Unity UNet MMO-style dedicated server methodolgy

Question

We're creating an MMO style virtual campus for our institution and I need some advice on best practices and implementation with regards to using UNet. I've come to the conclusion after reading up that I should probably use one project with a separate scene for the server build. So I set that up and it runs and starts a dedicated server immediately. The game scene then automatically connects but the player isn't getting instantiated even though it's added in the network manager. The server scene is just a blank scene with a UNet network manager component.

My view on the situation is that for a better user experience, the game scene and all user interaction should happen client-side then update the server, then the server updates the other clients. (Feel free to shoot this down).

If the above is on the right path, then how would the server scene be setup to be a ghost and not actually process any information?

Would it be beneficial to write a script that sends certain variables to the server rather than using the UNet networking components, as I think they sync the whole object?

Does UNet allow that kind of functionality where the server just acts as an intemediary to update clients rather than being the full instance of the game?

I think what I'm really getting at is, what is the best method for creating an MMO style, dedicated, headless, networking setup with UNet?

Answer 1

I wouldn't use UNET's HLAPI (High-Level API) for an MMO. It gives you nice out of the box components like Network Transform and Network Manager, but you will not find the flexibility you need for a project of your scope. It may be possible, but the whole HLAPI feels like it was built to support a "host" hybrid which is both the server and a client (everyone being limited to the one Scene the host is running).

Check out the Low-Level API (LLAPI). It's just a thin, Unity-optimized layer on top of UDP sockets. It is a simple framework to send messages from Client --> Server, so it's entirely up to you to build the engine that moves players, manages scene changes, etc. This way, though, your server can be running on an entirely different Unity app with the sole purpose of processing client messages.