PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Hi all.

Having way to much time on my hands, I decided to create a little webpage. The goal beeing a page where intelligence officers, strategic solo-flyers or perhaps just nosy alliance members can collect and process intelligence data and get an idea as to how the alliances are spread in the universe.

EDIT: Since everyone seems to misunderstand, I've clearly not done a good job explaining, so here goes; this is an individual database, i.e. when you create an account you will be given an empty database to fill with your own intel. If you add intel, only people with access to your account will see that intel!

EDIT 2: NOTE that it's now tied to the Planetarion data dumps to help you keep track of exiles and scores and such.

The page is now up and running, and although it's still quite simple in it's function, I think it can be helpful. So, check it out!

http://www.paganutopia.com/

I appreciate any feedback and/or suggestions you might have, and wish you good luck in the upcoming round!

// Telcontar

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

you've also got a webpage where people can create fake intel and potentially mess up your system

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Its a nice idea, would the point of it be that its free for all to use and therefor can be useful for ppl who are not in alliances or don't have access to alliance intel?

however I agree with entropy that you will have a big problem in checking out whether any intel that is given is legitimate or simply misinformation, tho I guess waiting until you have several ppl giving the same intel could cut down on this a bit. I cant see that alliances will be too happy about helping a free for all intellegence network (afterall those that do will probably be at a disadvantage unless they negotiate with U some way of U not giving out info on them then they would probably give intel on other alliances)

overall I suspect U R walking into a minefield but good luck navigating it.

asc has been known to give out intel freely in the past, U might be able to get some help from them.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

No it's not a problem, becuase it's individual. Anyone can create their own account and start gathering their own intel. It's not a communal database, it's a tool for sorting out the intel you've got yourself.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

in that case....sweet! i like it
how does it handle planets moving through the universe etc? exiles and such

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

ahh ok I understand. Although I suspect alot of ppl who would think about using it might be put off without knowing more about you, as most ppl in pa are pretty cynical they will probably believe that you will be passing on whatever they put on there to some alliance or other!

it also makes it less useful, as those for whom it would be most useful are the members of the community who have relatively little intel themselves anyway as those who are most likely to have alot of intel will most likely have access to and be contributing to an alliance intel system.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Entropy - Well, atm it doesn't, which is the main problem with it atm. This is only the first draft if you will, and I hope to come up with a solution soon. For now, you have to change coordinates manually, but I have some ideas as to how to connect it to the PA dumps and have it updated accordingly...

booji - The main idea was that alliances could use this as a way of storing and sorting their intel. Some (though probably not all) alliances have their own systems for this, but with time and some improvements maybe this system will become a contender. I'd never pass on information, but I guess you only have my word on that. At the moment I don't even intend to play the next round, but I understand if some alliances prefer the security of their own systems...

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Thing is when parsing a scan (news scan or jgp) or a galaxy status screen it records coordinates of planets sending out-of-gal-defence. But since planet and ruler name of those planets are not included in the information given on those screens, they are not entered in the database by the parser. My solution would be to have the database search the PA data dumps for those coords and find the ruler and planet names and enter them into the DB. When a planet is moved, the PA dump and the database would not match (same ruler and planet names, but different coordinates (or vice versa)), and the database would be updated with the new coords. This might be doable, but what happens if an old scan is entered into the mix, taken before a planet moved? Could lead to problems... But then again, that's true also for the current system where you change coordinates manually so...

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

If you index planets by planet name instead of by co-ords, it will automatically track exiles since planet names don't change.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Exactly, that's what I'm thinking of doing. I'll have to tie it to the PA dumps though, wich means I'll have to wait until the ticks start before I can test it. No problem though, since any intel before shuffle is meaningless anyways alliances won't start gathering intel before that...

Will start working on that tomorrow perhaps.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

best of luck!

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Beta gives planet/galaxy/alliance dumps:

http://beta.planetarion.com/botfiles/planet_listing.txt
http://beta.planetarion.com/botfiles/galaxy_listing.txt
http://beta.planetarion.com/botfiles...ce_listing.txt

If your intentions are genuine and you don't have ulterior intentions for the data, then it sounds like a nice tool for those that want to use it. Good luck!

