Terminology

• location

  • central component containing coordinates, an orientation, a movement strategy, and optional parent id.
  • Locations with nil parents are assumed to be the root locations of their respective coordinate systems.
  • The Motel server will periodically move / update location's coordinates and orientations in accordance to their movement strategies.
  • Most regular users will only read access to motel locations (also being able to register callbacks to be invokedd on updates and such) as creating/updating locations is done internally by other subsystems as needed

• movement strategy

  • Several movement strategies include:
    • stopped
    • linear,
    • elliptical,
    • rotating,
    • following another location, and more
  • These reside on the server side and will be periodically invoked to move the locations which they correspond to. Developers / server admins can easily add more strategies to describe any sort of desired movement.

• galaxy/solar system/star/planet/asteroid

  • The cosmos subsystem describes a physical universe.
  • These entities are mapped to locations running in motel
  • For the most part all these have a stopped movement strategy though planets move along an elliptical orbit

• resource:

  • asteroids may contain resources which may be mined by a mining ship, and transferred to a station to use to construct new entities.
  • Resources will be depleted over time though the server admin may use the mission subsystem to setup periodic events that will populate resources among other things.

• jump gate

  • Artifacts that link solar systems together.
  • Player owned ships within the trigger distance of a gate will jump to the destination system when the trigger command is issues.
  • Be forewarned though, there might not be a gate back!

• ship/station:

  • Player controlled entities used to move around and manipulate the universe.
  • Ships have movement capabilities within a system as well as the means to mine resource and attack other ships (depending on the class).
  • Ships require the use of jump gates to travel between systems.
  • Stations on the other hand can jump between systems at will but do not have the means to travel within in a system.
  • Manufacturing stations may be used to construct new ships and stations provided they have the resources.

• mission

  • High level sequence of requirements, objectives, victory conditions, and rewards/penalties which privilged users may create.
  • Any user satisfying a mission's requirement may accept it (provided they are not engaged in another mission at the time) and attempt to complete it.
  • All missions are timed, the user has until the mission's expiration to complete the objectives.
  • If they do so, their stats will be increased, and often a reward is issued.

• loot

  • Loot is created with a ship's cargo upon its destruction
  • Any player within the vicinity of cargo may collect it
  • The player needs to have enough cargo space free in the ship they are collecting it with to successfully retrieve it
  • Once collected, the loot will dissapear from the simulation and will no longer be accessible to other users

• stat

  • Provide high level summaries and views on data managed by and related to the running simulation
  • Used for user-raking, diagnostics, and many other purporses
  • Clients with the required privileges may access & retrieve these via a json-rpc call like any other

• role / privilege

  • Core components at center of access control system
  • Certain operations and entities require certain privileges to be executed and operated on
  • Privileges may be added/removed to / from roles before the server starts and on the fly
  • Roles can be added/removed to users in the same manner
  • Users with roles with privileges can invoke all the functionality the privileges entail

• more coming soon...