hackmudrc file?

[jckirton]

What if hackmud users could have something like a .zshrc? The primary purpose of this would be to define scripts that run when you first login to that user in that game instance. (It would only do it once, and wouldn't do it again until you quit the game, but maybe this could be customised?)

This could also be a place to store per-user settings, like default chat pane channels and scripts.

[jumpsplat120]

I second this! It would be a great way to do "startup" stuff; a script that shows you currently active users, or the change in corps.top since last login, or checks your logs to see if you were poked/breached, check your "emails" from an email script, etc etc.

Like cron_bot_v1/cron_bot_v2, it would make sense for it to be an upgrade. Could be called st4rt_up or something, and would run a specially named just like cron_bot does. Could cost some amount of GC per run, and could have a stat called run_count that runs the script more than once. That way, if your login process involves running 4 or 5 scripts that might take 1-2 seconds each, you could throw them into your startup script and check context for the context.run_count, the same way context has is_brain for a bot_brain. So a minimal example might be

function(c, a) {
    //Let's us run our startup script manually if we'd like.
    c.run_count = c.run_count || a.run_count;
    
    if (c.run_count === 1) return #fs.emails.check({ user: "jumpsplat120", pass: "hunter2" });
    if (c.run_count === 2) return #fs.jumpsplat120.scan({ tier: 1 });
    if (c.run_count === 3) return #fs.jumpsplat120.scan({ tier: 2 });
    if (c.run_count === 4) return #ms.https.neofetch();
    
    //If our run count is higher than 4, we return nothing, since we want neofetch
    //to be the last thing displayed, and we only want it to show the one time.
}```

[jumpsplat120]

Higher run counts === higher GC cost per run as well. This is already something we can basically do in game (tracking a counter in the DB, and running /auto) but we'd be paying for the privilege to do it.

As far as what it brings to the table, it's another GC sink (always helpful, since GC is incredibly easy to come by), increases the loot pool and therefore market variety, can be another executive upgrade (since it's sort of QoL, in the same way channel count avoids needing to leave/rejoin [I'm just presuming I understand what role an executive upgrade is, since a sample size of 1 can be hard to draw and hard conclusions from]), and gives users a new vector with which to interact in the mud.

Here's an example of some of the new modes of play that are opened with a startup script. https.neofetch is a neat script mimicking the features of the CLI tool neofetch, but there's almost zero reason to run it after your first go. If a user wants to see their specs, they'll likely just run sys.specs over a user created script. But if it's something they're going to see on every launch, then they might actually desire to see that info displayed in a more interesting way. That has value to all types of players.
For grayhats, they'd gain the ability to track usage statistics/activity rates of a user/users. They could also cross reference saved data to determine potential alts of a user. This opens up new methods of opsec play, both to "attack" and "defend" with.
For blackhats, a script that is guaranteed to run can be a trojan's horse. https.neofetch is MIDSEC due to calling scripts.user, but this leaves open the opportunity for it's functionality to change from a fancy display of information to theft of GC without needing to change security levels.