Cargo Box D57-002
A terminal mod manager for RimWorld. It self-updates from its own release server.
rust · ratatui
❯ fastfetch
- dan
- @d57.dev
- org
- D57 Mechatronics
- location
- united kingdom (wales)
- role
- web application developer · 2.5 yrs
- status
- happy to talk about work
- pitch
- projects [at] d57.dev # got a project idea?
- langs
- rust, typescript, c (learning), lua
- spoken
- english, russian (learning)
- runtime
- node, bun
- day job
- js, angularjs, html, css, sql
- homelab
- poweredge r720, proxmox
- editor
- zed
- games
- dcs world, rimworld, all sorts
- space
- starship · launches
- hardware
- a drone, sim panels, rp2350, gyros
- complete
- 4
- on bench
- 6
- graveyard
- 13 (rip)
❯ cat README.md
# d57
Tools, mods and experiments in Rust and TypeScript, mostly for the games I play, and some of it finished. Any Lua you see here was written because DCS left no choice.
I'm Dan, a web and software developer in Wales. By day it's JavaScript, Node and very old Angular, and by night it's a PowerEdge R720 in the corner running Proxmox and more services than strictly necessary.
❯ ls -t ~/projects | head -7
| 27 sep | cargo-box |
| 18 sep | readscreen |
| 09 sep | sun-config |
| 02 aug | gyrotrack |
| 29 jul | battle-flow-engine |
| 19 jul | zedlua |
| 05 may | plastic-theme |
2 complete
Plastic for Zed D57-003
A port of Will Stone's Plastic theme from VS Code to the Zed editor, including the deprioritised-punctuation variant.
zed · theme
LiveryFix D57-004
A fast little Rust utility that fixes broken DCS livery installs. It replaced two earlier attempts.
dcs · rust
DCS Lua Runner D57-007
Sends a Lua selection or file from Zed straight into a running DCS instance and returns the result. No more restarting missions to test one line.
dcs · zed · lua
* has a README. click to read.
# Cargo Box
D57-002 · complete
A mod manager for RimWorld, written for me and my friends. Our mod lists run to hundreds of mods, and keeping everyone on the same set, in the same order, by hand was a job in itself.
## what it does
- Presets: save a mod list, or import someone else's and it subscribes you to every mod in it.
- Converts mod textures to DDS, which RimWorld loads faster.
- Sorts the load order. Most mods say what they need to load after; for the ones that don't, it guesses from the name, so
x-fixlands afterx.
## how it's built
Rust, with Ratatui for the terminal interface.
## where it runs
On my friends' PCs. It's three files: the program itself, just 4.25 MB, plus the two it needs to talk to the Steam Workshop. It keeps itself up to date too: every time it starts, it checks my release server for a new version.
## what I'd add next
A very, very rare thing for me: I think it's done. Unless someone has a brilliant idea or we find a bug, I'm happy to call it finished.
# LiveryFix
D57-004 · complete
The third go at unlocking DCS liveries, and the one that stuck (the first two are in the graveyard). Drop it in your liveries folder and hit Enter, or give it the path, and every livery locked to certain countries is free to fly.
## what it does
- Finds every livery's
description.luaunder the folder. - Comments out the
countriesblock, whether it's one line or spread over several. Nothing else in the file changes. - Leaves anything already commented out alone, so it's safe to run again whenever new liveries go in.
- Tells you exactly what it changed, aircraft by aircraft.
## how it's built
Rust. It walks the folder with walkdir and edits the files in parallel with rayon, so even a big livery folder is quick. There are tests for the fiddly Lua cases, like trailing commas and comments after the closing brace, and a benchmark to keep it fast.
## where it runs
On the PC, next to the liveries. One small .exe, nothing to install.
## what I'd add next
Nothing much. It does one job, and does it quickly.
3 on the bench
Readscreen D57-009
A web app in Rust, still being built. More once I know whether it's a keeper or one for the graveyard.
rust · axum · htmx
Sun Config D57-006
A native keyboard workbench styled after Sun workstations, with per-app remapping on Windows.
rust · egui
Pico Load Cell D57-008
Embedded firmware for a load cell on the RP2350. The mechatronics part of the name.
rust · embedded
GyroTrack D57-010
A gyro-based tracker built around the IAM-20380. At the moment it's a PDF and good intentions.
hardware
UFC & MFCD Panels D57-011
Physical cockpit panels for flight simming: an up-front controller and a pair of multi-function display bezels. The start of the hardware rabbit hole.
