Starship V1.1 — Multiplayer Flight & Passenger Boarding

What's New in V1.1

▸ Full multiplayer — Client-authoritative flight with server-authoritative possession and seating. Listen and dedicated servers supported. No changes required to your Character or PlayerController.

▸ Passengers — Up to MaxPassengers ride welded to the hull with movement and collision frozen. Seated stow mirrored on every machine so a rider looks seated to everyone.

▸ Passenger board/leave prompt — Same key-aware prompt system as the pilot flow. Press [key] to board when overlapping a piloted ship. Subject to the landed exit rule (configurable).

▸ Auto-seat at takeoff — Any player standing on the hull or in the boarding volume when the ship lifts off is seated automatically. Walk-on riders don't get left behind.

▸ NPC passengers (scripted) — BoardPassenger(Passenger) and UnboardPassenger(Passenger, bForce) server functions accept any pawn. Script AI crew via Blueprint — not auto-detected, but fully supported when you call the functions.

▸ Mid-flight bailout option — bPassengerExitRequiresLanded toggle (default true) keeps riders aboard until the ship lands. Turn off for jetpack characters or emergency ejections. The pilot always requires Landed.

▸ Runtime-injected UStarshipRiderComponent — Passengers command a ship they don't own without owning-connection juggling or character-class edits. Component is injected server-side and replicated to the owning client automatically.

▸ Movable interaction volume — The board/disembark trigger volume is repositionable in Blueprint to match your ship geometry.

▸ Local pilot/passenger events — On Local Pilot Begin/End and On Local Passenger Begin/End fire on the owning machine, for HUDs that live only on that client. The engine's Possessed/UnPossessed only fires on the server, so client pilots wouldn't otherwise get these events.

▸ Smooth proxy interpolation — Non-simulating machines chase the replicated transform via ProxySmoothingSpeed (tunable). Ship stays fluid and attached riders' cameras stay steady across the network.

About the multiplayer model

Flight is client-authoritative — the piloting client runs the flight simulation and relays its authoritative transform to the server, which fans it out to other machines. This is the right trade-off for co-op and session-based games. Not intended for competitive anti-cheat scenarios.

Possession, boarding, and seating are all server-authoritative and validated. The seated passenger list is replicated.

Getting V1.1

Access for Patreon Members

Get it on FAB

Playable Demo

Note on passenger scope

V1.1 adds passengers riding welded to the hull with movement disabled — they're seated, not walking around during flight. Full interior traversal during flight (walking to consoles, weapons stations, etc.) is a significantly harder problem — character-on-moving-platform physics, interior collision that tracks ship motion, camera reference frame handling. That's Star Citizen scope, still exploring for future versions.

If your game needs the walk-up, board, fly-together, land, disembark loop — V1.1 is ready. If you need full interior gameplay during flight, that's beyond current scope.

Space Toolkit

Starship pairs with two other plugins for a complete space gameplay setup:

▸ PlanetGen — Walkable procedural planets: https://www.fab.com/listings/96c36654-f244-4c75-a527-cfaaab2d5ac4

▸ GravityCore V1.1 — Custom gravity + zero-g + jetpack: https://www.fab.com/listings/c74de757-8cf8-45ff-9d6e-82d3b421af5b

The bPassengerExitRequiresLanded toggle pairs particularly well with GravityCore's jetpack — a jetpack passenger can bail out mid-flight and continue under their own power.

What's Next

Continuing WorldGen polish work as the next major focus area (road system, seam fixes, NavMesh guidance) based on catalog feedback.

Starship V1.2 is exploratory — potential directions include improved AI pilot support, weapon systems, and cargo/interaction systems. If you have specific features you'd like to see or bugs you've hit, drop a comment below.

Thanks to everyone who's picked up Starship V1.0 and given feedback. V1.1's multiplayer scope came directly from what you asked for.

— Thilina

Multiplayer & Passengers — Starship V1.1 for UE5 (YouTube)