Essential Config - Config Files Introduction

The remaining configuration options don’t have dedicated screens like the ones we’ve seen so far. Changing them requires that we edit the game’s configuration files.

Editing Config Files

To edit the configuration files:

1. Go to Admin -> Setup in the web portal.
2. Scroll down to the “Config Files” section.
3. You’ll see a list of configuration files with settings you can change.

4. Click any config file open it in an editor.

Coders can also click on the “Advanced Editor” button to edit the raw config file.

Understanding YAML

Ares config files use YAML, a simple formatting language. Here’s a little overview that should be enough to get you started. You can refer back to this page as you go through the remaining steps of this tutorial and learn how to set various config options.

String Values

Many config options are just strings, so you can edit them just by putting a value into the edit box. For example:

Number Values

Number values are similar.

List Values

Some config options are lists. List the values, one per line, with a hyphen in front of each line.

Hash Values

The most complex config options are multi-field data structures called hashes.

The simplest hashes are just name/value pairs, like this one listing demographic names and their corresponding command syntax:

But many hashes have more complex, nested data, like this group config:

Here we have a name/value pair like Faction:FactionData, but note that FactionData is itself a hash with name/value pairs like desc:Description and value:FactionChoices.

Hashes can be tricky to edit. Make sure your indentation lines up and you have values for all required fields.

Advanced YAML

The tips above should be enough to get you started, but when you’re ready you can see the Understanding YAML tutorial for more details and troubleshooting help.