Client vs. simulator logic

When scripting simulators, we need mechanisms to tell them apart.

Am I a simulator?

Ask Coherence.SimulatorUtility.IsSimulator.

using Coherence;

if (SimulatorUtility.IsSimulator)
{
    // I'm a simulator!
}

There are a few ways you can tell coherence if the instance should behave as a simulator:

• Specifying a ConnectionType when connecting via Coherence.Network.Connect.

• COHERENCE_SIMULATOR preprocessor define.

• --coherence-simulation-server command-line argument.

• Toggling on Simulator in the sample connection dialog.

Connect and ConnectionType

The Connect method on Coherence.Network accepts a ConnectionType parameter.

using Network = Coherence.Network;
using ConnectionType = Replication.Client.Unity.Ecs.ConnectionType;

public class ConnectAsSimulator : MonoBehaviour
{
    void Start()
    {
        if (Network.Connect("127.0.0.1:32001", ConnectionType.Simulator))
        {
            // Connection successful
        }
        else 
        {
            // Connection failed
        }
    }
}

COHERENCE_SIMULATOR

#if COHERENCE_SIMULATOR

// simulator-specific code

#endif

Whenever the project compiles with the COHERENCE_SIMULATOR preprocessor define, coherence understands that the game will act as a simulator.

The custom build pipeline lets us define preprocessor defines like COHERENCE_SIMULATOR

Command-line argument

Launching the game with --coherence-simulation-server will let coherence know that the loaded instance must act as a simulator.

You can supply additional parameters to a simulator that define its area of responsibility, e.g. a sector/quadrant to simulate entities in and take authority over entities wandering into it.

You can also build a special simulator for AI, physics, etc.

Server-side simulation

You can define who simulates the object in the CoherenceSync inspector.

Automatic simulator adoption of CoherenceSync objects is work in progress and will be available in one of the future releases of coherence.

Auto-reconnect

The sample UI provided includes auto-reconnect behaviour out of the box for simulators. The root GameObject has an AutoReconnect component attached to it.

AutoReconnect in the sample UI

If the simulator is invoked with the --coherence-play-region parameter, AutoReconnect will try to reconnect to the server located in that region.

If you need a different solution, take a look at its implementation use plug your own.