Dedicated Server packaging

Dedicated server packaging

I found that Url in the wiki : https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Dedicated_Server_Guide_(Windows_%26_Linux)

But I don't know it is outdated, or I have particular case, but following this, didn't success for me.
So I will give you my way to do, and few tricks, because some configuration steps are necessary and there is no place aggregating those informations.

In my game, I will have one server per map, because each map must be persistent, and is not upon a player.
So I have to generate one server per map.

Tricks & Settings

If you have already launched your game through commandLine like "ue4editor projectName mapName -server/-game", it is quite simple, because you give in parameters the name of your map.
So in your test, you can go map/through map just changing your command line parameters.

When you generate/package your game, it will fix these setting once per package.
First step, you will have to configure under the editor the maps & modes settings.
In these window, you precise which map the client will start with, and which map the server will start with.

Another trick is about package non ue4 files. I manage some configurations files, or data files (json files) in my game to store dialogs, missions, ..., and these files are open by C++ code.
So Ue4editor didn't consider them like assets. In consequence, when you package your game, those directory, and files are not packaging. so bad....
So go to your settings, packaging settings, I recommand to uncheck use pak file in a first time, because you will be happy to see the package content in the first time to validate its content.

Go down, to to Additionnal non assets directories to package, and browse to your directory to add it to your package.

You can refer to the wiki for other steps until unreal front cooking. I don't use unreal Front to package & prepare my game.
I use Ue4editor, through file->package project.

Packaged

At the end of the processus, you will have a directory "game" with WindowNoEditor, with two directories Engine, and yourGame.
Go through yourGame/Binaries/<platform>/ you must find a yourgame.exe, and yourgameserver.exe.
If you don't have your executable, maybe you forget to generate with visual studio (see the step in the wiki).
In certain case, you have to copy the binaries yourself, from your building directory, to your game package.

That's it. I recommand to through a shell script, or command line to launch with "-log" parameters to check that your server & games runs without problem.

I hope it will help people who want to manage dedicated server.

Thyshimrod

Unity : networking part II

I create a tiny connection screen in a nex scene. This scene has no network, only a canvas to show a background picture, and panel/buttons.
To be exhaustive, I ve created a gameobject named PLayerOverScene I talked about in previous article. I linked to this gameobject, the playerscript script. I will store in it, some information, like the ip asked by the player.

Important field for me, now is IP and connect.
I will not speak about login and password for the moment. I will use a rest repository, I will connect to, to validate user/password in a further article.

As always, I will create a c# script to handle click button on connect : ShimConnection.
I create a single simple function:

 public void checkLogin()

I added the script as component to the button.
I create a onclick event on buttonscript component.

For now, when you click on connect button, you will call checkLogin function.

Travel

Now what you want is to load the game scene, and to link to the networked scene from server.

At connect click, I store the Ip into PlayerOverScene:

GameObject playerOverScene = GameObject.Find("PlayerOverScene");
PlayerScript plScript = playerOverScene.GetComponent<PlayerScript>();
plScript.setIpToGo(IP.text);

First of all, you have to load the new scene (I have only two scenes, so for the moment, I will put hardcoded name of the scene).

     SceneManager.LoadScene("scenes/level1");

The game scene will be loaded... now we have to connect to server.
I Will modify this previous code :

public void Start()

    {

         GameObject playerOverScene = GameObject.Find("PlayerOverScene");

        if (playerOverScene == null)

        {

            bool result =this.StartServer();

        }else

        {

            this.StartClient();

        }   

}

To

public void Start()

    {

         GameObject playerOverScene = GameObject.Find("PlayerOverScene");

        if (playerOverScene == null)

        {

            bool result =this.StartServer();

        }else

        {
           PlayerScript ps = playerOverScene.GetComponent<PlayerScript>();
            if (ps)
            {
                this.networkAddress = ps.getIpToGo();

            }

            this.StartClient();

        }   

}

I grab back the Ip store into playerOverScene object to determine to modify internal variable (networkAdress).
I start client, I am connected (I hope) to the server.

Quite simple...


Next step, I will describe how to spawn the player ship...

ue4 : networking day1

The aim of my game is to do a multiplayer game, with a dedicated server and clients.

It was sometimes hard to find my way, to understand networking in unreal engine, so I will try to take time to explain different things about networking, and to illustrate what I 've done in my game about the different topic.

If you need, more precise focus, let me know.

First of all, because it is dedicated server, server has control over all things. You have to draw blueprint in same blueprint for case of "server", and case of "client".

It is important to understand this. It is important also to understand what will be managed by server and replicated to client, and what is manage by client.

On client board, you will manage essentially UI, special effects, keyboard/mouse input management...
Server will manage AI, movement, physics, spawning, ...

So every time, you wish to move your pawn, through keyboard input, you will have to send the information to server, which will move the pawn, and replicate/broadcast new position.

Ok with this very few basics...

First, I will show you how to manage increase/decrease speed on my spaceship.
First I create new input in project settings








 Next in my pawn Blueprint, I create two variables, speed, and speedmax.
Speed will be replicated. It is an information needed by client to manage UI and FX for example.
Replication is always from server to client.



I ve created next a new custom event in my blueprint. The event receives the new speed, and set the variable with it.
Event must be run on server



 Finally, I receive my speed input (through A or W keyboard input), and I manage the increase of speed, and send it to server.





Pay Attention on switch authority. Switch authority allows to run what is after on server, or client. Here, because it is a client input, I have to manage following on client. So I choose remote.
If it was an event about collision for example, I must switch on authority, to manage it only on server.

If you don't use this switch, it will be run on both (client and server), and you can have strange behavior or maybe error. For example, if you manage to update an UI, on dedicated server, you will have errors, because there is no window for server.

Here, you will manage keyboard input to increase speed, and send the update to server.
Server will update speed variable, and because of that, the update will be replicated to all client.

To do better, you can send the input to server, which will manage the different test case, to be sure and guarantee no cheat :D