Production schedule — 2026-09-13: PIPE-ROADMAP now defines 32 focused phases (P00–P31). Phase 0/1/2/3 references retained in this document are legacy scope bands, not the new phase numbers. The owner confirmed limited-area core-loop proof before full-map expansion; see the roadmap for dependencies, audited status and remaining work.
Production context
GDD/04-Multiplayer/02-Servers-and-Hosting.mdVerified implementation evidence
- Not verified for this documentation pass.
Relationships
Document contract coverage
Use these required Technical Design areas during review. The HTML content below is authoritative; items not stated explicitly remain unresolved.
- ReviewProblem & Scope
- ReviewCurrent vs Proposed
- ReviewArchitecture
- ReviewData Model
- ReviewInterfaces & Events
- ReviewReplication / Persistence
- ReviewPerformance & Failure Handling
- ReviewImplementation Plan
- ReviewVerification Strategy
- ReviewTechnical Decisions / TBDs
Authoritative project content
Both official-dedicated and player-hosted servers — [CONFIRMED]. Players can join servers run by the developer and can also rent/run their own dedicated servers (Rust-like).
Hosting models
Official dedicated (developer-run)
- Developer operates a fleet of dedicated servers.
- Controlled quality, monitoring, anti-cheat, and live-ops.
- This is the curated/"trusted" experience.
- [RISK] ongoing hosting cost + ops burden; this is a real operating expense for an indie. Plan capacity and cost before launch.
Player-hosted dedicated
- Players run the Linux/Windows dedicated server binary themselves (rented box or home server), Rust/DayZ-style.
- Grows the community and offloads hosting cost; enables custom rules/mods.
- Requires: a shippable, documented server build; configuration files; an admin/RCON toolset. This is a Phase-3 deliverable (tooling/docs), though the dedicated build itself must work from Phase 1 for development.
Server configuration — [RECOMMENDATION]
Expose via config (.ini/JSON) so server operators can tune without code (see ../05-Technical/05-Project-Setup-Steps.md):
- Max players, server name/description, map/region selection.
- Rates: gather multipliers, craft speed, decay timers, loot respawn.
- Rules: the world has no safe zones or PvP-disabled zones; offline raiding is allowed with no offline-raid protection. Raid-window scheduling remains [TBD].
- Social rules: squads have no design-level member cap; friendly fire is enabled or disabled through dedicated-server settings.
- Voice chat: both proximity and squad channels are supported.
- Wipe schedule (see below).
Persistence per server
- Each server has its own persistent world (bases, players, progress are per-server, not shared across servers).
- Permanent boss buffs are per-server (see ../03-Enemies/02-Boss-Zombies.md).
- Backed by the persistence layer in 01-Network-Architecture.md.
Wipes — [CONFIRMED] none
Servers do not perform scheduled wipes. World, player, building, vehicle, inventory, and permanent-buff state remain persistent. Database growth is controlled through lifecycle cleanup, compaction, archival, backups, and schema migrations rather than periodic resets. Destructive administrator recovery remains an operational tool, not a normal gameplay wipe.
Administration
- Admin/moderation tools: kick/ban, teleport, spawn, inspect — [RECOMMENDATION], needed for live and for player-hosted operators.
- Logging/telemetry for cheat detection and balancing.
Build targets
- Client: Win64 (PC).
- Server: dedicated server target (
LambeerServer.Target.cs) for Linux (and Win64 for local dev). See ../05-Technical/05-Project-Setup-Steps.md.
Server browser & entry flow — [CONFIRMED]
FEAT-HUD-UI defines Official/Community tabs, favorites, ping, population, search, and filters. After server selection, a missing character routes to character creation then free starter-town selection; an existing character enters at its persisted location. Steam Client is the launch/update surface, so no custom launcher/patcher is in scope.
[P08 IMPLEMENTED 2026-09-15; NULL/LAN ADVERTISE 2026-09-16; IN-PROCESS PIE LISTING 2026-09-16; OWNER-REPORTED JOIN PASS 2026-09-16; STEAM STILL BLOCKED] ULambeerSessionSubsystem adapts Unreal Online Sessions into stable presentation rows with cancellable refresh, favorites, Official/Community and friendly-fire metadata, build compatibility, search/filter and explicit full/stale/timeout/join failures. Dedicated and listen persistable worlds advertise a Null/LAN session. One-process PIE lists those hosts by listen port because Null FindSessions cannot see the same-process beacon. UE 5.8 Play As Client starts that dedicated world automatically (hidden under one-process PIE). Development config uses OnlineSubsystemNull and LAN search for other processes. It does not prove Steam discovery or production metadata; TBD-HUD-UI-004 remains blocked. Owner reported Dedicated Server + two-client Server Browser Refresh/Join.