comma-sword-daedalus

Daedalus

Empty Epsilon extension.

This project extends the Empty Epsilon spaceship bridge simulator game, by simulating the spaceship's need for Maintenance, Repair and Operations during the game.

how to build

We use yarn to manage this project's lifecycle. Install yarn by running npm i -g yarn and then follow the instructions in the developer documentation in addition, Copy the files in this project's lua directory into empty epsilon's Contents/Resources/scripts directory

what to expect

TL;DR : a mess

Daedalus hosts the latest iteration of software written to support a sci-fi LARP we've been working on for a long while now. Its first test-run is due very soon, so the current state of the project is a mess (documentation, test coverage and stability etc.) as we sprint towards the minimum viable product that is game-ready. After the test run, I plan to separately productize the different features while adding features for the next run. there's a LOT to do in that area: some code can migrate to LUA scripts, configuration can be automated, concerns separated, etc.

the generic API

the big reusable thing here is that Daedalus exposes an OSC network API to the empty-epsilon server, both input and output. It's open-ended, so you can easily use standard OSC endpoints to extend the game's UI.

the engineering changes

We replace the existing repair mechanic with a custom CLI screen (that also handles other LARP concerns) with one concurrent repair at a time, and introduced switchboards - engineering sub-systems that supply power to the Empty Epsilon systems (a.k.a bridge systems) in a many-to-many dependency matrix (each switchboard supplies power to more than one system and each system consumes power from more than one switchboard). when the engineer overpowers a bridge system, all switchboards supplying power to that system start accumulating load, and at some point (random and different for each switchboard) will become overloaded.

Overloaded switches produce extra heat to all their supported system until reset. resetting a switchboard takes precious time, and during that time there are severe penalties to the bridge systems supported by the power switch (very low cap on power and repair speed) so it becomes a major tactical concern.

In our LARP the switchboards are implemented by plastic electricity boards (based on arduino) located in various locations around the ship. however any OSC compatible network endpoint will do (we're using open-stage-control for the backoffice and the test client and it's great)

product documentation

can be found in the excalibur entries folder

developer documentation

also found here