide]

The GM then does w/e it needs to do and then tells the GS to trigger w/e it needs to do

[dark edge]

Button has a variable MyGate or MyActivationReciever

you set it in the level

so button knows who to tell that it got stepped on

[quasi tide]

GM/GS is kind of meh, but they are tied together.

[dark edge]

They really should have called it GameController to mirror PlayerController/PlayerState

[dire tusk]

the ownership of objects can change at run time @dark edge last I remember

[dark edge]

Don't do that

[quasi tide]

Okay. I'll keep my working doors. Keep having trouble with yours 👍

[dark edge]

don't change ownership of button

is the trigger an input or just stepping on the button?

[indigo brook]

Gotcha, but how does it check it though? Like, say your player gets a kill and increments 1 to the team score variable in the GS, how does the GS check the GM? Function on increment in the GS?

[dark edge]

If it's input, it'll go like

Pawn:
Input -> run on server event
run on server event -> choose what to interact with -> interact with it

Button:
Interacted with -> tell Door

Door:
Interactedwith -> open

You'd have interfaces if it's a system with more than just buttons and doors

[quasi tide]

GS has a reference to the GM. It's just like talking to any other object.

You can also just simplify this process and have the GM set the rules on the GS at the start. Then just handle it all internally in the GS. And leave the GM to just handling connection stuff and what not.

Completely up to you

[indigo brook]

Rock on. I'd have to see this in action to fully understand it. '

[quasi tide]

The combination of GameMode/GameState is pretty much however you want. They are intrinsically tied together and GM exists only on server.

There really isn't a "right" way per se.

[indigo brook]

That's what bogles my mind haha. They are tied together, meaning they share the same variables?

[quasi tide]

No - meaning they are tightly coupled.

IE - they are expected to work together

And reference each other and all that jazz

[indigo brook]

Agreed, I just need to understand how, that's a problem for another day though

[latent heart]

There are many wrong ways, though.

[indigo brook]

I just need to spend a few more hours in tutorial land

[quasi tide]

Nah - just build shit

Tutorials don't even understand them.

[indigo brook]

LOL

True

Building things does help for sure, it's how I learn

But I also need to see visual aids as well

[clever rain]

So maybe someone can help. I'm trying to have a hacking system based on a puzzle. (Its just a simple decrypt a caesar cypher) I build all the logic in a replicated component and added a ui that displays everything for it. I put that component on what I'm wanting to "hack" (in this case a door which is also replicated) but for some reason it won't replicate from client to server when the puzzle is solved. (I have a post on the forums with pics if I need to post it/dm it).
I'm thinking the problem I have is with how I'm checking for success every time the value in the editable box changes (I use an event dispatcher to pass back to the component) but since widgets aren't replicated it's not being called back to the server as a success. I can't think of another way to do it.

[gaunt cliff]

ControlChannelClose Control Channel result types Control channel closing
any clue to why this error happens to clients trying to connect to the server?

[dark edge]

Puzzle shouldn't live in the widget

Widgets just renders the puzzle

What kind of puzzle is it?

[dark edge]

Although it could, if you have some state representation of the puzzle you can just send the server that until the server likes it as a solution. Cheatable tho.

[stray badger]

Could anybody outline any best practices for eliminating network latency for an owner spawning a projectile? I’ve heard of client side prediction but I’m having a hard time grasping the concept. Many games handle this very well. Such as, Squad, Hell Let Loose, and pretty much any major game involving ballistics.

[dark edge]

Many ways. I'm partial to projectiles being local only and just replicating the firing of them and doing client side hit detection with server checks

Basically all that passes the network in my setup is the projectile data at time of fire.

Won't work for wildly chaotic stuff like bounces etc but for bullets it's great

[stray badger]

Could you give a slightly more complex explanation to which data you are passing? Sorry lol

Sounds promising

[kindred widget]

There is nothing largely complex about GameMode and GameState. At their core they are just two Actors. GameMode is not replicated because it's server only. GameState is replicated. GameMode does logic handling and stores said "state" on the GameState, where it can be replicated to clients.

Unreal was created on the premise of being an FPS engine. GameMode was designed to handle the game's mode's specific stuff. It would tick up points gained in capture point modes, track kills for elimination modes, track scores and respawn both teams when one team scores a point for team elems, etc.

And while game mode was handling all of that actual logic, it was storing it's states, like current kill counts, current team wins, current capture point progress all on GameState where even clients had access to it.

You're very free not to use these systems as well, they were just designed as an anti cheat ideology to keep game code cleaner because the only actor in the game that determined victory conditions was the GameMode and it only ever existed on the server.

