aa-freight 1.12.0

Freight is an Alliance Auth app for running a freight service.

Freight for Alliance Auth

Freight is an Alliance Auth (AA) app for running a freight service.

Contents

• Overview
• Key Features
• Screenshots
• Installation
• Updating
• Settings
• Operation Mode
• Permissions
• Pricing
• Contract Check
• Change Log

Overview

This app helps running a central freight service for an alliance or corporation. It allows different modes of operation that support the most common approaches a central freight service is setup. (e.g. for alliance members only or run by a corporation outside the alliance)

Key Features

Freight offers the following main features:

• Reward calculator allowing members to easily calculate the correct reward for their a courier contract
• Page showing the list of currently outstanding courier contracts incl. an indicator if the contract is compliant with the pricing for the respective route ("contract check")
• Multiple routes can be defined, each with its own pricing.
• It's possible to have the same pricing for both directions, or to have different pricings for each direction of the same route.
• Automatic notifications to freight pilots on Discord informing them about new courier contracts
• Automatic notifications to contract issuers on Discord informing them about the developing status of their contract or potentially issues
• Contract issuer can always check the current status of his courier contracts
• Statistics page showing key performance metrics for routes, pilots, customers
• Language support for English 🇺🇸 and German 🇩🇪

Screenshots

Reward Calculator

Contract List

Discord Notification

Installation

1 - Install app

Install into your Alliance Auth virtual environment from PyPI:

pip install aa-freight

2 - Update Eve Online app

Update the Eve Online app used for authentication in your AA installation to include the following scopes:

esi-universe.read_structures.v1
esi-contracts.read_corporation_contracts.v1

3 - Configure AA settings

Configure your AA settings (local.py) as follows:

• Add 'freight' to INSTALLED_APPS

• Add these lines add to bottom of your settings file:

  # settings for freight
  CELERYBEAT_SCHEDULE['freight_run_contracts_sync'] = {
      'task': 'freight.tasks.run_contracts_sync',
      'schedule': crontab(minute='*/10'),
  }
  

If you want to setup notifications for Discord you can now also add the required settings. Check out section Settings for details.

3a - Celery setup

This app uses celery for critical functions like refreshing data from ESI. We strongly recommend to enable the following additional settings for celery workers to enable proper logging and to protect against potential memory leaks:

• To enable logging of celery tasks up to info level: -l info

• To automatically restart workers that grow above 256 MB: --max-memory-per-child 262144

Here is how an example config would look for workers in your supervisor conf:

command=/home/allianceserver/venv/auth/bin/celery -A myauth worker -l info --max-memory-per-child 262144

On Ubuntu you can run systemctl status supervisor to see where your supervisor config file is located.

Note that you need to restart the supervisor service itself to activate those changes.

e.g. on Ubuntu:

systemctl restart supervisor

4 - Finalize installation into AA

Run migrations & copy static files

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py collectstatic

Restart your supervisor services for AA

5 - Setup permissions

Now you can access Alliance Auth and setup permissions for your users. See section Permissions below for details.

6 - Setup contract handler

Finally you need to set the contract handler with the character that will be used for fetching the corporation or alliance contracts and related structures. Just click on "Set Contract Handler" and add the requested token. Note that only users with the appropriate permission will be able to see and use this function. However, the respective character does not need any special corporation roles. Any corp member will work.

Once a contract handler is set the app will start fetching contracts. Wait a minute and then reload the contract list page to see the result.

7 - Define pricing

Finally go ahead and define the first pricing of a courier route. See section Pricing for details.

That's it. The Freight app is fully installed and ready to be used.

8 - Setup Discord Proxy (optional)

If you want Freight to send contract updates as direct messages to your users you need to have Discord Proxy running. You also need to have Discord Proxy installed in the same Python venv like Freight.

Once Discord Proxy is running just set FREIGHT_DISCORDPROXY_ENABLED = True in your local settings to enable this feature.

For details on how to setup Discord Proxy (if you don't have it running already) please see the installation documentation.

