Discussion External API Requirements Thread

[CMDRKNac]

It would be good to know what data is off limits due to game play reasons. For example would you consider access to live market data reasonable? The obvious answer to me is no, because you don't allow it in-game (or maybe you don't allow it yet because the necessary infrastructure is not done, or for other technical reasons). I don't think I must give reasons why this data would be useful because it's already self-evident from the existing apps! is this going to be per account API or there will be general data access?

Anyway, for additional features, based on my current features and future planned features:
- Heat map generation from player activity like travelling, commercial activity, missions, etc. (potential for emergent game play too) would be nice.
- Access to faction, state and influence data to generate alerts for daily influence and state changes (couple with the above, we got a winner).
- In case commodity markets data is made available apart of the obvious functionalities in many apps already I'm planning recording of historical trading data to dynamically generated graphs from historical data and other fancy statistics.
- For external route planners or system catalogues, access to real system coordinates and system names would be excellent (we got a partial database dump but still).
- Other station data like type, name, facilities etc. as an external station browser if anything for validation reasons (and completeness).

P.S: my web is here http://www.elitedangerouscentral.com/ (will add the copyright by FD disclaimer this evening sorry ;D)

 

[M_K]

I would love to have the current system name available (history of last several visited systems would be even better), along with known system details (dependent upon what would normally be visible in the system view with the current user's exploration taken into account, specifically stellar and planetary objects) and actual system galaxy map coordinates (distances to nearest several systems and their names would also potentially meet this requirement).

All of this would greatly simplify development of various stellar cartography and routing helpers which are currently reliant upon manual entry or the netlog or are just plain not feasible now.

For example, a lot of us in the First Great Expedition use Finwen's EDDiscovery app to generate history of routes to share with others, which requires the use of verbose logging to force the system names to be recorded in netlog.

EDDiscovery is also capable of utilizing EDStarCoordinator to calculate past jump distances and generate new routes, but EDStarCoordinator itself is reliant upon manual entry of system distances currently.

 

[Artie]

Most of request were written already, so I just repeat what will be nice to have available via web/server API:
- all station information like name, economy, government, allegiance, landing pad sizes, services, station type, distance from main star (for trading tools)
- market information like sell/buy prices, demands (trading tools)
- star system information, or at least controlling faction government, allegiance (trading tools, used for prohibited goods lists with station data above)
- player information like current location, credit, ranks, reputation, ships bought, etc. (for commander log tools)


And just some additional note:
I think it should NOT be possible to get info about any other player, unless he wants so. It's each own privacy and some may want to not discover their location, online status, etc. There should be some privacy settings or each player should be able to get some personal key/hash that can be entered into app which will gather his data.

 

[CMDRKNac]

I think it should NOT be possible to get info about any other player, unless he wants so. It's each own privacy and some may want to not discover their location, online status, etc. There should be some privacy settings or each player should be able to get some personal key/hash that can be entered into app which will gather his data.

I agree but I hope the API comes with appropriate access key for different sort of data (like EVE does it), so users can easily use one of those keys in 3rd party apps to share some of the non-sensitive information.

 

[Elgar]

...station distance from main star (for trading tools)

For stations that orbit primary stars that distance is pretty stable, i guess.

But what about stations that orbit secondary stars? Their distance to the primary star will vary.

 

[Weeks]

I would love to see the real-time ship status data and controls exposed, pursuant to building a small Netduino device that has toggle buttons & controls for cargo scoop, landing gear, FSD, radar range, power distribution, etc. The more that is exposed, the closer I could get to building a sim-pit for the game, with side touchscreen monitors showing my nav data and vital stats just as ingame... To be able to pipe those screens out to other monitors would be pretty wild.

 

[Rennard]

But why expose that through an API, rather than a "Wanted" list in game in a station "Galactic Sheriff" office?

