Hello there!

Just a general check-in to provide some updates on progress. So far, the work has been mostly on the back end. I spent a great deal of time working on the server architecture. After several sessions of trying to figure out how I want to run things. I decided on a semi-simple server model that spawns threads for all the universe functions. I included a graphic illustrating how this server handles the workload.

As of this writing, I have the basic server implementation up and running. Here's a little bit of how the server functions:

Startup

Upon starting up, the server is given a list of modules that need to run. Each module is started in its own subprocess that is not tied to the main server or other subprocesses. This has the benefit that if a subprocess becomes unresponsive, crashes, or takes longer than expected to complete its own loop, it will have zero bearing on the other subprocesses. They'll continue to do their own thing without a care in the world.

Main Loop

The Main Loop is in charge of a few things:

Periodic health checks - if the subprocess isn't responding or is crashed, the Main Loop will start the module back up.
Periodic git checks - if the Main Loop detects a change in a module, it will pull the latest version from a git repository, stop the running subprocess, and reload it for the new changes to take effect.
Manual control - once the Main Loop is done starting up, it passes a simple console to the command line where I can manually start/stop/reload a module or exit out of the Main Loop gracefully while shutting all the subprocess down

Currently, the messaging module is the only one that is actually doing anything. It checks every 10 seconds and runs delivery of mail to all players for a given game. The other two are dummy modules for now. In case you were wondering, lol.

I think the most exciting aspect of this architecture is that Main Loops can exist on many different systems. I can spread the workload over several systems to make the workload easier when things needs to work at scale. The benefit of a game that does not need to run in real-time is also very helpful. It's ok if the code isn't super optimized for speed because the updates don't run every second...in fact they will run in increments of 10-30 seconds.

Universe Creation

After detailing the issues with ships, I decided to revisit universe creation and checked to see if everything is still good since the recent changes I made on the back end. Things were not ok. I seemingly lost some of the code that runs universe creation. This was my mistake because I was experimenting with different Main Loop ideas and ended up shuffling folders around. I did finally locate a much more recent version of the universe creation console.

I made a few tweaks to the code when creating the Main Loop project and that completely destroyed the process of instantiating a game universe. After several hours of tweaking code and refactoring a section, universe creation is back to working as intended again.

As I detailed in a blog entry on my website, I have a console script that allows me to create and expand universes at will. This is fine for the meantime, but I will also be working to turn this into an internal API that the admin web interface will be able to use to create universes as well in addition to the Main Loop being able to run checks on game states and check to see if a game completes and is ready to start over.

Parting Thoughts

I am looking forward to getting more things accomplished as this year screams towards the end. It has felt like I haven't accomplished much, but after writing this out it helps to see how much is actually getting done. Looking forward to sharing more as I develop things. :)

General Updates

By silent | Posted on October 8, 2024