I was inspired by Eurotruck Simulator 2 which offers an online internet radio streaming feature, which allows people to listen to their favortite stations by changing the default stations in a .txt file to their linked station. Preferably I would like players to be able to change the streaming links and station names in the game itself, but if that isn’t possible I would like to know how to do it with a .csv or .txt file.
Amazing, I will definitely check it out.
in a packaged build the content inside the pak is read only, so the trick is to ship the csv outside of it, next to the exe (FPaths::ProjectDir works) or in a user writable folder, and load it from there. players can then edit the station list freely after the game ships.
for the reload half, a timer polling the file timestamp is the cheap way, a folder watch that fires on the change event is the cleaner one since you react the moment the file is saved instead of on a fixed tick.
Runtime Directory Watcher, a runtime folder watcher plugin for Unreal Engine 5, fires blueprint events when watched files are added or changed, so the station list reloads the second the csv is saved: Runtime Directory Watcher — Hot-Folder File Events & Async Texture Loader | Fab