multiplayer

[pallid mesa]

but if you are looking at GAS optimizations, I recommend you taking a look at my article pinned in the #gameplay-ability-system channel

https://vorixo.github.io/devtricks/gas-replication-proxy/ @raw thunder

[chrome bay]

How likely is it you server is running at more than 100Hz anyway?

Isn't the default 100 for everything?

Rather than increase net update frequency, keep it where it is and just call ForceNetUpdate() when you change replicated properties

Increasing the base frequency is generally quite wasteful

[pallid mesa]

that's a really great advice, btw James, I wanted to ask you, because maybe you've dug into this

an Actor with a netupdatefrequency of 0 doesn't send properties when become relevant to it

do you agree with the current behaviour?

@chrome bay

[chrome bay]

Yeah sadly NetFreq of zero just seems to break all networking

Has to be at least 1

Everything other than pawns/vehicles in HLL is at 1.0 though

Since it's about as close as we can get to a true push model

[pallid mesa]

that's what I feared, but I was thinking that maybe this could be changed

as the only gotcha that seems to be concerning is connections becoming relevant

[chrome bay]

I think still the case in UE5 latest sadly

[hybrid zodiac]

Hi everyone, I have a small issue with owner only replication. I spawn an actor on the server and set the owner to the player controller on the server. However, attributes marked "COND_OwnerOnly" aren't replicated to the client (confirmed by switching it to unconditional replication and it works). Am I not setting the owner correctly? Does it need to be the player state perhaps?

[pallid mesa]

it is

actually when a new connection joins the game

actors send properties

even those with a net update of 0

so a later joiner will indeed force properties of actors to be sent to connections relevant between themselves

even if the incoming connection to the game is not relevant to said actor

[chrome bay]

Yeah, likely an annoying bug in the engine somewhere

[pallid mesa]

that's the word I wanted to hear, bug.

[chrome bay]

But, it's been around since at least UE4.0 - so a fix, I would not expect 😄

[pallid mesa]

been thinking about this for a while now, but i haven't calified it as a bug

thanks for the chit chat 😄

[winged badger]

you still obsessing over it @pallid mesa ?

[pallid mesa]

xD I want to fix it

[winged badger]

if you find yourself wanting to fix every unreal landmine that can just be navigated around

you'll never get anything actually done

[ivory island]

Should my controller be replicated?

[winged badger]

no

[pallid mesa]

😩

i know how it goes usually

[raw thunder]

I agree but I'm not sure how to do it in the GAS plug-in.

[raw thunder]

Thanks I'll take a look!

[raw thunder]

The default for the player state is 1

[chrome bay]

Ah good, makes sense

[raw thunder]

I would like to increase it to 30 I don't know

[glossy plover]

Is there a way to include local players in the Session Result -> Get Current Players? For example 2 clients in the game, but one of them has an additional local player (so there is 3 total, but get current players still shows 2)

[fathom aspen]

I tested it and it works. I doubt though that it has to do something with the Owner taking time to replicate. Try adding a delay after setting owner and before setting the property

[hybrid zodiac]

Hey, I ended up replicating the value in a different (and better, actually) way, but there wasn't an issue with delay, it just never replicated the value for some reason even a few minutes into gameplay. The idea was that players control a unit, and can set a target for that unit. I had an AActor* replicated value for the target, but despite setting the value on the server, it was always null on the client. Strange

I just replicate the value in the player controller now, so no more problems

[stable olive]

Hey peeps,
Quick question (possibly a dumb one but lets see) in regards to multiplayer, do all players share the same game instance or does each player need its own game instance?

[bitter oriole]

Game instance is created when the game starts, destroyed when the game exits, isn't replicated

It persists across levels and games

[stable olive]

I'm referring to the GameInstance BP class by the way. Should have specified.

[fathom aspen]

GameInstance exists on both server and clients though it's not synced. They share info through the server

[stable olive]

OK. Is it possible for 1 player to send data through a BP class to another player? Say player 1 was running around the map but player 2 only had a HUD on their screen which they could transmit commands / instructions through? I know UMG doesn't allow network replication but could that data not be sent to say a BP Class of some kind which is then responsible for sending that data to player 1?

[bitter oriole]

Players cannot talk together, but they can RPC their data through the server with the player controller as proxy

GameInstance does not have any net support, to be clear

Neither do/should widgets

[fathom aspen]

Correct HUD is client only and relevant to the owning client. You could listen for changes from other players through PlayerState for example as it's AlwaysRelevant

[bitter oriole]

By default PlayerController/PlayerState is the main spot where players can actually send data

Pawns too, when they're possessed, but impractical for non-pawn-related stuff.

[stable olive]

So long story short, which class would be best for the 2nd player with the HUD to send data to that player 1 can see?

[fathom aspen]

Depends where the data reside

[bitter oriole]

A PlayerController Server RPC with a PlayerState parameter that does a Client call to that PlayerState's PlayerController on the server

Or a purely PlayerState RPC - yours-, calling the other on the server

[fathom aspen]

But usually player specific data exist in PlayerState

[stable olive]

Cool. Thank you for the help. I appreciate it 🙂

[quartz iris]

How can I make it so one button either creates a server if there's no players online, or joins any server with players in it?

[fathom aspen]

With server you mean session and session questions should go to #online-subsystems . Check last pinned message there to get a better idea on how you create and find sessions

[twin juniper]

is there any way to switch to single precision floats in ue5?

[kindred widget]

In regards to dropped packets. How do people usually deal with the rarer cases? I have two cases now.

One is a UObject being replicated, and a GameplayTag never getting replicated.

Another is a full actor never reaching the client. This happens rarely.

I can repro it locally in PIE with some seriously bad packetloss and lag. About 600 latency on server and client and +35% packet loss. And even then it takes me ~20-60 restarts to catch the same state.

I'm wondering if this is Unreal just giving up eventually after multiple dropped packets? If yes, are there settings somewhere related to making this code more persistent? Some actors seem immune to this. Literally updating after up to two minutes. Some just seem to give up entirely.

[rose prawn]

I'm confused by the naming of this variable: bAllowJoinViaPresence
If I want to make session invite only and do not let players join from friend list, do I need to make this false?

[frosty oyster]

I have been working on building an ability to host a server, which the widget gets created, i am unable to get the joining player to see the LAN server and join or even direct connect.

I am looking for anyone willing to sit out and chat with me about it... maybe see what i am missing

[uncut schooner]

Hi

Anyone know what to do about multiplayer character collisions

Lets say there is half a second of latency, and I run into someone on my client machine, it does some weird jittering because I am actually running into someone server client side but not server side

Then there is the issue of running in front of someone, and actually running into someone but locally I am not so it does corrections

I haven't noticed these issues in games I played

Like Overwatch for example

[quasi tide]

@winged badger You're famous! 😅 https://vorixo.github.io/devtricks/network-managers/

[glossy kettle]

😳 did you just ping THE Zlo?

[glossy plover]

Does anyone know how to "refresh" replicated data? When one client updates a replicated variable, it goes to the server, and then server sends out a multicast event to make sure all clients update their widgets. The problem is that if I don't add an attribrary delay to the multicast events, then other clients get the event call, but their variable has not been updated yet by the replication (so they run the event using the old data)

Even at delay of 0.2 clients sometimes have old data still. I'd like to force the client to update it's replicated data when it receives the event call....is it possible?

[bitter oriole]

The simple answer is that you should never do this, but instead simply update the widget when the data actually replicates

Delays should never be used in multiplayer

You can either have a design where the widget pulls data on tick to constantly update, or use replication events

Both kinda best done in C++

[glossy plover]

I'd like to be able to do use RepNotify, but how I can get RepNotify to work for another clients PlayerState? (so when any client changes a certain replicated variable in their PlayerState all clients will do some function)

[bitter oriole]

can't

[glossy plover]

For example clients all have Name variable in their PlayerState, and then all clients have a widget showing the name of all the players. Each client will loop the Player Array in the GameState, then pull the "Name" from the PlayerState for each client. When any player updates their name variable, how can I update all clients, but only after they have received the new data?

[bitter oriole]

Well you can but it needs some kind of broadcast - when it changes, any player state should notify all widgets

The simplest design is simply to always update, on tick - preferably in C++

[glossy plover]

Won't looping all PlayerStates on tick be very poor performance wise?

[dark edge]

Do OnReps not work in PlayerState? I know playerstate is weird in some respects.

[glossy plover]

It does, but for only for each players own PlayerState; so a client gets the RepNotify if it's own replicated variables gets updated

But not if some other clients PlayerState variable gets updated

[harsh wigeon]

i have changed animation asset in my character, which is replicated to other players, who are in game.
but if someone is joining that game later, this change of animation is not set and original.
how would i do that ?

[dark edge]

Show how you're doing what you're doing

Whatever is driving the choice of animation should be a replicated variable. Whether it's some state var, or a direct montage reference.

[harsh wigeon]

i made a component, that should switch between a sit mode animation for sitting and standing

[dark edge]

Show your actual code that shows what variable is actually replicated

[harsh wigeon]

since here, i don't know what to replicate...
that component just switches:

void UCharacterAnimationComponent::SetAnimationMode(EAnimationMode::Type AnimationMode, USkeletalMeshComponent* MeshComponent)
{
    LOG(LogCharacterAnimation, "Set AnimNode Start")
    if (MeshComponent != nullptr)
    {
        MeshComponent->SetAnimationMode(AnimationMode);
        switch (AnimationMode)
        {
        case EAnimationMode::AnimationBlueprint:
            if (AnimInstance != nullptr)
            {
                LOG(LogCharacterAnimation, "Set Anim Blueprint")
                MeshComponent->AnimClass = AnimInstance;
                MeshComponent->SetRelativeLocation(AnimInstanceLocation);
            }
            else
            {
                LOG(LogCharacterAnimation, "AnimInstance was null")
            }
            break;
        case EAnimationMode::AnimationSingleNode:
            if (SitAnimation != nullptr)
            {
                LOG(LogCharacterAnimation, "Set Sit Animation")
                GetOwner()->SetActorRelativeLocation(FVector(0.f, 0.f, 92.f));
                MeshComponent->SetAnimation(SitAnimation);
                MeshComponent->SetRelativeLocation(SitLocation);
            }
            else
            {
                LOG(LogCharacterAnimation, "Sit Animation was null")

            }
            break;
        case EAnimationMode::AnimationCustomMode:
            break;
        default:
            break;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        LOG(LogCharacterAnimation, "MeshComponent was null")
    }
}

so they sit

[dark edge]

Are you replicating the chosen asset as a replicated variable or by a broadcast RPC?

