I’ve built a plugin which, among other things, contains an inventory system. It’s component based and (so far) networked by using NetMulticast RPCs that update clients when something changes in the inventory so that it stays current on all clients as much as possible, and allows multiple people interacting with an inventory at the same time for i.e. chests, boxes, what have you.
This is all fine and splendid but I can’t figure out how to send the initial update. I can have a client request a broadcast update when they open the inventory the first time but of course that means that all clients get updated with the entire inventory of the object when that happens. This can potentially get really messy if you i.e. have 9 clients and a 10th connects and opens the box, and all those 9 get the update etc.
Of course I can’t call client functions on the box inventory because nobody owns it and client RPCs only work on client-owned objects. I could have functions in the player controller, character, etc that asks for an updated inventory when opening something that is empty but I would prefer to have it decoupled from these systems so that users are free to use whichever controllers and characters that they like. I would also prefer to use a broadcast approach so that inventories are updated across all players as needed.
The inventory is stored in a TMap<FGuid, FInventorySlot> to avoid having to search an array every time something happens.
So here we are between a rock and a hard place. Have I missed something? Any suggestions would be helpful.
Edit:
I am quite happy to do this on a per-client basis too I suppose if I can somehow get around the problem of having to have actions for this in the controller. I don’t think there’s ever going to be any way around this of course since you can’t call RPCs on objects you don’t own. Could also change the NetOwner of the parent object of course, when the inventory is being interacted with.