Online Mode

Where to find it

On a multiplayer server, the Main tab’s Quick Settings gains two online-specific toggles: Enable Online Traffic and Show Other Players. Most other features that work in singleplayer remain available but are marked experimental.

Walking Mode and other players

Walking Mode is the social side of Online Mode. When multiple players with the TrafficTool running meet and step out of their cars, they see each other’s chosen player models and can interact through proximity-triggered animations:

• At roughly 25 metres of each other, the characters automatically wave. This is the “hello, I see you” animation — it plays on both sides without anyone having to press anything.
• At roughly 3 metres, the characters switch to close-range idle / dance / talk animations. This is the “we are hanging out” state — meet up at a spot, stand close, and the figures look like they are interacting.

The animations are purely presentational. No one has to own the same car, the same track, or the same settings — the moment the TrafficTool sees another player’s character nearby, the layer kicks in.

Animated pedestrians and spectators online

The Animated Pedestrians system runs in online sessions too. Other players on the same server see the same 3D-animated walkers, pit crew and grandstand spectators you do — they are not a singleplayer-only layer. Tracks that look alive in singleplayer look alive online, and any custom waypoints added via the Pedestrian Editor travel with the track in the normal way.

Enabling traffic on a server without traffic

If the server you are on does not ship with its own traffic system, you can still enable the TrafficTool’s own traffic from the Enable Online Traffic toggle. This activates the traffic simulation locally and syncs it with other players who also have the tool.

Traffic is synchronised between players who are near each other. Drive in the same area and you see the same cars doing the same things; drift apart and the other player’s cars stop being relevant to your local view. The sync is best-effort rather than guaranteed — think of it as “shared enough that it looks coherent where it matters”.

The majority of singleplayer features work in this online setup. Race Cars, Police Chases, Extra Cars, Deformation Physics — all functional, with one known caveat below.

Current limit: lane changes are not always synced in time

The known rough edge of the current online implementation is lane changes. The tool cannot always propagate a lane change to other clients as quickly as it happens locally, which means any feature built on top of lane changes can briefly disagree across clients. In practice that means:

• Police Chases can show a pursuit unit lane-changing on your screen slightly before or after another player sees it.
• Race Cars overtaking through traffic may not be in the exact same position on both screens mid-overtake.
• Generic traffic lane-change reactions to the player (tailgate dodges, high-beam moves) can also differ briefly.

A cleaner long-term sync solution is being worked on. In the meantime the features still work — the differences are usually small and self-correct — but online lane-change behaviour is not frame-accurate between clients.

Why it is set up this way

The current online approach is intentionally an on-the-fly solution. It is easy to use: a player flips a toggle and traffic appears. It requires no extra server scripts, no special server configuration, and no co-operation between drivers. You can join any server that allows the tool and just turn it on.

The cost of that ease is the sync limitation described above. A solution that required server-side support could eliminate the lane-change desync, but would also make the feature harder to deploy. The current design trades frame-perfect accuracy for zero-setup convenience. A future, cleaner approach is in development; the present one exists because it works for most players on most servers right now.

Interaction with other features

• Walking Mode. The vehicle for the social side. Step out, meet up, wave at 25 m, idle at 3 m.
• Phone UI. Player model picked in the Phone is what other players see online.
• Police Chases / Race Cars / Extra Cars / Deformation Physics. Work online but are labelled experimental because of the lane-change sync caveat.
• Ambient Audio. Runs locally per client — ambience is not synchronised, nor does it need to be.

Troubleshooting

Online traffic toggle does not appear

You are not on a multiplayer server. The toggle is only visible when the TrafficTool detects an online session.

I cannot see another player’s character

Confirm Show Other Players is on. The other player also needs the TrafficTool running.

Wave animation never plays

You need to be within roughly 25 m of another character. Both players must be in Walking Mode.

Traffic looks different on my and my friend’s screen

Sync is best-effort. Cars near both of you should match; cars further away can diverge. Lane changes are the known weak spot.

Server rejects the feature

Some servers disable traffic in their config. There is nothing the client can do in that case; the toggle will simply not take effect.