The following samples highlight systems I engineered for Leviathan, with context, technical constraints, implementation details, results, and limitations. Some referenced variables and methods are omitted where their purpose is clear from naming and context.

Purpose:
This sample demonstrates replacing costly physics interactions with a data-driven solution designed for runtime efficiency.

Context:
From profiling in Leviathan, our team found that Networked Rigidbody interactions for agents and items were bottlenecking performance. Tackling this was a wide-reaching effort, but the following was written to specifically optimize water interactions.

Using this code, physics methods were no longer necessary for checking water state on networked objects. The ScriptableObject data is also relatively lightweight, as each data point only takes 2 bytes to get sufficiently precise heights for the water. In a 2,100 × 2,000 m scene at 1 m resolution, the ScriptableObject footprint is ~8.4 MB. Another benefit is that runtime water colliders can be removed altogether.

Because heights are stored as bytes, the lowest standing position needs to be above 0 m, and the highest water position needs to be less than 256 m. This was not restrictive for Leviathan. Another limitation is that for areas with sloped water, the sampled surface height could be slightly irregular. This could be handled by bilinear interpolation of the four nearest samples, but through testing, we found it unnecessary.

Purpose:
This sample demonstrates designing bandwidth-efficient state replication for gameplay data outside Photon Fusion’s Area of Interest. 

Context:
The design team on Leviathan wanted "Traitors" (players who kill an agent of their same faction) to be marked on the map to encourage stronger players to hunt them for revenge while giving weaker players reason to avoid them. 

MAX_PLAYERS for Leviathan is 21, but as players die or extract, new players can take their places. Only two Networked fields are required: TraitorCount and Traitors.

Server-authoritative scripts track when agents become Traitors and when those Traitors die or extract from the match. When these events occur, the TraitorManager is updated by the following methods. The critical lines are those modifying the server's _traitorsList (189, 207, and 236). 

The RPCs are for client notifications, but not for clients to update their states. I chose RPCs for two reasons: (1) we minimize networked data by not encoding which clients are traitors; (2) occasional missed RPCs because of late joins or disconnects are acceptable.

The other notable code here is awarding the traitor’s killer a bounty on line 219. CloudServerService handles its own errors and CreditPlayerAsync returns void, so we intentionally discard the task.

Here the server uses the data in _traitorsList to modify the networked TraitorCount and Traitors. 

First the server checks _traitorsList for entries, then each valid entry is packed into an int. If the packed result differs from the networked version, the networked variable is updated.

Invalid Traitors (usually removed by the external methods) are added to a removal list, and are then removed in the second loop. After that, the TraitorCount and further indexes beyond that count are reset if needed.

Immediate feedback isn’t critical, and fewer networked writes are preferable, so we rate-limit updates. In this case the cadence is 71. At a 50 Hz tick rate, this code runs every 1.42 seconds. Because 71 is prime, it’s less likely to align with cadences in other scripts.

For the play area bounds in Leviathan, players are limited to approximately ±1,050 m in either the x or z directions, so 12 bits per axis is plenty to store a location within 1m. Then the faction easily fits within 3 bits, since there are effectively 6 factions. The faction data is saved so that the client-side icon can indicate the faction of the Traitor. 

Before packing, the values are clamped defensively, though gameplay bounds should keep them within range. Then bitwise operations fill bits 0-11 with the x coordinate, 12-23 with the z coordinate, and bits 24-26 with the faction index. Unpacking simply reads those bit ranges.

The client uses TraitorCount to size the icon set and iterates over the active entries in Traitors.

For each Traitor we unpack the networked variable, then remove the icon if it is invalid, or if it's too close to the client’s agent. This is to prevent players from seeing themselves as a Traitor on the map; MIN_DISTANCE_SQUARED is small enough that it won't affect gameplay.

The local helper transforms are set for the map icons, and the icons are created and maintained here. Then any lingering icons from expired Traitors are removed.

The client uses the same cadence as the server because the replicated data cannot change more frequently than that.

Clients can track and visualize Traitors outside their Area of Interest while replicating only 1 int per Traitor + 1 byte for the active count. Clients also receive notifications of new and expiring Traitors through RPCs. The system also awards bounties to players who kill Traitors.

The biggest limitation is that traitors very close to the client cannot be seen on the map. This is due to the fact that the Traitors data does not contain an identifier for which player belongs to each icon. In Photon Fusion, players that disconnect and then rejoin are sometimes assigned different player numbers than they first had, so we determined that addressing this edge case was not worth the additional implementation time.

Purpose:
This sample demonstrates engineering editor tools to automate validation and correction across thousands of placed objects. 

Context:
The design team and I placed over 2,000 chests across the Leviathan gameplay scene for players to find. These chests had to be placed carefully to appear correct on rugged terrain.

The art team periodically changed terrain or scene props in ways that invalidated nearby chest placements. This could cause chests to be floating in the air, or buried underground. Because testers can't see every chest during a match, misplaced chests could go unnoticed. Checking each chest in the editor could address this, but that was very time-consuming.

To reduce manual checks, I created an editor script to locate out-of-place chests and adjust them when possible. Artists and designers could run the tool themselves after making scene changes.

This custom editor tool exposes a button that batches two corrective passes: FixBuriedChestsIfNeeded() and FixFloatingChestsIfNeeded(), and runs them from a single transactional helper method, Run(). 

Before any changes, I record every FieldChest transform for per-object undo, then mark modified objects dirty and repaint the Scene view. 

This method performs an automated spatial validation and correction pass on all FieldChest objects in the scene. It detects buried chests using downward raycasts and a configurable overhead range, filters out special cases and known false positives, and repositions any buried chests to the detected surface point. Debug lines visualize detection and correction paths, while detailed log messages flag each adjusted transform, allowing designers and artists to quickly locate and verify affected objects in the editor.

This method performs another spatial validation pass to detect and correct floating FieldChest objects within the scene. It uses downward linecasts to check for missing ground contact beneath each chest, ignoring known special cases and false positives. When a valid surface is detected within a defined snapping range, the chest is repositioned and aligned to the surface normal. Debug lines visualize detection and correction paths, while contextual log messages identify each adjusted or unanchored chest, enabling designers and artists to quickly locate and manually correct any remaining issues. 

This method further adjusts automatically corrected chests to ensure they face away from nearby obstacles. It performs raycasts in the four cardinal directions around each chest and rotates it if an open direction is found. The rotation priority is forward, back, right, then left, prioritizing minimal change and consistent orientation. If a chest is fully enclosed by walls, an additional error log is generated to alert designers for manual review. 

Out-of-place chests are moved to a surface close above or below them, and each adjustment is logged, with chests needing a closer look logged as errors. In case of a mistake, the placements are fully undoable, and exceptions can be set per chest or via collider-name rules. As it would take about 2 hours to check all chests across the scene, the tool eliminated that manual review after each terrain change or environment prefab placement by the art team. With those changes occurring regularly and design validating the scene each week, the tool saved approximately 100 hours of designer time per year. 

The first pass can produce false positives in environments with ceilings, caves, or complex geometry. These come mostly from chests placed under a ceiling, or within caves or crevices. For common offenders, like prefab buildings, their roof colliders should be added to the chestBuryExceptions array. For other odd exceptions, such as a chest held up by its corners with a gap underneath it, those need to be specifically marked as "floating" or "buried" by renaming them. 

Previously exempted chests won’t be detected if they later become invalid. To address this, periodically disable exception handling and run a no-exceptions pass, then undo the changes and use the resulting logs to navigate directly to each chest for manual inspection.