Controlling a custom character with no client side lag

[JoelBrd (Joel)]

Hi,

I’m trying to create a custom character (dragon) that when the player jumps on their back, they can control it via where their camera is pointed and using WASD. I want instant feedback for the player controlling the character.

I’ve looked at Network Ownership | Documentation - Roblox Creator Hub, I know I’d need to control the character from the players client and give that player network ownership of the character model.

The issue is, as the character will be controlled on the client it would be possible to exploit i.e. teleport the dragon, increase it’s speed massively, play the incorrect animations even with FE. What would be the best way to do this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
Integern

[IdiomicLanguage]

This is a pretty common question, which I’ve personally answered versions of in a couple threads. Here are some of my responses. However, If you feel that they aren’t really applicable, I’d be happy to put in some extra thought to consider your special circumstances.

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Racing game versus exploiters?

Assuming a client action cannot be predicted, the other clients will always be at least the latency of the acting client’s upload latency plus the receiving client’s download latency behind the acting client. This is the lowest latency that can be obtained without allowing direct peer-to-peer connections, but that is a security/privacy issue. The best you can do to reduce latency’s impact is to intelligently hide this on client systems (interpolation and extrapolation). When a client receives a…

Racing game versus exploiters?

A fair point. In response to that: In practice I’d expect this to be most objects, besides the vehicles, and road sections/obstacles near players. I don’t think this would ever become a performance issue. You are talking about multiple situations here, but I actually think that some of them are where server ownership really shines. If a client lags when the client owns an object, then other clients see them rubberband/teleport. This also allows the client to break regular gameplay logic, …

Exploit Prevention with Vehicles?

I would add these to your list of pros and cons to make it less biased: Owned by server: All players see closer to the same thing Each player is affected by their own latency, not other players’ Owned by player: All players’ views can be dramatically different All players experiences are dependent upon the latency of the other players The key is an authoritative server with client side prediction and interpolation. Here is a thread I was involved in, and which I posted many good links …

Best Replication Techniques for non-Humanoid characters/ships?

I’d say the easiest way to modify what you got is to include a copy of the server side script locally (stick it in replicated storage). Then, modify the original local module to use custom events and function and fire/call them whenever the normal remote events and functions are fired/called. The ship’s ownership and then be given to the server. After these simple changes you’ll probably have something that works half decent. To complete the solution there should be some updates from the server…

[JoelBrd (Joel)]

Those were really useful thank you! A couple queries if that’s ok… (only thing I’ve done similar to this is sending the client action to the server, then the server doing everything and so lagged on the client)

For clarification, if the player moved the dragon to the left the client would visually replicate this movement immediately, then it would actually get moved on the server? My question is if the player moves say 10 studs in the time it takes to tell the server to move it 5, what’s stopping the client then seeing being teleported back 5 studs and moving the other 5 studs again? (I believe you did explain this but still confused me after reading through a couple times apologies!)

[IdiomicLanguage]

Haha, no sane programmer likes dealing with latency in an authoritative server model. It is one of the infamous problems of game development. It is responsible for so many hacks, both by developers and exploiters.

Yes, the client plays the movement immediately. If the client tells the server to only move 5 studs, then the client shouldn’t move 10, but stop when it reaches 5 studs. Generally, the client should send player input to the server, like “w was pressed”, which tells the server which direction to move in rather than a specific distance. The client just moves slower in that direction until the server sends the official update to all clients. This can be hidden as a speeding up in a direction, since instantaneous velocity changes are not realistic anyways. The update from the server contains the server state (like the position), the action (like direction and velocity to move), and a timestamp (so clients know exactly where the server is even after a long transfer period on the wire).

Now, sometimes as you hinted at, the client will underestimate or overestimate the latency, meaning that the interpolated position is a bit off from what the server says it should be. This is unfortunate and there is no fix for it. Lag spikes are very bad, with client ownership, server ownership, and every other model. Game developers can’t do anything to fix this short of wiring their servers directly to their players’ houses. However, game developers can do their best to hide it. How you hide this position discrepancy is up to you, but usually tweening to the correct position is the best method. I’ve played games that use teleportation, and I’d really prefer that they didn’t. The visual effect of being transported is jarring. I’d really like them to lie to my face and just tween the positions.

[JoelBrd (Joel)]

Thank you! Really appreciate it