so I am just starting to implement multiplayer in my RTS style game and now that I read some articles about RTS multiplayer and networking the Lockstep model seems like the only System to fit an RTS multiplayer.
But how does this System handle cheating. Normally you have a masterserver calculating everything and storing information about units like health etc. but now with the lockstep system this is all calculated on the very on game instance. Wouldn’t it be easy to manipulate the memory to give for example infinite health.
Does someone have experience with this? How did you handle this problem?
If the server is trusting the clients data for health, position, or other game data then you’ll have problems with cheaters manipulating the client. The lockstep model works because the server is advancing the state of the game based solely on input data (key presses, mouse deltas) from each player. The clients view of the world however, will be a predicted version of the state of the game. A cheater can manipulate this state all they want but, as long as the server is only operating on inputs, this modified state won’t get propagated out to other players.