ECS Bridge

DINO uses full Unity ECS (DOTS) with Burst compilation. DINOForge bridges between its declarative pack system and DINO's actual ECS components.

Why ECS-Native?

Standard BepInEx modding uses Harmony to patch managed C# methods. In DINO this carries severe performance costs:

• Harmony prefix/postfix patches are compatible but slow
• Transpiler patches are not recommended due to ECS architecture
• Removing the Burst-generated DLL can halve frame rate
• DINO handles 25,000+ enemy entities per wave — performance matters

DINOForge uses ECS-native modding wherever possible: writing actual ECS systems that integrate with DINO's system groups.

ECS System Registration

DINO ECS systems inherit SystemBaseSimulation (not plain SystemBase):

[UpdateAfter(typeof(SomeSystem))]
[UpdateInGroup(typeof(SomeGroup))]
public class MyModSystem : SystemBaseSimulation
{
    protected override void OnCreateSimulation() { }
    protected override void OnUpdateSimulation() { }
}

Key patterns from existing DINO mods:

• ComponentDataFromEntity<T> for entity data access
• GetSingletonEntity<T>() / GetSingleton<T>() for singletons
• [UpdateAfter] and [UpdateInGroup] attributes for system ordering

Game Namespaces

DINO organizes code under these top-level namespaces:

Namespace	Contents
Components.*	ECS component definitions
Systems.*	ECS system implementations
Utility.*	Helper classes
UI.*	UI systems

Component Catalog

DINOForge's Runtime layer includes an Entity Dumper that catalogs all discovered components at boot. This dump feeds the SDK's mapping tables.

Vanilla Unit-to-Role Mapping

Vanilla Element	Abstract DINOForge Role
Peasant worker	Economy worker
Swordsman	Line infantry
Archer / ranged	Ranged infantry
Cavalry	Fast strike unit
Catapult / trebuchet	Siege / artillery
Walls / towers	Static defense
Farms	Economy primary
Town hall / castle	Command center
Magic / soul	Special ability proxy

How Packs Map to ECS

When a pack defines a unit in YAML:

id: clone_trooper
unit_class: CoreLineInfantry
vanilla_mapping: swordsman
stats:
  hp: 120
  damage: 18

The runtime:

1. Looks up vanilla_mapping: swordsman in the component catalog
2. Finds the corresponding ECS entity archetype
3. Applies stat overrides (hp, damage, etc.) to the relevant components
4. Registers visual/audio overrides if defined

This means pack authors never touch ECS code directly. The bridge handles translation.

Resource Types

DINO has 5 base resource types plus special resources:

Resource	Internal Name
Food	Food
Wood	Wood
Stone	Stone
Iron	Iron
Gold	Money
Souls	Souls
Bones	Bones
Corpse	Corpse

Harmony Fallback

For edge cases where ECS-native modding is insufficient, DINOForge supports controlled Harmony patches through the Patch Layer (Layer 4). These are:

• Explicitly marked as unsafe
• Performance-gated
• Version-checked at load time
• Logged with full diagnostics

Use Harmony only when no ECS-native path exists.