api-docs/docs/alpha.md

# Alpha Preview Guide

Hello everyone and welcome to the SpaceTraders v2.0.0-alpha preview! We are excited to share progress with our supporters and hope you enjoy the new changes to the game.

We've re-thought some elements of the API using lessons learned from the v1 release. We hope you will enjoy some of the fleshed out ship mechanics, larger universe to explore, and various new ideas that are still in the works.

Our goal continues to be to create a fun and beginner friendly API that developers can reliably build on top of. We appreciate all of the positive comments and feedback, and look forward to a second year of building SpaceTraders!

## Overview

The alpha release will be a period of about a month where we fix any critical bugs and make any significant changes to API endpoints. The alpha phase will be shared mostly with our supporters and some close members of the community, so please don't advertise the release too broadly. Having said that, the alpha won't be a secret, so there is no harm if you want to share it directly with friends.

Following the alpha will be a public beta release, at which point it should be relatively safe to build an SDK on top of the API. We'll continue to add new features, but we will be hesitant to make any significant breaking changes to existing endpoints. We expect the beta to be a few weeks as we confirm the API is scaling well and performance issues are addressed.

Then we will finally update all of the documentation and website to point to the new 2.0 release.

### Alpha Goals

Our goals for the early alpha are to gather feedback so we can guarantee API stability for those that want to start building SDKs. Once we go into a beta release, we will be much less likely to change any specific endpoint, and after a full release we will strive to only make backwards-compatible changes.

### Feedback

We're genuinely happy to just have people play the game and try the API. Sharing your feedback or progress will be super motivating for us as we continue to work in our free time.

If you want to help in a specific way, we're looking for the following feedback from the alpha release:

- Find and report bugs or exploits in the game
- Look for typos or errors in the game data, symbols, etc.
- Let us know if performance is an issue for any of the endpoints
- Tell us which endpoints are painful to use or game mechanics that are tedious / uninteresting / not fun
- Anything you think will be difficult for us to add later without breaking how the API works

Again the goal is to catch significant changes that need to be made before the beta release. We appreciate any time you can dedicate to test out the new API endpoints.

### New Terminology

The 2.0 version of the API has been significantly reworked and introduces some new terminology. Before reviewing the new endpoints in the next section, it's worth reading through some of the new terms and what they mean.

- **Account** - you can register an account (not required) with your email address and discord handle and it will persist across resets. We will eventually add registration to the website, but for now you can do it via API calls. You will also be able to register your patreon contribution for special in-game recognition.
- **Agent** - when you start a new game, you register as an agent and choose a symbol (4-8 characters) as your call sign. All of your ships, credits, etc. exist under your agent entity, and you can only have one agent at a time under your account. You will be able to start a new game by retiring your agent and creating a new one.
- **Sector** - a slice of the universe filled with systems of different types such as star systems, black holes, or nebulae.
- **System** - a collection of waypoints orbiting around a central feature such as a star. Systems contain an array of waypoints on an x, y plane.
- **Waypoint** - a location within a system that you can travel to and interact with. Some common types of waypoints include planets, asteroid fields and jump gates.
- **Ship** - your ships can navigate between waypoints and jump across systems. A ship consists of a frame, reactor, engine, modules and mounts.
- **Ship Frame** - the structure of a ship which determines the number of modules and mounts that can be installed.
- **Ship Reactor** - the power module of the ship and limits the types of power-intensive modules and mounts that can be installed.
- **Ship Engine** - the engine of your ship and determines how fast your ship travels when navigating at slower-than-light speeds.
- **Ship Module** - an internal module that can be added or removed from your ship. Common modules include cargo bays, passenger cabins, and jump drives.
- **Ship Mount** - an external mount that can be added or removed from your ship. Common mounts include mining lasers and sensor arrays.
- **Ship Fuel** - a resource that is consumed by your ship when navigating. You can refuel your ship, and one unit of the FUEL trade good adds 100 units to your fuel to your ship's tank.
- **Ship Crew** - the staff that run your ship and keep it operating at peek performance. Crew can be recruited throughout the universe and will eventually be subject to changes in morale, which will impact how your ship performs. Ships which are understaffed will perform poorly such as longer cooldowns, slower navigation, and more damage to the ship while navigating.
- **Drone** - drone ships are the simplest type of ship to automate. They don't require fuel or crew, but are slower, wear down quickly, and are incapable of jumping between systems without access to a jump gate.
- **Navigate** - slower-than-light travel between waypoints. A ship will depart from a waypoint and arrive at a destination after a duration has passed.
- **Orbit** - when your ship arrives at a waypoint, it will be in orbit. Your ship must be in orbit to execute certain actions such as a scan or extraction. You can transition your ship from docked to orbit.
- **Dock** - you can dock your ship at a waypoint after navigating to it. You will be able to execute market trades, and other planet-side actions once you've docked at a waypoint.
- **Jump** - faster-than-light travel between systems. Jumping requires a jump drive or access to a jump gate. Jumps are instantaneous but subject to a cooldown between jumps.
- **Extraction** - mines ore at an asteroid field or siphons gases at various waypoint types and deposits cargo into your ship. Surveying can be used to target specific yield types from a waypoint.
- **Survey** - analyze a waypoint for specific yields such as ore or hydrocarbons. The resulting surveys are time-sensitive and will eventually expire as they move out of reach of your ship.
- **Scan** - analyze a waypoint, route or system for more details. We currently support scanning approaching or departing ships at a waypoint, and will later support more modes of scanning.
- **Chart** - most systems and waypoints are unexplored and will need to be charted by an agent before others will be able to query that location.
- **Cooldown** - actions such as jumping, scanning and extracting will put your ship on a cooldown for that action. You should wait until the number of seconds have passed on the cooldown before attempting the action again.
- **Contract** - contracts are generated through factions, and might request your agent to procure goods of a certain type, or transport goods to a location by a certain time, in return for payment.
- **Delivery** - transfers goods from your ship's cargo bay into a contract.
- **Jettison** - ejects cargo from your ship's hold
- **Trade** - all goods in the universe have a unique trade symbol (in all caps), such as `IRON_ORE`, `NANOBOTS` or `REACTOR_FISSION_I`.
- **Market** - most populated waypoints have a market where you can buy and sell goods. Each market will have a list of imports, exports and commodities that you can trade in. Markets evolve with player activity - prices will rise and fall with trades, and new imports or exports will be added as the market grows.
- **Tariff** - a flat tax added to each unit of a good traded at a market
- **Shipyards** - where agents can purchase ships, perform maintenance, or install new modules and mounts.

