Networked Types
Any property on your Entity, EntityComponent or BaseNetworkable can be networked (synced from server to client).
Making a property networked
Adding the [Net]
attribute makes it networked.
partial
in order to work properly.This is because codegen adds a supporting class in another file.
Predicted
The properties can also be predicted.
This changes two things:
- The variable is backed up and restored properly by the prediction system
- You can change the value clientside
Local
You can make your networked property Local too, meaning it'll only be sent to the owner of the entity. This is useful if the data is only useful to the controlling client, or for anti-cheat reasons you wouldn't want other players to see the value.
Networkable Types
Type Name | Support |
---|---|
float, int, bool, byte, long, short | Any built in value type will work |
string | Supported |
Enum | Supported |
Vector2, Vector3, Rotation, Angles, Transform | Supported |
Structs | only structs containing unmanaged types |
Classes | Must be derived from BaseNetworkable |
Entity | Supported (If the Entity isn't transmitted it will be invalid clientside) |
Material | Supported as reference, must already be loaded on client |
Model | Supported as reference, must already be loaded on client |
Custom Asset (Surface, Decal, Sound) | Supported as reference |
IList<T> | Where T is any supported network type |
IDictionary<TKey, TVal> | Where TKey, TVal are any supported network type. Additionally TVal can be object or derived from BaseNetworkable . |
Custom Structs
If you want to transmit a struct it needs to be plain old data. It should contain no strings, no classes, no lists, no entities.
Either of the above are valid.
BaseNetworkable
By deriving a class from BaseNetworkable you'll be able to sync that using [Net]
too. It has a few characteristics that you should know about.
- You can derive from the class and it'll create the right class on the client.
- Marking properties as Predicted or Local won't do anything - you can only use them when networking the whole thing.
An example usage of BaseNetworkable is to provide things like Camera. By networking a Camera class on a var, we allow the server to set the camera class directly and configure its variables. The server can set the Pawn.Camera
to a new FirstPersonCamera
and the client will receive that variable and create that class, like magic. This adds a lot of versatility to these kinds of systems.
INetworkSerializer
If there is something you can't do with [Net] attributes alone, you can implement your own network serializer.
When using INetworkSerializer this will override the default behavior of network tables, meaning any properties marked as [Net] will not be automatically replicated for you.
BaseNetworkable.WriteNetworkData()
.Lists
When you mark an IList
with [Net] codegen will implement it transparently as an ObservableList
.
With that comes a few behaviors:
- It will never be null
- Setting it to null will just clear the list
- Setting it to another List will copy from that list
-
- Further changes to the original list won't apply to the Networked List
- If
<T>
is aBaseNetworkable
then you cannot exchange them between networked lists
Materials, Models
Resources such as Materials and Models are able to be replicated, with these conditions:
- Resource should already be precached on the client
- Loaded from disk (needs to be filename match)
Under the hood they're networked as a hash of the filename.
Custom Assets
Custom Assets (decals, surfaces, sounds) that are loaded from disk should be fully compatible.
Since they're lightweight, all Custom Assets are loaded from disk on startup, which makes networking them a lot simpler. Under the hood they use the exact same system as Materials and Models to transmit, but since they're all loaded already you shouldn't run into the same worries about precaching.