Looking for a way to prevent the NetworkSpawnManager.DestroySceneObjects() call when connecting as a Client

[LamberryGames]

Hey, I'm in a situation where rather than just using Main Menu UI driven approach for setting up games I have a 'hub world' where my player prefab/gameobject is already instantiated (it has NetworkObject on it, but its in an offline/dormant state at this time, not spawned in NGO, NGO not even connected) and it walks around the hub to different spots to trigger stuff, including a Multiplayer mode place, where he can join a lobby (using Steam lobbies currently) and upon creating/joining a steam lobby I also join as a Host/Client in NGO / Network Manager (Distributed Authority, Scene Management disabled).

This works ok for the initial Host/Lobby creator, but then on a 2nd Client as soon as he joins the session the NetworkSpawnManager.DestroySceneObjects() is called destroying my 'offline' Player gameObject from the hub scene, which i definitely dont want to happen at this stage, as the lobby is only begining to form and its not even decided there will be an actual game session starting. I can't find any way of preventing this from happening, outside from just not connecting NGO Clients at this stage and only relying on the Steam lobby solution for the entirety of pre-game communication, but I would much prefer to be able to already use NGO at this point and be mostly independent of platform specific lobby solutions.

I've been told on Unity discord that my 'offline' GameObject should not have a NetworkObject on it in the first place, but that in itself presents a certain issue when using Prefab Variants, and i do use them extensively for my gameplay objects, where I have a variant hierarchy where 100+ hero/enemy/boss prefabs use the same root prefab. So rather than duplicating each 'top tier' prefab variant to create and use as a network variant (which would double their count and would have to be maintained forever whenever i add/delete enemies etc), I opted for adding NetworkObject/NetworkBehaviours on the root prefab so its just always there, dormant during offline play and utilized during online sessions. This does seem to work overall, the NetworkObject presence doesnt interfere during offline gameplay and then works as intended for online sessions, except for this one issue im having here.

[NoelStephensUnity]

Hi @LamberryGames,

Do you have the integrated scene management disabled?

[LamberryGames]

Hey @NoelStephensUnity
Yes, I've disabled Scene Management, this behavior occurs in ConnectionApprovedMessage script in the non-scene management path of the implementation. The comment right above it suggests that this was maybe meant to be reworked/improved later on.

[NoelStephensUnity]

@LamberryGames

The comment right above it suggests that this was maybe meant to be reworked/improved later on.

If you read over the custom scene management section of the documentation and then look at the In-Scene placed Network Prefabs and NetworkObjects it does state this:

Clients are always synchronized with any in-scene placed Network Prefab instances when they join a session, regardless of whether integrated scene management is enabled. When scene management is disabled, only scenes loaded prior to a client joining are synchronized — any scenes loaded after a client is connected won't be synchronized (you would want to only dynamically spawn NetworkObjects at that point).

With a custom scene management solution you will need to handle the synchronization of things like in-scene placed NetworkObjects using your own custom scene management solution.

• The reason it works in the lobby is most likely that is when a client first synchronizes with the session.
  • As stated above from documentation, the initial client synchronization will synchronize any in-scene placed NetworkObjects already loaded.
• The reason it doesn't work when you load another scene is because you most likely haven't created a custom scene management solution to handle synchronizing in-scene placed NetworkObjects.
  • As stated above from documentation, any additional scene loaded requires you to have your own custom scene management solution handle the synchronization of things like in-scene placed NetworkObjects.

Was there a specific reason why you disabled the integrated scene management?
If you don't plan on writing a custom scene management solution, then I would highly recommend re-enabling scene management and let NGO handle this for you.