Why not both?
.
The main purpose (from my perspective) of an API is to use tools outside the game to give richer content.
.
On a personal note, it means I can track the law breaking <snip> from work and plot my hunt for when I arrive home and fire up the game

 

[Wolf]

I am especially interested in the personal profile and community aspect of the API. For this the following data should be available and some of it should be modifiable:

• Personal Information
  • CMDR name
    • Elite Rankings
    • Faction reputations
    • Wanted status
    • Local bounties and fines
    • Other bounties and fines
  • Location
    • System name
    • Station name
    • Orbited planet (if any)
    • Other system data (covered by other posts already)
  • Ships incl. the current and all others
    • Location (system, station etc.)
    • Type
    • Modules (modifiable, outfitting locally if funds allow)
    • Hardpoints (modifiable, outfitting locally if funds allow)
    • Cargo (locally modifiably, buy - sell for the current location only)
    • Integrity of hull, modules, hardpoints (modifyable, meaning you can repair if current funds allow)
    • Paintjob (modifyable)
    • Decal (modifiable)
• Global information
  • System and Galaxy information (other posts have good proposals with route plotting etc.)
  • Market Data, local and aquired in-game (modifiable, buy market data)
• Friends and groups
  • Friends online and offline (like in-game)
  • Friends details
    • Current location
    • Elite Rankings
    • Current Ship and all other ships + information like paintjob, decals (possibillity for ship image)
    • Possibility to initiate Text chat, either to in game, or other API users
    • Transfer items to friend if docked at the same station
  • Search for CMDR name and add as friend
  • Accept and deny friends requests
  • Group memberships and the functions of friends above in groups also
  • Group management functions, like
    • accept/deny membership
    • remove member
    • invite member
    • member search inside group
    • sort/limit memberlist
    • initiate Text chat with online member

At the moment all I can think of, I might come up with more later

The functions would be great for a community App or to integrate in community sites.
If authenticated the community site can populate user profiles and stats pages, possibly with images of the current location and ships.
This can happen either only if the user is logged on or auto update with flood limits, of course.

Also in-game friends and groups can carry over to the site and with the location data you could search for friends or other members of your groups for appointments and meet-ups in game.

Cheers
Wolf

 

[Artie]

For stations that orbit primary stars that distance is pretty stable, i guess.

But what about stations that orbit secondary stars? Their distance to the primary star will vary.

That's true, but we must live with it. It should provide some average distance, which is not so precise, but better at least some information than none.

 

[VonWulff]

Any realtime info that helps me to expand the user interface. I'm thinking peripherals here. Ship's system status, ammo load, weapons grouping, on/off modules status, etc.

 

[rennarda]

I want an app to plan optimum trade routes for Rare commodities - so the data needed for that would be:
* system coordinates
* quantity of rare commodities available
* selling price
* galactic average

The use case of this app would be to find multi-point routes that optimise the profit from Rares. I'm aware of the spreadsheet that's on Google Docs, but it's pretty hard with this to do more than point-to-point back and forward routes.

 

[Tiran Kenja]

What I hoped for the companion to provide and would really like is a direct API to interact with the cockpit data panels.

So basically one could build a direct representation to run on a tablet and wouldn't have to focus on the panels in-game.

Obliviously this sort of API would make more sense to host directly in the client. As opposed what is mostly talked about, which is an API that would also work when not playing.

 

[Winterwalker]

I'd be interested in cockpit telemetry to an extent, button indicators, for simpit enthusiasts, whom I follow as I think they're great. I'd like to access some force feedback and environmental feedback, for instance, cabin temperature, g indicators, low on oxygen, ship "taking hits" ...

for data use, I'm currently trying to push Galnet RSS to send me an SMS when updated, though it seems "the year" (3001) is causing havoc with the usual syndication validity checks (which don't recognise the date, unsurprisingly)!! As the Galnet comes in small chunks I think SMS alerting is cool. Trying to solve this via a third party app (digg, here) but it may be a FDEV solution would be a lot neater.

The same going for messaging alerts from other players, and if I can SMS back as "not available" esp. with some "my sidey has developed a fault" handwavium, that strikes me as being lots of fun .. or .. I'll be available at 18:00 UTC .. or alternative words to that effect.

I'm personally not all that much bothered about having the whole galaxy available in API, but starport services at my current location would turn me on, esp. if plus, basic info on systems within jump range (I don't mind route planning "in game" as t'were).

