Running from source

Hi, I've been trying to get Zero-K to run from source, but am struggling with the lobby.

So far I have spring 105.0 downloaded and have git cloned https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Chobby and https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K. In my spring folder I created the directory "games" and inside that I created the symlinks Chobby.sdd and Zero-K.sdd which point to where I cloned the repos to.

If I run `./spring` I get what I assume is the default spring client. I select the game "Zero-K $VERSION", I also select the map I manually downloaded and AI and press "Test Game". The game starts and seems to work fine. However if I run `./spring --menu 'Chobby $VERSION'` it brings up a client with a cat in the background, while I expected the Zero-K client so I must be missing something? I was unable to start a game using this client and noticed a few errors appearing in the terminal.

I just realised I didn't use the https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K-Artwork repo, I assume this is why the client looks different? But where are all these files meant to go?

I am testing this inside a virtual machine running Manjaro Linux.

Downloading from here: https://zero-k.info/Lobby/Zero-K.exe and running `mono Zero-K.exe dev` doesn't work. It gives and error saying I am missing the steam API, which makes sense because I don't have steam installed. Running `mono Zero-K.exe` I get into the client but when I started a game it then complained about me missing the steam API (strange?).

I also tried the semi-portable download from Itch.io. `mono Zero-K.exe dev` and `mono Zero-K.exe` both immediately crash. `./Zero-K.bin.x86_64 dev` complains about missing steam api again. With `./Zero-K.bin.x86_64` I managed to start a game but every time I run it it spends ages "updating". I also noticed that in the login popup it had the username prefilled as "Histidine", idk if one of the devs forgot to clear their user data?

anyway this misses the point of running the game from source as I would need the source code for these binaries so I can compile them my self.

Thank you for your help.

If you want to build Zero-K.exe, you want to look at the Zero-K Infrastructure repo, under 'ChobbyLauncher'. The wiki being down at the moment is bad timing. You can start by checking out the infrastructure repository though.

For later: under the Develop section of the wiki, there should be a link to an Infra Guide that lists the prereqs needed from that repo for building the launcher from source. The wiki only explains using Windows + VS2017, iirc, so you may be on uncharted ground if you do decide to build using Manjaro.

Thanks for the help guys, I will continue to look into this and hopefully will be able to contribute an article to the wiki once i've figured it out.

quote: Also if you want to go all the way, you're looking at compiling the engine and the AI yourself as well.

Yes this is what I intend to do, but I am just taking it 1 step at a time :)