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

While the idea is good (or at the very least not harmful), PIA is a terrible acronym for it, since there's a game called planeti-a (dash inserted to counter censorship) which has the same abbreviation. On the other hand, that game is as good as dead, so maybe it doesn't matter so much.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

good luck with this project!

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

would be interested in using something like this so i tried to register but no luck also as mz said using pia as your acronym is probably not good idea

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Ok, well don't use the acronym then :cool:

It's not in the web adress and not in the actual webpage title. :)

It is now tied to the data dumps, and as far as I can tell everything works fine.


That's strange, I don't see you shouldn't be able to sign up?! Maybe you could try again...? Also, I use session cookies so maybe you could try allowing cookies for that webpage?

Thanx for all the feedback!

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

I signed up fine earlier using firefox with cookies allowed

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

If memory serves, and i've not played for a few rounds so you'll have to check, but some PA scans have the tick number that they were taken in them. thus, i suppose you could use some sort of lookup system to compare the universe at that particular tick to the one that the scan was taken in.

Though that means having every tick of data stored somewhere, which sounds like a lot of space (i'm not a coder so i dont know fo shizzle).

It might be helpful though?

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

By the way, i think that this is an excellent idea. It will definitely help people who either arent in an alliance or dont have access to alliance's arbitor databases. Its a massive improvement on stuffing all of that stuff in your Journal, anyway :).

I'm putting it on my Useful Links thread now.

<3

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

as far as i know you can obtain coords, tick and scan type form the scan as it stores them all, you may need to double check that though

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Yeah, that's not the problem. The problem is, like Ultimate Newbie said, that to make the parser take into account that a planet has moved since the scan was taken, the database would have to store database dump information from every tick, which isn't really an option. No, I guess one just have to live with it, and make sure a planet hasn't moved since the scan was taken - or simply - to add scans to the database as soon as possible.

Thanx mate, appreciate it!

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

why not just parse the dump every tick and update coords based on what smokeh said ruler/planet name, or just parse it when the user logs in...even better

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

If you contact me after the round starts, I might be able to help you out with that. The F-Crew tools store database dump information for every tick, so I'm sure I could come up with some kind of web service for you to query - something like planetname.php?x=1&y=2&z=3&tick=100 where it would just return the planet name for you for that tick.

Another alternative would be to allow anonymous query access onto one of the databases that just stores planet data in a queryable form - would need to think more carefully about that because obviously you could probably spam the database and cause considerable harm :/

Just a thought - shoot me up once the round has started and we might be able to work something out.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Entropy - That's not the problem, the database updates all coordinates and scores and stuff every hour, so that's all well and good. The problem (although it's not a very big one) is that it can't really handle at the moment if you, say, try to parse a scan that's a couple of days old where one of the planets involved in the scan has moved. That would give rise to false information. However, if one simply double checks that all planets in the scan are still there, at least when you're trying to parse an old scan, then it's no problem.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Right now, though, I'm more interested in another issue. The overview page you'll be directed to when you log in has an image created by the server which contains a pretty crappy visual overview of the data you've collected thus far. I'm not exactly a pro when it comes to "image GD", and that's the best I could do with an hour to spare. However, I have some ideas on how to make it a lot cooler, problem is I don't really know how to put it into code... :confused:

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

maybe this is a topic best moved to the programming discussion forum?
might get you more feedback

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

I doubt it. That forum is as good as dead.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Nah, I'll try not to bother you with too much programming stuff. I created this thread mainly to make it known that the page exists and is free to use. Once the round gets started I hope people will start to use the thread to comment on the site functions and perhaps come with an idea or two on how to improve it. Right now there's not too much to do but wait I guess...

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

sounds like an interesting webpage - if it works...etc..

who tells me that you aint gonna abuse my data for your own needs?

