I would like to learn networking with Unity Relay, use netcode for entities and DOT’s. The tutorials are on the web. I use Unity Personal.
I noticed that you need to configure hosting through Unity Relay, enable the service and lunch hosting.
I am concerned about the use. Learning and testing on a private host is unlikely to be a problem. According to the license a couple of connections to a single and more hosts is free.
What if I put this project on github? Someone will download it and use it on my host by default? Is that how it works?
If I will give up in a week’s time to study of networking then Unity still check up on me despite disabled services?
No. You aren’t sharing your Unity account through which the services are charged. Anyone downloading the project will have to use their Unity account, and then link the project with their account in order to generate a services ID in project settings. Until they do so, Relay or any other service won’t even function for them.
Beyond the Relay service, there are other services that would require additional setup steps in the cloud. For instance, if you use Cloud Save, any other user will not have the Cloud Save structure (names of keyed items for instance) so you’d even have to provide them with instructions or a script to set this up in their account.
No. You pay for use only.
You have a strong programming background and made some games before? Because if not, learning MonoBehaviour Unity and Netcode for GameObjects is recommended as it is far more approachable (forgiving).
DOTS is for advanced users and advances use cases, and comes with a number of stringent restrictions (eg no managed types). Nevertheless it’ll be fine if you are more comfortable working with numbers, algorithms, determinism and don’t mind to subscribe to a fixed system architecture (Entities) where you can’t just do as you please.
Unity Engine/Editor subscription licenses are different than pay for use cloud services. The vast majority of Unity developers qualify for our free Personal license (have less than $200K USD of revenue or funds raised in the prior 12 months). If you are on a paid license, those are yearly subscriptions billed regardless of use or non-use of the editor/engine. But unless there is a need or requirement for a paid license, Personal is sufficient and gives access to everything you need to learn multiplayer gamedev. If you don’t use a cloud service, you won’t be charged, but even then there is generous free tiers for just about all of them. More than enough usage to learn on while taking breaks.
Documentation on services pricing is here: UGS Pricing
As for learning multiplayer gamedev, I agree with CodeSmile that building on your foundational knowledge with Unity MonoBehaviours would be a good initial step: Unity Netcode for GameObjects and Photon Fusion (paid, but free for learning) have quite a bit of documentation, samples, and internet search results to get started.
Check the pricing page. All services (as far as I know) have a free usage tier.
For Relay, that’s 2.6 million (!) minutes per month. This is about 50 monthly CCU. Or if you have 1,000 unique players, each could play your game for over 40 hours per month and you would still be within the free tier. That’s actually sufficient for the vast majority of published online games, and definitely more than enough for development and public testing.
Not sure where you get the “use once and you pay” idea from. Probably a misunderstanding.
Is this true?