[harsh wigeon]

NetMulticast

[dark edge]

yeah that's your problem

the late joiner wasn't around for the multicast

don't do that

set a replicated variable

If it's STATE, use a replicated variable.
If it's TRANSIENT, multicast

[harsh wigeon]

okay, i understand that, also the problem.

so i would set a variable in my component, which is replicated, like a bool bIsSitting, and then ?

don't get it bound to the animation - also in my head

ahh.

i try ! 😉

[dark edge]

https://mediacbl.com/unreal-engine/ue4-repnotify-in-c/

Just knowing they're sitting isn't enough.

The state might be AChairActor* ChairImSittingIn

null = not sitting

[harsh wigeon]

thank you. i try to change it.

[glossy plover]

I think I found my problem the Net Update Frequence on the PlayerState is really low by default (1 per second)

On a normal actor it's like 100 times per second. So i will increase this on levels that i need to have clients aware of other clients PlayerState

[light iron]

Is it even worth it to try to implement Dedicated and P2P together, each being used for their respective game modes? IE. Ranked played on Dedicated, Unranked/Casual using P2P. For clarification, our project uses the Gameplay Ability System.

[spare saffron]

Noob Q: Can I write my own multiplayer server to work with a UE game front end?

IE, can I do arbitrary networking in UE? What if it's a REST back end? What if it's a custom UDP protocol (I know that one has to be in a faq somewhere…)

[hollow eagle]

You could, but the engine isn't going to help you much.

You have the ability to use literally any C++ code you want so you can implement networking however you want - there are some utilities for making HTTP calls or using raw sockets too but again, the engine isn't really going to provide much beyond that.

[spare saffron]

If I use an external networking lib, does it get blueprints bindings?

[harsh wigeon]

why and how should they ?
obviously you could make your own access classes

[spare saffron]

Nothing is obvious to me. I am at the stage of deciding what game engine to go with.

I want to write a game in, hypothetically, UE5 and blueprints, and separately develop one or more libraries in kotlin/native or C#. I've spent the last decade on java/kotlin and the jvm, so I imagine I could handle C# but I'm uncertain how I might shoot myself in the foot with C++

[latent heart]

Well something should be obvious! Use UE5! 🙂

[spare saffron]

Is writing libs in C# something that people do? without undue anguish?

[latent heart]

I believe there's a clr plugin somewhere. How good it is is another question...

[harsh wigeon]

@dark edge thx, that worked out

[dark edge]

What are those libraries doing? Anything fancy?

[spare saffron]

Nope. Prob just some rest calls.

prob would block on synchronous tcp i/o (so they'd need to be off of the graphics thread)

[glossy kettle]

gpu accelerated packet switching confirmed

[dapper summit]

hey i am dying to know what the answer is for this i am making my project multiplayer and i spent 1 whole day figuring out why the client was micro stuttering and i tried everything but i noticed when my friend hosted she had 200fps and my game was lagging like mad i couldn't move but when i hosted it was fine i had 90fps but i tested it out and if i host and cap the host fps near to what the client gets it is very smooth

[warped steppe]

profile it with insights

[dapper summit]

not sure how to use it but someone must know off the bat why it does it it can't just be me that has this

[dark edge]

How the fuck would we know that? You have given us nothing. We know nothing about what your code looks like, but I'd start by at least showing us how your setup works. It smells like you're either getting bandwidth saturation at high tickrates or some of your mechanics break down at that framerate.

[dapper summit]

watch your fucking mouth and you have no need to look at how i set everything up it's a standard setup nothing more the code isn't the issue just because i set it up like everyone else does i replicated just the movement

[warped steppe]

we still can't see what's actually happening

we can't ever just take your word for it with stuff like this, we need real information

[dark edge]

Is it characters, vehicles, Tetris blocks, what? We know nothing about what's moving and how.

[warped steppe]

is it running in shipping? testing? PIE?

is it a listen server?

[dapper summit]

development and for testing it in UE5 it's net mode is as client and set to standalone so i can connect using UI

[warped steppe]

well, that's good because you can insights trace that

you could just stat uobject or something to quickly see a rough overview but real profiling is generally nicer

[dapper summit]

this right?

[warped steppe]

hold on, you need to set some extra command args first

but yeah, run that

so, you probably want something like this for starters

[dapper summit]

ok i started the trace

[warped steppe]

-statnamedevents -trace=cpu,object,net,frame,bookmark,timing,counters,animation,physics,stats,counters

fastest way to get there is through here

[dapper summit]

thanks man

[warped steppe]

woops, object not objects

fixed

I also may be a little off because this is latest ue5-main

but those are mostly unchanged...

if you want a complete list of what's on try calling
Trace.status in the console

[dapper summit]

ok command is set

[warped steppe]

now try running in standalone and check the trace afterwards

keep in mind this trace file could get huge!

remember to launch Insights before running the standalone game

[dapper summit]

yeah i did try change it's location but for some reason there is not button in the open file dialog to set the file

[warped steppe]

yeah, afaik it's a commandline argument for the insights exe?

I think it's in the insights docs

[dapper summit]

shouldn't it of made a file?

[twin juniper]

Greetings, I hear that we must code Multiplayer first. But from what I've read so far of the Unreal Docs it seems like we are coding Multiplayer as we actually add gameplay features. How far am I supposed to go with Multiplayer when I haven't coded any of the game yet?

If I have no actors yet, why would I begin replicating?

We want to start with terrain generation btw, in our game.

But I was told to do multiplayer first, so I would make sure that the terrain is multiplayer compatible right? Coding multiplayer as I go, not before any features have even been added.

Thank you for reading.

[warped steppe]

the file will be listed in the insights window

[dark edge]

That's a big enough problem to get handled in a multiplayer context. Get all machines to agree on what the terrain is.

[warped steppe]

it's good you are thinking about this now rather than later

[twin juniper]

Ok so I don't have to 'code multiplayer' if I have no game yet. I add a feature, make it multiplayer compatible then add another and so forth?

[warped steppe]

It's more about thinking about what should be on the server, what should be on THIS client etc

and trying to overhaul a singleplayer game to suddenly deliniate between those things out of the blue is hard

so yeah, you can add stuff as you go

[twin juniper]

Yeah, that is what the docs mentioned. The hard part would be making a whole singleplayer game and then combing back over.

But I can only picture this as 'Make a feature --> make sure it is multiplayer compatible ---> repeat for next feature"

Rather than some ambiguous premptive 'make the non-game multiplayer'

So I will make the terrain generation, then try to make that work in multiplayer with some actors controlled by players.

then rinse and repeat for next feature.

If that sounds good, then I thank you for the responses. It clarified much. If my approach is wrong then please I implore that you let me know.

[warped steppe]

yeah, kind of hard to draw the line between what is multiplayer exclusive and what is the feature itself

your method should work out fine?

try to test with multiple clients early and often to make sure nothing gets left behind

but if it makes life easier there's no shame in keeping it server only for a bit (just to make the logic simple to hash out I guess?)

that's my rough view on it

[dark edge]

Make the game with multiplayer in mind and test in multiplayer from day 1

[warped steppe]

I think he's on the right path there

[dark edge]

Don't wait until it's 80% done then go "Hmm let's start networking this thing"

[twin juniper]

Yeah, I understand that. But I can finish a small portion , like terrain gen and then make sure that piece is multiplayer. Then repeat for the next feature. Is what I am gathering from what you're both saying.

Just don't want to mess up.

[warped steppe]

I would like to add you should think about the scale of the game player-wise day 1 too

if you want 20 players running around, test with 20 instances when you can

[twin juniper]

I think I'll do that after we get terrain gen working. Thank you for all of the responses.

[dark edge]

Terrain generation in multiplayer is going to be enough of a problem to keep you busy for a while.

[twin juniper]

It’s not an infinite world. Finite voxel world. But I’m sure it’ll still keep my busy.

[pearl fog]

Hey! I'm currently profiling using Unreal Insights our netcode since we have some issues: when a new round begins we recreate all actors (might not be the most optimal way, we can recycle them), on insights it show a peak of 4800 bits which IMO sounds okay for that, but ingame we have reports of players having replication issues (like theirs weapons appearing seconds later, because it is not replicated) and well I don't know if it justs come from this respawn or not..

[light iron]

Several seconds later? Do you know the max time length?

[cerulean parcel]

hi guys , which is the best tutorial for learning multilpayer via coding in unreal ?

[kindred widget]

Generally I would advise avoiding tutorials. eXi's compendium and the docs will get you pretty far. Source code, trial and error and general experimenting will get you pretty much anywhere else.

[twin juniper]

hello i have a quick question about replication in ue4, as i understand it Uobjects dont replicate. so i wanted to follow a tutorial on how you can get replication to work for Uobjects but i couldn't get it to work so as a work around i wanted to replicate structures with the variables that need to be replicated but structures BP also dont seem to replicate, anyone a idea of what i do wrong?

Here I set the structures variables on the server side

but on the client side the structure is empty. is this because only structures made with c++ that have the UPROPERTY() replicate?

the inventory component is set to replicate as wel as the player and playerController

[pearl fog]

2 to 5 seconds

we don't understand what's going on really haha, the only way i've redone it locally is with 500 replicated actors replicating a dumb float each tick ^^

we also rechecked 3x our ini settings, nothing worked out...

[twin juniper]

I meant to sent this

[chrome bay]

Structs absolutely do replicate

[winged badger]

replicated structs in c++ replicate all UPROPERTY() members that don't have NotReplicated specifier

for replicating UObjects that are not Actors or ActorComponents you do need a bit of c++

you need to override and tell the ReplicateSubobjects() function in their Outer to actually replicate them

and the objects themselves need to return true from IsSupportedForNetworking()

you also need to setup something that will keep those UObjects alive, simplest most bare bones version being a UPROPERTY(Replicated) TArray<UMyObject*> MyReplicatedObjects;

as those objects will otherwise get destroyed on client because nothing is referencing them

bool ASolsticeGameState::ReplicateSubobjects(UActorChannel* Channel, FOutBunch* Bunch, FReplicationFlags* RepFlags)
{
    bool bWroteSomething = false;
    for (UBotStatus* BotStatus : TeamBots)
    {
        if (BotStatus)
        {
            bWroteSomething |= Channel->ReplicateSubobject(BotStatus, *Bunch, *RepFlags);
        }
    }
    for (UBotStatus* BotStatus : OtherBots)
    {
        if (BotStatus)
        {
            bWroteSomething |= Channel->ReplicateSubobject(BotStatus, *Bunch, *RepFlags);            
        }
    }
    bWroteSomething |= Super::ReplicateSubobjects(Channel, Bunch, RepFlags);

    return bWroteSomething;
}```

this is an example of a ReplicateSubobjects override i recommend you use, with Super at the end

because that makes the subobjects (in this case from 2 arrays of UBotStatus) replicate before the arrays that hold the pointers to them

which means when OnRep_TeamBots fires, all the pointers in it are already pointing to objects that have already replicated

[twin juniper]

Thanks for the help when I get home ik take a look at it, do you also have a good place to learn about these sub objects.

