Core Objects

A CoreObject is another type of object that is used to represent an actual in-world game object. It may be serialized and passed through KiNP as it also derives from PropertyClass.

Template Manifest

The template manifest is a banklet of key/value pairs tagging the m_templateID field of a CoreObject to the literal path of the template in the Root.wad.

Behaviors

When you create a CoreObject, it's an empty entity that lacks any specific behaviors. To give a CoreObject specific abilities, you must assign behaviors that represent the interactions it can handle.

To assign behaviors to a CoreObject, the client (and its corresponding server) uses a template ID. This is the object creation schema. Each behavior found in this template will also follow this schema, meaning that each behavior found will be a template rather than the proper instance.

TIP

It's recommended that a server implementation employ their own behavior manifest to map each behavior template to a behavior instance.

Once a behavior instance is gathered, they may be added to the m_inactiveBehaviors field of the CoreObject.

CoreObject Serialization

The serializer for a CoreObject is a variation of the object serializer, with some modifications to the PreLoad/PreWrite behavior.

Unlike the PropertyClass serializer, the CoreObject serializer always operates in compact mode.

The distinctive feature of this serializer lies in the way it handles hashes. Instead of the usual uint32_t PropertyClass hash, a 6-byte header is employed in its place.

It should be noted that even if a PropertyClass does not derive from CoreObject, the technique below is still used. If such a case occurs, both the CoreObject id and namespace id fields will be 0, and the hash of the PropertyClass will be used instead of a template ID.

Name	Type	Description
CoreObject ID	byte	The ID of the CoreObject.
Namespace ID	byte	The namespace ID this CoreObject belongs to.
Template/Hash	uint32_t	The template ID or usual property class hash if not possible.
PropertyClass	byte[]	The following serialized PropertyClass.

Figure A.I - A table representing the CoreObject serialization technique.