Hey- I''m working on an isometric RTS that I want to have network support for multiplayer games. Can anyone point me to a good resource or tutorials that specifically talks about network design for RTS style games, and not FPSs. Specifically I''m wondering about the best way of transmitting or updating map/unit information. It seems that the networking problem with RTSs isn''t so much speed but the amount of data that needs to be updated.... -Thanks Jason -Jason Pitt evilx.com

I don''t know any resources on that topic, but I did think about this problem as well. My guess is (I don''t have data to prove it, but some raw calculations) that the best solution is to send the player commands instead of unit data over the network.

This way, all hosts will have to do all the calculation, but the amount of data sent over the network is reduced to a minimum.

Of course you still have to send a lot of data in the game startup phase (the map etc...), but this doesn''t matter.. just display a progress bar.

cu,
Prefect


One line of sourcecode says more than a thousand words.

I need a tutorial about network too.
I am brazilian, and here we are doing good games, but I need some information in programing multiplayers games like Diablo,Uo..
Who can help me?
There are tutorials or examples in the net?

tanks,
lucas..

Lucas Alberto Souza Santos

Read all the www.gamasutra.com RTS game postmortems... they frequently mention networking problems tackled. There''s also a presentation (and I believe a corresponding gamasutra article as well) of Age of Empires networking at:
http://www.ensemblestudios.com/openjournal4/story/gdc2001_network_files/frame.htm

(note: it''s a powerpoint presentation, I''m sure it was available as html somewhere, just couldn''t find it)

tough problem to say the least... maybe cover the basics first?

regards,
BuschnicK

Life would be much easier if I had the source code.
blackfish.sourceforge.net