Updating

To update your existing installation of Freight first enable your virtual environment.

Then run the following commands from your AA project directory (the one that contains manage.py).

pip install -U aa-freight

python manage.py migrate

python manage.py collectstatic

Finally restart your AA supervisor services.

Settings

Here is a list of available settings for this app. They can be configured by adding them to your AA settings file (local.py). If they are not set the defaults are used.

Name	Description	Default
DISCORDPROXY_HOST	Port used to communicate with Discord Proxy.	localhost
DISCORDPROXY_PORT	Host used to communicate with Discord Proxy.	50051
FREIGHT_APP_NAME	Name of this app as shown in the Auth sidebar, page titles and as default avatar name for notifications.	Freight
FREIGHT_CONTRACT_SYNC_GRACE_MINUTES	Sets the number minutes until a delayed sync will be recognized as error.	30
FREIGHT_DISCORDPROXY_ENABLED	Whether to use Discord Proxy for sending customer notifications as direct messages. This requires the app Discord Proxy to be setup and running on your system and AA's Discord Services to be enabled.	False
FREIGHT_DISCORD_AVATAR_NAME	Will be shown as "user name" instead of what is configured as app name for notifications when defined. Optional.	None
FREIGHT_DISCORD_CUSTOMERS_WEBHOOK_URL	Webhook URL for the Discord channel where contract notifications for customers should appear. Optional.	None
FREIGHT_DISCORD_DISABLE_BRANDING	Turns off setting the name and avatar url for the webhook. Notifications will be posted by a bot called "Freight" with the logo of your organization as avatar image.	False
FREIGHT_DISCORD_MENTIONS	Optional mention string put in front of every notification to create pings. Typical values are: @here or @everyone. You can also mention roles, however you will need to add the role ID for that. The format is: <@&role_id> and you can get the role ID by entering _<@role_name> in a channel on Discord. See this link for details.	None
FREIGHT_DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL	Webhook URL used for the Discord channel where contract notifications for pilots should appear. Optional.	None
FREIGHT_ESI_TIMEOUT_ENABLED	Whether ESI requests have a timeout.	True
FREIGHT_FULL_ROUTE_NAMES	Show full name of locations in route, e.g on calculator drop down.	False
FREIGHT_HOURS_UNTIL_STALE_STATUS	Defines after how many hours the status of a contract is considered to be stale. Customer notifications will not be sent for a contract status that has become stale. This settings also prevents the app from sending out customer notifications for old contracts.	24
FREIGHT_NOTIFY_ALL_CONTRACTS	Send discord notifications about every contract, even if no pricing defined.	False
FREIGHT_OPERATION_MODE	Operation mode to use. Note that switching operation modes requires you to remove the existing contract handler with all its contracts and then setup a new contract handler.	my_alliance
FREIGHT_STATISTICS_MAX_DAYS	Sets the number of days that are considered for creating the statistics.	90

Operation Mode

The operation mode defines which contracts are processed by the Freight. For example you can define that only contracts assigned to your alliance are processed. Any courier contract that is not in scope of the configured operation mode will be ignored by the freight app and e.g. not show up in the contract list or generate notifications.

Overview

The following operation modes are available:

Name	Description
'my_alliance'	courier contracts assigned to configured alliance by an alliance member
'my_corporation'	courier contracts assigned to configured corporation by a corp member
'corp_in_alliance'	courier contracts assigned to configured corporation by an alliance member
'corp_public'	any courier contract assigned to the configured corporation

Switching operation modes

You can switch to a different operation mode with the following process. Please note that this will delete your current contract statistics:

• Delete the current contract handler. This can be done on the admin site with the delete action.
• Change the operation mode in your local settings
• Restart your AA instance
• Create a new contract handler with the "Setup My Corporation/Alliance" button

Permissions

This is an overview of all permissions used by this app:

