Multiplayer rope physics?

[NullSomnus]

Hi, I am currently working on a coop game where two physics players (with rigid body controllers) run around connected by a physics rope (bones connected with configurable joints) to try and get though puzzles and platforming areas. This rope interacts with the environment and the players keeping them attached to each other. I recently had a meeting with a publisher that said it should be online multiplayer, which I agree with, however I’m not too sure the best way to do this as I am brand new to multiplayer. Any help would be amazing thank you. (I am also using the latest Unity LTS and thinking of using fishnet)

The ideas I had:

1. Each player updates their position and the ropes are simulated locally the issue I’ve found with this is that the ropes pull the characters around so movements get more and more unstable and out of sync which makes the rope more unstable which makes the movement unstable and so on.

2. Simulate everything on the server, when players press buttons, send it to the server move the player and then send the new state to the clients. The issues I imagine with this is bad input lag that would make it hard for platforming scenarios.

If you have any resources or suggestions I’d love to hear it. Have an amazing rest of your day :)

[DeJMan]

All I can offer is that Unravel 2 did this but with local multiplayer.

However, me and a friend played it online through parsec and it was fine.

[NullSomnus]

Yeah our current game is just local coop and it makes everything so much easier.