Glossary & Conventions
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#glossary#terminology#conventions#naming
Canonical Terminology & Systems Glossary
This glossary defines standard terminology, engine acronyms, and gameplay classifications across the Saints Gaming codebase and documentation.
1. Core Platform & Player Identities
| Term | Category | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Saint | Player Identity | The canonical operative identity and title given to player characters within the 2.5D sandbox world. |
| World Studio | Developer Tool | The comprehensive in-engine world builder, catalog editor, and script creation suite accessible via /studio. |
| Saints Gaming Hub | Web Platform | The unified social web interface (/home, /forum, /news) connecting community members. |
| Shard Channel | Networking | A discrete real-time socket channel (e.g. DEMO_SANDBOX_ch1) hosting synchronized peer instances on a given map. |
2. Combat & Encounter Terminology
- Hero Battles: Real-time overworld MMO combat against wild beasts and hostile monsters, utilizing hotbar abilities, target frames, and auto-attacks.
- Saints Buddy Battles: Instanced turn-based companion creature duels triggered by wild encounter grass tiles (Logic Tag
4) or trainer challenges. - Player Battles: Direct competitive PvP duels between Saints taking place in designated wilderness zones or duel arenas.
- Binding Crystal: Magical consumable items used in Saints Buddy Battles to weaken and capture wild companion creatures.
- Shiny Variant: An ultra-rare palette alteration of a companion beast featuring distinct hue shifts and sparkling particle crowns (base chance $1/512$ or $1/4096$).
3. World Authoring & Studio Terms
- GID (Global Tile ID): A unique numerical integer indexing specific $16 \times 16\text{ px}$ or $32 \times 32\text{ px}$ tiles across imported texture atlases.
- Dual-Grid Map: An architectural system pairing multi-layered visual tile arrays (
tileLayers) with a flat integer logic collision array (Layer -1). - Logic Tag: An integer ($0\text{--}6$) assigned to a map cell designating runtime collision, water, warps, encounter zones, or hazard damage.
- PIE (Play-In-Editor): The instantaneous runtime testing mode toggled with Ctrl+E inside Studio, executing live physics and gameplay simulation.
- Chunk Remeshing: Subdividing map meshes into $16 \times 16$ tile batches to allow real-time partial re-rendering during painting passes.
4. Technical & Architectural Acronyms
| Acronym | Full Form | Meaning in Saints Gaming Engine |
|---|---|---|
| AOI | Area of Interest | The $16 \times 16$ spatial grid system that shards socket traffic to nearby players within a $3 \times 3$ chunk window. |
| LPC | Liberated Pixel Cup | The open sprite compositing standard used for character bodies, hairstyles, apparel, and weapon layers. |
| FCT | Floating Combat Text | Animated 3D billboard text rendering damage numbers, healing, and critical hits above targets in Babylon.js. |
| Lerp | Linear Interpolation | The smoothing formula used by the client loop to reconcile remote entity positions against server authoritative ticks. |