A command-line client for TextFlight.

TextFlight is a space-based text adventure MMO.

• https://leagueh.xyz/tf/
• https://leagueh.xyz/git/textflight/

# TextFlight character
jmoody
faction: nibiru

One of the first computer games I played was Zork on an Apple IIc. The first program of any significance that I wrote was a text-based adventure in C# based on my experiences as student worker at the Physical Sciences library at UMass Amherst. I played way too much BatMUD in the early nineties and early 2000s.

I develop and test on macOS. The GitHub Actions run rspec tests on Ubuntu.

I install dependencies with Homebrew.

• Ruby >= 2.7.0
• sqlite3
• readline
• socat (essential for debugging)

Installing with gem install will work, but the command-line tool will be a little awkward to use (see the TODO at the end - use thor to improve CLI).

$ git clone https://github.com/jmoody/tfclient.git
$ cd tfclient
$ gem update --system
$ gem install bundler
$ bundle install

See also the .env.example.

# If you haven't created an account or you want to make a new account.
$ bundle exec bin/client.rb

# When you have an account.
$ bundle exec bin/client.rb <username>

You will need to refer to this manual often:

https://leagueh.xyz/tf/textflight-manual.html

Use the in-game help for a comprehensive list.

To bypass this client's parser, prefix the command with a space. If something is not working in this client, using a leading-space will allow you to workaround the problem or limitation.

# handled by this client
> scan

# handled by the native client
>  scan

The most important difference between the native client and this client is the navigation system. This client models the galaxy (?) using a Cartesian coordinate system. The coordinate system is navigated using cardinal directions. This is basically the same as native client except in two ways.

1. The x and y are flipped - travelling north increments the position on the y axis and travelling south decrements the position on the y axis.
2. Navigation is done using n,ne,e,se,s,sw,w,nw commands.

I designed the navigation system this way because this is how most text-based games and MUDs work.

There is beta support for plotting courses. You can plot a course to any system you have visit or any system that is adjacent to system you have visited.

> plot course to {<system> | <x> <y>}

# Plot a course to the 'sol' system.  The system name is set using the
# `faction_name` native command while in the system (and flying, not in your
# base)
> plot course to sol

# Plot a course to a system at coordinate
> plot course to 5 -10

The prompt is a work in progress.

• The 'Shields' part is broken.
• The operator will be the original operator, not the operator of the scanned structure. Could be a feature?
• Prompt could include Energy and Cooling status

   Shields  Mass    Warp Charge   x,y   operator
>  S: 17%   Ms: 347 Wrp: 0%     (10,20) stern   >

To run integration tests and debug, a TextFlight server needs to be running locally. There are two options: building the server yourself or using the docker container. Find the instructions for building the server yourself at the bottom of this document.

The client has a Docker container that starts the server with SSL enabled.

$ bundle exec rake server
docker-compose up --build --remove-orphans
...
ssl_1  | 2020-12-09 06:48:58,318 INFO:Loaded quest 'Refueling'.
ssl_1  | 2020-12-09 06:48:58,318 INFO:Loaded quest 'Base Building'.
ssl_1  | 2020-12-09 06:48:58,319 INFO:Loaded quest 'Starting Colonies'.

The certificate is self-signed, so the client should not try to verify the Certificate Authority.

# Connect to the native client: socat
$ socat readline ssl:localhost:10000,verify=0

^ also a rake task: bundle exec rake socat

# Connect with bin/client.rb
# --dev flag turns off certificate validation.
$ bundle exec bin/client.rb --dev

$ bundle install
$ bundle exec spec/lib

Integration tests require standing up the TextFlight server locally (see the Developing section above).

$ bundle install
$ bundle  exec spec/integration

• navigation should automatically eject
• jumping should show the 'nav'
• add calculator
• searching through materials
• improve the load command (mv all to )
• improve 'set' command
  • engines {off | on}
  • mining {off | on}
  • prepare to launch
  • prepare to land
• improve the prompt
• handle the craft response
• improve craft command (craft all [recipe])
• use thor to improve cli
• combat...
• wait for warp drive to charge, then jump
• automatically follow plan

$ git clone https://leagueh.xyz/git/textflight/.git/

The server requires Python 3.x; I use 3.9.0. I use pyenv to manage Python versions. Other than that, I don't know anything about Python (my Algorithms class at Smith in 2001 was in Python...) or how to configure Python on macOS. There is a little documentation in the textflight/README.md

# Run the server like this:
$ cd textflight
$ pip3 install bcrypt
$ src/main.py
...
2020-12-04 23:17:25,110 INFO:Loaded quest 'Base Building'.
2020-12-04 23:17:25,110 INFO:Loaded quest 'Starting Colonies'.

# In another terminal, connect to the server like this:
$ socat readline tcp:leagueh.xyz:10000

If you want to use openssl, install with brew openssl and use /usr/local/opt/openssl/bin/openssl instead of Apple's LibreSSL.

1. In the server directory, generate a self-sign cert.

$ cd textflight
$ mkdir -p certs
# change the -subj
$ /usr/local/opt/openssl/bin/openssl \
  req -x509 \
  -newkey rsa:4096 \
  -keyout certs/key.pem \
  -out certs/cert.pem \
  -days 365 \
  -nodes \
  -subj "/C=DE/ST=BW/L=Konstanz/O=nibiru/OU=Org/CN=localhost"

2. Install a textflight.conf and update the conf to use SSL
$ cp textflight.conf.example textflight.conf
SSL = true
SSLCert = certs/cert.pem
SSLKey = certs/key.pem

3. Start the server.
$ src/main.py

4. Connect the client.  Without verify=0, the client will refuse
   to connect with an error "unknown ca" (certificate authority).
# Test connection with socat
$ socat readline ssl:localhost:10000,verify=0

# Or with this client
$ bin/client.rb --dev