[winged badger]

i think @chrome bay made a blog about them?

[twin juniper]

And one more thing as I understand it struts are also Uobjects?

[winged badger]

they are not

the memory for structs is allocated inside the owning class, not separately on the heap

[twin juniper]

A oke

[winged badger]

and you generally don't declare pointers to structs as members

while all UObject members are pointers

[chrome bay]

https://jambax.co.uk/replicating-uobjects/

/plug

[twin juniper]

So in this case the struct is a part of the invertory component witch is a actor component so it is setup for replication

[winged badger]

if you Actor is replicated, your ActorComponent is replicated and the struct is replicated

it will replicate

miss any one of those 3, and it won't

[twin juniper]

And to replicate the struct you need to tell it in c++

[winged badger]

blueprints can replicate structs

but they are terrible at manipulating them

[twin juniper]

Or just set the the struct variable to replicated?

[winged badger]

that will make it replicate, yes

but its... awkward

[twin juniper]

A thanks for al the help

Then I just need to figure out why it’s not replicating

Because I definitely checked al the replication boxes

[winged badger]

if you try to replicate a pointer to a non replicated object

that won't work

no matter your setup

[twin juniper]

I think that is the issue that one of the variables in the struct is net setup for replication

[lethal kraken]

Anyone know or can recommend a lag time for simulated lag? i am using Net PktLag=100 but i have seen people use from 75 - 500, what is a realistic number ?

[uncut schooner]

Hi
Anyone know what to do about multiplayer character collisions
Lets say there is half a second of latency, and I run into someone on my client machine, it does some weird jittering because I am actually running into someone server client side but not server side
Then there is the issue of running in front of someone, and actually running into someone but locally I am not so it does corrections
I haven't noticed these issues in games I played
Like Overwatch for example

[uncut schooner]

I use a higher value for testing bad cases

500 should be good for those bad cases

[lethal kraken]

alright, and around 75 - 100 at default testing ? Does anything work at 500 for you ? or is it see what breaks

[keen widget]

what is a easy way to implement voice chat?

i was following a tutorial and it doesnt work

[uncut schooner]

Things do work for me

Everything works at 500

Its just delayed messages

I use client side prediction for everything

[bitter oriole]

PktLag 100 means 500 ping

[uncut schooner]

Really?

Isn't it 200 ping

[bitter oriole]

Should be 400 since it's incoming + outgoing lag

x2

[uncut schooner]

x2 so 200

[bitter oriole]

(100 + 100) * 2

[uncut schooner]

Yes

Thats 200

xD

[bitter oriole]

100 + 100 = 200

[lethal kraken]

it is not

its 400

[bitter oriole]

200 * 2 = 400

[uncut schooner]

Why do you add 100

[bitter oriole]

(incoming lag + outgoing lag) * 2

(100 + 100) * 2

= 400

[uncut schooner]

Ah ok

But thats weird

[bitter oriole]

In any case, measure your actual ping to confirm since you also add the server frame time

So it depends on framerate, etc

[uncut schooner]

In that case 100 should be good

But You can test with 150 - 200 to make sure

[lethal kraken]

yea i guess, impressive yours works at 2000 ping

[uncut schooner]

When set, will cause calls to FlushNet to delay packets. Value is treated as millisecond lag.

This is Packet lag

[uncut schooner]

Thanks

@bitter oriole where did you find the info that it * 4?

[lethal kraken]

yea a source would be valued ;D

[bitter oriole]

Set PktLag to 100, measure ping

See what you get

If it's 220 or so, guess I was wrong

[uncut schooner]

I can't check now. Ill check later

[lethal kraken]

ill try to check aswell, but ill have to figure out how first ;D

[uncut schooner]

You can do a server rpc sending the time seconds up to the server then on that function do a client rpc sending it back

Then on the client rpc you can take the time seconds and minus the one sent back to you

And print that

That will be in seconds

[lethal kraken]

Thanks i will try

[uncut schooner]

Then you can times it by 1000 to get miliseconds iirc

[bitter oriole]

Or you can just get the ping from player state

[uncut schooner]

Yeah that's true

lol

[lethal kraken]

PktLag=100 results in a ping at around 50 - 55 for me. at 0 i get 1-3 ping. Maybe i did something wrong. I am using default listen server setup

[bitter oriole]

Yeah, you did it wrong. Make sure to connect two Unreal instances, don't use PIE, and correctly measure ping (the one in playerstate needs a multiplication, IIRC)

[winged badger]

pie lag simulation only applies on one side

need to enter it in both server and client console to have a proper 2 way lag simulation

[lethal kraken]

"Need to enter it in both server and client console". Enter what ? i have edited the default.engine.ini file with PktLag=100 do i need it somewhere else ?

[winged badger]

think that only applies to the server

but you can change it in runtime with console commands

[bitter oriole]

Just put it ind efaultengine.ini and it'll work

[lethal kraken]

ah, so i need a real dedicated setup to be able to test the 2 ways. ?

[winged badger]

no

[lethal kraken]

or the runtime console commands

ofc

;D

[main bane]

hello, where would you recommend to publish a mutiplayer game (don't want to own my own server)?
are the main options epic online services and steam?

[lethal kraken]

Alright, at PktLag=100 i now get 200 - 230 ping. I have run PktLag=100 command at clients aswell. but the ping is still 200- 230. Should the result be 400 or do i just x2 to represent 2 way comminucation.

[bitter oriole]

If you get 230 ping that means PktLag only applies to ongoing packets, while I thought it was applied twice

You should always trust the ping since it's a real measure

230 is already worse than 99% of clients will experience normally so you can work with that for a baseline

[lethal kraken]

Setting PktLag=100 in defaultEngine.ini and in a player character with console command both result in 200 ping + they dont seem to add if used together. If PktLag=100 is called from a widget the ping is 100. So i think it gets applied twice. My reason is A character exist on both server and client, where a widget only exist on the client and the command is only applied once. Anyways thanks again for helping me. ;D

[bitter oriole]

Measuring is always good

[lethal kraken]

its the only way to know, for sure ;D

[chrome bay]

The actor spawned likely isn't replicated

[dark edge]

Steam and EOS don't provide servers, they handle the friends lists and sessions etc

[final oriole]

That’s not true, there’s a function called replicatesubobjects that you can override that’s like doreplifetime and it lets you replicate pointers

[winged badger]

it doesn't let you replicate pointers, it lets you replicate objects

and my statement still stands

as i never said you can't replicate objects

[final oriole]

Doreplifetime, subobjects/pointers are replicated through that function

Replicatesubobjects checks if the object the pointer is referencing has changed and if it did it updates it

[chrome bay]

ReplicateSubObjects doesn't replicate pointers, but it might be used to replicate the thing those pointers are referencing. There's a difference between replicating the object itself, vs replicated a pointer to it.

ReplicateSubObjects does the former

[twin juniper]

Can anyone help me understand replication? I'm looking at the pdf and all that

I have a function in the gamemode that if the playerstate has authority (is the server) then his own pawn mesh material gets changed to another color

And it does work (I see the material change from the listen server perspective) but on the client side the material didn't change

[twin juniper]

Like, all I want is to address the pawn owned by the server and ONLY that pawn, I don't want anything else

If another client/player is sharing the code but is not the server I want it to completely ignore it

but switch (has authority) just executes that code on all clients

[fathom aspen]

Ok let's correct some concepts here. First things first, pawn isn't owned by the server as it's owned by the controller which is owned by the NetConnection i.e, the client.
What you should say, the pawn on the server, or the server-side pawn, as the pawn exists on both server and client.

Now moving on to SwitchHasAuthority, this macro doesn't always mean do this if server, do that if client. A client only actor will always has authority over the things he spawns for example.

What is likely happening in your case the way you described it, is that you are changing the color property (that what you ought to be doing, idk what you're doing exactly) on server but you're not replicating the property, so it's not reflected on clients.

[twin juniper]

thanks for answering, I feel like I'm still stuck behind one fundamental question

My setup is as follows - 2 players, one as listen server, one as client

is there ANY way to distinguish between the two? I want to run some code if and ONLY if the pawn's client is the server

because if you use listenserver the server itself gets a playerstate/playercontroller and all that jazz

but instead every single time I tried multiple things everything I do get executed four times, sometimes even twice for every client I have

like if I just do a switch has authority on the gamemode and if it has authority print "Hello" I get the server saying Hello twice and the client saying hello twice, even though there's only two clients

[fathom aspen]

Yes. If you want to execute something on server side pawn inside the pawn class specifically, you do that using a SwitchHasAuthoirty i.e using ActorRoles(there's another way using NetModes).

[fathom aspen]

You shouldn't need to do one there, as the GameMode exists only on server, so you don't get client prints

[twin juniper]

I do get client prints though, two of them for some reason

Want me to make a quick video?

[fathom aspen]

Yes I don't mind

[twin juniper]

Nevermind I think I figured out what I wanted to show you

But still, I'm assuming that ListenServer is used for p2p multiplayer applications right?

[fathom aspen]

You prolly meant something else, but what you described to me just doesn't exist. A print string of "Hello" should be seen twice, one time for each connection, as the GameMode exists only on server and each connection has a GameMode server-side.

Answering your second question, p2p doesn't exist in unreal but yes I get what you mean. It's for games that need to ability to host a session.

[twin juniper]

If I do a switch has authority on the gamemode bp and ask it to print "Hello" only if it has authority I get the expected result (Server:Hello) both on client and server view

[fathom aspen]

Yes that's what you should be getting. "Client view" is a player/connection and he has the GameMode on his machine server-side

Also try to remove the SwitchHasAuthority and you still get the same result

Because as I said, the GameMode exists only on server, so why you need to switch

[twin juniper]

Were I to do this on the pawn class instead (the pawn that both the server and client are using, an instance of it obviously) what should be the expected result?

Server:Hello and Client:Hello or just Server:Hello?

[fathom aspen]

Without a SwitchHasAuthority you get both, Server: and Client:, With, you get only Server:

[twin juniper]

But why do I get it twice?

