Pioneers

An attempt to implement (asynchronous) multi-players exploration on SpaceEngine, with python scripts outside of SpaceEngine itself.

(now with a GUI !)

This is a proof of concept, directed mostly toward peoples that want to experiment a somewhat social experience, not a production/guarantee-to-work service.

If you want to contribute or participate, it's here.

The Pioneers project

Why Pioneers

Space Engine is a wonderful simulator, and the gargantuan dimensions of space, made it absolutely full of awe.

Now, i want to get a more real feeling of exploration, not just space, and IMHO a way to achieve this is by adding a small social counterpart to the exploration. It is somewhat implemented through r/spaceengine, but in the end, all discoveries are lost in the reddit depths, without real impact in-game.

With Pioneers, i want to achieve a real tool for exploring and creating, included in the game itself.

Applications

Feel less alone in space, be a member of a persistant world.

Have a representation of the SpaceEngine universe, where discovered places are shown, maybe showing visible patterns of exploration.

Propose an adventure inside SpaceEngine : starting at a particular place, the player has to find clues in the star/planet description in order to find the next star to go to. It could be easy, just to support an immersive naration, following the path of an ancient explorer for instance. Like a book with wonderful illustrations.

Future work

The first obvious area of work is to determine if there is enthousiasts like me about this sort of feature, and maybe starting a community work around Pioneers. Perhaps, someday, we will see an incorporation of some features in SpaceEngine that could replace/integrate/help this proof of concept (like a wiki accessible/editable in-game, or an API).

Also, the context system for music could allow one to link a music to a planet. One step further for the story narration idea.

Core principle

When you save a description for an object in SpaceEngine, it populates a file named config/user-eng-db.cfg, containing lines like:

PObject
{
        LocName "RS 0-4-1388-500-11085-8-6447711-79"
        Name    "RS 0-4-1388-500-11085-8-6447711-79"
        Pioneer "lucas"
        Date    "2017.10.17 20:55:59.13"
        Descr   "Testing the saving framework for Pioneers"
}

You can try this yourself : copy-paste these lines in your file (which probably already exists, even if empty), restart SpaceEngine, and go see the object's description in-game.

So, now, we need:

• an automated way to collect these lines and the file among explorers (the users who wants to participate)
• an automated way to build the total pioneers' config/user-eng-db.cfg file (let's call it the Pioneers database)
• an automated way to distribute it accross explorers

And these three items are implemented using two technologies : git and python. Git will be the one taking care of managing the Pioneers database, with all discoveries of all explorers. Python is all about how automate it all.

What is this repository, technically

This repository contains:

• the python scripts
• this readme, and hopefully other tutorials for explorers
• the issues system, for questions and remarks

For security concerns, the database file is in another repository.

Access

In order to use the Pioneers database, no access right is needed. You just have to download and use the Pioneers database file.

However, if you want to participate as an explorer, you have to register to github, then, with your account and via the issues, request to be marked as collaborator. Once here, you will be able to run the scripts to upload your own discoveries.

Scripts

Low-level

pioneers.py is the python script that automate all the treatments :

• initializing the Pioneers database
• detecting, committing and pushing (publishing) discoveries of users

Various notes:

It uses (currently) only the standard library, but needs git to be installed on the system. It suffers of many caveats and imprecisions, but is enough for very basic behaviors. It probably do not scale and certainly do not handle conflict, but at least it's here, ready to be improved. Many paths of improvements are directly written in the script itself. Take a look !

Also, pioneers.py accept a CLI parameter --remote allowing one to specify the repository to consider as remote instead of the default one. (i personnally use this to specify remote via ssh protocol, allowing me to avoid username/password prompt when pushing)

You can therefore deploy your own Pioneers database without touching a line of code.

High-level

pioneers_high.py is a python script built in parallel of the low-level implementation, using the other scripts (constants.py, routines.py and gitctl.py) in order to implement a user-friendly interface.

It also features a generally better implementation of Pioneers system.

GUI

A very basic Graphical User Interface is also implemented, and mimics the high-level behavior of scripts.

It's based on tkinter (therefore multiplatform), and explains to user what it is doing, step by step.

See file gui.py.

Technical limitations and future improvements

Currently, using github as centralized repository let me oversee many details, but in the end it is not the best solution, and not really scalable.

Also, there is many problems with the current python script, mainly about the concurrency access to the database that could lead to merge conflicts. In a bright and hopeful future, the script will be able to avoid data duplication and handle conflicts properly.

How To…

Participate

First, you need a github account, and request to be contributor of the database repository via the issues.

Once a contributor, you will be able to send commit on the repository, and therefore add your discoveries using the pioneers.py script (which should be placed in your SpaceEngine install directory).

requirements and OS support

I do not have a windows or a macos to test the script on these environments. However, since Pioneers works with Python (3, not dinopython) and Git, you will need to get those two installed on your system. On windows, cygwin or powershell are probably necessary.

Recipe to be a pioneer

1. install pioneers.py in your SpaceEngine install folder, and run it (it will initialize repository and files).
2. run SpaceEngine, and goto a system.
3. Only one time: do not forget to set your name in the SpaceEngine options: escape, settings, player. Set the nickname accordingly, and your good to go.
4. select the parent object (the star in most cases, but in binary systems it's a barycenter), and goto wiki (the stylized i on the left menu)
5. hit edit then save. Now your name should appear for the object (and the full system). You can verify that the database file contains this information (last lines of config/user-eng-db.cfg).
6. close SpaceEngine (needed because it will overwrite the file when stopping).
7. run the pioneers.py script (it will detect, process and commit the changes you've made).
8. Repeat at will !

Contribute

There is plenty of way to contribute. Use the issues system of this repository as a primary way to discuss about the project and for technical remarks/feedback/ideas.