Thorium

A simulator controls platform

New here? Check out the contributing document.

Want something to work on? Here's where we need help. Not sure what it is or how to work with Thorium? Guides are in the docs website. Thorium accepts donations.

A note about support

Thorium is a "community support" project. While I encourage everyone to use it and continue to submit issues and bug reports, I won't be actively maintaining the project as I have in the past. Here's what I will continue to do:

Review issues
Review pull requests and provide feedback
Merge pull requests
Create new builds/releases
Encourage and assist other developers

I will not:

Actively build new features (usually -- some exceptions)
Actively fix bugs (usually -- some exceptions)
Guarantee a response or turnaround time
Give support over phone or in person (except through service contract agreements)

Fortunately, you can get help from the excellent people on Thorium's Discord Server.

If you need better support for your Thorium simulator, I more than happy to contract with you to do so. Fill out the Thorium Service Request Form to start that process.

If you want to learn to contribute to Thorium, check out the development video series for how to get started.

Hope this helps! ~Alex

What is Thorium

Thorium is a simulator controls platform which eventually hopes to encapsulate the following features (and maybe more):

Multiple simulators in the same framework
Multiple stations and cards
Arbitrary card assignments that can update in realtime
Realtime data sharing across devices
Federated architecture for supporting satellite devices (e.g. lighting control, Arduino panels, etc.)
Lighting Control
Sound Control
Video Control
3D Rendering
Physics Simulations
Pre-recorded macros
Timelines

And more. The above merely scratches the surface.

Thorium is flexible enough to provide a system for creating an integrated, distributed, fault-tolerant show-control system that can power lights, sound, video, and take input and provide output to a wide variety of devices.

Created with ❤ by Alex Anderson and Fyreworks.

Guiding Principles

Thorium is based on years of experience building starship simulator controls for Space Edventures centers in Utah. This experience drives a number of guiding principles which should underscore all feature development in the project:

The Flight Director is the master of the simulation. Therefore, everything in Thorium should support the flight director. New features should not remove control or power from the flight director. Features should also strive to not distract the flight director from giving the crew the best experience possible. The best features both give the flight director more ability to help the crew while not detracting from the flight director's focus.
Crew enjoyment is the primary reason for Thorium's use. Education, research, and training are all secondary objectives to the crew having a good time. Why? Because if the crew is not having a good time, they likely aren't learning or aren't providing good data for research. Features in Thorium should certainly foster good environments for education, but not understanding how a card works or a task being too difficult or too boring can quickly take away from students learning.
While Thorium works hard to be the end-all-be-all of starship simulator controls, there is no reason every single feature has to be bundled with Thorium itself. The core of Thorium is a way to distribute and configure data between multiple clients. Using the same mechanisms which crew clients connect, external clients, like lighting controllers and hardware panels, can also connect.
Thorium is a powerful platform. Regrettably, while its design allows for powerful interactions and screens, it isn't friendly for beginning developers like many previous simulator controls sets have been. This is one of the biggest downsides to Thorium. Something that could improve Thorium's experience for beginning developers would be ideal.

Getting Started

npm install
npm run start

Note: If you are on Windows, the dependencies are a little weird. You will have to run a few more commands

npm install
cd server
npm install
cd ../client
npm install
cd ..
npm run start

Then open the app or GraphiQL

Building the App

npm run build

Builds the app for production and bundles it into a packaged terminal app.

Deploying

If you have access to upload to the S3 bucket Thorium builds are stored in, you can run the npm run deploy command, which builds, bundles, and upload Thorium in one go. To use this command, you must have your AWS credentials configured in the ~/.aws/credentials file, like so:

[default]
aws_access_key_id = **Your key here**
aws_secret_access_key = **Your secret here**

Automatic release notes are currently being developed.

Migrating

Thorium does not use a traditional database; instead, it stores information in a json file. To migrate your Thorium instance to another computer, simply copy the snapshot.json and snapshot-restore.json files along with any assets you may be using and drop them in the new thorium directory. Startup the Thorium app and you'll be on your way.

Translations

Thorium is currently in the process of supporting i18n translations. Want to add translated strings for your language? If the language doesn't exist, add it to the package.json file. Also be sure to add the locale data to the /src/helpers/intl.js.

Translations are done with react-intl. A good example of how this can be used is the /src/containers/FilghtDirector/Welcome.js file.

Open-source Assets

When Thorium is started for the first time, in either development or production mode, it will automatically download assets from a remote server. These assets are regularly updated with content from the community.

You can download open-source licensed assets to be used with Thorium here.

Contributing your own assets

Interested in contributing your own images, movies, sounds, and more to this repository? File an Issue_ and we'll give you access.

To contribute missions, simulators, and documentation, create an account here and add your records in. Missions and simulators will need to be self-hosted. This can be easily achieved with a public Google Drive link.

Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

_Alex 💻 📖 🎨	_Emrix 💻 👀 🤔	_ctolley6 🤔 ✅	_{Todd Rasband} 🎨	_{Brent Anderson} 🤔	_Farpoint 🐛	_{Isaac Ostler} 🐛
_{Jed Fox} 💻	_Lilah 💻	_kimballfrank 🎨 🤔	_aBlueShadow 🤔 🌍	_{John Robe} 🐛 💻	_{Keith Smith} 🐛 💻	_MaesonBusk 📖
_{Eric Mansfield} 💻 ⚠️	_sassyspock 📖 🐛 💻	_Justin 📖 🐛 📝 💻	_thoriumsim 📖 ✅ 📹	_{JordanDeSmith} 💻	_{Mason Edmondson} 🐛