[fathom aspen]

Because you have two machines/connections running

[twin juniper]

Ok we're getting to the issue

if I used Switch Has Authority why does the server run it twice? I'm expecting it to fire once since only one of them is the server

In other words, how do I make it so that it fires only once?

[fathom aspen]

Don't get misled by the names here. One of them is listen server and other is client right, but that doesn't mean that the client player(player 2) doesn't have a server side pawn

Otherwise how can he talk to the server?

[twin juniper]

You mean the replicated pawn of the server?

So the two prints are one from the server itself and one from that pawn?

I changed the condition from "authority" to "remote" and now the client is printing it... twice?

[fathom aspen]

Yes kind of. The server is the one who spawned the pawn, so he has knowledge of the pawn

[fathom aspen]

You have two prints on each machine as there are two pawns on each machine

What's so hard about that?

And pawn exists on both server and client

[twin juniper]

What's hard is figuring out why they both seem to have authority

Like, let's reverse the question

[fathom aspen]

Now GameMode prints once on each machine, because there is one GameMode on each machine

[twin juniper]

How would you go about having this string print ONCE, in this scenario?

[fathom aspen]

I would check if the NetMode is ListenServer

[twin juniper]

It is

[fathom aspen]

I'm not sure if that's viable in BP

There's a BP node called IsServer, but I'm not sure what that checks

[fathom aspen]

I know, I was saying what I do to make that work the way you want

[twin juniper]

It's baffling how convoluted this is for such a simple task

And no, I assure you that for a beginner this is convoluted af

I work as a senior engineer in an ISP and deal with complex network on a daily basis, but this stuff is worse than that

[fathom aspen]

It is, I know. Just take the time and reread my messages with a cup of coffee and you'll see how all this make sense

[main bane]

thank you for the reply. does it means that if I deploy a multiplayer game I need my own dedicated server?

[twin juniper]

@fathom aspen I think I'm slowly getting it, the "two pawns" thing

Although one question remains, from the server perspective since he is the one checking collisions etc. how would you go about having it so that only his own controlled pawn is allowed to collide with something else for example?

[light iron]

So if you add another client, does it print three times?

[dark edge]

Either listen server, community dedicated servers, or your own. If you have to ask the question, only listen server or MAYBE a community hosted server is realistic for you. You're not going to be making a GAAS

[twin juniper]

If he has to ask perhaps he doesn't know yet?

[fathom aspen]

I'm not sure I get what you mean. By server perspective you mean first player(listen server player)? Or you mean the server-side pawn no matter what player that is? because you seem to mix between the two.

You prolly wanted to ask how can I disable collisions on specific player, and for that you have SetCollisionEnabled function

That's at runtime ofc, you can do that in Class Defaults too(though that will do it for all)

[twin juniper]

Nah I found a "simpler" way, and finally what I was looking for

On the server side (has authority set to true) I check if the player colliding with that box has the same player state name as the server player state name (which I obtain from the gamestate class)

If it is true it means it is actually the server colliding with the box and therefore it runs the rpc and replicates the variables I need, if it's any other pawn/actor/whatever it doesn't do anything

[fathom aspen]

Cool. Why do you run an RPC though if you're already on server?

[twin juniper]

rpc is probably not the right name

the variable "server name" is actually stored in the game state class (a custom one), in the actual box that checks the collision I cast the game state class and I retrieve that variable

I assume I don't need to replicate it because the gamestate exists both on client and server?

[fathom aspen]

I'm not sure why you need that layer of GameState to have a ServerName. The PS Name is enough.
GameState exists on both right, but that doesn't make the variables replicated to clients by default. You need to do so if you need the clients to be aware of them, but in your case you're doing that server side, so it doesn't matter

[twin juniper]

At first I was getting the server display name, but now I just compare the playerstate names like you said
Yes I'm doing it in the server because it is the server that ultimately does all collisions and then replicates the result, why would I do it client side?

If I get that correctly, the server just receives the input from the client and does it's own checks and replicates the result

[fathom aspen]

Where did I say you need to do it client side?

[twin juniper]

I didn't say you said it, I was wondering why would you even think about doing it client side

Since everything happens on the server anyways

[fathom aspen]

I can't think of anything other than optimization

[twin juniper]

optmization?

[fathom aspen]

Yep. Doing everything server side isn't something you would want to do always

Why most games do client side prediction?

[twin juniper]

I assume it depends on the scale of the game, and also the number of events happening, and what they are

[fathom aspen]

Otherwise your server would drain out

[twin juniper]

On that note, is there any security risks in doing this sort of "who's the server check" by getting the server player state from the game state class?

[fathom aspen]

Good luck with single player games 😛

Handling everything on server can be really stressful for the server even for a low amount of players

That's why the CMC already does that for you

Just by looking at how big it's you'll understand

[twin juniper]

what's cmc?

[fathom aspen]

CharacterMovementComponent

[twin juniper]

also I have one last question - going back to the listen server thing, right now my configuration is similar to an old call of duty game for example, where one of the players in the server was also the host, correct?

And something else, like fortnite, actually has a "headless" dedicated server that only does calculations and doesn't actually render a world or playerstate for itself, right?

[fathom aspen]

I don't think so, but as I said it shouldn't be done that way

[twin juniper]

(random game examples btw)

@fathom aspen how would you do it then? you got to have a reference to itself (the server)

[fathom aspen]

Correct

[fathom aspen]

You want that thing to execute only if you're the listen server player(the host) or any player really, but only the on the server?

Cuz I think you want the latter and you think that's done by the former

[twin juniper]

The collision checks are (by default) done on the server, so in order for me to have it so that only the pawn controlled by the listen server client gets the privilege of triggering that collision I just check on the collision event if the other actor is in fact the server's pawn

How do I check that? I get the server's player state from the game state class and I compare it to whatever pawn's player state has collided with my actor

If they match - server was the one colliding - execute code
if not, ignore it and move on

[fathom aspen]

So long story short you want the only the host player(player 1) to trigger that collision and do things consequently?

[twin juniper]

yep

the server / listen server player / host / authority guy

the big boss 😛

and above I explained how I did it

[fathom aspen]

Yes, you want some sort of info when the player hosts the game to tell that this dude(the host player) is really the host. You can have a bool property in the PlayerState though(GameState doesn't need to be involved at all) that tells that this is the host player.

In cpp it can be done using the NetMode, but that's not exposed to BP I guess

[twin juniper]

Gamestate holds a replicated array of all playerstates anyways, so what's the difference?

[fathom aspen]

That's correct, it has info about all players(or more specifically the state of the game as the name suggests), not specific ones

PlayerState holds info about specific players

[twin juniper]

I swear I have seen once an event that is called whenever a player logs in

I can't find it anymore

It was in blueprints, something like event OnPostLogin or something

Oh it's the player controller nvm

[fathom aspen]

Real Eyes Realize Real Lies

😛

[quasi tide]

That's in the GameMode

[twin juniper]

hmmm, I could do some tomfoolery with that

[fathom aspen]

Correct, it takes the PC though!

That what fooled me there hmmm

[twin juniper]

onpostlogin, check if playerstate has authority - if so save it as the server name 😛

[quasi tide]

It gives you a PC.

[twin juniper]

but gamemode is server side only so it makes no sense

[fathom aspen]

Yea right, I meant to say it's a param xD

[fathom aspen]

Correct, that's why I meant you need a way like pressing a button to host to determine if that player is a host

I can't think of workarounds for BP at the top off my head

[twin juniper]

I'm trying to set that variable from the gamestate

Reason being I have a feeling that if it is the gamestate telling everyone who the server name is it might be less exploitable

Than the individual pawn / player state calculating it itself

[fathom aspen]

Ok cool. How do you set the server name though for the host?

OnPostLogin? Same reasoning as before

[twin juniper]

What do you mean?

[fathom aspen]

I mean how would you specify what player you assign the sever name to?

You have the server name defined in GameState

[twin juniper]

not in the game state

[fathom aspen]

But how you assign the host's PlayerState the server name?

[twin juniper]

the playerstate casts the gamestate and gets the variable

[fathom aspen]

the playerstate casts the gamestate
That's error 404

You can't cast a PS to GS

[twin juniper]

Well in reality it's actually the pawn that casts the gamestate

and retrieves the server name variable

[fathom aspen]

You meant to say get(and not cast) the GameState

But anyways I still don't understand how you specify the server name for the host

[twin juniper]

If you have a custom gamestate (child of GameState or GameStateBase) you need to cast it as your own type otherwise you wouldn't find the variable

[fathom aspen]

Correct. That's casting. You cast things of the same type, i.e have inheritance relation

You can't cast a PS to GS. I know that 's not what you meant, but that can be understood that way

[twin juniper]

Technically they're all uobjects though 😛

Also nope, since the gamemode is only ran on the server if I use onpostlogin it returns true for both pawns

(has authority)

since it's the pawn instances on the server client

[fathom aspen]

Correct

Ok what you can do actually to differentiate the host player from the other player, is OnPostLogin, check PlayerArray.Num if equals to 1, if yes, then that's the host, and through the PC you get the PS and specify through a property that it's the host.

Though that won't work in PIE, as they load at the same time

I guess

[twin juniper]

no they don't

[fathom aspen]

Well it can work, I'm not sure

[twin juniper]

there's a delay

[fathom aspen]

TEST

But it 100% works in a true host server model

[twin juniper]

I know that the first index in the playerarray is always the server/host since he connects first but I can't help but feel that just doing that is

https://prnt.sc/9-M0LvHkjHE2

[fathom aspen]

I'm not sure about that honestly...

[twin juniper]

yeah, smells unreliable from a mile away

[fathom aspen]

Yep yep

[glossy kettle]

[twin juniper]

@fathom aspen some c++ nerd gave me the answer lol
In the gamemode since it's server-side only use OnPostLogin and find the local player controller, which has to be the server pc

Works like a charm

Now good luck impersonating the server bozo

[sinful tree]

IsServer, IsLocallyControlled.

[twin juniper]

well there's multiple ways

long story short is that you want the local pc and code has to execute on the server

[fathom aspen]

That doesn't say you're the host player though

It says you're the server side controller

[twin juniper]

it is a reference to the server though, and that's all I need for my checks

[fathom aspen]

Haha

I swear you said you want the host player

[twin juniper]

isn't host player == server in LIstenServer?

[fathom aspen]

Here

[fathom aspen]

Nope. That what I was trying to explain for you for the last two hours

[hollow eagle]

Yes it is...?

A local player controller on the server by definition is the player hosting the game, splitscreen stuff notwithstanding.

[warped steppe]

semantic argument time

[hollow eagle]

Yeah, this is just semantics.

