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Chapter 1 - Bridge Control

In this chapter, you will get your bridge computer online and bring it up to date with some basic data.

To do that, you will need to

  • understand the basics of functions,
  • be able to write return statements and
  • be able to use values of the types
    • string,
    • number and
    • boolean.

Finding the source code

The JavaScript filepath for this lesson is

src/brigeControl.js

Go on and open it up in your editor.

Challenges

As you start up your display on your bridge computer, you are swarmed with a series of error messages. It seems that the computer is now effectively denying you access to any of the main systems!

Not only that, but the name of the system you are currently in reads as undefined - that can't be right.

The computer also seems to have forgotten what year it is, and unhelpfully shows that your travel time so far is NaN - Not a Number.

Before you get anything else started, you'll need to take care of these problems.

Restore Critical system access

Find the function called allowMainSystemControl in your bridgeControl.js file. It should look like this:

const allowMainSystemControl = () => {
};

This function was supposed to return a boolean value stating whether or not the current user should have access rights to the main systems. But since it's just you on board, you can fix this for now by simply always granting access. To do that, implement code so that the function returns true.

Fix telemetry data

Find the function called getStarSystemName. It should look like this:

const getStarSystemName = () => {
};

This used to do a lookup on the interstaller star charts, but that's broken right now. Luckily, you know that you are in the Simia Prime, so for now we can fix the error by implementing code that returns the correct star system name.

Synchronize ship clocks

It seems the internal ship clocks have partially been disturbed by the solar flare. Date and time is still correct, but for some reason, your computer no longer knows what year it is!

Good thing your memory wasn't wiped, so all you need to do is set the return of the getCurrentYear function to be, well, the current year - which of course is 2722. The function looks like this, before your changes:

const getCurrentYear = () => {
};

Testing your progress

Once all the tasks in this lesson are done, your system should display:

  Bridge control systems..................... online

and show the subsystem trace for the next main system to fix, the life support:

===========================================================
  Starting failed subsytem trace
  Tracing life support systems
===========================================================

Next steps

This is the end of the bridge control lesson. The next lesson deals with variables, operators and function parameters.

Chapter 2, life support.