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Commonwealth-Online-Public/protocol/player-sync.md
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2026-05-30 18:13:54 +12:00

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Player Sync

Player synchronization is the first major technical goal for Fallout 4 Together.

First Goal

The first goal is to represent remote players as placeholder actors in a controlled test cell.

The first version only needs to sync:

  • Position
  • Rotation
  • Cell ID
  • Basic connection state

Not Required at First

The first version does not need:

  • Full animation graph sync
  • Combat sync
  • Inventory sync
  • Quest sync
  • Dialogue sync
  • Accurate physics sync

Transform Sync

Each client should send its local player transform to the server.

The server should broadcast that transform to other clients.

Remote clients should move placeholder actors based on the received transform.

Smoothing

Remote players should not snap instantly to every received transform.

Instead, remote actors should interpolate toward the latest received position.

Basic idea:

current actor position + latest network position = smoothed visual position

Same-Cell Restriction

Early prototypes should require all players to remain in the same test cell.

Cell transitions should not be supported until basic player sync is stable.