FishMMO-Dependencies

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A .NET Standard 2.1 class library whose sole purpose is to centralize all third-party NuGet packages used by the server-side and Unity-consumable parts of FishMMO. Building this project produces a folder of DLLs that is mirrored into FishMMO-Unity/Assets/Dependencies/ so Unity can use the exact same package versions as the headless servers and EF Core migrator.

There is intentionally no source code beyond a placeholder Placeholder.cs — the project file (FishMMO-Dependencies.csproj) is the artifact that matters.

Description
Supported Platforms
Architecture
Key Components
Configuration
Build & Usage
Adding or Upgrading a Package
Flow Diagram

Description

Unity (especially older LTS releases that target .NET Standard 2.1) cannot consume NuGet packages directly. The standard workaround is to compile a normal .NET project that lists the needed NuGet packages, then copy the resulting DLLs into Assets/Dependencies/.

This project is that compile target. It guarantees a single source of truth for third-party package versions across the entire FishMMO solution, so the server, the database, and Unity all link against the same binaries.

Supported Platforms

Target	Status
.NET Standard 2.1	Yes
Unity 6.3 LTS	Yes (via DLL copy)
.NET 8.0 servers	Yes (via `PackageReference` instead of DLL copy when possible)

Architecture

FishMMO-Dependencies/
├── FishMMO-Dependencies.csproj   # The PackageReference list (the real artifact)
├── Placeholder.cs                     # Empty placeholder (required for a .csproj to compile)
└── bin/Release/netstandard2.1/   # Output: all package DLLs + dependencies
                                  # → mirrored to FishMMO-Unity/Assets/Dependencies/

A custom MSBuild target copies the full transitive DLL closure (not just the top-level package DLLs) into the Unity Assets/Dependencies/ folder after build.

Key Components

EF Core stack

Package	Purpose
`Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore`	Core ORM
`Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Abstractions`	Public abstractions (DbContext, DbSet)
`Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational`	SQL-emitting relational provider base
`Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design`	Design-time services (used by Migrator)
`Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools`	`dotnet ef` CLI integration
`EFCore.NamingConventions`	Snake-case naming convention for PostgreSQL

Database providers

Package	Purpose
`Npgsql`	PostgreSQL ADO.NET driver
`Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL`	EF Core PostgreSQL provider

Microsoft.Extensions stack

Package	Purpose
`Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration` (+`Abstractions`, +`Json`)	Hierarchical config + JSON binding
`Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection` (+`Abstractions`)	DI container
`Microsoft.Extensions.Logging` (+`Abstractions`)	Standard logging API
`Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Abstractions` / `.Memory`	`IMemoryCache`
`Microsoft.Extensions.Options`	Options pattern
`Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives`	Change tracking (`IChangeToken`, `StringValues`)
`Microsoft.Bcl.AsyncInterfaces`	`IAsyncEnumerable<T>` polyfill for netstandard2.1

Utility libraries

Package	Purpose
`srp`	Secure Remote Password (SRP-6a) protocol for login
`HtmlAgilityPack`	HTML parsing (used by the CMS and patcher tooling)
`Humanizer`	Human-readable strings / dates / numbers
`OpenAI`	OpenAI API client (used by experimental NPC tooling)
`System.Collections.Immutable`	Immutable collection types
`System.ComponentModel.Annotations`	`[Required]`, `[MaxLength]`, etc.
`System.Diagnostics.DiagnosticSource`	`Activity` / event source instrumentation
`System.IO.Hashing`	xxHash, Crc32, Crc64
`System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe`	Low-level pointer helpers
`System.Text.Encodings.Web`	Encoders for JSON / HTML / URL
`System.Text.Json`	High-performance JSON
`System.Threading.Channels`	Producer/consumer queues
`BouncyCastle.Cryptography`	ASN.1 / PKCS12 / PEM certificate parsing and cryptographic primitives used by the Auth project
`Otp.NET`	Time-based one-time password (TOTP) generation and validation for two-factor authentication
`ZString`	Zero-allocation string formatting and UTF-8 encoding for performance-critical paths

Configuration

None. This project is a build-only artifact.

Build & Usage

# Build (Release recommended for Unity)
dotnet build FishMMO-Dependencies/FishMMO-Dependencies.csproj -c Release

After a successful build the DLL closure is copied to ../FishMMO-Unity/Assets/Dependencies/. Unity must be closed during the build, otherwise file locks may cause MSB3027 errors on locked DLLs.

Other server projects in the solution should prefer a PackageReference of their own (re-listing the package they need) so NuGet handles transitive versioning — they should NOT reference FishMMO-Dependencies.dll directly.

Adding or Upgrading a Package

Add or change a <PackageReference> in FishMMO-Dependencies/FishMMO-Dependencies.csproj.
Close Unity.
Run dotnet build FishMMO-Dependencies/FishMMO-Dependencies.csproj -c Release.
Re-open Unity; verify the assembly resolves under Assets/Dependencies/.
If a previously copied DLL has been removed from the package list, delete it manually from Assets/Dependencies/ or let the build prune it automatically — the csproj uses RemoveStaleDependencies which removes DLLs that are no longer produced by the build output.

Tip: When changing major versions of Npgsql / EF Core, also update the matching references in FishMMO-DB.csproj and the WebServer projects so all three trees agree on a single version.

Flow Diagram

flowchart LR
    NuGet[(nuget.org)]
    Deps[FishMMO-Dependencies.csproj<br/>PackageReference list]
    Bin[bin/Release/netstandard2.1/<br/>DLL closure]
    Unity[FishMMO-Unity<br/>Assets/Dependencies/]

    NuGet --> Deps
    Deps -->|dotnet build| Bin
    Bin -->|MSBuild post-build copy| Unity

    Unity --> Client[Unity Client / Editor]
    Unity --> ServerBuild[Unity Headless Server]

    NuGet -.->|same versions via own PackageReference| DB[FishMMO-DB]
    NuGet -.->|same versions via own PackageReference| Web[FishMMO-WebServers]

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