Local Multiplayer in 2018.3+ ?

I build standalone applications to prototype multi-crew systems, and systems of systems. That means that I build one-off, multiplayer desktop games that run on local LANs. I use one project for both client and server/host, if that matters. I can't connect my systems to the internet so cloud and other hosting models aren't an option even if I could fund them.

So with the death of unet, am I unable to upgrade past 2018.2 to keep that capability? Photon doesn't seem to have a standalone capability without having a local Photon Server on my LAN and I haven't really seen any other alternatives.

Is living on 2017 LTS my only option? I can't be the only one that finds myself in this situation.

Cheers!

 

Unet is being replaced by their new networking system currently in an alpha state. You can follow its progress in the other threads on the topic. If you liked Unet you can give Mirror a try, which is a port of Unet that will continue working with later versions of Unity. There is the Socket class to roll your own solution, as well as several other 3rd party networking API's which don't depend on any cloud service.