API or Protocol to control an Arena

[artik]

Today there are many tools that allow to control the arena bases of flags, weapons, vehicles... but finally every scenario and even every 2nd event ends with player enforced rules that sometimes are VERY hard to enforce in the hear of the battle or just due to misunderstanding of the rules by walkons.

I think that having an API or a protocol that would provide an information about the area events on the fly and would allow to change settings of the terrain automatically would allow to create a very advanced campaigns with complex resource use and prevent human errors. Of course this API/protocol would be available to the CM level users only so they "script" the event.

For example allocating resources dynamically, implementing SAR, checking the outcome and much-much more.

I'd suggest, to use https for the API commands and data retrieving:

• Use an HTML5 Server-sent events to broadcast events on the arena (with history from the beggining)  like https://api.hitechcreations.com/sea1/events.log
• Use an HTML5 Server-sent events to send an updates about players locations (to enforce for example no-fly zones, altitude envelops) without history https://api.hitechcreations.com/sea1/locations.log
• Use a JSON-RPC to receive the commands that would change the arena settings and send messages: https://api.hitechcreations.com/sea1/control.rpc

This way the setups could be designed rules would be written in JavaScript and controlled by CMs and of course with the access by CMs only.

Arena Events Stream

Each update would consist of a JSON object containing related data, for example:


{
  "player" : "artik",
  "side" : "knights",
  "squadron" : "101 \"Red\" Squadron, Israel",
  "timestamp" : "14:23:45.245",
  "event" : {
    "type" : "takeoff",
    "vehicle" : "P-51D",
    "from" : "A1",
    "spawn" : "N",
    "loadout" : { "fuel" : 100, "point1" : "rockets", "point2" : "bombs 1000lb" }
  }
}


Of course event.type can be one of many: takeoff, land, kill, assist, ditch, capture, bail and other major events in the current logs.
I also suggest to have a special type of event like command, i.e. player writes ".command add life to DJango" and it is sent as an event to the script:

{ "type" : "command", "content": "add life to Django" }

This event stream would be kept with a history with an event-stream synchronization such that in case of disco it would be reconnected.

Location Updates

This event stream would not keep the history but rather a "latest-data" update (as it is irrelevant what happened 30 min ago for most of the cases) and would include locations of all the players on the arena such an updates would be sent once in 20-30 seconds or something like that.

It would allow to enforce: "altitude rules", "no-fly zones" and probably event to create some fancy radar systems with different resolution like automated GCI if needed.

[   {      "id" : "artik",      "country" : 2 ,      "loc" : [ 2343.345, 1234.345, 15320.0 ],      "vel" : [250.2,1.32,-0.1],      "above_ground" : 12302.0    },    { "id" : "Django" ....   ... ]

Control Channel

Would work on JSON-RPC level and handle the commands sent by the CM's client side,


getSetting(name:string) -> string
setSetting(name:string,name:string) -> bool (ok or fail)
getEnabled(plane:string,field:int,side:int) -> bool
setEnabled(plane:string,filed:int,side:int,enabled:bool) -> book (ok/fail)
sendMessage(playerId:string,message:string) -> bool (ok or player offline)
getObjectStatus(id:string)-> ["ok","destroyed"]
setObjectStatus(id:string,status:string) -> bool
...
and more



AFAIK the first part of the events can be implemented relatively easily by reading the server log I assume the 2nd as well. the 3rd need some level of backward communication.

I understand that it isn't your priority, however I have a great deal of experience with such an efficient web services. If you would want to I can implement such a server providing HTC the full source code and copyrights (if needed under NDA). i.e. I can implement such an efficient web front-end that given a logs and some API to the server so it would work smoothly as my contribution to the community (I love to implement such cool tools). I can also implement a web front end only and you would hookup the rest.

I know this isn't something that you regularly (if at all) agree to do but such a service may significantly enrich the special events possibilities.

Thanks

[jeffdn]

As a fellow developer, I agree that this would be a great tool to have, and furthermore volunteer my services should they be needed.

[Skyyr]

+1

It would be awesome if the API had an outbound data component as well, so we could pull stats from events and games live.

[jeffdn]

+1

It would be awesome if the API had an outbound data component as well, so we could pull stats from events and games live.

That would definitely be possible. There could even be a page that live-updated with information about the event in question, and it would require very little (almost negligible) CPU time on the server or bandwidth.

[guncrasher]

how easily would it be for somebody to intercept the data and send something else.  just for the fun of it?



semp1

[jeffdn]

how easily would it be for somebody to intercept the data and send something else.  just for the fun of it?

It would be very difficult unless they failed to implement even a basic security model.