The FPS Sample is a multiplayer only game. There is no single player mode and you cannot play the game without being connected to a server. It is a pretty traditional shooter game with two different characters: The Terraformer and The Robot. Each have their own weapon with a primary and secondary fire mode. There are two game modes:
-
Team deathmatch
Two teams fights for frags. Winner is team with most scores when time is up.
-
Assault mode
One team is attacking, another is defending. Attackers win by capturing all 3 bases before time runs out. Defenders win by preventing that. Attackers can capture a base by having one or more players in the base. Defenders can take capture progress back by being in the base. Once a base is captured completely the battle proceeds to the next base.
There are two levels in the game. The primary level is built for Assault mode. It is called Level_01. The other level is mainly for testing purposes and is much smaller both in size and assets. It is called Level_00.
If you have a full build of the game, it will launch into the menu and you can either connect to a server or create a new game. If you create a new game, it will launch a server on your machine. If your firewall settings permit, other people on your LAN can now connect to your IP address and play.
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| WASD | Player movement |
| Shift | Sprint |
| Mouse | Look |
| LeftClick | Primary fire |
| RightClick | Secondary fire |
| Space | Jump |
| V | Melee attack |
| H | When in captured base or spawn: change character |
| Enter | Open chat |
| Tab | Show scores |
| ESC | Menu |
| F1 | Open console |
| Alt+Enter | Toggle full screen |
Working with a multiplayer game in Unity means you will be working a lot with the standalone player. To make a client and a server that talks over a network connection there has to be two processes. To make this workflow as frictionless as possible, we use assetbundles for all the content (levels and characters etc.). The only thing that goes into the standalone player is the code and a single, very small, bootstrapper scene. Only if you have made changes to a level or a prefab do you have to rebuild the assetbundles. (And you can rebuild selectively -- to some degree.)
The Project Tools window is used to make this workflow function in practice. The most commonly used functions here are:
| Button | Function |
|---|---|
| Open | Open all the scenes that make up a level |
| Levels [force] | Build all the levels into bundles |
| Assets [force] | Build all prefabs into bundles (players etc) |
| All [force] | Build all levels and prefabs into bundles |
| Build game | Build code and bootstrapper scene |
| Run | Start game in boot mode. No level loaded, only bootstrapper. |
| Open build folder | Open the folder containing the standalone player |
| Update Registry | Updates the registry used when building prefab bundles. |
Updating the registry only needs to be done when new game elements (ect. Character, Replicated entity, Hero definition) are added to the project
From the boot mode a standalone player can enter other modes. Some examples:
This will enter preview mode on level_01. This is equivalent to pressing play in the editor when level_01 is open.
preview level_01
The following will enter client mode and connect to an ip address
connect 127.0.0.1
And finally, we can start a server by typing
serve level_00
These are the main modes. In practice one will most often use the Quick Start section on the
Project Tools window to launch different combinations of clients and servers. The way this works is that command line arguments are passed on to the standalone player. Any command line argument
that is prefixed with + will become an command on the console. At the very bottom of the
Project Tools window the actual command line arguments are shown. This is a good place to learn
how the quick start tool functions.
To open the console at any time, press F1.
The console support commands and variables. As an example the command quit will quit the game. The console has tab completion. Here are some of the commonly used commands:
| Command | Function |
|---|---|
help |
Show list of all commands |
serve <levelname> |
Enter servermode with the named level |
connect <host> |
Enter client mode and connect to host |
preview <levelname> |
Enter preview mode for testing levelname |
nextchar |
Toggles character |
exec <file> |
Executes the commands in file as if they were typed on console |
respawn |
Force a respawn |
thirdperson |
Toggle thirdperson view (for debugging) |
runatserver <command> |
Executes the command on the server's console |
vars |
Show all vars |
There are many more variables than commands. Here are a some of the most commonly used
| Variable | Function |
|---|---|
client.debug |
Use 1, 2, 3 to get lots of spam about client networking |
client.matchmaker |
Set this to the matchmaker host:port endpoint |
client.playername |
Your visible player name |
client.updaterate |
Max rate (bytes/sec) client wants from server (30000) |
client.updatesendrate |
Rate (packets/sec) client wants from server (20) |
config.fov |
Field of view |
config.mousesensitivity |
Mouse sensitivity |
game.assault.minplayers |
Players needed before starting assault round |
game.assault.roundlength |
Length of a game round in seconds |
game.dm.minplayers |
Players needed before starting deathmatch round |
game.dm.roundlength |
Length of a game round in seconds |
game.modename |
Can be either deathmatch or assault |
net.stats |
Set to > 0 to get network stats/graphs |
r.vsync |
Number of vblanks to sync to. 0 for no sync |
r.resolution |
Current resolution, e.g. 1920x1080 |
server.port |
The port to listen on (7912) |
server.quitwhenempty |
Set to 1 to make server quit when last player leaves |
server.recycleinterval |
If > 0 server will shut down after this seconds when no players |
server.sqp_port |
Server Query Protocol poert (7912) |
server.tickrate |
The tickrate of the server (and client) |
show.compactstats |
Set to 1 to show FPS and RTT in top left corner |
show.fps |
Show some fps stats if > 0 |
sound.debug |
Show debug info about sounds |
To make a full build of the game, there is some menu items under FPS Sample > BuildSystem. Use CreateBuildWindows64 to make a full windows build, for example.
These menu items are directly available as functions that can be called from the commandline of Unity if you want to integrate with a build machine.