Julian Onions <j.onions@nexor.co.uk> 15/7/95
--
-Also, the Empire config files are now self-documenting (to a point.)
-Each option/variable now has a comment associated with it to hopefully
-make life easier on deities wanting to change things.
--- Steve McClure, 10/21/1998
---
-
-Deity Notes
------------
+Deity Information
+-----------------
To find out the compiled-in configuration, the simplest method is to
-compile up util/pconfig and the run it. It can be run either with no
-arguments, in which case it will print in config format the current
-compiled-in configuration. Otherwise, with a file containing a
-configuration, it will first read in this file, and override any
-compiled in variables, and then print the merged configuration.
+run pconfig. It can be run either with no arguments, in which case it
+will print the current compiled-in configuration in econfig format.
+Otherwise, with a file name argument, it will first read in this file,
+and override any compiled in variables, and then print the merged
+configuration.
So the first method shows you what's compiled in, the second how a
config file would modify this.
configures the data directory to that place, and
port "7777"
configures the empire port to 7777,
- btu_build_rate 0.0004
+ btu_build_rate 0.0004
configures the BTU build rate, and so on.
-The programs look for a config file in a compiled-in location, which
+The programs look for the config file in a compiled-in location, which
is shown by emp_server -h. Use -e to make the programs use another
config file instead. Thus, to start two games on the same host, you
might have
port "7778"
You only need the lines in that file that you require to override the
-compiled in definitions, however having all the definitions may help
+compiled-in definitions, however having all the definitions may help
you to understand what is on and off. You could do this with
pconfig econfig1 > e1 && mv e1 econfig1
which will fill in all the missing keys and values with their defaults.
+You define your update schedule in the schedule file, in the same
+directory as your econfig. See doc/schedule for details.
+
+Additional customization is possible through key custom_tables, which
+is a list of files containing tables in xdump format (see doc/xdump
+for technical information on xdump). To customize a table, copy the
+default table from the directory given by econfig key builtindir to a
+file next to your econfig, then name the file in custom_tables. Do
+*not* edit the default table in-place! That bypasses important
+consistency checks.
+
+A word of caution: Just because you can customize something doesn't
+mean you should! The server makes an effort to catch mistakes that
+could crash the game. It has no chance to catch mistakes that
+unbalance it.
Coder information
3. Use the variable in your code. This normally looks like
if (opt_DUMB) {
- pr("You're being dumb\n");
+ pr("You're being dumb\n");
} else {
- pr ("You're being really dumb\n");
+ pr("You're being really dumb\n");
}