I'm against API and developed game statistics. Part of this game that I really like is that everything is player run. I firmly believe that if a org wants a statistic they need to do the research themselves. This makes in-game data WAY more valuable. It also adds a whole new dynamic to the game: media, and data collection orgs. If you want to know something like, a ship count on another org, the value of a company, or what areas are highly active, you should have to do the research yourself. Like the real world.
The reason for this, secrecy. If my org builds some crazy secret weapon, it's not fair that someone could look at statistics and data to determine a correlation. Immersion includes secrecy.
I know that it is really convenient to have that data on hand via websites and programs. So, my counter which includes an API of sorts.
- It Should be player built
- It needs to be able to communicate effectively
So, my solution is a really expensive item, Quantum Computer (QP), that runs LUA, non destructive, scripts, server side not client side with an instruction governor. It should be only available to organizations, and it should be able to communicate to the constructs run by that organization, and be able to send, not receive, to the web.