Tick Loop

Dreamlab simulates the game world at a fixed tick-rate (60 TPS by default).
Every tick the engine

1. advances physics & transforms,
2. executes your Behavior callbacks,
3. sends a network snapshot, and then
4. uses interpolation to render buttery-smooth frames on any monitor refresh rate.

A fixed tick-rate keeps gameplay deterministic and makes networking much simpler—most of the time you don't even need deltaTime; the engine handles it for you.

1 · What happens each tick?

Phase	Typical work
onPreTick	Read inputs, clear one-frame buffers
Physics & engine sims	Move rigidbodies, resolve collisions
onTick	Main gameplay logic
onPostTick	“Late update” logic (e.g., camera follow)
Network snapshot	Sync entities in the world root
onFrame (client)	Extra rendering per display frame (optional)

The order onPreTick → onTick → onPostTick is guaranteed;
within each band, Behaviors execute in an undefined order.

onTick vs onPostTick

Think of a tick as “prepare the next world state”:

• onTick - move players, run AI, update health bars.
• Physics resolves all overlaps.
• onPostTick - world state is final → update camera, parallax, etc.

Behaviors do not tick in a guaranteed order. If you absolutely need to guarantee that one Behavior ticks before the other, it's recommended you refactor your code to enforce ordering using function calls; for example the following is incorrect:

class BehaviorOne extends Behavior {
  onTick() {
    // prepare some data that BehaviorTwo needs
    this.prepareSomeData();
  }
}

class BehaviorTwo extends Behavior {
  onTick() {
    // BAD, not guaranteed to run after BehaviorOne.onTick!
    this.consumeData();
  }
}

The correct way to script this would be:

class BehaviorOne extends Behavior {
  onTick() {
    // prepare some data that BehaviorTwo needs
    prepareSomeData();
    this.game.entities
      .lookupByBehavior(BehaviorTwo)
      .forEach(e => e.getBehavior(BehaviorTwo).consumeData());
  }
}

---

Make dependencies explicit; don't rely on incidental ordering.

2 · Platform-specific hooks

Hook	Runs on…	Use for…
onInitializeClient	client only	Play VFX, set up UI
onInitializeServer	server only	Spawn match controller, load map file
onTickClient / Server	each tick	Divergent client/server logic

TypeScript can't narrow this.game automatically; guard with if (this.game.isClient()) when you need the specialised type.

3 · Interpolation

After each tick, Dreamlab interpolates between the previous and current transforms so motion stays fluid on 144 Hz, 240 Hz, etc.

• + Smooth visuals on any display
• - Adds ~1 tick (≈ 16 ms at 60 TPS) of visual latency

4 · Quick troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely fix
Twitchy / jittery objects	Ensure you update each entity's position only once per tick.
Camera feels one-frame late	Move characters in onTick; update camera in onPostTick.
Network rubber-banding	Two peers share authority—call takeAuthority() on one side.