Improving Warrior Alliance’s User Experience With Chainlink VRF v2 and Keepers
At Warrior Alliance, we have always prioritized two things: integrity and technical innovation. This is best evidenced in our novel gas saving contract and our unique NFT builder platform. Today, we are pleased to announce that we are continuing to exemplify our integrity and technical innovation by integrating Chainlink Verifiable Random Function (VRF) v2 and Chainlink Keepers on Ethereum mainnet. Warrior Alliance is using Chainlink VRF v2 to help randomize supply box rewards in a tamper-proof manner, while Chainlink Keepers are being used to batch mint supply boxes for enhanced cost savings.
Why Chainlink VRF?
Okay, let’s get into it. First, why are we using Chainlink VRF? And how does it work? Recently, at Warrior Alliance, we found ourselves in a unique situation with regards to our collection of supply boxes, which are a required NFT for our future NFT staking system. The plan was to drop an additional supply box collection to holders of our Freedom Fighter NFTs, but we had already released and revealed 1 collection of supply boxes as a free mint for our Genesis NFT holders.
The problem: Once a collection is revealed, it’s not normally possible to randomize any additions to that collection. This is the nature of the blockchain, as every transaction confirmation needs to have the same end result. We needed to find a solution to this problem as we did not want to create confusion by minting another collection of supply boxes.
This is where the amazing Chainlink VRF random number generator (RNG) saves the day. Chainlink VRF uses off-chain computation to provide fully verifiable on-chain randomness to smart contract applications in a tamper-proof manner, meaning it cannot be manipulated like some other randomness solutions. For instance, some on-chain RNGs can be exploited by miners/validators, while other off-chain RNGs are opaque and don’t provide users with definitive proof about the integrity of the process.
So how does Chainlink VRF actually work? Chainlink VRF combines block data that is still unknown when the request is made with the oracle node’s pre-committed private key to generate both a random number and a cryptographic proof. The Warrior Alliance smart contract will only accept the random number input if it has a valid cryptographic proof, and the cryptographic proof can only be generated if the VRF process is tamper-proof. Simply put, Chainlink VRF generates a tamper-proof source of randomness that anyone can verify, creating a more transparent and fair gaming experience for Warrior Alliance.
In Warrior Alliance’s case, the random numbers generated by Chainlink VRF each correspond to a specific supply box. Check out this blog post on Chainlink VRF v2 if you’re still curious and want to learn more about its specific benefits.
Saving Gas With Chainlink Keepers!
Now you know how we’re using Chainlink VRF, but you’re also probably wondering, how can we execute an additional smart contract without increasing gas costs? The short answer is, we can’t — at least without help! And this is where Chainlink Keepers come in handy. Warrior Alliance’s unique situation allows us to utilize Chainlink Keepers to create batch functions. Essentially, batch functions enable your mints to be delivered in one single transaction at the same time, rather than in multiple independent transactions that occur sporadically.
Chainlink Keepers will trigger Warrior Alliance’s smart contracts to execute batch transactions based on the amount of time elapsed or number of supply boxes minted, according to whichever preset threshold occurs first. The more supply boxes minted in a shorter period of time — the lower the cost. By using Chainlink Keepers to batch transactions, Warrior Alliance helps users reduce gas costs.
What’s to Come
With the help of Chainlink, Warrior Alliance is successfully innovating to become a more feature-rich smart contract application. Keep an eye out for another article coming shortly where we will detail the current build progress on our third-person shooter and the upcoming Alpha release of an exciting training mode. Top community members will get a chance to test the game and provide feedback for bug fixes. Once the majority of bugs are fixed, we’ll be starting a series of timed training mode contests to offer users rewards for their gaming feedback. Stay tuned!
About Warrior Alliance
Warrior Alliance is crypto’s first AAA 3rd person shooter, built from the ground up as a fully doxxed community project led by it’s founder Tony Sentmanat. Tony is a USMC Veteran, Tactical firearms expert, and strong man competitor. He is the owner of RealWorld Tactical and also has his own Call of Duty character “Lerch”.
Warrior Alliance successfully launched it’s NFT collection in January 2022 and will be launching it’s own token called $AMMO before the end of May 2022. They have a AAA game in development and under contract with game design company Tipping Toast media.
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars across DeFi, insurance, gaming, and other major industries, and offers global enterprises and leading data providers a universal gateway to all blockchains.
Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or reading the developer documentation at docs.chain.link. To discuss an integration, reach out to an expert.