Physics Behaves Differently PIE, PIE with Blueprint Editor, Standalone

In my scenario, I have pawn which is a vehicle built out of static meshes beneath the root with constraints between the body and the legs. These constraints are similar to a suspension system, and have breakable linear and angular.

Running in PIE with blueprints open:

  • The suspension is squishy
  • The breakability is very forgiving (flexes a bit before breaking)

Running in PIE WITHOUT blueprints open:

  • Suspension is semi-rigid
  • Breakability is not very forgiving, and breaks fairly easily

Running in Windows Standalone:

  • Suspension is 100% rigid
  • Breakability is 0% forgiving and breaks instantly upon touching anything

Things I’ve tried:
Adjusting for a fixed framerate, as well as including physics substepping of varying amounts. Setting the framerate to a fixed 30fps makes it insanely fast, and most accurate I can get to the original in editor feel is 80fps, or increasing the substeps to be very expensive, both of which seem crazy.

I’m many months into my game and only just noticed this fairly crippling inconsistency. My game is based entirely on the physics functioning consistently across platforms and framerates. Is there any way to manage this and make the physics experience the same regardless of framerate, or wholly force and fine tune framerate to substep for a good balance mimicking what I’m seeing in editor?

Solves pretty much all physics issues regarding varying device performance/fps issues: