UI Issues:

Continuing the struggle with the desync UI issue, I spent a few more hours debugging the problem however I was unable to fully solve it. Thankfully, I was able to reduce the potency of this to only occur about 10% of the time. Given that this project is coming to an end soon, I decided to move on in an attempt to get the game to a playable state. Learning to recognise when I should prioritise moving on from a small problem is crucial for getting projects over the finish line. I would love to have this fixed but realistically finishing the project would be a better use of the limited time that I have.

Unity Relay Server:

This whole time with the project I have just been starting the game and it places me and anyone else who starts it into one but lobby. After a small bit of research, creating a simple lobby with join codes is easy to do by using Unity's Relay Services. This works by sending a request to start a server and it responds back with the server and a join code. Sending this join code along with a request will add that player to the lobby. This worked incredibly smoothly and I'm glad that I opted to use Netcode at the start of the project as that has given me access to this feature.

Reflecting: 

Overall, I learned that the importance of balancing small details with the overall progress of the project is key. Time is one of the most valuable resources and you have to decide where it is best spent. Additionally, I was reassured in my belief that working with an established framework will have huge benefits for the project, here in the case of using Netcode. At this point in the project the game is playable (with a small handful of bugs) and I have reached my minimum viable product, allowing me to work on the polish and the stretch goals that I have.