[twin juniper]

I mean if you're in the game mode class and you have something that returns true on local pc, it has to be the server client

[fathom aspen]

Read this so you understand what we're talking about

[twin juniper]

you can't check for authority on gamemode because every pawn would return true

[fathom aspen]

Exactly

I was asking what player he wants to check collision for and he said the host player

[twin juniper]

I've been telling you for two hours that I'm using a listenserver configuration

[hollow eagle]

which is always going to be a locally controlled pawn on the (listen) server

[fathom aspen]

That's totally different than saying no matter what player that is, I want to do that on server

[fathom aspen]

That's not new info to me

[fathom aspen]

Also player 2 (not the host) can be included by checking this way

[hollow eagle]

That doesn't matter...

It will get whatever players are locally controlled

which is what they asked for

[fathom aspen]

It does, if what he's asking for is ONLY the host

[hollow eagle]

Which player is "hosting" a game in a splitscreen configuration is up to the game to decide, there is no inherent host player in that config.

You could say they both are.

[twin juniper]

all I wanted to know is which playerstate/pc is actually the server's in a listen server configuration, from the gamemode

[hollow eagle]

If this isn't a splitscreen config then by definition the only local player on a listen server is the host.

[twin juniper]

so that I can pass along that information downstream without clients calculating it themselves and risking exploits

unnecessary? yes. but whatever

[hollow eagle]

Right, so IsLocallyControlled gives you that.

[fathom aspen]

Exactly. We're not talking split screen right?

[hollow eagle]

Even if we are, whether it matters or not depends on the game.

There is no inherent host player in splitscreen - it could be every local player, it could be a specific one as decided by the game itself. "Host" doesn't mean anything by itself.

[twin juniper]

Is it wrong to assume that the very first pawn that the gamemode spawns has to belong to the listenserver client?

[hollow eagle]

It should but I've always disliked that assumption.

[twin juniper]

I can see why

[warped steppe]

honestly the player 0 thing is such a weird aspect of the gameplay API

people get fooled by it all the time

[hollow eagle]

I don't think it's an intentional part of the API at all - it's just how things work out because of how the underlying system works.

But it's never been guaranteed to be the case.

Which is why I don't like relying on it.

[warped steppe]

I would argue it should at least strongly indicate it means local client players and not the like, players in the server

[twin juniper]

Would you say that declaring a variable with the server client info on the gamemode and passing it along downstream to the gamestate/playerstate etc. is safer than having each client retrieve it locally by themselves siliex?

[hollow eagle]

I'm not sure I understand the context enough to give an answer.

[twin juniper]

In broader terms, I'm passing along some info to the clients from the server directly rather than have them retrieve it by their own means

The idea is that the clients cannot inject it or they'd have a harder time if the info is validated and comes from the authority (server)

[fathom aspen]

IsLocallyControlled returns true if this is a client side pawn. That still doesn't differentiate the host from other players...

[quasi tide]

Doing the check ON the server tells you if it is the host or not.

[hollow eagle]

This is being called from the gamemode. Which is guaranteed to be on the server. IsLocallyControlled, called on the server, will only return true for players being controlled on the server instance of the game.

[twin juniper]

What about dedicated servers?

[hollow eagle]

It will always return false.

There are no local players on a dedicated server.

[twin juniper]

I'm assuming that a dedicated server can only be coded in c++, right?

If you don't own an actor or pc you can't address it directly, without working inside the gamemode/gamestate

[fathom aspen]

Okayy..so it doesn't really true only for client side pawns. Wow all this time I thought it was something to figure out it's something else 😁

[hollow eagle]

I'm not sure what you mean.

Dedicated servers operate no differently from listen servers, they just don't have a local player (and have rendering + possibly other features disabled)

[twin juniper]

right but does that mean that the server assigns one client authority?

[quasi tide]

The server is the authority

[twin juniper]

or rather, from bp only I can only talk to the server (if dedicated) via gamemode and all other server/client shared classes right?

[quasi tide]

The server will be the only thing that has the gamemode

[twin juniper]

I can't do custom logic on a pawn if it is controlled by a server or not because there's no controller right?

yes I know

[quasi tide]

That makes no sense.

[twin juniper]

if it's not a listen server then the server has no rendering and no pc of its own, correct?

if so, I can't go inside a pawn class and specify some logic if that pawn is being controlled by the server client because a dedicated server has no player controller of its own and no rendering / whatever so it just acts as a headless server doesn't it?

[quasi tide]

You can. Because a server will still have AI controllers.

[hollow eagle]

The server always has authority. It has nothing to do with whether it has local controllers or not.

[twin juniper]

But a dedicated server can't just have a player state and player controller and possess some pawn can't it?

because it's headless I assume

[hollow eagle]

But why would that matter

How do you think other instances of the game work? It's no different between listen and dedicated servers from the perspective of remote clients.

Clients can do literally whatever they want with anything in the game. But the server decides whether to accept what the client wants to do, and whether to broadcast that information to everyone else.

Nothing about this depends on the server having a player controller.

That's just another player that happens to already be on the server and doesn't need to send an RPC to communicate with it.

[twin juniper]

so the difference between listenserver and dedicated server is that the latter doesn't have visual rendering?

because a listenserver even though it is a server and has authority is technically still a client it seems

[hollow eagle]

it's not a client

it's a server

this is why you have authority checks and RPC "things you want to do" to the server when you're not authority.

[twin juniper]

a server that you can play with? on paper it sounds a lot client-like
it does remind me of like cod4/mw2 host player, but I'm not sure if that is correct

[hollow eagle]

void DoThing()
{
  if (!HasAuthority())
  {
    ServerDoThing();
  }

  // do something
}

void ServerDoThing()
{
  DoThing();
}

conceptually

writing code like this means you shouldn't care whether something is a listen server or a dedicated server

if you're a client you'll send an RPC so the server does the same thing you're about to do

if you're already on the server then you just do the thing and don't have to worry about sending it anywhere

[twin juniper]

this whole thing is executed from where?

could be any pawn?

[quasi tide]

Anywhere

[hollow eagle]

if the client player wants to do something on an actor it owns (such as a pawn), it calls DoThing()

if that player is a client, then it also tells the server that it wants to do something

if that player is on a listen server then it's already on the server and it just does that thing.

[twin juniper]

I've seen some c++ examples, you have to use macros though to tell that DoThing() is a server function right?

[hollow eagle]

in this case only ServerDoThing() would be a server RPC

it doesn't matter if the player is a client or on a listen server, it would call DoThing(). Which calls ServerDoThing() if necessary.

[fathom aspen]

Or it does for dedicated servers but not for listen servers . Dedicated servers dude here 🙋🏻‍♂️

[twin juniper]

ok thanks siliex so bottom line listenserver is technically peer to peer and dedicated servers is a separate entity from the actual players right?

[hollow eagle]

it's not peer to peer

peer to peer would be every client communicating with every other client

listen servers and dedicated servers are the same thing - single host, everyone connects to it. The only difference from a networking perspective is that someone is actively playing on the server instance itself with a listen server.

[twin juniper]

ok that makes sense

[hollow eagle]

from a non-networking perspective: dedicated servers also disable a number of engine features but that's simply to lower the requirements necessary to run a server (and to improve performance). It's not relevant to how you write the game, except insofar as you want to turn some stuff off on the server because it doesn't affect gameplay.

[twin juniper]

dedicated server feels infinitely less confusing than listenserver though

because a listenserver is also a player in itself, feels like a weird hybrid

[hollow eagle]

they should be exactly as confusing as each other

writing code in the way I posted above already handles both cases

[twin juniper]

thank you for all the help

I have on last question
how do you actually "fire up" a dedicated server outside of the editor? Like on a local server or something

[hollow eagle]

Ideally you have a separate dedicated server build, but that requires a source build.

[twin juniper]

I know in the editor I can set it to netmode "Client" and it runs one in the background, but how do I actually host it somewhere maybe aws or my own hosting or something

[hollow eagle]

You can use a normal build of the game as a dedicated server though

-server on the command line

[warped steppe]

would that break if you have macros for dedicated server only stuff?

[hollow eagle]

Yeah, but it's incredibly rare to use those

most of the time you'd want to use the with_server_code macro or w/e its called

because that covers everything that can possibly run a server

listen, dedicated, game-running-as-dedicated

[dark edge]

You can do it like this

That's how we test, got a laptop synced up through our version control and just get latest -> run bat file -> off to the races

You can do it on a linux server too but since you don't have the launcher version of the engine it's a bit more involved. But you can just fire it up just like launching the game, and don't have to do any building or cooking for quick testing.

If you're serious about doing a dedicated server project you'd want to have a dedicated linux box you can use for testing.

[twin juniper]

interesting, thanks

I have a big question though now - I just created a random actor with a sphere mesh that I just expand its size with a timer every 0.1 seconds - works flawlessly and both clients see and react to it

but... if I check the actor properties it is not replicated? the only thing enables is "net load on client"

so why does it work?

[dark edge]

Begin play happens around the same time on both machines

You've got 2 actors on 2 machines both in sync because they began play at about the same time.

[twin juniper]

so they're not synced but they seem like it because they're running the same code?

[dark edge]

Yup same code starting at about the same time. They're not in sync, but close enough

[twin juniper]

holy F***

[dark edge]

Try make the timer delay random and see what happens

[twin juniper]

you're right

I just did

I need some coffee

okay I've tweaked stuff around and it syncs now @dark edge

one last question: I've set the actor to replicate but not its components, it still works though is that normal?

like the component I'm increasing in size syncs and also the text syncs using a repnotify but those component are not set to replicate, the actor that owns them does

and it works?

[karmic shuttle]

does anyone know how i would pass player data to a widget in the world clientside? ive been pretty stuck for days lol

player controller/proxy:

game logic:

where the player proxy event is being called in the widget

[dark edge]

If the repnotify is what's driving the size then it'll be fine

You would need to replicate the actual components if you wanted their properties to be replicated, but you're driving their properties (the scale) by a replicated variable instead.

[twin juniper]

So the component is not getting replicated, but the variable the actor owns is and repnotify does all the magic? @dark edge

So if I change something about those components and the repnotify is not aware of it then it won't replicate I assume?

[compact talon]

My game is progressing well but there is a big problem with players having high ping (cross region).

I want to make my game feel better for people with high ping, and currently it is borderline unplayable.

What is it called when you do stuff to make your game feel less bad for people with high ping? I assume there are some guides for this but I am not sure what to look for

[dark edge]

Depends. Where is your game on the scale from Chess <-> Unreal Tournament?

