The rulebook has some pretty strict rules about accessing the website and creating tools. I’d like to ask for these to be revisited, and relaxed.
You are forbidden from using any program other than a web browser to access imperialconflict.com.
Any tools or programs you use that gives you an added advantage and is not cleared by the Imperial Conflict team and made available to every player is illegal.
The first rule has lead to some funny tools. IIRC Mapgen and GINA required copy/pasting the contents of a web page to get data. There was also once a grease-monkey script for populating the fleet page for mass attacking (grease-monkey was a browser plugin that allowed scripts to run in the web browser and modify specific pages, so you were still accessing the page via a web browser).
The second rule was a problem when I wrote GINA. When I asked for permission to release, it felt like I got a scolding for not asking permission to develop it. It also took quite a while to finally get permission to post it.
I’d like to ask for the rules to be relaxed to allow tool development, and maybe allow tools to access the website directly. This game rewards those who can log in at regular intervals to take advantage of build times and avoid resource decay. I can’t do that anymore, but I could write a program that could if the rules allowed.
The rules have already been relaxed, to my understanding. Clearly not in your link, but in reference to a discussion we had on discord with @I_like_pie. He may mention it somewhere already.
Essentially, (my understanding is that) access is now allowed and even encouraged. Scripts are also allowed. The only rule is that if you develop something, you must make it available for everyone to use.
I think in general this process will be streamlined a bit by Pie. We also don’t have a place where all these tools are centrally listed, so that might be the first course of action.
These kind of tools go a long way for today’s gaming requirements. Where for example it’s a complete waste of time to send 10s or 100s of fleets, where a simple click or two can achieve the same thing through scripts/automation.
We need to make this game easier to play and remove the mindless actions.
Good find @A10! Those rules need to be updated for sure.
I mostly agree, with a minor but important point being to retain the focus on:
made available to every player
Assuming that is still honored, your request for tools to access the website directly is going to be solved when we Launch the API Server. This is both for the game to use as a new backend but also for tech-savvy players to access the game data directly so that they can more easily experiment.
Above all though, and worth restating again, any external tools that are developed will need to be very easy for any and every player to have access to. Private tools will still very much be forbidden, and this will likely be enforced through use of API keys.
