			Configuring your Empire server


There are two kinds of configuration.  Run-time configuration, and
compile-time configuration.  Compile-time configuration breaks down
further into those "safe" configurations which you can change at any
time, and "unsafe" configurations which must be made before the game
starts.

Run-time configuration.
	Options and constants which may be changed at run-time are always
	"safe".  That is you can confidently change them once your game has
	begun without fear of destroying your game data.  All you need to do
	is edit the file data/econfig in your game's data directory, and then
	reboot your server.  This file is automatically created the first
	time you run "compile".  The only regretable thing about the "econfig"
	file is that it doesn't contain any comments.  So if you want to find
	out what an option does, you'll either have to type "info Options" in
	the game, or read through the comments in h/options.h.  The same goes
	for the constants.  It is usually easy to tell from its name what a
	constant does, but if you're not sure, then you should read
	through the comments in the file lib/global/constants.c

	To specify when you want your updates to happen, follow the
	instructions in the file data/hours.  This file is automatically
	generated by the "configure" program.

	The file "doc/econfig" contains detailed information about how
	the syntax of the run-time configuration file data/econfig.  However,
	most of the information there is only relevant to programmers.


"Safe" Compile-time configuration.

	I mentioned above that you should change compile-time
	constants with extreem caution or run the risk of destroying your game
	data.  There are, however some constants which may be safely changed
	without running this risk.  For example, the following files in
	lib/global/ are "safe":
		ship.c, plane.c, land.c, nuke.c, item.c, sect.c, product.c.
	These files contain various statistics on different kinds of
	ships, etc...  One word of caution, though.  Once your game
	has started, you may not change the number or order of
	elements in these files.  Do not change anything in
	lib/global/constants.c, because those constants are all in
	data/econfig (see "Run-time constants" above).


"Unsafe" Compile-time configuration

	Any other compile-time configuration must be done before your game has
	begun.  Most of the "Unsafe" compile-time configuration is done for
	you automatically by the "configure" program, but there are a few
	options in h/options.h (most notably TRADESHIPS, BIG_CITY, SLOW_WAR,
	ORBIT, SAIL, and HIDDEN) which must be changed by hand.  These options
	are not run-time configureable because they change the size of the
	data structures stored in your data files, and so if you change them,
	your server will no longer be able to read your data files.

	Also, if you want to add new ship, plane, ... types, then you must do
	it before your game starts.

Ken Stevens, 1995
