SimEngine is sold as the SimEngine Editor and Simken Packs.
The Editor is a subscription. It runs locally, simulates without limit, keeps pace with every build released while it is active, publishes simulation models, and imports work other authors have shared.
Simken Packs are a one-off purchase covering simulations run on the SimEngine cloud — fast results for optimisation and analysis, with the simulation model spec written by the caller.
The billed quantity is the simken: one body on the field for one exported frame. The engine exports 10 frames per simulated second, so a battle holding B bodies for S simulated seconds costs about B × (S × 10 + 2) simkens.
1 simken = 1 unit-tick. The engine, the meter, the ledger, every receipt and every API response call this quantity a unit-tick, because that is what it mechanically is: one body, one frame. Simken is the shorter name these pages use for it.
They are the same number and nothing converts between them — there is no exchange rate to get wrong, and a balance of 40,000 is 40,000 either way. An invoice or an API answer that says unit-ticks is talking about simkens.
This is the unit the host settles in and every receipt is denominated in it. There is no second quantity anywhere in the system that a receipt would have to be translated into.
A battle is one run of a simulation model: bodies are deployed onto the field, the engine advances them until a camp is out of bodies or the clock runs out, and it exports a frame every 10th of a simulated second. The meter counts living bodies in each exported frame, and adds those counts up. That is the whole calculation — there is no rate, no rounding and no minimum charge.
| a battle | simkens |
|---|---|
| 2 bodies held for 8 simulated seconds — 2 × (8 × 10 + 2) | 164 |
Every figure in that table is the arithmetic above, not a quoted measurement — putting 2 and 8 into the estimator below returns the same number.
Two battles both described as “a simulation” can be orders of magnitude apart — bodies multiply, and so do seconds. A shelf labelled “1,000 sims” would therefore be wrong by whichever amount hurt the person reading it. The unit sold is the unit metered.
A worked example, by the arithmetic above: 20 bodies standing for the whole of 30 simulated seconds comes to 6,040 simkens.
The editor and the engine run locally. Authoring, validating, re-running and watching a playback are unlimited and cost nothing.
Simulation models can be shared directly with others, or published to the SimEngine cloud for anyone holding the id to run.
Starting from a published model rather than an original one, this is the shortest path from reading to results.