Command Deck

Command Deck gives your ARK staff 84 RCON and console commands that find players by name and park themselves after a game update instead of crashing it.

Command Deck is for the owner who has been burned by an admin command taking the whole server down. Extra command plugins reach into the game by name, and when a patch renames or removes what they reach for, the server dies with no stack and no warning. I check first. Every game function I use is confirmed present before I call it, so a patch costs you one command instead of your server. On top of that you get player targeting by name instead of long ids, the whole item and creature table built in, a confirm code before anything big, a full audit trail, and four Discord channels.

Supported Features

• A game update cannot crash you: I read the offsets file the loader itself built and check every game function before I touch it, so one that has moved parks one command and nothing else.
• Name a player the way you would say it: Type the survivor name, the platform name, the EOS id, the player id, or just part of a name, and I work out who you mean.
• The player id is always right there: Most admin commands want the in game player id, so I put it beside every name in every list and give you one line to paste.
• Finds people who logged off: I keep a name book of everyone I have seen, so you can look somebody up a fortnight after they last played.
• Items and creatures by name: I ship the whole table. Type part of a name and I hand back the GFI code, the item id and a spawn line ready to paste.
• It asks before it does something big: Anything touching more than one thing gives you a code first, and the code is tied to the exact number it matched.
• Every change leaves a receipt: Who ran it, who asked for it, what it landed on and whether it worked, in a database you read back with one command.
• Four Discord channels, not one: Everyday changes, alerts, look ups and health each get their own webhook, so a tame feed never buries a tribe wipe.
• Answers a bot as easily as a person: Add --json to anything and you get one line a bot can read, carrying the same words a person would have seen.
• It never floods your reply: Long answers page instead of cutting off, and I always say how many rows I left out.
• An in game window for your staff: Who is on, with player ids, and how the plugin is doing, without leaving the game.
• Your language, your words: Pick the language in the config and I speak it in game and in the console, and you can pass your own file to another owner.

Console & RCON Commands

Player Commands

This plugin runs on its own. Players do not need any commands. Everything sits on the server console and on RCON, where your staff work.

Permissions

Command Deck uses the free Permissions plugin. Your staff need a node to run a command in game. The server console and RCON always work, because whoever holds the RCON password already has full admin. Without the Permissions plugin the in game path is closed to everyone, which is on purpose.

Config

To see every configuration option, visit our docs. To edit your config files the easy way, open our configuration editor.

Requirements

• AsaApi v2.01 or newer
• A Windows ARK Survival Ascended server
• A licence key from NordBots.cc
• Permissions plugin, optional. Without it your console and RCON still work, only the in game path is closed.
• MySQL, optional. SQLite is the default and needs no setup at all.
• Discord, optional. Leave the webhooks empty and I post nothing.
• The free NordBots UI mod, optional, for the in game window.

Installation

1. Unzip the CommandDeck folder into ArkApi/Plugins/ so the folder name matches the DLL.
2. Open config.json and put your key under License then Key.
3. Open discord.json and paste your webhooks if you want Discord. Leave them empty if you do not.
4. Restart the server.
5. Watch ArkApi.log for the loaded line, then run Deck.Status and check every command says ready.

Support & Help

Need a hand or hit a snag? Join the Discord and I will help you get it running: https://discord.gg/8GGaEzWk9p

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Command Deck do?

Command Deck gives your staff 84 extra RCON and console commands for looking up players, tribes, creatures, structures and items, and for changing things when they need to. Every command explains itself if you send it with no arguments, so there is no command list to lose.

Will a game update break it and crash my server?

That is the whole reason Command Deck exists. Before calling anything in the game I read the offsets file the loader already built and check the function is really there. If a game update moved it, I park that one command and name it, and the rest keeps working. Run Deck.Soundings after a patch and I will tell you exactly what moved.

How do I install it?

Unzip the Command Deck folder into ArkApi/Plugins/ so the folder name matches the DLL, put your key in config.json, then restart the server. Watch ArkApi.log for the loaded line and run Deck.Status to see that every command is ready.

Do I need Permissions or a database?

Command Deck uses the free Permissions plugin to let your staff run commands in game, and without it the console and RCON still work as normal. The database is SQLite by default and needs no setup at all. Point it at MySQL when you want every map in a cluster to share one name book.

What happens if my licence runs out?

You keep every command that looks at things. Command Deck only stops the ones that change something, so your staff can still find a player id, read a tribe log and count the map while you sort it out.

My panel shows nothing when I run a command. Is it broken?

No. Some game panels do not print what RCON sends back, so the command runs and answers and the panel shows nothing. Set EchoAnswersToLog to true under General in config.json and Command Deck writes every answer into ArkApi.log where you can read it.

Was any AI content used in the making of this?

The source code itself was fully created by myself. I do use ChatGPT occasionally to generate product images, and I do use ChatGPT to generate the website descriptions. I do this because I don't speak native English perfectly. I am natively from Sweden, so I use GPT to help translate and write product descriptions. I also will sometimes use GPT to write better English logs. Majority of my Free plugins are open source, so you can review the code yourself and freely fork and edit it to your liking.