18xx.games Desktop Dashboard

Stop Auditing Spreadsheets. Start Playing the Board Game. If you love 18xx, you already know that 18xx.games is an engineering marvel. It enforces complex rules flawlessly, handles intricate dividend math, and connects players worldwide. The 18xx Desktop Dashboard provides an alternative, persistent, zero-tab spatial canvas engineered specifically for desktop displays. It replaces constant tab-flipping with an immutable tabletop layout that restores the tactile clarity and peripheral intuition of physical board games. The Tabletop Command View Instead of hiding critical information behind separate tabs, the dashboard organizes the entire game state into a unified, simultaneous view: The Map (Left Panel): Anchored permanently in full resolution. Never disappears, unloads, or resets your zoom level. Corporate Status Ledger (Top Right): Real-time breakdown of player cash, certificate counts, total valuation, and priority deal alongside active corporation treasuries, train rosters, and station tokens. Live Stock Market (Bottom Right): Persistent stock matrix with live market prices, ledger brackets, par values, and token stacks. Contextual Turn Hub & Action Drawer: Automatically slides out when you have priority to guide track lays, token placements, route runs, and share transactions, then stows away when your turn passes. Six Core Innovations Zero Tabs, Zero Cognitive Friction Evaluate track upgrades on the map, verify company cash in the ledger, check stock prices on the market, and run your revenue calculation simultaneously without navigating between tabs. Kinematic Peripheral Motion When trains rust, shares transfer, or dividends pay out, game assets physically glide across the screen from origin to destination. In live voice matches, your peripheral vision registers every transaction without having to audit text logs. Relational Highlighting Hovering over any game entity (a corporation token on the board, a certificate in a player’s portfolio, or a market marker) causes all of its representations across the entire screen to pulse in a synchronized glow. The Action Hub with Sensory Alerting Never stall a turn or miss priority. When action is required, an ambient boundary illuminates your active viewport, an acoustic notification chime plays, and the Action Hub presents an orderly checklist of legal moves. Strategic Overlays at a Keystroke Route Revenue ($): Overlays computed route revenue numbers directly onto running track hexes and station nodes. Town & Hex Names (T): Toggles coordinate labels and geographic town names on the map canvas. Corporate Emblems (L): Instant toggle between full-color corporate logos and high-contrast simplified tokens. Tile Manifest: One click opens the complete remaining tile inventory grouped by phase color and tile ID. The Autonomous Tabletop Sparring Engine Step into solo study, sandbox experimentation, or filled hotseat sessions with an integrated, rule-based sparring companion. Complete Legal Coverage: Rather than using crude shortcuts, the companion dynamically evaluates every action permitted by the engine—from par values and share bidding to multi-tile track extensions and train purchases. Engine-Verified Speculation: For complex decisions like tile and token placements, candidate trajectories are evaluated on detached game clones, calculating immediate route revenue and two-build network expansions before committing. Strictly Opt-In & Bounded: The companion never takes over the board or makes unsolicited moves. It sits quietly in the Action Hub header, advancing exactly one deliberate, legal action per request (R), and can display a concise strategic rationale ("Why this move?") on demand. Perfect for Voice Matches, Asynchronous Play, and Solo Study Live Voice Games: Pan and zoom across panels independently, execute turns with zero lag, and keep your eyes on the board while opponents operate. Asynchronous Games: Returning to a game after hours away? Reconstruct the entire table state in seconds using the persistent board layout and recent-move inspector rather than scrolling through lines of history logs. Solo Strategy & Sandbox Analysis: Stress-test opening par strategies, train rush pacing, and route connectivity against an instant, competent sparring partner without needing to coordinate multiple dummy players manually. Keyboard Shortcuts & Fluid Controls Alt + Left Click + Drag: Smooth panning across the map, ledger, or market canvases. Alt + Mouse Wheel: Precision focal zooming on any viewport. Interactive Resizers: Drag horizontal and vertical dividers to proportion screen space to your monitor. R: Advance one step via the autonomous sparring engine (sandbox / hotseat modes). Esc: Dismiss active overlays, close drawers, or exit help screens. Universal Compatibility & Title Coverage Full Compatibility Matrix: The dashboard supports bespoke component layouts across popular operational and financial railroad titles, with new variants added continuously. A complete, searchable compatibility table is available on the documentation hub: https://sbleeck.github.io/18xx-dashboard/ Universal Native Fallback Engine: Playing an obscure or newly released 18xx title? The Dashboard includes an integrated native fallback system. If a game introduces non-standard commands or custom auction mechanics, the native engine button mounts directly inline so play is never blocked. Security & Engine Compliance Zero Engine Tampering: The Dashboard is an independent presentation layer. It does not alter game logic, change rules, modify server payloads, or automate competitive gameplay uninvited. Every action passes through standard 18xx.games verification. Local Execution: Runs entirely from local client files bundled inside the extension package. Zero Data Collection: No analytics, tracking pixels, telemetry, or cookies. Host permissions are strictly restricted to 18xx.games. Open Source & Community Links Documentation Hub & Visual Grammar Guide: https://sbleeck.githu…