Sessions and the lobby¶

HOST RUN on the main menu opens one page, WBP_SessionPage, with two tabs: JOIN lists the games you can join, HOST opens your own lobby. From the lobby, the host starts the run and everyone travels to L_Procedural together.

The session page and its rows: Content/MPFriendslop/Blueprints/Widgets/Menu/
The session state: BP_FriendslopGameInstance, BP_LobbyGameState and BP_FriendslopPlayerState

The page runs on the default online subsystem, through the engine's own Create Session, Find Sessions, Join Session and Destroy Session.

How a lobby works¶

The lobby is L_MainMenu, running as a listen server.

The host picks the options on the HOST tab and clicks OPEN LOBBY. The page creates the session, then reloads L_MainMenu as a listen server capped at MAX PLAYERS.
Another player clicks a line on the JOIN tab and travels to the host's L_MainMenu. The menu sees that they are in a session and opens the lobby for them directly.
Each player has a line in the lobby with their colour and a status: HOST, READY, PICKING A HAT, ENTERING CODE or WRONG CODE. Clicking your own line opens the customization page.
The host clicks START THE RUN. Everyone travels to Run Level.

The back arrow or Escape in a lobby leaves the session and reloads the menu.

The host options¶

Three lines on the HOST tab. The host clicks the value to cycle it.

Option	What it does	When it can change
`MAX PLAYERS`	How many players the server lets in. Players beyond it are refused as a full server	Before `OPEN LOBBY` only
`WHO CAN JOIN`	`ONLINE` or `LAN ONLY`. On the default subsystem both behave the same	Before `OPEN LOBBY` only
`PRIVATE CODE`	`OFF`, or a code of letters that every joining player must type	Any time, lobby open or not

MAX PLAYERS cycles from Min Players up to Max Lobby Players, which is four. The starting value is Host Options on BP_FriendslopGameInstance (Max Players 4, Lan Only off), and the host's choice is kept there for the whole session, restarts included.

The private code¶

With a code set, a player who joins the lobby lands on a gate titled THIS CREW IS LOCKED, with a text box, CONFIRM and LEAVE. The right code puts them in the lobby. A wrong one shows WRONG CODE on their line. After too many wrong codes, or too long without typing one, the server sends them back to the menu with a reason.

The code is checked after the player connects. The default subsystem cannot attach custom data to a session, so there is no search by code: a locked lobby is listed like any other.

Field	Where	What it does	Shipped default
`Code Alphabet`	`WBP_SessionPage`	The letters a code is drawn from	`ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ` (no I, no O)
`Code Length`	`WBP_SessionPage`	How many letters	`4`
`Max Join Code Attempts`	`BP_FriendslopPlayerState`	Wrong codes allowed before the player is sent back	`3`
`Join Code Timeout`	`BP_FriendslopPlayerState`	Seconds allowed to type the code	`60`

Joining a run already in progress¶

A started run stays in the JOIN list, but the gate only exists in the lobby. When the host has set a code, a player who joins the run gets no text box: the server sends them straight back to the menu, with Late Join Refused Text as the reason. Without a code, they join the run.

The gate title and Late Join Refused Text both read THIS CREW IS LOCKED by default. They are two separate texts, and changing one leaves the other as it is.

Text	Shown to	Where you change it
The gate title	A player who joins a lobby that has a code, above the text box	`CodeTitle` in the Designer of `WBP_SessionPage`, its `Text`
`Late Join Refused Text`	A player refused from a run in progress, as the reason they are sent back	`BP_FriendslopGameMode`

Kicking a player¶

The host clicks another player's lobby line, then KICK on REMOVE FROM THE CREW?. The kicked player goes back to the menu with Kick Reason Text on WBP_SessionPage (THE HOST REMOVED YOU FROM THE CREW). Nothing stops them from joining again.

The other fields¶

The words the page swaps while it runs, such as OPEN LOBBY, START THE RUN, ONLINE, LAN ONLY and the error lines, are Text fields in Settings|Text, so you can rename or translate them without opening a graph. The ones below change behaviour.

Field	Where	What it does	Shipped default
`Run Level`	`WBP_SessionPage`	The map `START THE RUN` travels to	`L_Procedural`
`Refresh Interval`	`WBP_SessionPage`	Seconds between two searches on the `JOIN` tab	`5`
`Max Results`	`WBP_SessionPage`	How many sessions a search returns	`50`
`Min Players`	`WBP_SessionPage`	The lowest `MAX PLAYERS` value	`2`
`Max Lobby Players`	`WBP_SessionPage`	How many lobby lines the page makes, and so the highest `MAX PLAYERS` value	`4`
`Lobby Row Class`	`WBP_SessionPage`	The widget each lobby line is made from	`WBP_LobbyRow`
`Menu Level`	`BP_FriendslopPlayerState`	The map a player is sent back to (kick, wrong code)	`L_MainMenu`
`Good Ping Max`, `Fair Ping Max`	`WBP_SessionRow`	Where the ping colour turns from green to amber, then red	`60`, `150`
`Unknown Ping`	`WBP_SessionRow`	A ping at or above this value is not shown. Some online subsystems give this number when they cannot measure the ping	`9999`

A browser line shows the crew, the free slots and the ping. There is no map column: Create Session in Blueprint takes no custom settings, so a session cannot announce which map it will play.

Allow more than four players¶

The lobby makes one WBP_LobbyRow per player when the page opens, Max Lobby Players of them, and MAX PLAYERS never goes above that number. No graph to open.

Open WBP_SessionPage, Class Defaults, and set Max Lobby Players, for example 8.
To open lobbies at that size by default, set Max Players in Host Options on BP_FriendslopGameInstance to the same value.
Check that your levels have a PlayerStart for each player. L_Procedural has 4, in the start room, in the outliner folder StartModule/PlayerStarts: add more there.

Warning

A Max Players above Max Lobby Players lets the extra players in, but the lobby has no line to show them. Keep Max Players at or below Max Lobby Players.

To send the lobby to your own map, see The maps, and how a game starts.

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