Pioneer

Summary

Pioneer is an exploration tool for Elite Dangerous. It utilizes the plugin system of the Elite Dangerous Market Connector for backend journal processing and display.

It's focused around providing the most accurate assessment of body values and providing a customizable display to highlight high value targets.

Value Calculations

Value calculations include whether a body was previously discovered or mapped, the terraforming bonus (as a likely range), the efficiency bonus for mapped planets, and any 'first fully scanned / mapped' bonuses you may qualify for. It factors in the bonus on Odyssey / 4.0+ clients.

Display

Pioneer will display a number of things. As you progress a few indicators will appear at the top. A honked system will add a <H> tag. Fully scanned systems will add a <S> and if none of the bodies had been previously scanned it will display <S+>. Similarly, a fully mapped system will display <M> or <M+>.

Based on a configurable value, the top of the pane will display high value mappable bodies. These will be marked when terraformable <T>, previously scanned -S-, and previously mapped -M-. It can also display any bodies with biological signals. Following this is an optional scrollbox with a detailed breakdown of every system body.

At the top is an estimate of the main star value including the honk bonus provided by all other bodies. This is followed by a list of scanned bodies, their calculated current and maximum values, and the honk bonus they provide. At the bottom of the list, it will include any additional bonuses for being the first to fully map or scan the system.

Finally, the overall current (based on scan and map status) and maximum (if fully mapped) values are displayed at the bottom of the pane.

Persistent Data

As of version 2.0, Pioneer now maintains a database of all relevant system data and scan progress. It segments scan and map status by commander. You can safely stop and restart EDMC without losing your data.

The database management is handled by the ExploData plugin/module. See that repository for more details.

Overlay

As of version 2.1.0, Pioneer now supports an in-game overlay by means of EDMCOverlay. You must enable this in the settings and install the prerequisite plugin to make use of this feature.

The text color and anchor point for the display are configurable.

EDSM Parsing

Once per system, data can be parsed from EDSM as an alternative to getting the data in-game. This may save time for bubble (pre-explored) systems over scanning a nav beacon. Note that EDSM data is not a substitute for scanning and mapping planets; you will not earn any credits this way. However, it could quickly highlight decently valuable mapping targets in the bubble.

Note that this should be triggered from the BioScan interface if you have both plugins installed.

Requirements

• EDMC version 5 and above
• (Optional) EDMCOverlay (Windows) or edmcoverlay2 (Linux)

Installation

• Download the latest release of both Pioneer and ExploData
  • Appropriate versions of both are available on every release page
  • ExploData has multiple versions depending on how you run EDMC:
  • Users of the prebuilt Windows EXE must use the Windows EXE version of ExploData
  • Flatpak users must use the flatpak version, which is bundled with SQLAlchemy
  • Native python users should use the native python version (see additional instructions below)
  • If you use BioScan, make sure the version you're using is up-to-date with ExploData
• Extract the .zip archives that you downloaded into the EDMC plugins folder
  • This is accessible via the plugins tab in the EDMC settings window
  • ExploData must be named as it is packaged, or you will run into trouble loading dependencies
• For native python users:
  • If you use venv, install the SQLAlchemy requirement from the requirements.txt to the EDMC venv
  • For system python, run pip install -r requirements.txt within the ExploData plugin directory to install SQLAlchemy
  • Ensure the correct pip is used for your version of EDMC
• (Optional) Install the EDMCOverlay plugin for overlay support (or edmcoverlay2 for Linux)
  • Either 'EDMCOverlay' or 'edmcoverlay' should work as the plugin directory name
• Start or restart EDMC to register the plugin and run any necessary database migrations

Acknowledgements

Core idea and some base calculations originate from the Economical Cartographics plugin by Nils Steinger.

Value calculations based on information by MattG.

Roadmap

The overall goal is to make this a valuable tool for explorers in Elite Dangerous, highlighting valuable bodies in a reasonably compact format.

Any reasonably useful info that I can display succinctly could be added. Suggestions are welcome.

One possible project would be to calculate the habitable zone and attempt to estimate the terraform bonus based on that range. My assumption is that the bonus is highest at the center of this zone. This hasn't been confirmed, but I will use this to test better value estimates.

License

Pioneer plugin Copyright © 2024 Jeremy Rimpo

Licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.