I am doing a RTS style game. So for the “units” I am using the Character class. I turned the Net Update Frequency down from the default 100 times per second to 5 times per second. There is no first person camera so 5 updates per second is plenty and saves a ton of bandwidth of course.
The problem is that on the client side the units rotation “snaps” to the server value 5 times per second… It’s odd because the movement itself remains smooth - unaffected by the 5 updates per second. There is obviously network smoothing & prediction going on, as it should…
Of course, I found the answer right after posting this. For me the trick was to change my pawn’s settings. In the root of the pawn, Replicated Movement > Rotation Quantization > Change to “Short Components”.
This comment is what gave me the hint and goes into more detail:
Someone needs to tell you you’re a life saver. Epic has a lot of garbage default settings like that to make people pay for a dev license so they have access to tech support. It also gives them more engagement on the community forums with people asking question, but it makes our life hell for no valid reason.
Epics Character class uses the Character Movement Component (CMC). It implements client-side prediction and network smoothing. These implementations interpolate movement including rotation so there’s never a snap.
CMC also replicates everything for standard bipedal movement, including rotation. See base aim rotation and control rotation.