Noone I guess, right? ;)

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Well I tell you that I won't abuse the data. But no, I guess you can't be sure. I could try to encrypt entries into the database, but then again you couldn't be sure that I'd actually done that...

I'm not in an alliance at the moment, and I'm not even sure that I'll play this round (except for testing purposes, like trying to parse some scans and stuff), but on that you'll only have my word.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

/me thinks that Telcontar is the reincarnation of Sid with new ideas to gain intel.

I bet, next week the reincarnation of Focht or Zhil will start advertising PIA :D


[on a side-note: I think its a good thing, but I doubt anyone but n00bs will use it]

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

I agree with Lockhead. It's a nice tool but very few serious players are going to trust it.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Ok, well it's there to use if you want to - and if in the end only n00bs use it - so what?

That's fine with me. I did it because I thought it would be a fun thing to do, and if someone finds it useful then that's just a bonus as far as I'm concerned!

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

don't be dissuaded by untrusting people, keep at it, you'll find people will use it anyway.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

I think this is a great idea :D Probably won't use it with my alliance, but could be nice to use for an own personal intel record where I can delete what I want :>

Testet a little bit and found some bugs aswell D:
When deleting planets from the db the 'Browse database' page doesn't update correctly. It still lists the planet, but when I try to delete it again it says 'The planet could no be found in the database.'.

Also, overview shows empty groups/alliances.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Ok, thanx! Will look into it as soon as possible.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Hmm... that's weird. I don't get any of those bugs! Strange.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

:S
When deleting a planet it says it's deleted, but it still shows up. When trying to change the alliance on a deleted planet it says 'The planet could no be found in the database.'. Adding another planet on the same coords works and updates the alliance name.

When changing the alliance of a planet that should exist the changes doesn't appear on the browse db or overview. Adding a planet that already should exist makes the changes appear in overview and browse db.

Hope that helps. =)

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Weird, for me it seems to work fine. I'll get to the bottom of it tomorrow. I don't have time to do it today...

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

I rock at breaking stuff =)

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Found it. Simple, stupid misstake. Must have been a coincidence that it worked for me previously. But now it should work fine... fingers crossed

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Oi, didn't notice you had fixed it :o
Made another account and tried adding a few planets. Now the alliance doesn't show up under the browse page, but works fine on overview.

Still shows empty alliances on overview though ;p

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Might also come with a suggestion;
It would be nice to have a field to write down notes at each coord, like perhaps nick.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Ah, I see. It's probably fixed now? The overview only show the empty groups I made last night. Editing a planet to a group (made last night) that is emtpy will create another one with the same name, both appearing on overview. Adding a new planet to the empty group works. Can then delete the planet and therefor also the group =)

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

i pasted a gal status in there and it only parsed 4 planbets out of a possible 16

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Hoaas - Yeah, it's probably because you created the groups before it was fixed. It really should be working now, but hey, if you still have problems with it, I will look into it again.

Entropy - Could you paste the gal status here (mask the coordinates ofc)? The gal I'm in (yes, I decided to play this round after all) doesn't have any incomings... :cool: So I can't test if it works for me.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

messaged u it

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Seems parsing news scans might be a bit dangerous if it's a "group scan". Tried to parse one containing 2 news scans, it caused all the planets to be linked.

Not sure if that was clear, this is basicly what the scan contained, with other coords ofc:
News planet 1:1:1
Defended 1:1:2
Defended 2:2:2

News planet 9:9:1
Defended 9:9:2
Defended 9:9:3

These got linked:
1:1:1 2:2:2 9:9:1 9:9:2 9:9:3

(probably because the 'home planet' didn't get updated when starting to parse scan #2?)

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Yeah, that's it. I hadn't even considered that you might want to parse several scans at once... Ofc that's convenient. I'll look into it sometime later this week.

Re: PIA - the Planetarion Intelligance Agency
 

Just wanted everyone to know that in a couple of days (or at the very least before the r28 signups start) there will be a completely new and very much improved version of the site. It will replace the old one, and all data will be deleted. This is not a problem though, since the old intel is useless anyways :)

Hope you will like it. I like it very much :D