I'd be interested too in having a live feed on my current ranking(s) / wanted status, current ship and loadout maybe, and think rankings could make a cool little widget for webpages/ webapps. My details, perhaps even the sheet on other commanders, available for in game creds or given to you by allied pilots, assigned as part of detail in assassination missions, or K-warrant, as web app to phone/ tablet would also be of interest to me.

 

[rennarda]

...as for plugging into the game engine, it would be really nice to have some way to send content to that screen that's in-between the pilot's legs. iPlayer...a web brower...heck, even just a clock (I'm thinking of Oculus Rift users here !)

 

[Fost]

Not an API per se but I would like a file to read that I could programaticaly determine Switch States. Landing Gear, Cargo Scoop deployed etc. Silent Running, Ship Lights. I'm building a switch board and I want to use LEDs to indicate the state of of a switch.

yes - some way to query ship state of any toggles would allow us to make better touch screen button interfaces where the icon shows the current state or program addons for joysticks that have screens / lights etc.

Some kind of local port off the game that returns json?

 

[Tronicus]

To me, it really boils down to what information the DEVs want to give up. There are about a gazillion different ideas out there, but without knowing the limitations Frontier wants to place on releasing in-game data, it is hard to formulate something cohesive.

Trading tools already exist, but all of them are a bit clunky due to how the data is currently collected.

Community tools would be great, as it would open up the door for offline guilds and such to be able to easily coordinate actions.

To be honest, having the galaxy map available offline would be a great tool for planning out places to explore, places to check out possible trade routes, etc. without burning up play time.

More comprehensive Galnet type information would be good also, let the players see a lot more of what is going on in the galaxy.

 

[bflyblue]

I would love to see the real-time ship status data and controls exposed, pursuant to building a small Netduino device that has toggle buttons & controls for cargo scoop, landing gear, FSD, radar range, power distribution, etc. The more that is exposed, the closer I could get to building a sim-pit for the game, with side touchscreen monitors showing my nav data and vital stats just as ingame... To be able to pipe those screens out to other monitors would be pretty wild.

This.. I started working on a small project for DCS and would love to do something similar for Elite! Be nice to have access to button positions to light LEDs in a simpit and be able to adjust them in game via switches. Exposing the data in the side panels would make it easy to display it on external monitors/computers permanently as I find myself tabbing back and forth through these quite a lot in game.

[video=youtube_share;DoCrlLBw7Ek]http://youtu.be/DoCrlLBw7Ek[/video]

[video=youtube_share;qgW6oyLiJ7Q]http://youtu.be/qgW6oyLiJ7Q[/video]

 

[Mark0]

Realtime info, maybe via UDP, would be great, and could be an enabler to all kind of enthusiasts hardware builds.

I would especially like some data to be able to control some LED lights (LIFX, Hue, etc.) to reflect the actual ambience shown in the screen: a flood of blue lights when entering a station, flashes when fired upon, etc.

 

[Andargor]

Thank you Michael for this thread!

This is probably redundant, but here goes:

All the information currently available from the web-api JSON:
- Pilot Information: credits, current ship, docked status, ranks (combat/trade/exploration/crime/factions), player statistics (as in info panel)
- Current system information: system name, star coordinates, station name, economy type, factions, commodity market information (prices, stock, demand, galactic average), available outfitting, available ships
- Current ship information: type, modules fitted, insurance, cargo wear and tear, fuel
- Shipyard information: where the player's ships are

Additional info:
- Presence of a black market
- System star coordinates
- Rare commodities availability
- Station type and economy (economy, faction, wealth, government, etc.)

Please allow the use of stable IDs for objects instead of using strings to support internationalization.

Thank you so much!!!

 

[withnail]

But that doesn't need an API per se, all it needs is an in-game chat function. If FD are going to expose an API for people externally to chat/collaborate, would that not be better accomplished in game with better social tools?

I'll admit I'm out of my comfort zone with thus, but I agree the game needs better social tools. Happy (and better) for it to be in game, but if not maybe someone from the community develop it.

Edit: it strikes me that most, if not all, of the other suggestions here could be incorporated in-game