Expedition into Space

The upsolving of this problem will be available for the meantime. Try it at https://expedition.midnightcodecup.org/.

In 2239, Earth has finally joined the Galaxy Republic. Now, its biggest bank, Involut, wants to obtain the Galaxy Bank Licence and has made a request to the regulator. The response was simple: there are 15 hidden keys in space, and the bank has to find them all.

Obviously, the bank owners decided to ask you to find them! Luckily, they gave you a spaceship... Try to find as many keys as possible!

Web Client

There is a web client available at https://expedition.midnightcodecup.org/

• Log in and click Connect
• Use arrow keys to control the acceleration of the ship
• Full stop button applies maximum breaking until the ship stops. Use it if you want to stop and observe an interesting place
• Reset ship button teleports the ship back to the starting position. Use it if you get lost in space
• Keyboard shortcuts:
  • Arrow keys — nudge acceleration
  • Shift + arrow keys — larger acceleration step
  • Space — zero thrust
  • S — stop

Physics

• Your ship has:
  • position
  • velocity
  • acceleration
• You can set the ship acceleration vector.
  • Maximum acceleration magnitude is 10.
    • If you send a larger acceleration vector, it is automatically scaled down to length 10, preserving direction.
• There are two additional commands: stop and reset.
• Command stop:
  • applies maximum reverse acceleration
  • keeps braking until the ship speed becomes zero
• Command reset:
  • teleports the ship back to the starting point
  • resets velocity and acceleration to zero

Authentication

Requests must include your API token:

Authorization: Bearer <team-api-token>

You can obtain the token in the web client UI.

If the API token is missing, the server returns 401 Unauthorized.

If the API token is invalid, the server returns 403 Forbidden.

API

API root: https://expedition.midnightcodecup.org/api/spaceship

All endpoint paths below are relative to this API root.

1. Get current ship state

GET /

Returns JSON:

{
  "teamId": 123,
  "teamName": "Your Team",
  "position": { "x": 0.0, "y": 0.0 },
  "velocity": { "x": 0.0, "y": 0.0 },
  "acceleration": { "x": 0.0, "y": 0.0 },
  "updatedAtMillis": 1760000000000
}

2. Set acceleration

POST /acceleration?ax={double}&ay={double}

Example:

POST /acceleration?ax=3.5&ay=-1.0

Returns the updated ship state as JSON.

3. Full stop

POST /stop

The server applies maximum reverse acceleration until the ship speed reaches zero.

Returns the updated ship state as JSON.

4. Reset ship

POST /reset

Resets the ship to the starting point with zero velocity and zero acceleration.

Returns the updated ship state as JSON.

5. Get current view

GET /view

Optional parameter:

• tool={string}

Returns:

• a 1000x1000 PNG image centered on your current ship position

This endpoint is rate-limited to 5 requests per second per team. Extra requests return 429 Too Many Requests.

The response also includes the current ship state in headers:

• X-Spaceship-State
• X-Spaceship-Team-Id
• X-Spaceship-Position-X
• X-Spaceship-Position-Y
• X-Spaceship-Velocity-X
• X-Spaceship-Velocity-Y
• X-Spaceship-Acceleration-X
• X-Spaceship-Acceleration-Y
• X-Spaceship-Updated-At-Millis

This lets you know the exact ship state corresponding to the returned image.

Tools

The view endpoint accepts an optional tool string.

A tool is just a string that is passed to the renderer:

GET /view?tool=<tool-name>

If you find some tool during your journey, you can use it here.

Scoring

Submit found key strings to the checksystem. Each accepted key is worth 160 points. A key can be scored at most once per team.

The maximum score for this problem is 2400 points.

Have a good adventure, explorers!