### New API Endpoints

Here is a list of the new endpoints for the terms above. For this alpha-preview, some of the parameters for an endpoint are not fully implemented, but we've included them here to give an indication of what will be supported.

Each endpoint also has an example response you can retrieve by sending `stub=true` as a query parameter or in your POST body. You can also view a stubbed response for an error code by sending `errorCode={code}` with the stub parameter.

All routes that are prefixed with `/my` will require an agent access token to be passed as an `Authorization: Bearer {token}` header in the request.

When registering your account, you will be given a different type of token called an Account Token, which allows you to create a new Agent or update your account details such as email address, discord handle or patreon code.

All routes targeting a specific ship, such as `/my/ships/COBRA-00AF/survey` will put a lock on your ship until the request is resolved. This means you can only take a single action at a time for your ship. Sending two simultaneous actions for a single ship will throw a 409 conflict response code.

All routes with the prefix `/systems` will return limited data until an agent submits the chart for that system or you have a ship present in the system.

All actions are typically sent as a POST request and return a 201 status code. All query endpoints are sent as a GET request and will return a 200. Errors are detailed in the response body of a failed request, with a message and unique error code.

Static game data can be queried and should be cached using the `/game/data` endpoint. Most objects returned in the response of a request will include only the symbols for static data, which you will want to map to the objects from the game data endpoint.

```bash
# view agent details
/my/agent

# view account details
/my/account

# view all ships
/my/ships

# view ship details
/my/ships/EMBER-01

# jump to a target system
/my/ships/EMBER-01/jump destination=X1-OE

# navigate between waypoints (modes coming soon)
/my/ships/EMBER-01/navigate mode=CRUISE destination=OE-PM00A

# dock at a waypoint if permitted
/my/ships/EMBER-01/dock mode=STEALTH

# put your ship into orbit around a waypoint
/my/ships/EMBER-01/orbit mode=BLOCKADE,SPY,PATROL

# acquire specific yield signatures in an asteroid field for extraction
/my/ships/EMBER-01/survey

# extract raw materials from a waypoint such as an asteroid field or gas cloud
# send the full survey object as the payload to target a specific signature
/my/ships/EMBER-01/extract survey='{signature: "...", deposits: "...", expiration: "..."}'

# purchase cargo and load it into your ship
/my/ships/EMBER-01/purchase symbol=HEAVY_MACHINERY quantity=99999

# sell cargo and unload it from your ship
/my/ships/EMBER-01/sell symbol=HEAVY_MACHINERY quantity=99999

# jettison cargo from your ship
/my/ships/EMBER-01/jettison symbol=HEAVY_MACHINERY quantity=99999

# view all systems
/systems

# view system details
/systems/X1-OE

# view waypoint details
/systems/X1-OE/waypoints/X1-OE-001A

# view all shipyards in a system
/systems/X1-OE/shipyards

# view all ships for sale at a shipyard
/systems/X1-OE/shipyards/X1-OE-001A/ships

# view all markets in a system
/systems/X1-OE/markets

# view all trades at a given market
/systems/X1-OE/markets/X1-OE-001A
```

## Quick Start

If you are ready to dive in, just hit the endpoint to register as a new agent. Don't worry too much about account creation right now - temporary accounts will be setup when creating a new agent. We will likely still be doing hard resets during the alpha.

```json http
{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "https://v2-0-0.alpha.spacetraders.io/agents",
  "headers": {
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  "body": {
    "symbol": "YOUR_SYMBOL_HERE",
    "faction": "COMMERCE_REPUBLIC"
  }
}
```

When starting a new game, you'll have a command ship to fly around and a contract with the Commerce Republic that you can accept for some credits. Try completing the contract, or just fly around and begin trading and exploring. You can also purchase some low-upkeep drones to begin automating trade routes.

## Roadmap

We're still hard at work completing items we have envisioned for the alpha release. We're working on full API documentation in Spotlight Studio, seeding new types of ships and balancing stats, and so much more.

Here is a list of what we are working on behind the scenes:

- Full API documentation
- Seeding shipyards across the sector
- Command Points that are expended to control your ships
- A ship logs endpoint that keeps track of all your ship's actions and events that occur
- Markets evolving and systems growing / collapsing with agent activity
- Seeding unique factions across the universe and new contracts
- Ability to scavenge, salvage and run planet-side expeditions to discover hidden ruins and valuable relics
- Bi-weekly seasons with leaderboards for various achievements
- New documentation website with guides and explanation of game mechanics
- Tweaking API throttling
- Faction licenses to patrol and trade
- Ability to interdict ships as a patrol or pirate
- Shuttle populations around to grow new systems
- Constructing goods with the micro-fabricator / micro-refinery modules