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Unread 28 Jan 2010, 01:05   #1
ellonweb
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 401
ellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant futureellonweb has a brilliant future
Pa api

People have been asking PATeam for some kind of API to PA for quite a while in order to provide hooks for alliance tools. I understand PATeam seems quite reluctant to do this, for whatever reason, seemingly to focus in first party tools.

I'm curious how feasible (easy to implement, time etc) it would be (and willing PATeam would be) to add an API to the main game. What I'm talking about is a way to provide all the information that is normally available to the player while logged in, in a minimal, data-centric way, for example as some kind of JSON, or XML data, or however you want to do it. I could see this being implemented quite easily just as an extra "skin", though I'm not sure how PA's skins work.

This would also need to be partnered with a simple system for issuing commands in the game, though really there wouldn't need to be much in the way of change here as this would just be simple HTTP POSTs, like things are at the moment. There is however the possibility to re-engineer some of the underlying systems here however, and make PA more future-proof if PATeam has any plans for a fancy AJAX frontend, which would also benefit from a simple data pushing interface. (Basically I'm talking about being able to submit a page request (fleet command) without receiving a whole page back.)

The main issue I see, ignoring time constraints to actually implement this, is security and authentication and server load. It would still be possible to push users of this API through a bot checker (easiest solution is sending my code a URL for a bot checker image, and from there everything would be the same as a browser). I just don't want to have to deal with all the excessive HTML, I just want to be given the minimal data.

Regarding server load: well, anyone is able to spam requests to PA with or without an API, so having an API isn't going to make a difference there. People spamming the server can have their IPs blocked just as normal.

In short, what I'm asking for is a skin that is essentially a JSON (or XML or something like that) source of data, and a request system that simply acknowledges/confirms my request, but doesn't throw tons of data back at me as if I've loaded a new page.


For those intrigued, the reason I'm bringing this up:
[22:58] <@ellonweb|a> does anyone here have an iphone?
[22:58] <@Benneh> i do
[22:59] <@ellonweb|a> i have a module on the iphone this semester, i need to make something
[22:59] <@ellonweb|a> tell me what to make
[22:59] <@Benneh> er
[22:59] <@maggs> planetarion for the iphone
[23:00] <@Benneh> yeah
[23:00] <@ellonweb|a> hah
[23:00] <@ellonweb|a> ok
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