hardware · dcs
Talon 1400 V2 D57-012
A drone build that's about 95% done. As everyone knows, the last 5% is the other 95%.
hardware · drone
4 graveyard
❯ ls -l ~/graveyard
| permissions | project | note |
|---|---|---|
| d--------- | battle-flow-engine | # capture the zone to capture the zone to capture the zone |
| d--------- | discord-bots/ | # five bots, one idea |
| d--------- | discordbot | # there were more. we don't talk about discordbot4 |
| d--------- | discordbot3 | # third time lucky. it wasn't |
| d--------- | discordbot5 | # see above, again |
| d--------- | gpdiscordbot | # a general-purpose bot for no purpose in general |
| d--------- | reforger-bot | # it was a discord bot |
| d--------- | monopoly/ | # proved nobody wins monopoly |
| d--------- | monopoly-simulator-js | # proved it once |
| d--------- | monosim | # proved it again, faster |
| d--------- | dcs-livery/ | # died so liveryfix could live |
| d--------- | dcs-livery-manager | # attempt one |
| d--------- | dcs-livery-fix | # attempt two |
| d--------- | dcs-servermanager | # the server managed itself in the end |
| d--------- | meal-planner | # planned zero meals |
| d--------- | novumbb | # a forum for a community of one |
* has a post-mortem. click to read.
# Battle Flow Engine
D57-005 · retired
A dynamic campaign for DCS: a war that carries on between sessions, with supplies, convoys and an AI commander on each side. The mission file held a single init.lua; everything else ran on a server, so the campaign could be far bigger than a mission file allows.
## what it had
- Supplies that were reserved before they were spent, so nothing got used twice.
- Road convoys and garrisons that stayed put between sessions. Ground units were packed away when nobody was near and came back exactly where they'd been.
- AI air forces with real airframes, sorties, losses and turnaround time.
- A commander on each side with a budget, planning only around what they'd actually spotted.
- A PostgreSQL database behind it, so nothing was lost if the server fell over.
- 12,025 generated weapon loadouts, each checked against what DCS actually allows.
## what killed it
From the cockpit, it was still capture the zone. All that machinery only decided which zone came next.
## lesson
Simulation depth the player can't see or influence is very expensive set dressing.
# Discord bots
D57-013 · retired
A series of unfortunate bots.
Five of them. Most were general-purpose server bots with the usual commands. Two did something more interesting:
discordbot3was for a New World guild. It ran a bounty board: members posted bounties for in-game resources or gold, and others claimed them.reforger-botwas for a DCS World mission. Players could talk to the game with slash commands and get live data back in Discord.
## what it had
- Slash commands and embeds.
- Links into games and databases.
## what killed it
Scope creep. Each one started small, kept growing, and never had a finished shape to grow towards.
## lesson
Know what the finished thing should do, and how you'll build it, before starting.
They were all written with discord.js. Next time I'd like to try Rust, with Serenity.
# Monopoly simulators
D57-014 · retired
Cheating never pays. (Robbing the Monopoly bank is easier.)
The idea: roll the dice enough times and patterns fall out, like which squares get landed on most. Both simulated hundreds of millions of throws around the board. One was JavaScript (Node), the other an early Rust project of mine.
## what it had
- Lots of numbers.
- A Rust rewrite that got to the same numbers faster.
## what killed it
Nothing, really. It's retired rather than dead.
## lesson
This is a terrible way to cheat at Monopoly.
# DCS livery tools
D57-015 · retired
Two attempts at unlocking DCS liveries.
In DCS World you can make custom liveries for aircraft. Each one comes with a Lua file that tells the game where every part of the livery goes, and that file can include a countries line locking the livery to certain countries. That gets very limiting in multiplayer, where, as we all know, looking cool is 80% of the battle. These tools found every livery and switched that line off.
## what it had
- A search through the whole livery folder tree.
- Commenting out exactly the right lines, and nothing else.
## what killed it
I was never happy with the UI or how they worked, and one of them was JavaScript (Node) again.
## lesson
I did learn my lesson: I started again, did it differently, and ended up with liveryfix, in Rust.
# DCS Server Manager
D57-016 · retired
An all-in-one settings manager for a DCS server and SRS, the radio server that runs alongside it. One place for everything, instead of a config file each.
## what it had
- Every setting for both servers, from ports and passwords to the advanced options.
- A terminal interface, written in Rust with Ratatui.
## what killed it
No real use case. It didn't make anything much easier than editing the settings files directly.
## lesson
A manager has to do something the config files can't. Next time: a bigger tool that also bridges in-game chat and runs several DCS and SRS servers at once.