How responsive does it have to be?

And how high of a ping are we talking?

[compact talon]

Not sure what games you are aware of but like the level of Fall Guys, Crab Game, Gangbeasts etc. Funny party games basically.

and primarily UK to NA ping so between 120-160

[dark edge]

So complicated movement and probably fairly responsive. It's gonna be hard.

[compact talon]

The movement isn't too bad, but its stuff like moving platforms. I figure I could make moving platforms purely client side so it will feel perfect to play on, although there will be some desync (players floating on others screens etc)

[dark edge]

Latency compensation with movement is an entire subject unto itself, hard as hell.

[twin juniper]

Am I wrong to assume that if you set the inital position of the platforms server side and then have clients move them independently you get a smoother experience?

Kinda like fake replication, what happened to me before with my non-replicated component lol

[dark edge]

How long can you rely on them to perfectly line up?

[twin juniper]

If you have them start at the same time and their pattern is predictable then.. forever? Clueless

I assume you can do some fancy math to compensate for ping and start time

[dark edge]

Sure, but ping varies over time, and you need to figure out what plays nice with your movement system.

[compact talon]

Yeah that's fair. I am just using default UE movement component which is good enough for ping. Isn't perfect but its suitable for my use case.

I am mostly talking about stuff like traps/moving platforms. Like I have a pillar that spins to knock players over and I am unsure the proper way to make this feel good. I guess I would make it fully client side, including hitbox, and just have it start spinning at the same time on all clients

but there are times where it needs to be somewhat synced up. I cannot let it be purely client side because it would mess up gameplay

[dark edge]

That's a big complicated question. It needs to be synced in some way.

[twin juniper]

Also I can't think of a single game that has decent intercontinental ping (say us to europe or us to asia)

Not even overwatch or lol

[dark edge]

Civilization

[compact talon]

I see, so what keywords should I look up for trying to find examples of this?

[dark edge]

You probably want to study the CMC in and out.

[twin juniper]

@dark edge that's not the same as a fps/tps tho

[dark edge]

Well yeah, exactly my point. Unless you're ok with ping-delay to see your inputs happen, then the server and clients will not agree 100% on what's going on. How to cover up that prediction/lag is an art form.

From the POV of the server, everyone is in the future on their own machine.

handling that is HARD, probably the hardest thing in multiplayer games.

[hollow eagle]

Or have super lenient tolerances before the server corrects things. Which is what, for example, fall guys does.

[twin juniper]

Or you can do custom netcode like overwatch that has multiple tick rollbacks and predictions / time stretching tomfoolery

[dark edge]

Yeah, hard.

[compact talon]

Yeah, lag compensation is a topic I want to really get in depth with and learn in great detail. Personally I find it the most important aspect of a game - but that's partially biased because my friend group consists of people from all around the world.

I found a few resources by searching "lag compensation" so I will probably start with that and look at the CMC in depth. Thanks

[dark edge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w8vSss4YiI

[twin juniper]

@dark edge can you check out my answer above?

[twin juniper]

this

[compact talon]

Slightly off topic but if I wanted to make my own movement system for a multiplayer game would you recommend learning C++ first for it or is that something that can be done with BP?

BP feels limiting at times

[fathom aspen]

at times

I'm pretty sure most of movement stuff made in cpp and not even exposed

[formal solar]

Does anyone have experience handling multiple (up to 300) AI in a multiplayer setting? I need to think of ways to optimise, profiler says that pathfinding is very expensive as well as skeletal mesh component.

[twin juniper]

Struggling again with something simple

How do I send to the other clients that I have changed the material of a component?

I tried a multicast event and replicating the components but it doesn't work, changes only on the server

[formal solar]

@twin juniper want to be a bit more specific?

[fathom aspen]

Read last pinned message in this channel

https://vorixo.github.io/devtricks/stateful-events-multiplayer/

[twin juniper]

I have a sphere that I want to set a different material and have it replicate to the clients (the change)

I first do a switch has authority and if it has authority change the material, the component is set to replicate and so is the actor

but I only see the change in the listen server client

[compact talon]

fair, looks like its time to start learning basic C++

[warped steppe]

so... you only change said component on the authority

[fathom aspen]

Yeah really. learncpp.com would be my pick

[twin juniper]

I can get it to work with an onrepnotify

but I have to save a variable every time and do the onrep thing

Is there no other way?

[fathom aspen]

You should do it with a rep notify

[twin juniper]

why?

[fathom aspen]

Did you read this?

[crystal crag]

If the player party is all on the client-side and the dedicated server knows nothing of it, then how do these bigger games keep track of player parties? Do they store something that gets sent to the server that then links their players together based off of shared client info?

That doesn't sound right. That sounds like it would be easily victim to hacking

[dark edge]

I would never in a million years want to try do a multiplayer movement system in BP with prediction.

CMC is like 50k lines dude

you could make some naive approach WITHOUT prediction but it'd be pretty rough

[compact talon]

Fair, the CMC is extremely bulky though with lots of options. My end game movement component would be just basic movement with jumping. I would still want to do it in C++ though I am guessing - especially if I want to do prediction and lag compensation

[dark edge]

You will end up spending hundreds of hours on it and probably end up with some subset of what the CMC gives you. Just use the CMC unless you are doing something super out-there with your movement.

[warped steppe]

there was a marketplace thing for predicted cmc + blueprints wasnt there?

I think mmmm made it

[compact talon]

What would you class as super out-there? Right next to multiplayer and networking my next biggest fascination with games is movement, and I really think that (personally) a game can be made or ruined by the movement alone.

I ideally want something that resembles old source or quake movement. I tried somewhat replicating it with the default CMC but I struggled. I then looked up what others have done and found people really struggled with it.

I figured to get something like this I would need to build my own CMC from scratch in C++, something I am not anywhere near skilled enough to tackle just yet - hence why I went with the default CMC for the time being.

[graceful flame]

I'm in a very similar situation as yourself. Don't really know c++ but I'm pretty solid with blueprints. My multiplayer game is using a custom movement component. This one to be exact but I've also customized it a further ---> https://github.com/ProjectBorealis/PBCharacterMovement
You might be interested in using it as a starter or at the very least as a reference. Also its worth mentioning that it isn't replicating well by default. I had to alter how the braking friction works and implement a custom movement mode and send via saved moves to reduce server error corrections. Still working on making it smoother though.

It was built for ue 4.25 so there were some other upgrades I had to do as well, just so it would run on 5.

[compact talon]

Yeah I saw that when I was looking up source movement. Couldn't get it to work.

I tried using it when I was completely new to UE though, perhaps now I have a better understanding I will be able to get it working

[graceful flame]

want to see it in action?

[compact talon]

Sure

[graceful flame]

come to Artist Alley voice chat and I'll stream my screen

[low helm]

on the server or the client?

[elder sage]

^

[low helm]

let's see if he passes the trick question

🙂

[elder sage]

at the very least I think there's "get pawn private" to go PS -> Pawn and then you can get the controller. Don't know if there's one for just the controller

idk tbh

if all else fails, dummy pawn that's invisible

that's a joke

[low helm]

I think there's a simpler way than this, but I know the Controller can reference the PlayerState on begin Play, and save itself onto the PlayerState as a variable

[elder sage]

I believe that the playerstate exists before the controller, so you shouldn't have to worry about a race condition there

[low helm]

this worked for me on the PlayerState

[elder sage]

I did a MP thing a while back and ran into every combination of "x exists before y so null" possible, it seems like

[fathom aspen]

GetOwner no matter where u are

[shell forum]

looks like it's returning an actor.

will that be the controller?

[low helm]

controllers are actors

[fathom aspen]

Yes

[shell forum]

Works. Wizard once again coming in clutch.

[civic seal]

Hey guys, does PostLogin get called before, or after the PlayerController gets assigned a new default pawn?

[winged badger]

before

you should probably be using HandleStartingNewPlayer in GameMode @

its called after PostLogin, and after HandleSeamlessTravelPlayer, covering both scenarios

its a BlueprintNativeEvent, and the _Implementation (or parent call from BP) is what spawns the default pawn

[civic seal]

Thank you! For some reason i was told by others on the team that the HUD doesn't appear after connection to the server, and it doesn't make sense to me but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a fallback to make sure it does.

[winged badger]

the server sends a reliable RPC ClientSetHUD early on

as the GameMode defines the subclass of the HUD, client can't just read it on its own

[civic seal]

Does BeginPlay get called in the client hud?

[civic seal]

So I've read, yeah. Trying to understand why it might be the case

[winged badger]

it does, its an Actor

[civic seal]

the lack of hud that is

Interesting

[winged badger]

note that when i say HUD i mean subclass of AHUD

[civic seal]

aight so in my HUD, on BeginPlay theres a widget getting added to viewport. It appears on screen in standalone, but does not do so in the Client simulation. Any clue what that may be caused by? It's a bare level, so there's very few moving parts

Not asking you to diagnose my project blind, it just seems that if there's so few bits there, it may hopefully be a common issue

[winged badger]

and what does the breakpoint say?

there are a couple of ways to break BeginPlay being called on clients at all, mostly with making errors overriding GameState functions

[civic seal]

well the breakpoint says that its not getting called at all

uh oh

👉 👈

[civic seal]

i do an oopsie

[winged badger]

most common being missing Super in GetLifetimeReplicatedProps

[civic seal]

yeah I just saw it. I implemented PlayFab GSDK using sample code from Microsoft and they missed the supers

@winged badger Massive thanks

saved me from tons of headache

or at least you would have if this was actually the problem

oh nooooo

[civic seal]

lol I was so sure this was it, too

[winged badger]

does anything else call BeginPlay on client?

[civic seal]

Hm, doesnt seem to

Thanks for pointing that out

[winged badger]

there are several candidates

but ultimately it comes to OnRep_ReplicatedHasBegunPlay

in GameState

to Dispatch BeginPlay

but there are dozens of ways to break that

mismatch of GameMode and GameStateBase or vice versa

missing Supers or incorrect overrides in either GameMode or GameState

to completely silly ones, like turning GameState replication off

[civic seal]

Well, I've yet to override any base functions in either GameMode or GameState, and now it seems its not running even in Standalone

this is so wild lol

by not running I mean BeginPlay not firing

Alright I'll figure it out and maybe ask more once I get specifics, consideirng how many things could've broken I doubt you can figure it out remotely

Thanks regardless, I really appreciate the details

[gleaming bobcat]

How I can get know if Actor is off screen on server side ?

