Is it possible to send files (text/png etc) to other players without using the server - i.e. via Unity’s built in P2P networking (I know its possible in Raknet).
I looked at RPC’s and Network views but neither of them seemed to be very accommodating to file transfer type operations.
Reason I’m asking is if players want to transfer larger data files between themselves, say a photo to use as a texture or mp3, it saves a load of bandwidth from our server if we can utilize P2P (particularly if we can check a local cache vs. server and distribute)
You should be able to send files with RPC, although it will go through the server as you say. The networking architecture at the moment is client/server only. Connecting to multiple endpoints isn’t really supported.
To do what you want to do you could try using .net sockets to just sent the files. Although in that case you cannot send files to private IP addresses, must have a hole in the firewall, etc. Usually its just easiest to go through a server.
P2P is on my wishlist so this might be supported in the future.
