Just continuing the discussion from the in-game chat - files are currently saved on MyColony (and assuming other games via encoded JSON). This takes up a lot of space because the object schema is included every payload, and causes corruption issues as there is no transaction-based record management.
Switching to a database would help this. It'd require exposing an API end-point and putting a RDBMS (like MariaDB) behind it:
https://medium.com/@avanthikameenakshi/building-restful-api-with-nodejs-and-mysql-in-10-min-ff740043d4be
https://www.codementor.io/julieisip/learn-rest-api-using-express-js-and-mysql-db-ldflyx8g2
The API call could wrap the command in a transaction to ensure no data gets lost, and the database will be more effective at saving disk space as it does not save the schema with each save. The DB could be optimized further since it's a write-heavy service:
https://mariadb.com/resources/blog/how-to-tune-mariadb-write-performance/
Unfortunately, due to consuming an amount of 'valuable rum', a certain detail in this discussion is unclear.
Would adopting a database necessitate using the cloud?
I very much appreciate being able to play offline and by that, I mean, completely and totally without internet. I have a partial IT background so I understand how useful the structure you propose can be. However, how compact could such an implementation be and could a modern RDBMS be used on a tablet?
I understand that my needs might be very different to most other people's needs, but on a recent holiday the internet was patchy at best (I'm in Australia) and playing offline was a lifesaver.
I need a own charter code in my Colony. How can I do it?