Later on the GameMode became a basic way to store some default classes for a map. An easy way to change out AHUD actors, or use a different PlayerController. These being for games that have vastly differing modes like a game with combat maps and then a strategy mode maybe.

These days with Lyra the Experience system has taken over handling the default classes and extended on it heavily. GameMode can still do it's core job of determining game progress, and GameState can still stores game progress. Except they now do it via dynamic components. Instead of having "GameMode_CapturePoints", "GameMode_Elemination", Lyra just dynamically puts a single TeamDeathMatchScoring component on their GameState that handles the game's scoring and victory flow.

[dark edge]

"Projectile 5.56FMJ owned by Adriel was fired at location 356,2567,1235 with velocity 40000, 3500, 255 at timestamp 35.345675”

Simulates independently on all machines that care

When a hit happens:
"Projectile 3453 hit Pawn Pastas in the left ass cheek at time 36.0035, please approve it Mr. Server"

Server checks and makes sure it's close enough to be legit

Basically clientside hit detection with the server giving the thumbs up

Can only work if your projectiles are pretty deterministic. If you're doing air drag you'll have to be careful

[clever rain]

so all the data and logic for the puzzle is stored in the component. All the user does is enter a value into a text box. whenever the value in the textbox changes, the ui sends a message to the component to check to see if it's the right answer. All the ui has is a display to the cipher text, and whatever key, both of which are passed from the component

[stray badger]

Thank you

@dark edge Last question, and the question is about timestamps. Are they available in blueprints or just c++?

Should just be a get timestep function right?

[dark edge]

Then you already have all the stuff you need. Just check for success every time the answer is submitted to the component and when it's successful, do something.

The component can be replicated. Just the UI can't

You would probably want a general "send text input to component" RPC in your Pawn or player controller unless you just assign ownership of the puzzle to the player when they interact with it. Up to you.

It depends on how worried about cheaters you are. You could just as easily just add an activate function to your interaction interface. And just trust that the client solved it. That's pretty cheatable though

[clever rain]

that would probably fix my problem. Thanks!

[twin juniper]

My game is first person and networked

When players equip an item, their 3rd and 1st person meshes play an animation

But they can't both attach the item to themselves. So I always attach the actual item to the third person mesh

For first person I locally spawn a fake item and put it in the first person character's hand.

For clients this works great

If the listen server equips an item though, it looks like SpawnActor spawns that fake first-person item for everyone else.

My next attempt is going to be having clients locally destroy the fake item if possible as soon as it spawns, but I'd rather they just not have it spawn at all since that's clearly info being sent over the network that doesn't need to be

[dark edge]

You could just have the item attach to whichever mesh makes sense

Or actually

just swap out the actual mesh, use the same meshcomponent

and make sure the socket names are the same

so everywhere, the gun is attached to MyMesh.GunSocket

jsut MyMesh is the 1pp one for client, and 3pp one everywhere else

[twin juniper]

there's two though. First and third. I have functionality on these actors too, they can't just be flat meshes.

The fakes could be, but that's a bit obnoxious compared to just spawning a duplicate and turning off its functionality

[twin juniper]

yeah I think I'm just gonna do this

I should be able to pass the info along from the actor the mesh is copying it won't be that bad I guess

[dark edge]

Try that. See if 1 mesh component can have different meshes on different machines

[twin juniper]

it won't even exist on different machines it'll be purely local

[dark edge]

The rule would be like

BeginPlay -> is locally controlled? -> true -> Meshcomponent.Mesh = 1pp
-> false -> Meshcomponent.Mesh = 3pp

[twin juniper]

Yeah haha I have that for the spawning only the listen server was spawning it for everything else

If its a mesh component that's set to OnlyOwnerSee then this problem should go away

[dark edge]

You won't have to do any of that

you just have 1 mesh component

the mesh ASSET it uses depends on if locally controlled or not

[twin juniper]

for shadows I need it to always exist on the third person mesh

[dark edge]

ah true

hm

[twin juniper]

yeah weird edge case I just spent the morning fixing shadows and all that

[dark edge]

do you need shadow of item in hand?