Name	Purpose	Code
Can add / update locations	User can add and update Eve Online contract locations, e.g. stations and upwell structures	add_location
Can access this app	Enabling the app for a user. This permission should be enabled for everyone who is allowed to use the app (e.g. Member state)	basic_access
Can setup contract handler	Add or updates the character for syncing contracts. This should be limited to users with admins / leadership privileges. Note that characters need to retain that permission for the update process to continue to function.	setup_contract_handler
Can use the calculator	Enables using the calculator page and the "My Contracts" page. This permission is usually enabled for every user with the member state.	use_calculator
Can view the contracts list	Enables viewing the page with all outstanding courier contracts	view_contracts
Can see statistics	User with this permission can view the statistics page	view_statistics

Pricing

A pricing defines a route and the parameters for calculating the price for that route along with some additional information for the users. You can define multiple pricings if you want, but at least one pricing has to be defined for this app to work.

Pricing routes are bidirectional by default. For bidirectional pricings courier contracts in both directions are matched against the same pricing. Alternatively pricings can also be defined individually for each direction.

Pricings are defined in the admin section of AA, so you need staff permissions to access it.

Most parameters of a pricing are optional, but you need to define at least one of the four pricing components to create a valid pricing. It's also possible to define a route that does not require a reward by setting "Price base" to 0 and not setting any other pricing components.

All pricing parameters can be found on the admin panel under Pricing, with the exception of the "price per volume modifier", which is a global pricing parameter and therefore property of the ContractHandler.

Parameter	Description	Pricing Functionality
Start Location	Starting station or structure for courier route	-
End Location	Destination station or structure for courier route	-
Is Active	Non active pricings will not be used or shown	-
Is Bidirectional	Wether this pricing shall apply to contracts for both directions of the route or only the specified direction	-
Price base	Base price in ISK. If this is the only defined pricing component it will be shown as "Fix price" in the calculator.	Pricing component
Price min	Minimum total price in ISK	Pricing component
Price per volume	Add-on price per m3 volume in ISK	Pricing component
Use price per volume modifier	Switch defining if the global price per volume modifier should be used for pricing	Pricing flag
Price per volume modifier	Global modifier for price per volume in percent. The purpose of this modifier is to be able to compensate for fuel price fluctuations, without having to adjust pricing for many individual routes. When used it will be added to the price per volume. It can be positive and negative, and the resulting price per volume will always be >= 0. e.g. if you have set a price of 200 ISK per m3 on a route, and set the global modifier to 10% then you get 220 ISK per m3 effectively. (defined for ContractHandler)	Pricing modifier
Price per collateral_percent	Add-on price in % of collateral	Pricing component
Collateral min	Minimum required collateral in ISK	Validation check
Collateral max	Maximum allowed collateral in ISK	Validation check
Volume min	Minimum allowed volume in m3	Validation check
Volume max	Maximum allowed volume in m3	Validation check
Days to expire	Recommended days for contracts to expire	Info
Days to complete	Recommended days for contract completion	Info
Details	Text with additional instructions for using this pricing	Info

How to add new locations:
If you are creating a pricing for a new route you may need to first add the locations (stations and/or structures).
The easiest way is to create a courier contract between those locations in game and then run contract sync. Those locations will then be added automatically.
Alternatively you can use the "Add Location" feature on the main page of the app. This will require you to provide the respective station or structure eve ID.

Contract Check

The app will automatically check if a newly issued contract complies with the pricing parameters for the respective route. If you want to be notified about all contracts, even without correct pricing, set FREIGHT_NOTIFY_ALL_CONTRACTS option to True

Compliant contracts will have a green checkmark (✓) in the "Contract Check" column on the contract list. Related notifications on Discord will be colored in green.

Non-compliant contracts will have a red warning sign in the "Contract Check" column on the contract list. And related notifications on Discord will be colored in red. In addition the first customer notification will inform the customer about the issues and ask him to correct the issues.

The following parameters will be checked (if they have been defined):

• reward in contract >= calculated reward
• volume min <= volume in contract <= volume max
• collateral min <= collateral in contract <= collateral max

Deviations on "Days to expire" and "Days to complete" are currently not part of the contract check and only used to show the recommended contract parameters in the calculator.