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Overview
The Polaris Task Force website (also known as the "web app") is intended to provide a meta-gaming interface for the Polaris Task Force Arma 3 unit's various user-created missions and campaigns.
What is the PTF web app?
Developed with NextJS and powered by the headless CMS PayloadCMS, the PTF web app acts as the main hub for all Polaris Task Force Arma 3 content. It offers a novel, interactive experience inspired by 4X strategy games, integrating similar features into the unit's Arma 3 activities.
The web app provides two primary interfaces to users.
- Frontend – This is the main interface for users to interact with the web app. Here, you can manage the unit budget, purchase assets, construct buildings, read mission briefings, view profiles, and more. The frontend is essentially the game part of the web app.
- Backend – This is the developer portal and dashboard, where all game definitions, rules, and data are created and managed. The backend acts as a game engine, controlling how the game works behind the scenes.
The Job System
Beyond the two user interfaces, the web app also manages and processes the "game state" that is created via automated rules and user interactions within the app. This aspect of the web app is referred to as the job system. The job system is an essential part of the app that runs on a specific time interval called a "game tick", which occurs every ten minutes.
The job system will process pending user actions as well as recalculate various parts of the game state. For example, the job system is responsible for finalizing currency transactions, producing new materials from factories, increasing research progress, and much more.
Permissions & Roles
Different members of the Polaris Task Force community will have different permissions and controls available to them through the web app. For example, the unit's logistics team will have administrative access to the definitions of assets, structures, and any other logistics-related items. The intelligence team will have administrative access to user profiles, missions, and the unit wiki. Regular users can expect standard (mostly read-only) access to the application, with exceptions for specific cases.
During the application's development, a quality-assurance team will be granted broad administrative rights, excluding only highly-sensitive, developer-specific areas within the application. The QA team is responsible for ensuring the stability and functionality of the application throughout its various stages of development. At the time of writing, the QA team consists of the following unit members:
- L. Vargas - Unit Supply Officer, Logistics
- A. Aries - Logistics
- I. Kronus - Head Intelligence Director, Intelligence
Glossary
The following terms are used regularly throughout the web app documentation and are compiled here for your convenience.
- Frontend
- This is the main interface for users to interact with the web app. Here, you can manage the unit budget, purchase assets, construct buildings, read mission briefings, view profiles, and more. The frontend is essentially the game part of the web app.
- Backend
- This is the developer portal and dashboard, where all game definitions, rules, and data are created and managed. The backend acts as a game engine, controlling how the game works behind the scenes.
- Job system
- The job system is an essential part of the app that automatically runs various game processes over time.
- Game tick
- The game tick is a specific time interval that occurs every ten minutes. The server automatically performs various operations on each game tick.