Take the 2-minute tour ×  I have a point & click type interface
on a client, which runs an A* on the server, for path-finding.
The game is controlled like an RTS, but the world is persistent,
so players should be able to join/leave at any time, and there
will only be 30 or so units at most on the screen.  What is the
best way to synchronize the player movements between the server
and client, once I've computed the path(s)?  Does the server
need to sync the clients on every animation step/frame? or can
it just tell the client "go to position X,Y" for each node on
the path, and each moving player? Or is it best to just run the
animation timers on both client and server, and have it be
implicitly synchronized that way?  What would the typical data-
exchange be like for path-based movement?   Some of you have
been suggesting lockstep, because I said "RTS", but the game
isn't an RTS, it just has the same kind of interface. The big
difference is I need to be able to have players join and leave
the game at any time.