Meshtastic – Player Guide
This page explains what Meshtastic does for you as a player, when it matters, and what its limitations are. If you are looking for setup instructions, see the Getting Started guide instead.
When Meshtastic is useful
Meshtastic is designed for situations where your phone has no cellular coverage.
Typical examples:
- dense forests where GSM signal is weak or absent
- remote or mountainous terrain
- large events where the local network is overloaded
If your game area has reliable GSM coverage, you probably do not need Meshtastic. AFT works over the internet and provides the full feature set that way. Meshtastic only carries a small subset of game data, and keeping a Bluetooth radio link active continuously draws additional battery.
Think of Meshtastic as a fallback — something that keeps you partially connected when GSM is gone, not a replacement for it.
What data is transmitted through the mesh
When you are connected through Meshtastic, AFT exchanges only two types of information:
- your position
- newly created map markers (POI)
This is intentional. Meshtastic networks operate on low-bandwidth LoRa radio and are not designed for large or frequent data transfers. Sending more would quickly saturate the shared radio channel and degrade the network for everyone in the area.
As a result, position updates through the mesh are transmitted roughly every few minutes, not continuously.
The mesh does not carry history
When you enter an area without GSM and your phone switches to mesh communication, you will start receiving new updates from that moment only.
You will not receive positions or markers that were transmitted before you connected to the mesh. Historical game data is synchronized later, once your phone reconnects to the game server through GSM.
This is not a limitation of AFT — it is a fundamental property of how low-bandwidth radio mesh networks work.
Your position is not visible to enemies
Each army in an AFT session uses its own encryption key. Position data transmitted through the mesh is encrypted per army, which means:
- players from opposing armies cannot read your transmissions
- even if an enemy device is within radio range, it cannot decrypt your location
You do not need to configure this. It is handled automatically when you run Configure Channel.
Text messages sent on the session channel in the Meshtastic app are a different matter — those are visible to all participants regardless of army. See the Getting Started guide for details on this distinction.
AFT does not use your Meshtastic device’s GPS
Some Meshtastic devices include a built-in GPS module. AFT ignores this data entirely.
Your position in AFT always comes from your phone’s GPS, which is more accurate and reliable. Meshtastic devices allow users to reduce GPS precision, randomize position, or disable location sharing — which would make them unsuitable as a position source for game mechanics.
This also means you do not need a Meshtastic device with GPS. A device without a GPS module works perfectly fine with AFT.
Ready to connect?
Follow the Getting Started guide to pair your device and connect it to your AFT session.
If something is not working as expected, the Diagnostics & Status page explains what the status indicators mean and how to resolve common issues.