01 ‐ Setup development environment

Wiki

First of all, follow lethal.wiki to have a working development environment.

Dotnet version

Note

.NET 7 SDK is recommended to build the project.

If you need to set the dotnet version, you can use the following command:

• Command to list the installed SDKs:

dotnet --list-sdks

• Command to set the dotnet version:

dotnet new globaljson --sdk-version <version>

# Example
dotnet new globaljson --sdk-version 7.0.405

A new global.json file is created to set the SDK version to use.

Tools

You need to install the following tools to use the project:

• Netcode Patcher: dotnet tool install -g evaisa.netcodepatcher.cli

Configuration

The build configuration properties are findable in the PropertyGroup section of the files.

Common

The common build configuration is defined in the Common.props file. It's applied to Template and Test projects.

Property	Description
GameDir	The directory where the game is installed
PluginGameDir	The directory where the plugins are installed
AssemblyGameDir	The directory where the assemblies are installed
GameExe	The name of the game executable

Plugin

Note

The configuration inherits from the common configuration.

The plugin build configuration is defined in the Template.csproj file. It's applied only to Template projects.

Property	Description
NumberOfClients	The number of clients to launch when the project is built
DelayBetweenClientsInSeconds	The delay between the start of each client. This is recommended to be between 5 and 10 seconds to avoid problem with BepInEx terminal and auto-start mods
StartGame	If true, the clients will be started when the project is built
BuildThunderstorePackage	If true, the Thunderstore package is built when the project is built

Simplify in-game test

To start the game automatically when a client is launched, you can install an auto-start mod like AutoStart.