Zero-K:Developing

New developers should read this before touching the source.

ZK's Devving Philosophy (social rules)

• "War is anticommunication!"
  • Communicate with other devs about your changes/fixes, let them understand the issue. Do not make 'random' changes.
• "Do not create work for other people."
  • Have responsibility for your changes/commit. Do not leave bugs that require other people to fix.
• "Readability & performance are equally important."
  • Optimize code but not to the point of unreadability. Remember the rules of optimization:
    • Don't.
    • Don't (yet).
    • Profile before doing it.
• "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
  • Don't code fixes that nobody wants to problems that don't exist.

What is in source codes

• Zero-K contains the game proper
  • units folder contains unit definition files
  • you can read wiki about game development for spring engine
• Zero-K-Infrastructure
  • ZeroKLobby - is the lobby program for windows used as main interface and downloader
  • Zero-K.info - is the website sources
• Zero-K-Artwork contains sources for 2D art, 3D art and sounds
• SpringRTS-tools contains various dev tools
  • Upspring - required to edit the .3do and .s3o model files used in the game
  • MapIconBuilder - unit map icon sources are here
• Zero-K-Missions contains source files for official ZK missions

Getting sources

• Get a GitHub account and download Github for desktop
• Locate repository you want to edit and click "clone in desktop" button on website
  • After you finish modifying sources click Pull request* in Github for windows and submit your changes for review

Modifying the game

1. Locate data folder of your game - in Zero-K lobby settings click open game data folder
2. Create a folder games/zk.sdd in game data folder
3. Clone to desktop Zero-K game and save it to zk.sdd
4. To test source modifications run the game using skirmisher (Zero-K settings tab) and pick game named Zero-K $VERSION

Modifying infrastructure/tools

1. Install Visual Studio Community edition
2. Install SQL Server express
3. Clone to desktop Zero-K infrastructure
4. Test by opening Zero-K.sln in Visual Studio

Debugging infrastructure

• Right click asp.net -> properties -> web -> check "Specific Page" and leave it blank. Otherwise you get errors when trying to host locally.
• To run a project right click it, choose "set as startup project" and hit F5 to run using debugger.
• You can enable multiple startup projects to test entire infrastructure locally (game servers, lobby etc). Enable asp.net, springie and ZeroKLobby projects to test it all together. Setup
• Note: in order to run asp.net it's required that you install MS SQL Express on your local PC. Get one from here. The file you will need is called SQLEXPR_x64_ENU or SQLEXPR_x86_ENU. Make sure you install version that matches your version of Windows (i.e. x86 vs x64). During the installation leave all the parameters default except that I changed server name to SQLEXPRESS in one of the first steps of wizard.

Artwork

See Development Artwork

Missions

See Mission Editor