[twin juniper]

yep

[dark edge]

yeah fake duplicate it is

[twin juniper]

Its already done nbd

just gonna have a FP mesh component thats set to only owner see

[dark edge]

I'd do it like this

[twin juniper]

OnlyOwnerSee and OwnerNoSee are lifechangers

[dim trail]

im getting errors when i try and declare my method as a multicast, for some reason when i add _Implementation it wont work:

    UFUNCTION(NetMulticast, Unreliable)
        void ShowDamageText(const FText Value, FDamageTextSettings DamageSettings, bool DurationTrue, float Duration);

.cpp

void ADamageText::ShowDamageText_Implementation(const FText Value, FDamageTextSettings DamageSettings, bool DurationTrue, float Duration)
{
    // Find Settings of Damage Type Gameplay Tag

    //ShowText(Value, DamageSettings, DurationTrue, Duration);
}

with this error:
Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State Error C2511 'void ADamageText::ShowDamageText_Implementation(const FText,FDamageTextSettings,bool,float)': overloaded member function not found in 'ADamageText' OpenWorldStarter

[twin juniper]

hi everyone. when a client opens a remote level, is there a way to perform logic on the server before the player controller is actually spawned into the level? i've been looking at virtual functions in AGameModeBase, but i can't prevent the player from spawning while i'm performing logic

not sure if i'm misunderstanding something fundamental here

[kindred widget]

Structs need to be passed by const ref. This includes both FText and your FDamageTextSettings.

Also that said, I would advise ditching the FText in favor of a simple integer or float as a smaller value. If you're going to pass along a string, pass a string. FText is for localized text. You can also cut off DurationTrue by checking if the passed Duration is >0

[dim trail]

thanks

[serene furnace]

hello !
I have this code that does some weird stuff 😄
My "Pure cast" node is not failing, it's rendering true, and firing all the code.

But for some reason, the break points in the orange zone (S_ItemLooted) are not triggering at all, the events either, nothing actually fires there >< any reason why ?

[twin juniper]

void WeirdStuff();

[serene furnace]

and even the "Print sting" does not fire

I was thinking it might be my inventory component ref that feeds the event that would fail to access but I would get an error, and My message log is never displaying an error

I wanted to double check So I putted a print string to the inventory component reference and it renders a value of a component.

okay I did one more check, when the server (listen server) executes the code, then the entire things is displaying...

[kindred widget]

For starts you're doing some weird stuff. You're having your server tell your client, to tell the server to do things. And then your server is passing a widget to the client to remove. Which will never work because widgets aren't replicated.

[serene furnace]

Hmm, This "remove widget" is comming from an OWN_something event, that is Owning client ? the fact that its "After" a server node is making it called on server ??

Question is in image is that makes more sense

[dark edge]

Whatever you're doing can probably be much better done without RPCs all over the place

What's the high level overview of what you're trying to do?

[kindred widget]

No. You're sending a widget reference from the server through the OwningClient RPC. Ignore everything else except for the OWN_TransferLootedItemStruct and the RemoveFromParent.

First of all, widgets cannot exist on a dedicated server. Which means it'll be null there if you tried to use this code on a dedicated. Second is that widgets cannot replicate. So even if your server DID have a widget, sending it through an RPC would not resolve correctly on a client and thus the pointer would be null.

[kindred widget]

If this is running on server, it's because server owns this actor.

[dark edge]

If this is just looting things in the world, split it up.
Have a TransferItem function serverside that does the actual inventory management and calls ClientOnTransferItem which plays the sound and does the little popup (or repnotify on player inventory)

test that with just giving the player items

once it works, have looting just change the state of or destroy the lootable AND call TransferItem

The state change or destruction of the inspected object should be caught by whatever is responsible for your UI and remove the Loot Me widget

[serene furnace]

I'm Looting a dead player,

When I interact with the dead body, it sends an owning client event to who ever is looting to open a looting window, the Actor looted (dead player in that case) is having his inventory accessed in the owning client event, that is creating a widget and add it to the window, one widget per Item added. and the structure of the item is sent to that widget as well.

Then when you clic a widget, it sends it back to the player looting that Struct related to that widget you cliced on, its requesting the server to spawn the item with the data, Item is replicated, and it sends interface call (message LootInventory) to the item that it is looted, using the looting code.

then it destroys the widget, then its accessing the Looted actor that the item looted as been removed out on his inventory on the server "Item looted" event

[dark edge]

Instead:
When you loot a thing, set CurrentViewedInventory(Replicated, RepNotify)
In the onrep, show/hide the UI and fill/empty it

Or just do it clientside if inventory is clientside too

[kindred widget]

Looting should be a local only event from interaction. Local player presses F, local player line traces and hits body, local player tells a widget to go on screen and passes in the hit actor's InventoryComponent along with it. The only networking here is replicated items and RPCs to move them.

[serene furnace]

all interaction with inventory is server sided

[dark edge]

Is the inventory data replicated or requested?

[serene furnace]

inventory component replicated

[kindred widget]

But is the items it stores replicated?

Do you replicate an array of the item structs, or whatever?

[dark edge]

K then the first thing to pass the network should be something like "I wanna grab these items from this container"

[serene furnace]

its all holded by the server and sent back to clients

[kindred widget]

Sent how? Replication or RPC request?