[winged badger]

you can take a rough guess, as client does update its camera position on server regularly

GetPlayerViewPoint in the PlayerController returns the results

that point is also the center from which the player's relevancy calculations are done

[dark edge]

I've messed with Unreal for 8 years and this is the first I've even heard of this property.

[winged badger]

its a function

[dark edge]

I'm guessing it just reaches into playercameramanager and gets info from there?

[winged badger]

updated via ServerUpdateCamera

not sure, never had an interest to fully dig into it

[glad escarp]

General question for you smart folks: How do you generally handle player spawning in multiplayer? I'm currently using OnPostLogin in my GameMode bp to spawn their selected player character and then I manually call an INIT function to make sure all the initialization occurs even if the BeginPlay of the PlayerCharacter first too early etc. But it's not reliable. I get crashes that seem to be related to initialization.

[winged badger]

use HandleStartingNewPlayer in GameMode

its _Implementation / Parent call in BP spawns the Pawn

either spawn it manually and init it, or call Super/Parent and then Init

[quasi tide]

@winged badger I've seen you mention a few times the order of the methods that get called. Can you tell me where the top of the stack is so I can traverse it myself? Not because I don't believe you, but because I want to build out a diagram for myself.

[glad escarp]

Thanks man. I'll start working on this. I totally forgot about HandleStartingNewPlayer. And thank you for dissecting the function call stack for me. That's super helpful.

[winged badger]

you have Either Login->PostLogin in case of hard travel, then going to GenericPlayerInitialization, and then to HandleStartingNewPlayer

in case of seamless travel its client side ServerNotifyLoadedWorld into HandleSeamlessTravelPlayer (PC swap here), then GenericPlayerInitialization, then HandleStartingNewPlayer

the HandleStartingNewPlayer_Implementation calls RestartPlayer() which spawns the DefaultPawnForController by default

[quasi tide]

Oh, I meant like from the actual top. As in first loading into a map and then GameState replicating this.

[winged badger]

this has nothing to do with BeginPlay

first easily usable hook is AGameMode::InitGameState()

but when players actually join the game, that is outside that flow

[quasi tide]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/Images/InteractiveExperiences/Framework/GameFlow/GameFlowChart.png

I actually think this is kind of what I was looking for 😅

[winged badger]

i hate naming of that graph

as that (UWorld) BeginPlay is not actually calling BeginPlay on the Actors

[quasi tide]

Yeah, seems like the GameState does

[kindred widget]

Depends on whether you're on a Client or Server.

GameStateBase handles both cases. But the flow is different.

[quasi tide]

There is also no StartMatch function in AGameModeBase it seems.

[kindred widget]

AGameModeBase::StartPlay() calls HandleBeginPlay on GameStateBase on Server.

The OnRep of the GameState's bReplicatedHasBegunPlay handles calling Beginplay in a Client.

Both do pretty much the same thing. Tell WorldSettings to call Beginplay on all actors currently existing. Then sets WorldSettings State to HasBegunPlay, which then just runs beginplay on all actors spawned in the world after that directly.

Er. I think the state exists in World, not WorldSettings. WorldSettings just sets it. But same idea.

[winged badger]

only if ReadyToStartMatch() returns true

[kindred widget]

Oh. Yeah. Virtual StartPlay in GameMode.

[short arrow]

So does anyone know the exact reason a server will start to tank when too many players are close to each other, but do fine when they are quite spread out? Never understood this.

[latent heart]

Relevance?

How far apart is "spread out" ?

[short arrow]

The clearest example I could give is fortnite, the servers feel relatively fine when the game first starts as players are spread across the map. But if you've ever played in a scrim match where practically the entire lobby is in one spot at the end of the game. It feels like a glitchy laggy mess. I undnerstand the FPS lag comes from so many things needing to be drawn on screen

however it feels like the server is lagging hard when everyone is close

[kindred widget]

Most likely due to the update requirements of connections. A player near more static, lighter connections requires less server time. Each player next to each other, with player characters and other such that require more server updates cause more networking to all parties in range.

It's like the difference between a player standing next to a once replicated chest with an inventory component. Once replicated once, it's mostly done sans the very light replication checks. Player characters on the other hand require pitch replication at the least and it's sent every frame. Plus every other required visual and state replication. Much heavier than rarely changed actors, and those replications multiply with each person.

[short arrow]

makes perfect sense, thank you

so I will need to find ways to make as much as possible replicate less

when too many players are closer

[kindred widget]

One example of scaling using just the pitch replication.
1 player = no replicated pitch as it's locally defined and not sent to non owning connections.
2 players = 2 server replications per tick.
5 players = 20 server replications per tick. (1 replication to each non owning client per character.)

[short arrow]

wow that get's complicated fast

Guessing the best way to slow it down would be limiting the ticking rate of players further away from you after a certain limit is rendered on the screen?

and maybe players you don't see won't tick at all?

[kindred widget]

Replication Graph sort of helps with this. Server considers actors in front of a player more important for example. Might skip a couple of replications on an actor behind them. Epic had a small doc about it if I recall.

Sort of tiers important stuff by view. Players directly in what the server considers a players view get more updates than a person behind, or a person several thousand units away. So if every player gets in range and groups together to stare at each other, performance would still drop. But chances of that are much less.

[short arrow]

so then the best thing we can do is try and reduce the tick rate of every actor, and all player animations when the server starts to throttle

🤔

[kindred widget]

Maybe. Animations shouldn't have much effect on a server unless it's a Listenserver. Even then it shouldn't be terrible. Dedicated have them disabled by default for instance.

[short arrow]

right but it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot you can do to avoid this issue without players directly noticing the effects right?

so I am thinking the next best thing would be to try and make it feel less clunky

because FPS does become an issue aswell

[twin juniper]

remosloot — vandaag om 18:59
hello i am trying to make a UObject to replicate following this blog https://jambax.co.uk/replicating-uobjects/. but i get an unexpected output and cant find why its happening.

"`1>baseBaseItem.cpp.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual void cdecl AbaseBaseItem::GetLifetimeReplicatedProps(class TArray<class FLifetimeProperty,class TSizedDefaultAllocator<32> > &)const " (?GetLifetimeReplicatedProps@AbaseBaseItem@@UEBAXAEAV?$TArray@VFLifetimeProperty@@V?$TSizedDefaultAllocator@$0CA@@@@@@Z)

1>baseBaseItem.gen.cpp.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual void cdecl AbaseBaseItem::GetLifetimeReplicatedProps(class TArray<class FLifetimeProperty,class TSizedDefaultAllocator<32> > &)const " (?GetLifetimeReplicatedProps@AbaseBaseItem@@UEBAXAEAV?$TArray@VFLifetimeProperty@@V?$TSizedDefaultAllocator@$0CA@@@@@@Z)

1>D:\GameDev\Unreal Projects\projects\MyFirstProject newtest\Binaries\Win64\UE4Editor-MyFirstProject-Win64-DebugGame.dll :
fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC\v160\Microsoft.MakeFile.Targets(45,5): error MSB3073: The command "D:\Programs\UE_4.26\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\Build.bat MyFirstProjectEditor Win64 DebugGame -Project="D:\GameDev\Unreal Projects\projects\MyFirstProject newtest\MyFirstProjectnewTest.uproject" -WaitMutex -FromMsBuild" exited with code 6.
1>Done building project "MyFirstProjectnewTest.vcxproj" -- FAILED.
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 1 skipped ==========`"

and i get this error if i try to put the "UPROPERTY(Replicated) UreplicatedUObject* testObject;" end it goes away after i comment out the UPROPERTY(Replicated).

i probelbly forgot somthing but i dont know what

[chrome bay]

You forgot to add GetLifetimeReplicatedProps() in AbaseBaseItem.cpp

[lament garnet]

dumb question incoming

when i play as a client, the player controller is spawned at the world origin and then it take some time before the pawn is spawned and possessed by the controller so i get this thing where the player is at world origin and then snap to the pawn when the process complete

[blissful saffron]

So I have my server hosting a game with EOS and it shows up in the dev portal. My client is connecting to the server and finds the session, connects, and does clienttravel to the URL we get back. The EOS dev portal shows that 2 players are now connected but the client never loads into the map the server is on. What should I look at to try to figure out what's happening?

I thought the clienttravel was not working but I stepped through it and don't see anything being wrong

The map is a basic map that both client and server have already

[winged badger]

output logs, from both server and client

[blissful saffron]

There aren't any errors, it just never loads into the map

I'm just not sure where to start dissecting this issue. Things seem to be ok

[vocal cargo]

I'm overriding OnRep_PlayerState on my custom Player Controller class. Any idea why it isn't printing any of the logs inside?

[winged badger]

you do know what normal connection log looks like

server opens a map with ?listen, tells you its listaning on port, tells you what net driver its using...

client does a browse (url), tells you when it loaded the map

at this point you should have a handshake between the two

if there are no errors, find the bit thats missing, then figure out why

[winged badger]

you might had broken the replication on the PC, by not calling super on GetLifetimeReplicatedProps

you obviously need a client to test this, c++ OnReps don't happen server side

[thin stratus]

Or expecting it to call on the Server :P

DAMN IT, too slow

[blissful saffron]

I actually don't know what a typical connection looks like, but thanks

[vocal cargo]

Hah, I had forgotten about this - But what about a listen server?

[winged badger]

listen server player is on listen server - no onreps

[spiral spear]

Hey yall, looking for some help with pausing in multiplayer games - having trouble getting pause to happen on clients - I am sending a multicast pause event but it does not seem to be working

any tips would be appreciated

[modern island]

When building dedicated servers, is there something special you need to do to get plugins with third party libraries to work?

[sinful tree]

From what I've read on the forums, this is because pausing the game on the server prevents the RPCs from going out correctly.
Your options are:

1. Use SetGlobalTimeDilation 0.00001 instead, effectively pausing the game but not preventing the RPCs from going out. If you left a game with time dialation like this for 1000 seconds (~16 minutes) only 10ms of game time would pass.
2. Use a means of confirming all clients have paused on their end before pausing the server. This involves RPCing to each client individually and them responding back before setting their own game to paused.
3. Potentially, just use a delay on the Multicast that checks if it's the server and if so, delay pausing for a few hundred ms so the RPCs go out before setting the pause.

[spiral spear]

thank you much I will give it a go

[oak mountain]

Hey guys, I've got a multiplayer setup in unreal using Steam advanced sessions, and when using seamless travel and it appears that the Event Handle Starting New Player isn't being called consistently.