# Meal planner
D57-017 · retired
My father built a meal planner in Express, which is also what I'd normally reach for. I rebuilt it feature for feature in React, with Next.js, as practice with something I don't use every day.
## what it had
- Everything his version had at the time, one for one.
- Recipes, ingredients and menus, planned out on a calendar.
- Logins with hashed passwords and signed session tokens.
## what killed it
Nothing. It was practice, and it did its job.
## lesson
Not much. Knowing more React now, I'd probably find better ways to do a few things.
# NovumBB
D57-018 · retired
Ah, NovumBB: my homage to the bulletin board forums of the 90s and 00s, built the way they were. Pages rendered on the server, no front-end framework.
## what it had
- Express, TypeScript and Nunjucks templates.
- Accounts, topics and posts. Just about.
## what killed it
Sadly, there's no demand or need for it these days.
## lesson
Nostalgia is a fine reason to build something, but not a reason for anyone to use it.
5 ~/dan
❯ finger dan@d57.dev
Login: danDirectory: /home/danShell: /bin/zsh
Plan:
- building
- the talon 1400 v2. the last 5% is the hard part.
- starting
- ufc + mfcd panels for the sim pit
- learning
- russian, slowly (пикник на обочине is the goal)
❯ ls ~/books | head
- the hunt for red october # favourite, book and film
- red storm rising
- the cardinal of the kremlin
- flight of the intruder
- spycatcher
- the second world war # his memoirs of it
- the altered carbon series
- the man in the high castle
- do androids dream of electric sheep?
- пикник на обочине # learning enough russian to read it in the original
# a select few. the real shelf is a lot longer.
❯ cat ~/ideas.md
- put something on d57.dev
- a dcs campaign that isn't capture the zone # no idea how yet
- a proper project for bun # always looking for an excuse
# got one for me? projects [at] d57.dev
❯ cat ~/games/favourites
dcs world most of the modules: ~40 aircraft · 11 maps · 10 campaigns
- # jets
- # helis
- favourite
- f-4e phantom ii
- mi-24p hind
- close 2nd
- f-14b(u) tomcat
- oh-58d kiowa warrior
- wishlist
- a-6e intruder · tornado ids · eurofighter
- maps
- cold war germany · syria · kola · persian gulf · afghanistan · iraq · caucasus · and the rest
- campaigns
- mig killers · arctic thunder · speed and angels
- half-life1, 2, ep1, ep2, alyx, 3
- deus exhuman revolution, mankind divided
- mass effect1, 2, 3
- baldur's gate 3
- divinity: original sin 2
- cyberpunk 2077
- rimworld# hence cargo-box
- hitmanblood money, the new trilogy
- splinter cellthe original, chaos theory, double agent
- metal gear solid1, 2, 3
❯ cat ~/skills
- # web
- typescript
- this site and its bun tooling
- javascript
- day job: angularjs, node
- html, css
- day job, this site
- react
- practice, like meal-planner
- htmx
- readscreen
- csp, headers
- this site
- # rust
- axum
- readscreen
- egui
- sun-config
- ratatui
- cargo-box
- embedded
- rp2350, on the pico load cell
- # data
- mysql
- day job
- postgresql
- homelab
- mariadb
- the discord bots
- mongodb
- the discord bots
- elasticsearch
- the discord bots
- # infra
- linux
- cachyos, and the servers
- proxmox
- homelab
- docker
- homelab
- nginx, haproxy
- hosting this site
- systemd
- the services behind this site
- zerotier
- homelab
- gitlab
- self-hosted
- game servers
- hosted on the homelab
- # hardware
- soldering
- the drone, sim panels
- 3d printing
- centauri carbon + canvas
- was: neptune 4 pro, ender 3 pro
- cad
- solidworks, fusion, freecad
- # also
- zed extensions
- plastic-theme, dcs lua runner
6 ~/space
❯ starship --status
- next
- checking…
- firsts
- [x] hop 26 jul 2019
- [x] landing 5 may 2021
- [x] flight 20 apr 2023
- [x] booster catch 13 oct 2024
- [x] block 2 16 jan 2025
- [x] booster reuse 27 may 2025
- [x] block 3 22 may 2026
- [x] orbit 28 sep 2026
- [x] payload to orbit 28 sep 2026
- [ ] ship catch not yet
- [ ] ship reuse not yet
- [ ] on-orbit refuelling not yet
❯ launches
- next
- checking…
# live launch data from launch library 2, by the awesome people at the space devs# live launch data needs javascript