Anybody doing big projects with new Unity Network? Feedback would be appreciated

Hi,

I'm starting a big project and I'm evaluating the possibility of using the new Unity Network. Is there anybody here actually developing a "complex game" with it? Any feedback, pitfalls, caveats, etc?

ATM the thing that stood out for me is that it seems that the NetworkTransform component isn't that effective (and in some cases doesn't even work, i.e. synchronising transform), and it seems that the network latency tools are simply broken. Even simple latency settings (e.g. 50ms and 1% packet drop) make the network really jerky and cause the client to disconnect pretty easily spilling out some errors at least some times.

Regards,
Nuno Afonso
http://www.fluxeditor.com

 

I am in the process of developing a real time strategy game. It is an entirely multiplayer focused game, and UNET is at the core of the game. At the time of writing this UNET is having serious difficulty holding up. On 5.2 it was much more stable than 5.3 or 5.3.1 as now it just seems to disconnect very quickly after going into a game scene and occasionally ignores commands (probably because it is lagging out and disconnecting) and some functions do not fire when they are supposed to. Some components are poorly documented while other are documented perfectly. A lot of features work flawlessly, others, well, not great. NetworkTransform has some issues and I am planning on writing my own because it hasn't shown much improvement over 5.2 and 5.3. Overall, the idea is great as well as its implementation, it's networking made simple. But stability is horrendous, especially on 5.3.1 and I find myself constantly having to write workarounds and my own functions because simply they haven't fixed bugs when they said they were going to. This bug here says it is fixed in 5.3, when I am on 5.3.1 and it is still there.That being said, UNET is by far one of the best Networking systems I have used for Unity - when it works. It's very easy to write a script that can handle both Singleplayer and Multiplayer scenarios for a player very easily and this simplicity is one of UNET's strongest points.

However, my recommendation is if you are fairly savvy with Networking use the Low Level Unet not the High Level and roll your own networking system and scripts at least you know where the error is coming from and you are not reliant on a potential fix in a month's time.

Overall, I think it's not really ready for prime time. But if you are certain that you'll be fine. Stick to the latest 5.2 release and only upgrade your project unless it's really necessary because they seem to introduce more bugs than what they claim to fix. That being said, I still won't say that UNET is terrible; if it was I wouldn't be using it. But you'll spend some time figuring out what on earth is going on and reporting bugs. I haven't really tested out how well Unity handles large player sizes, but I can imagine not very well in its current state.

Also, make sure you study all of the documentation and their videos on UNET so you can get the best start possible.

Best regards,
Ashley.