GnomeServer

This is essentially a port/rewrite of an existing mod for Cities: Skylines.

That repository can be found at Rychard/CityWebServer.

Notice

While Gnomoria does allow modding of the game, the scope of what can be modified is extremely limited, and as far as I can tell doesn't allow for the execution of arbitrary bits of code. Consequently, the only way I was able to make this work was by modifying the game's executable.

To perform such a modification, there exists a library (Mono.Cecil), which is an extremely powerful library that facilitates this process. This was my first attempt at using this library, and while I was largely successful in my efforts, I have no idea how likely it is that my assembly modification code will work as-is upon the game's next update.

Installation

1. Locate your Gnomoria installation directory.

   • Example: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Gnomoria

2. Copy the following files from your Gnomoria installation directory to the Assemblies directory located in the root of this repository:

   • Gnomoria.exe
   • gnomorialib.dll
   • irrKlang.NET4.dll
   • SevenZipSharp.dll

3. Build the GnomeServer solution located in this repository.

4. Copy the files below to your Gnomoria installation directory:

• GnomoriaInjection\bin\x86\Debug\GnomeServer.dll
• GnomoriaInjection\bin\x86\Debug\GnomoriaInjection.dll
• GnomoriaInjection\bin\x86\Debug\Newtonsoft.Json.dll
• GnomoriaInjection\bin\x86\Debug\GnomeServer.pdb
• GnomoriaInjection\bin\x86\Debug\GnomoriaInjection.pdb

5. Download LinqPad and use it to run the inject.linq script located in the Injector directory.

   • It's likely that you'll need to edit the first path in that script to point to your Gnomoria installation path.
   • This script will create a file called GnomoriaInjected.exe in your Gnomoria installation path.
   • At the time of writing, this is verified to work on the latest in-dev release from Steam, which is v0.9.18 RC31.
   • This may also work for the current stable version of the game on Steam (and perhaps the DRM-free version from Humble Bundle, which I also own, but haven't tested personally).

6. Double-click the GnomoriaInjected.exe file in your Gnomoria installation directory to start the game.

Advanced Server Configuration

By default, the game hosts a web server that listens for requests at http://localhost:8081/

This address can be configured by editing the server's configuration:

• Install the mod normally.
• Launch GnomoriaInjected.exe at least once.
• Close the game.
• Locate the GnomeServer.json file. It is located in the same directory as your saved games.
• Editing the file should be simple enough, but here's a quick sample to illustrate:

[
  {
    "Key": "webServerHost1",
    "Value": "http://<HostName>:<PortNumber>/",
    "Type": "string"
  }
]

Projects

GnomeServer

This project compiles into a single dll (GnomeServer.dll). The GnomoriaInjection project has a reference to this project, allowing it to access and spin up an instance of the appropriate code that runs in the same AppDomain as the game itself. Because of this, this assembly has access to the entirety of the game's assembly at runtime, which allows the developer to control large portions of the game's logic.

It's worth noting that this project leverages what is very much a very rudimentary web-server. While it implements a very respectable amount of features, there's still an immense distance between the one used here and, say, IIS. Because it was originally written for a game written in Unity3D (which runs under Mono), I had to work within the limitations imposed by that platform. Seeing as how Gnomoria uses XNA (using .NET 4.0) these limitations don't necessarily apply, and I could have dropped in an ASP.NET Self-Host platform. That said, I chose not to simply because I would be unable to use the latest version, since that platform has long-since moved forward to more recent releases of the .NET framework.

Despite these "limitations", one of my design goals was to reduce the most tedious part of working with the previous version of the web server used for the Cities: Skylines mod: the creation of new endpoints. During my "9 to 5" I do a lot of work using the latest-and-greatest versions of ASP.NET MVC/WebAPI and one of the most missed parts of that is Attribute Routing.

Seeing as how the ASP.NET team has recently open-sourced the code for this project, I briefly considered pulling out some of the relevant bits and pieces for use in this project. That idea was short-lived, as I came to my senses and realized that this code is very feature-rich, and this comes at the cost of some rather lengthy code. Instead of grabbing a few dozen files and spending countless hours trying to get it to work with this project, I decided to implement my own (admittedly very limited) version of this feature. It should feel somewhat similar to those familiar with the official solution, but there are some remaining issues with it and it's certainly not what I'd call a "complete" product.

GnomoriaInjection

This project compiles into a single dll (GnomoriaInjection.dll) that acts as the receiving end of the hook. At some point after the game's executable is launched, a call is made to the getter of the GnomanEmpire.Instance property. This seems to be a reliable location to inject code into the game, though one must be careful to ensure that the code is not injected multiple times, as this property is accessed quite often throughout the normal execution of the game.

Questions?

Create an issue on this repository and I'll see what I can do to help.

Attribution

The design of GnomeApp is based on the "Dream" template from WebThemez