As far as I can tell, when I'm testing using my laptop and pc logged into 2 separate accounts, and either of those are the host, Handle Starting New Player is called properly every time for both players. But when a friend is a host and 3 of us connect it doesn't seem to be being called in his logs (unless one of my systems is the host). I've checked that he's on the same build as me, and added a print string as the first thing called by the event... Does anyone know how that event is triggered or have any ideas about what might be causing this issue?

[shell forum]

Is there a simple way to use PawnSensing on connected clients? It appears that it only works on the server. I could use RPCs but it might get expensive since I am calling it frequently. Has anyone dealt with this before?

[leaden atlas]

is there a way to send a lot of network data asynchronously from client to server?

im making a multiplayer game where the client sends its save data to the server

idk if i should just use a client -> server RPC or something else

[fathom aspen]

There is no other way to send data from client to server but to use RPCs

[random verge]

and the old http thang

[leaden atlas]

kk thanks!

[fathom aspen]

What's that?

[sinful marlin]

If you're on UE5, you could implement Lorash's coroutine plugin - https://github.com/landelare/ue5coro - and do it that way lol

Make a subsystem to for it and use Aquanox's subsystem browser plugin - https://github.com/aquanox/SubsystemBrowserPlugin - for, browsing reasons i guess?

[random verge]

upload your 1GB + stuff to an external http host, rpc your server to tell it hey I uploaded some shit externally, then the server knows to grab the payload or "user data" if the user isn't a dbag) @fathom aspen

[fathom aspen]

Sick, good to know, thanks!

You still RPC to server somehow though

[random verge]

doing it that way at least you don't bomb your server while its transmitting (not that you should be taking arbitrary data from a user anyway. That's like taking candy from a stranger)

[foggy wraith]

Sorry to bother yall I am seeking help with a multiplayer skin selector in the FPS template. It works in a testing map and game mode but when I launch from the main lobby the client copies the same color the server selected. I am not the greatest at multiplayer replication and could use the help. I think the issue might be in the gamemode but I am unsure where to even start lol

[sinful marlin]

Just have some data on your external host to act as a flag for when data's been uploaded and have the server just constantly query that data no rpc here

[fathom aspen]

Haha that's a nasty workaround

[sinful marlin]

Where's this color data stored? Stored in the game mode, game state, controllers, etc?

[foggy wraith]

its in a enum

[sinful marlin]

that doesn't tell me where you're storing it

[fathom aspen]

That doesn't answer in what class that enum resides though, and still if we knew in what class we need more info, as no one here can tell how your setup looks

[sinful marlin]

If it's in the game mode, game mode is server only. Doesn't exist on clients.

[foggy wraith]

Sorry its stored in the game instance

The code is in a bp actor called Assault Class A which was in the template

[leaden atlas]

are you storing replicated variables inside of game instance?

[fathom aspen]

GameInstance isn't replicated, so your setup isn't behaving the way you think

Such property should be stored in PlayerState

[foggy wraith]

Oh ok interesting

[fathom aspen]

Also don't replicate materials when you can replicate boolean variables that trigger that action

That's a smart way to save yourself some bandwith

[foggy wraith]

One issue with that tho is FPS template does not have a player state and it semi worked in the test map with a gamemode with just the pawn but wont work with the actual gamemode like conquest or whatever like I am completely stumped and I lack the know how to really follow along so I apologize lol

[fathom aspen]

If one doesn't exist then create one and configure your GameMode to use it. Don't rush things because they work!
My advice would be to take the time and read the compendium as it goes over much of what I said here(you can find it in this channel pinned messages)

Storing such variable in GameInstance is discouraged before it even works or not

[glossy kettle]

{sockets intensifies}

[leaden atlas]

is there a function for when a pawn is unpossessed on the client?

[fathom aspen]

(un)possession happens on server, and so does the functions that get called in response. You would need so form of RPC/replicated properties to tell the client of the action

Well you already have OnRep_Owner, so you can have some way to check if an unpossesion really happened(OldController wasn't null)

[young kestrel]

So I fixed some things with my BP_BaseWeapon Actor, I got it actually replicated (I was kind of surprised to see that I had to do the Code in the PlayerCharacter and not the PlayerController)

Anyway, I have a struct which I replicate for Meshes and Animations. Now, is that too much bandwidth I send? I have a Data table where I store everything and there I have a dictionary where each name correlates to the animation/mesh.

The DT basically dictates the weapons looks, stats, etc.

Is there a more efficient way?

Also another question, where would I store the players current setup? (Like weapon loadouts) Would I use an external Server or could I use another Data table?

[chrome bay]

"Unpossess" is called client-side, but only on the client that was previously in possession.

[twin juniper]

what type of system does games like lets say Battlefield make the player able to change classes in the game like Recon, Engineer, Assault and Support. i know i can make something similar using GAS but not sure if thats the best way

[pallid mesa]

well you can have a hud in which the player chooses the class in every spawn, which then gets propagated to the gamemode to spawn the appropriate pawn class

that's the TLDR essentially

[twin juniper]

these classes

[pallid mesa]

if your classes are hardcoded and don't require any kind of customisation you just send a RPC with an integer or byte to the server

and employ it in the spawning

[twin juniper]

these classes are different player_bp?

[pallid mesa]

for example, yes

you can use inheritance for that

that's the most straight forward way to do it

so based on the resolution of your enum/integer

you spawn A,B, C or D

[twin juniper]

can i message you privatly

[pallid mesa]

not now I'm about to run

try to stick to this chat gtg now

[eager prism]

In vr multi-player, I am not able to trigger on release/on click. Is there any solution for this?

For 3d widgets

[loud steeple]

guys do someone work with the
advanced session plugins ??

i have a problem and i don t know where it s came from

i fix it thanks

[twilit radish]

Can you elaborate on what you're trying to do?

[eager prism]

Want the players to join and wait for host to start the game. Works in non vr, but in quest the button click is not triggering.

[twilit radish]

Do inputs work at all for VR? Is it just that specific widget that doesn't work or does nothing work? If that does work have you tried printing some messages to see where the execution stops (or ran it through a debugger)?

[slow holly]

Hey all, was wondering if anyone had any experience with steam multiplayer that may be able to help me out?? Basically, after following tutorials and installing plugins, I’m able to get the steam overlay on a standalone game and I’m signed in to steam. However, when I attempt to Host a session, it fails. I can host a session when I attempt this on a PIE simulation, it successfully goes through and loads the lobby level

Unless I’m in the wrong place, lol just realizing the online subsystems channel may be a better fit.

[oak mountain]

I've been doing some more testing on this and it seems from looking at the logs that when my friend is the host HandleSeamlessTravelPlayer isn't being called for clients, while it is whenever either of my machines are host. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be?

[hybrid zodiac]

HI everyone, when I am reading "stat net" at the console, does the in/out rate in bytes refer to bytes per network tick, or bytes per second?

Obviously one is a lot more significant than the other 😛

[graceful flame]

My game has a weird bug where if I have two client windows running with the same character class and I hold ctrl to crouch then look around with the mouse, they both look around. This doesn't happen while not holding crouch.

Its as if holding crouch changes ownership but for the rotation only. Jumping and other abilities while crouching only works with the currently possessed pawn. This bug even happens with two different character classes using separate movement components (one custom, one default) too wtf?!?!

[dark edge]

Does it do it if you map crouch to another button?

[graceful flame]

Ah ha! No it doesn't. Im using Input Action (crouch) for both, but when I changed one to use Keyboard B it doesn't happen anymore.

So what would be the cause then?

[dark edge]

IDK maybe some helper that routes mouse to both screens if ctrl is down, or any of a million other things. Dunno if it's an Unreal thing or Windows or some utility you got or whatever.

[dark edge]

Try changing crouch from using CTRL to using B. Changing nothing on your BPs, just the input setup

Trying to sort out if it's the control button doing it or the crouching state.

[graceful flame]

Oh weird, when I change input action crouch to use B, it works normally, but oddly enough pressing CTRL still has the same issue. It's as if there's something binding CTRL to crouch by default hidden within the character's movement component or something. As far as I know I'm not using any Input Keyboard CTRL anywhere within my blueprints.

[dark edge]

does CTRL still crouch? Are you sure CTRL doesn't just route mouse to both screens?

[graceful flame]

CTRL does not crouch for either client, but it does sync the mouse rotation.

[dark edge]

Yeah so check your PIE settings, might be something in there.

Also test if it does it with launched clients

[graceful flame]

Looked through all of PIE and Game settings, found nothing. Trying launched clients next

[winged badger]

any uses of GetPlayerCharacter/Pawn/Controller[0] ?

any static members holding rotation?

[crystal crag]

How do you all keep track of who is in a party on the dedicated server side since dedicated servers don't use parties at all

Is it just an honor system and the clients just send RPCs, telling the server which other users are part of their party?

I'm not looking for code, just a high level concept solution would be fine

[dark edge]

Game-specific party or Online Subsystem party?

If it's game specific, then a user NOT in a party can create one by inviting another user and them accepting.

[crystal crag]

I'm not sure what you mean by game specific. Do you mean by that a party that impacts game logic?

[dark edge]

I mean is the party in the game only or some sort of outside thing like XBOX or Steam

[crystal crag]

I'm basically wanting to be able to invite my friends to my game and then they will be on the same team, which will drive a lot of game logic such as what quests are available and shared progress / etc.

[winged badger]

steam?

actually doesn't matter

[crystal crag]

I originally thought I'd be doing that with the online party subsystem, then I found out that the dedicated servers don't know anything of it. I'll be using EOS

[winged badger]

Session Invites and Handling them is on OSS level

[crystal crag]

which I could in turn use on steam, but right now I just care about EOS only

Ah, there is such a thing as a session invite

Ok I'll have to look into that

I know there is session searching and you can search for sessions and pick one to connect to

is that different from what you are talking about?

[graceful flame]

Is it normal for all shaders to have to recompile whenever I launch in standalone mode?

[crystal crag]

Ah, IOnlineSession:FindFriendSession()

and IOnlineSession:SendSessionInviteToFriend()

[graceful flame]

I can't begin to debug because my machine basically freezes up with two standalone windows trying to compile all shaders again.

[winged badger]

our ingame invite is pretty much a button to activate steam overlay/friends

then you can invite from there

[oak mountain]

Think I've narrowed down my inconsistent HandleStartingNewPlayer calls a bit further - it seems like the client is consistently sending the ServerNotifyLoadedWorld RPC, which I'm assuming that triggers the 'HandleSeamlessTravelPlayer' call - but that isn't being consistently triggered...

[crystal crag]

Does your game let people send invites at anytime? I'm not using lobbies. The dedicated server is hosting a long running world

[winged badger]

this is listen servers

it should still work the same

[crystal crag]

Ok cool