User:Lou Montana/Sandbox

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Future Multiplayer Scripting page

The basics

• In Multiplayer, players are connected to a server that distributes information among them.
• The server can be either a dedicated machine, or hosted by a player; in the latter it means the server can have a player unit.
• Players can join a game after it started: they are considered "JIP" and scripting should be adapted to them.

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In Singleplayer, the game acts as a player-hosted server (isServer returns true).

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Some commands will not work in Singleplayer, such as netId!

Locality

• LOCAL is an attribute for the machine where the command/script/function is executed.
• REMOTE is an attribute for all the other machines. All clients are remote to a server, for example.
• commands arguments and effects can be either local or global:
  • a local argument means an argument that is processed on the machine where the command is executed
  • a global argument means any unit, even a remote one
  • a local effect means that the effect will only happen on the machine where the command is executed
  • a global effect means that all the computers will receive it

See Locality in Multiplayer for more information.

Different machines

• Dedicated Server (isDedicated)
• Player Server (hasInterface && isServer)
• Client (hasInterface && not isServer)
• JIP Client (didJIP)
• Headless Client (not hasInterface && not isDedicated)

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If you want to target every machine that has a player (Player Server included), use hasInterface.

PublicVariable commands

PublicVariable commands allow to send global variables to specified machines.

• Network reception is guaranteed
• Short variable names should be used for network performance
• These commands shouldn't be used intensely for the same reason

Command	Effect
publicVariable	Set/update a variable value from the local machine to all the other machines (including server)
publicVariableServer	Set/update a variable value from a client to the server
publicVariableClient	Set/update a variable value from the local machine (not necessarily the server) to a specific client

How it works

The server has the variable ABC_Score to send to everyone, it then uses publicVariable "ABC_Score" (do not forget the quotes!)
This sends the variable name and value to the clients.

• If the variable is not yet declared on their machine, it will declare it as well.
• If the variable already exists, the value is overridden by the server's value.

Network commands

• local
• netId
• owner, groupOwner
• remoteExec
• remoteExecCall

See also

• Headless Client
• Locality in Multiplayer
• Server-only commands