Recoil Autohost

Starts Recoil engine dedicated game servers as-a-service over the Tachyon protocol.

---
title: Whole system view
---
graph LR
  subgraph player's machine
    lobby --> engine
  end

  lobby-server <-- tachyon protocol --> autohost
  lobby-server <-- tachyon protocol --> lobby

  subgraph game server
    autohost <-- engine autohost protocol --> engine-dedicated
    engine-dedicated <-- engine protocol --> engine
  end

  style autohost stroke-width:2px,stroke-dasharray:4,stroke:#ee4444

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Overview

This repo contain the Autohost service as defined in the Tachyon protocol definition. The service connects to the configured lobby server endpoint and allows lobby to start new battles. A single Autohost service can manage many battles in parallel. The autohost then facilitates communication between the running dedicated Recoil engine processes and lobby server (for example Teiserver): messages, commands, game updates.

Currently the service implements fully the Tachyon Autohost endpoints but isn't yet fully ready for production deployments.

Usage

Autohost takes a single JSON configuration file as argument and starts the operation:

npm install
npm run start config.json | npx pino-pretty

A minimal configuration file looks like:

{
  "tachyonServer": "lobby-server.example.com",
  "authClientId": "autohost1",
  "authClientSecret": "pass1",
  "hostingIP": "123.123.123.123"
}

To see all options take a look at schema in src/config.ts.

Autohost expects existence of engines folder that contains folder with different engine versions, for example:

$ tree engines -L 1
engines
├── 105.1.1-2590-gb9462a0 BAR105
└── local -> ../../spring/build-linux/install

During execution, autohost creates a new directory for each started battle under instances directory, for example instances/5a7b1354-e3ff-4a98-946e-9bece3b869a3/.

Development

Git hooks

It is recommended to set up a simple Git pre-commit hook provided in the repo (pre-commit) that runs automatic checks on changes in every new commit: formatting type-checking, tests, linting.

ln -s ../../pre-commit .git/hooks/pre-commit

Testing with tachyon server fake

This repository contains a minimal bare bones implementation of Tachyon lobby server: src/tachyonServer.fake.ts that can be used to test full end to end behavior of autohost without running real server.

To start the service run

npm run start-tachyon-fake | npx pino-pretty

The service will listed for autohost on port 8084 and config.dev.json contains the config that will make autohost connect to it:

npm run start config.dev.json | npx pino-pretty

The fake prints all tachyon messages it receives and sends JSON messages it gets via HTTP to the connected autohost. See below example session to see how autohost/subscribeUpdates and autohost/start are send to first connected autohost.

Example session

1. Set up BAR checkout as described in the main game repository https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason.

2. Make sure you have "Quicksilver Remake 1.24" map installed.

3. Fetch engine

   curl -L https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring/releases/download/spring_bar_%7BBAR105%7D105.1.1-2590-gb9462a0/spring_bar_.BAR105.105.1.1-2590-gb9462a0_linux-64-minimal-portable.7z -o engine.7z
   7z x engine.7z -o'engines/105.1.1-2590-gb9462a0 BAR105'

4. Start tachyon fake and autohost as described above.

5. Subscribe to all updates from autohost.

   printf '{"since":%d}' $(date '+%s%6N') | curl --json @- http://127.0.0.1:8084/request/0/subscribeUpdates

6. Create a simple start script request in start.json:

   {
     "battleId": null,
     "engineVersion": "105.1.1-2590-gb9462a0 BAR105",
     "gameName": "Beyond All Reason $VERSION",
     "mapName": "Quicksilver Remake 1.24",
     "startPosType": "ingame",
     "allyTeams": [{
       "startBox": { "top": 0, "bottom": 0.3, "left": 0, "right": 1 },
       "teams": [{
         "faction": "Cortex",
         "bots": [{
           "aiShortName": "BARb",
           "aiVersion": "stable",
           "hostUserId": "11111"
         }]
       }]
     }, {
       "startBox": { "top": 0.7, "bottom": 1, "left": 0, "right": 1 },
       "teams": [{
         "faction": "Armada",
         "players": [{
           "userId": "11111",
           "name": "Player",
           "password": "password1"
         }]
       }]
     }]
   }

7. Start the engine dedicated in autohost:

   jq ".battleId = \"$(uuidgen -r)\"" start.json | curl --json @- http://127.0.0.1:8084/request/0/start

8. Join the game yourself, using the port that will be printed on the tachyon server fake output and user name and password from start.json:

   ./engines/105.1.1-2590-gb9462a0\ BAR105/spring --isolation --write-dir "{absolute path to your data folder}""  spring://Player:[email protected]:20001

Note

Until a fix gets released in some of the future engine version, you have only 30s between autohost starts the game and you connect to it.