How to Move Character Movement to the Server

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#1

I’ll be teaching you how to move character movement to the server. Also called server authoritative character movement.

Just know, I’m simply teaching you this for fun and experimental purposes only to see what it would be like. This exact code is very simple and should not be included in actual games. While server authoritative character movement is a great concept, this code is not created with visual feedback for the player in mind.

Character movement is normally handled on the client so the player has instant control over what they do for a better gameplay experience.

First, why would you want to do this? You wouldn’t. Using this simple, exact code is a bad idea as it creates many unnecessary issues and delays for players and overall drags down the gameplay experience. However, using the server authoritative movement concept is a good idea if you instantly provide visual feedback to the player, which I will not cover.

This is useful for a sort of anti-cheat system for movement based exploits such as teleports and speed. You’re better off creating an actual anti-cheat system as this is not ideal.

To do this just change the network owner of the BaseParts of the player’s character to the server. This includes any body parts, accessories, etc.

Let’s get started. Create a script in ServerScriptService and put this code inside:

local Players = game:GetService("Players")
local RunService = game:GetService("RunService")

local function setNetworkOwner(part)
	if part:IsA("BasePart") then
		part:SetNetworkOwner() -- Set the network owner to the server
	end
end

local function onCharacterAdded(character)
	RunService.Heartbeat:Wait() -- Allow the character to load into the workspace

	for _, descendant in character:GetDescendants() do -- Existing descendants
		setNetworkOwner(descendant)
	end

	character.DescendantAdded:Connect(function(descendant)
		setNetworkOwner(descendant)
	end)
end

local function onPlayerAdded(player)
	if player.Character then -- Existing player character
		onCharacterAdded(player.Character)
	end

	player.CharacterAdded:Connect(onCharacterAdded)
end

for _, player in Players:GetPlayers() do -- Existing players
	onPlayerAdded(player)
end

Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(onPlayerAdded)

And that’s it! Make sure not to include this in actual games and to only use it for experiments. You can try this out here.

6 Likes
#2

Or if you want a useful server authoritative player, you can just use Chickynoid by @MrChickenRocket

6 Likes
#3

This idea is not uselless and not just for experiments, in fact most 3A games nowdays use this solution, its called server authoritative movement.

The way you solve the movement delay on your screen is actually a bit tricky, you instead create a client sided character and when you press an input you move it, while also sending that same input to the server so it can be executed on the server character. This way the character movement feels responsive

Like @noblemaxx said, you can use chickynoid if you are looking for this, its optimized and works smoothly.

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#4

It sucks that ROBLOX applies insane delay and smoothing from the server to the client, it could probably be fixed with a custom system (which is what i plan to do.)

Thanks for this!