Welcome to UniEngine Discussions!

[mdziekon]

👋 Welcome!

We’re using Discussions as a place to connect with other members of our community. We hope that you:

• Ask questions you’re wondering about.
• Share ideas.
• Engage with other community members.
• Welcome others and are open-minded. Remember that this is a community we
  build together 💪.

[alexsf93]

Hello, I would like to contribute with the Spanish translation ^^

[mdziekon]

Hi Alex, thanks for reaching out and sorry for the delayed response.
I guess there's not much to say but just "go for it and good luck" 😄

I think it might be worth checking out the french translation project PRs, where you can see how the process should work:
https://github.com/mdziekon/UniEngine/pulls?q=is%3Apr+project%3Amdziekon%2FUniEngine%2F2

Feel free to ask any questions, but if you feel like you're going to ask a lot of questions, I would recommend starting a new discussion rather than keeping it here, in the "Welcome" discussion, to keep it separate from other stuff.

[alexsf93]

Hi, im a little newbie with GitHub, I am translating the language folder "EN" to "ES". When I have finished I will contact you!!

[alexsf93]

Hi, I have installed github desktop but I think I need coauthor permissions to do a push! !! El mar, 17 ago 2021 a las 14:32, Alejandro Suárez ***@***.***>) escribió:

…

Hi, im a little newbie with GitHub, I am translating the language folder "EN" to "ES". When I have finished I will contact you!!

[mdziekon]

That's because you trying to push directly to the repository, which is not the usual way of submitting work into OSS projects. You should fork the project, create a new "feature branch" in that fork, work there, then push your solution to your own fork, and at the end create a Pull Request with your submission.
Right after that, I'll have to do what's called a "code review" process, which basically allows me to review your changes / additions, see if everything is fine.

[alexsf93]

Okey! El mar, 17 ago 2021 a las 17:09, Michal Dziekonski (< ***@***.***>) escribió:

…

That's because you trying to push directly to the repository, which is not the usual way of submitting work into OSS projects. You should fork the project, create a new "feature branch" in that fork, work there, then push your solution to your own fork, and at the end create a Pull Request with your submission. Right after that, I'll have to do what's called a "code review" process, which basically allows me to review your changes / additions, see if everything is fine. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#141 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFIET6MABN2Q3SGCNPRT2VTT5J3SFANCNFSM4USPODQA> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&utm_campaign=notification-email> .

[Lyky35]

Hi, Is the isAI feature work? How does it work?

[mdziekon]

Hi, no, there's no such feature as "AI" in this engine. Back in the days, this flag was used to manually flag "AI-like" users (players suspected of being bots).

[Lyky35]

ok thanks.

[Lyky35]

Hello again,
More questions

1. Is there a way to disable certain buildings from ability to build? (Like Quantum gate, or at least change requirements for them if so which files?)

2. After initial setup (home use),
   Is there a way to change things like URL, auto_statbuilder, that I sadly missed during the initial config without loosing database?

3. Any plans on ever implementing AI/Bots that will just up their planets and build defenses?

Regards

[Lyky35]

URL config is within in constants.php and many of the settings; also figured out the statbuilder. Thanks

[mdziekon]

1. Is there a way to disable certain buildings from ability to build? (Like Quantum gate, or at least change requirements for them if so which files?)

For now, there's no configuration-based way to do this (I would like to have that in the engine as a feature at some point, especially for all custom game elements), but it's definitely possible.

You'll have to mess around a bit with the code, and the first place to try to modify things would be src/includes/vars_elementcategories.php file. Try to remove the respective IDs from the lists, and see if that's enough to have a building disabled (or, inaccessible, because things already built will most likely still exist and work as expected).

As for the requirements, take a look at various include/vars_*.php files.

2. After initial setup (home use),
   Is there a way to change things like URL, auto_statbuilder, that I sadly missed during the initial config without loosing database?

You already figured that out :)

3. Any plans on ever implementing AI/Bots that will just up their planets and build defenses?

That's something I've been thinking about myself, but it's highly unlikely to be added by me in the nearest future. For the time being, I simply have no enough spare time to work on this project. I'm planning to be back in the game in a couple of months, but there's much work to be done in almost every aspect of the code, therefore making a new AI is not on my priority list.

