Nothing at all. Being a developer is completely free.

None. At this time, all profits you make are entirely yours. All we want is for developers to get out there and start making CERIX really great.

The pretty answer is that we just want CERIX to be a really great system, and we don't care about profit.

But while we do what CERIX to be a really great system, we do, in fact, care about profit. Profits pay for our sims, and operating costs, and allow us to take the time to continue developing CERIX.

The thing is, we can't make all the content that's out there to make. There's only so many of us developing for CERIX, and we can't make all the guns, melee weapons, magic items, etc. that would make CERIX platforms really fun to play. And since CERIX is free, and the implementation is free, we intend to make our profits elsewhere.

Where? In niche items. Medi-packs, health potions, stimulants, shielding units, stuff like that. While you make the really cool weapons everybody wants, we'll be making the little things people need. Hopefully, as CERIX spreads to include more platforms and RPGs, we'll be able to sell enough of these small, impulse, cost-nothing items to make back our investment.

At the moment, we're packaging up two: One for projectile (fired) weapons, such as guns, bows and arrows, lasers, etc., and one for ranged weapons, such as swords, lightsabers, daggers, and the like. Down the line we'll start developing SDKs with wider ranges of functions, such as explosives and stunners and whatnot.

Copy, Transfer. Make as many as you want, sell as many as you want.

Well, we thought a LOT about that. The problem is that CERIX is really designed to emphasize strategy over brute force.

Let's face it: CERIX exists because normal SL combat sucks. Once upon a time it may have been about accuracy and sneakiness, but now it's just about which insta-kill weapon you have or how quickly you can issue the command to order some poor schmuck who just teleported in.

The things that make normal SL combat suck - insta-kill weapons, billion-meter orbits, etc. - are the product of market escalation. I build a 25% damage gun, so somebody else builds a 50% damage, so I build a 100% damage, so he builds a 100% damage with push, so I build a 100% damage with push and shield-breaker, etc. etc. It's the natural evolution of a virtual weapons market: as creators, we want to sell more, and people like more powerful stuff, so we make our stuff as powerful as possible to trump the competition.

Keep in mind, aubreTEC Labs (the creators of CERIX) were as guilty of that as anybody else, having introduced one of the first really dependable shield breakers and typically offering among the most powerful orbits on the market.

With CERIX, we want to put the emphasis on game play. Which means we can't have our developers making instant-kill weapons or bombs that orbit an entire sim. This isn't so much a lack of trust in our developers; it's simply that, well, that's probably what we would do if we were given an open-source development kit for some other combat system.

So the kit is not open-source. It's designed to limit weapons within a certain range of effectiveness, so that no one weapon serves as the perfect CERIX killing machine. We want users to have to choose the most effective weapon for the task at hand, and we want our developers to focus on cool effects and builds rather than simply making more and more powerful weapons.

Each SDK will be different, but lets use the Projectile SDK as an example.

The projectile SDK contains two notecards:

1. CERIX SDK Manual (CMT)- This describes the basic rundown of how the SDK works. There's more info on this website.
2. cerix_config (CMT) - This notecard must be filled out by the developer to configure the weapon.

And three scripts:

1. cerix_control (CT) - This script handles pretty well everything. Pass a link message to it to fire a bullet, and it handles CERIX hud reporting, firing the bullet, how much damage is done, all that stuff. It also sends back other messages to let your own scripts know when to trigger effects like reloading, etc.
2. cerix_bullet (CT) - This script goes in your bullet prim. It handles reporting and damage from the bullet's end.
3. example_gun (CMT) - This script is a modifiable example of how to configure your gun script to work with the cerix_control script. If you drop it in a build with the cerix_control script and a cerix_config notecard, it should work OOTB (out of the box), but feel free to change at will. It's heavily commented to help you along.

Sure. All of the SDKs will be designed to be able to drop them in an object and have it work OOTB (out of the box). You only need to know how to script if you intend to make changes.

Alternatively, feel free to send a sample copy of your build to one of our CERIX staff; we may be interested in purchasing your build from you and scripting it up to sell.

Don't. C'mon, man, the system is like that for a reason. If people want to buy your over-powered stuff, let them do it for normal SL combat.

Besides, we'll be pissed at you if you do, and we'll terminate your developer agreement the moment we find out, which may prevent your items from working properly in the future.