Peer-to-peer vs IP connections

When you use Epic Online Services, there are two ways for players to connect to servers: peer-to-peer and IP connections.

Peer-to-peer connections

Peer-to-peer (P2P) connections allow players to connect to each other over the Internet without having to port forward on their router.

Because P2P connections use the account ID as the networking endpoint, each player must be logged into their own account. Dedicated servers can not listen on peer-to-peer connections, because they do not log into an EOS account.

This is also why you need to sign into unique Epic Games accounts when using the Developer Authentication Tool to test in editor. If multiple game instances are signed into the same account, the game can't route network traffic correctly to the other instances.

If you have players hosting games (as listen servers), you must be using peer-to-peer connections so players can play with each other without configuring their routers.

IP connections

IP connections do not have the same limitations as peer-to-peer connections; that is, you can have game instances logged into the same EOS account. IP connections are also the type of connection used by dedicated servers.

However, because IP connections are just plain IP traffic, they don't handle NAT punchthrough or port forwarding on routers. IP connections are only suitable for LAN traffic or dedicated servers.

Which should I use?

The plugin automatically chooses the correct type of connection to use, based on whether or not the user is signed into an EOS account.

If you start a listen server in the game, and the user is signed into an EOS account, the plugin will use peer-to-peer connections.

If you start a server (listen or dedicated) and the user is not signed into an EOS account, the plugin will use an IP connection.

To override the default behaviour, you can tell the plugin exactly what kind of connection to use by setting the NetMode when starting the server.