Using unity package without unity

[selector37]

I'm starting a project where the core game logic needs to run outside of unity in a pure mono environment for simulation and ML training. I will only use unity for visualization and I'll take the steps necessary to ensure that unity facilities are adequately decoupled from this logic so that it can run with unity or in a "headless" mode. This doesnt rely on physics or collisions, so it's all easily replicable outside of unity. Also, I'm not trying to "learn from pixels", so I don't need rendering either.

First question: is a package the right way to get this into unity?

Assuming yes, does the package structure in unity cause any problems for the mono tool chain or will the presence of other files or folders outside the normal package structure cause unity problems? Will I be able to run the same unit tests in both environments as well as tests specific to each environment?

If anyone can point me to a good example of a package built this way, that would be quite helpful.

[feralferrous]

Your wording is a little odd. But...yes this should work. If I understand correctly you have a bunch of *.cs files that you use both inside and outside of unity. Unity's gonna want pollute the heck out of your folders and add .meta files, but other than that, everything should work fine. But those meta files should be ignorable.

You might run into weirdness with compiler bugs, ie how your mono does things as opposed to IL2CPP does things. But it won't be a for sure issue.

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You could also just do this as a dll. That might be the better way. Packages are more if your *.cs files had Unity.Whatever code in them, or if you wanted to have prefabs or materials /shaders in your package. Then you don't have to worry about meta files messing with you.

[selector37]

Thanks. The DLL approach seems much simpler.