hyperion

Hyperion

Hyperion is a Minecraft game engine that can have 10,000+ players in one world. Our pilot event hopes to break the PvP Guinness World Record of (8825 by EVE Online). The architecture is ECS-driven using flecs via Flecs-Rust.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/64a4a8c7-f375-4821-a1c7-0efc69c1ae0b

Feature Status

Feature	Status	Notes
Technical Infrastructure
Multi-threading	✅ Implemented	Vertical scaling
Proxy Layer	✅ Implemented	Horizontal scaling
Performance Tracing	✅ Implemented	Using Tracy profiler
️ Basic Anti-Cheat	✅ Implemented	Core anti-cheat functionality
Moderator Tools	WIP #425, @Kumpelinus	Admin controls and monitoring
Plugin API	✅ Implemented	Extensible plugin system; see events/bedwars
Core Game Mechanics
Block Breaking/Placing	✅ Implemented	Including physics simulation
Entity Collisions	✅ Implemented	Both entity-entity and block-entity
Lighting Engine	✅ Implemented	Dynamic lighting updates
World Borders	✅ Implemented	Configurable boundaries
️ Block Edit API	✅ Implemented	WorldEdit-like functionality
⚔️ PvP Combat	✅ Implemented	Custom combat mechanics
Inventory System	✅ Implemented	Full item management
Raycasting	✅ Implemented	Required for ranged combat/arrows
Player Experience
✨ Particle Effects	✅ Implemented	Full particle support
Chat System	✅ Implemented	Global and proximity chat
⌨️ Commands	✅ Implemented	Custom command framework
Proximity Voice	✅ Implemented	Using Simple Voice Chat

Benchmarks

Players	Tick Time (ms)	Core Usage (%)	Total CPU Utilization (%)
1	0.24	4.3	0.31
10	0.30	10.3	0.74
100	0.46	10.7	0.76
1000	0.40	15.3	1.09
5000	1.42	35.6	2.54

Test Environment:

• Machine: 2023 MacBook Pro Max 16" (14-cores)
• Chunk Render Distance: 32 (4225 total)
• Commit hash faac9117 run with HYPERION_PROFILE=release-full nix run .#bedwars
• Bot Launch Command: nix run .#bots -- 127.0.0.1:25565 {number}

The bulk of player-specific processing occurs in our proxy layer, which handles tasks like regional multicasting and can be horizontally scaled to maintain performance as player count grows.

Architecture

Overview

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Proxy

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Running

Network topology

Hyperion uses one game server which runs all game-related code (e.g. physics, game events). One or more proxies can connect to the game server. Players connect to one of the proxies.

For development and testing purposes, it is okay to run one game server and one proxy on the same server. When generating keys, you will need to change the key and certificate file names used below to avoid file name conflicts.

On a production environment, the game server and each proxy should run on separate servers for performance.

Generating keys and certificates

The connection between the game server and the proxies are encrypted through mTLS to ensure that the connection is secure and authenticate the proxies.

[!WARNING] All private keys must be stored securely, and it is strongly recommended to generate the private keys on the server that will use them instead of transferring them over the Internet. Malicious proxies that have access to a private key can circumvent player authentication and can cause the game server to exhibit undefined behavior which can potentially lead to arbitrary code execution on the game server. If any private key has been compromised, redo this section to create new keys.

Create a private certificate authority (CA)

A server should be picked to store the certificate authority keys and will be referred to as the cetificate authority server. Since the game server and all proxies are considered to be trusted, any of these servers may be used for this purpose.

On the certificate authority server, generate a key and certificate by running:

openssl req -new -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout root_ca.pem -x509 -out root_ca.crt -days 365

OpenSSL will ask for information when running the command. All fields can be left empty.

The -days field specifies when the certificate will expire. It will expire in 365 days in the above command, but this can be modified as needed.

root_ca.crt is the root CA cert and should be copied to the game server and all proxy servers. When running the game server or the proxy, make sure to pass --root-ca-cert root_ca.crt as a command line flag.

Generate server keys and certificates

Follow these instructions for the game server and each proxy server. The server will be referred to as the target server.

On the target server, run:

openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout server_private_key.pem -out server.csr

OpenSSL will ask for information when running the command. All fields can be left empty.

Afterwards, transfer server.csr to the certificate authority server. On the certificate authority server, run:

openssl x509 -req -in server.csr -CA root_ca.crt -CAkey root_ca.pem -CAcreateserial -out server.crt -days 365 -sha256 -extfile ` | Connect bots to a running server |
| `nix run .#ci` | The cargo ha