[Unpaid] Project Pyrithian (Rts)

[TechLord]

@redhatdragon

RTS games are some of the most difficult to network, because of the bandwidth, and correction necessary. Because “floats” do not behave the same on different hardware, chips, compilers, compiler settings; you’ll need to be careful. This is why RTS are normally done in custom engines with custom integer or fixed point based physics, with lockstep, and only network things like player inputs. Say your moving 64 bytes per unit per frame, multiply that by the number of frames, and unit numbers, and you’ll quickly see why RTS are not easy to accomplish. You can reduce unit counts, you can use compresion to help, but you won’t be able to get high unit counts without doing away with a lot of ue4’s pre packaged physics and ai and networking. Also for AI (while i’ve not tested) I recommend not using trees but instead weights based on conditions (adding or subbing to a response based on different parameters). Or combining the two different techniques. Also if you want over a thousand units on the field consider using ECS to process game logic instead of polymorphism. Or at least study it’s design and consider how some of the ideas of it can help. The main thing about rts games and cpu performance is keeping the necessary data in the cache, research a “cache line”. But that’s a bit overkill if you don’t care to have high numbers. But the issues with networking still apply. Feel free to contact me for more cents And good luck. If you all decide to do away with the bulk of engine features and really attempt to fine tune this and get at least one more competent programmer I might jump on it for funzies. Just not been in a group that ever finished anything as of yet.

Very nice Gamasutra Article on Building a Multiplayer RTS in Unreal Engine by Dru Erridge on 10/04/18 05:28:00 pm. Hits on some of the points mentioned above. Assume the multiplayer features function like other RTS games. I personally would develop RTS Networking features within the limitations of UnrealEngine’s Network Replication Systems and leverage Epic’s Online Services. May have to do something fancy with large unit counts. Particle come to mind.