However, this is an Open Source project, everyone has access to it and modifications or new features coming from the community are always welcome. If you, or anyone else, feels up for the task, there's nothing preventing such person from applying their own Pull Request to get this feature into the game.

[Lyky35]

thanks, if I find time, i'll try to contribute some bot in python that builds stuff - at least basics.
(API would be a good start for any kind of more advanced ai, might as well ease ui devel)

[IamSytes]

First of thank you so much for the engine, really learning alot from it, is there a way for me to support the project with donations?

And I also have a question.
I like to make new users start out with unlimited premium, what is the best way of doing it without creating issues?

[mdziekon]

Hi, thanks for reaching out.

---

About the donations - I haven't thought about this topic so far, so currently there's no way to support the project like that. I do know there are things like Github Sponsors, Patreon or even just "Buy me a coffee" kind of platforms, however I have never explored any of that, but I might do that in the future. There are probably other, not so direct options (eg. purchasing unique assets), but I haven't thought about that either. If you have any suggestions, feel free to write that up 😄

---

About the "unlimited premium" - there are probably several ways to do that. The easiest and "safest" way would be to switch BETA constant from false to true.

So far, this constant's only purpose is to control the pro account's state for every account in the game (however, that might be changed in the future, since the name is a bit too general for my taste; that would be a BREAKING CHANGE though, so the change would be properly marked in the release changelog).

[IamSytes]

I think you really should look into it, I am making my own game for fun and this engine is making everything very easy for me so I would be really glad to support it.

A patreon sounds really nice, wouldn’t mind buying extra assets for the engine either.

I’d love to see this project maintained, thank you once again for the work.

[slk333]

Hi, thanks for sharing and maintaining this code.
I've been trying to implement an engine as well. I have a high-level question concerning events:

• Is there a global loop ticking every second to handle the events and update the data when it happens?, for example when a building completes, or when a fleet impacts a planet. In that scenario, the data inside the database is never stale.
• OR instead, are the events handled in a lazy way and data updated only when necessary, AKA data is updated on demand, potentially way later, for example when a user login?. In that scenario, data is stale with a stale flag, until the engine interacts with the data and checks for the stale flag before doing anything.

I'm talking specifically about events such as Fleet Combat, Fleet Return, Building Completion. I know that there is no need to update the ressources every second, as a simple snapshot and a timestamp is enough to compute the current ressources. So yes im talking specifically about the critical events. If we were to make them lazy, it could create complex situations where there are multiple stale data, such as an attack on a planet who has completed building but not updated yet.

If we were to implement everything in a lazy way, then the real-time update of the Highscores would be painful and would force the update anyway to have real time data. So I think there is no way to avoid cron jobs, but I might be wrong. If there is a deamon ticking every seconds, could you link me the file where that happens? Thanks!

related Stackoverflow questions:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14087948/php-how-to-make-event-queue-working-in-offline-mode-in-browser-games
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9469870/how-do-real-time-strategy-games-work-in-php (15 upvotes)

EDIT: the answers in those threads suggest there is no CRON job, but a global job queue that is checked at every user interaction with the server. Is that it?

[mdziekon]

Hi @slk333

To simply answer your question - no, there's no global event loop running in any daemon or cron job-like process that recalculates the world's state. State updates are calculated as events, using their discrete event timestamps, and when multiple events may happen in sequence, but during one recalculation, these events are handled in sequential manner (like in your example, an attack happening on a planet where building construction has been finished in the meantime, but not calculated yet by anyone).

Most, if not nearly all, of the world's state recalculation can be tracked down by starting in src/includes/functions/FlyingFleetHandler.php file. Not an easy read, I probably don't remember myself most of the intricacies, but should be the best place to start analysing the code of the events. You can also check out src/includes/functions/PlanetResourceUpdate.php, as it was refactored heavily not that long ago (compared to the rest of the project) and it uses what I called the "timelines" of events.

The only things which are run in cron jobs are Highscores recalculation (although, mostly to trigger that, not to actually recalculate the world's state) and probably engine's state cleanup scripts.

Is this the best approach? No idea, and I actually do not work in the gamedev industry to answer that question according to the "industry standards".