Sector Planner v1.5 - NOW RELEASED (1 October 2005)

[LordSuch]

[pjknibbs]

[Freggel.Doe]

[LordSuch]

[pjknibbs]

[TGC]

I've just recently installed this program (thx LS ) and was amazed at the poor profit returns it was showing for my new mines in seizewell.

I'd just set up two sillicon mines and an ore mine on average (26) asteroids and using average prices gave a profit/hour of about 5000 cr, my SPP in KE is making about 100000cr/hour. Are the mines really that poor or did I just make a hash of the positioning????

In the long term it doesn't matter that much coz I can use them to support the hi-tech fabs but I could do the money to roll in quicker in the short term.

[KarlHemmings]

TGC - my experience is that calculations based on the average sell / buy figures - or those adjusted at the station level are conservative.
For a silicon mine I will presume that you have set buy at 16 and sell at 505.
Your buyer you will have told to buy at best price - it will look for ecells between 9 and 16.
For your seller you will have told sell at best price - it will look for sales between 505 and max.
So the potential is that the silicon mine will make a lot more money than the calculations indicate - but might only make as much as the calculations indicate.
Also - best not to use SPPs as your base line - they always make way more money then anything else.
Compare your mine to say a flower farm or a biogas factory - that is one buyer and one seller.
Compare your Sun Oil against a BoFu or Soyary; two buyers one seller
and so forth.

[TGC]

At the moment, the returns on my 3 mines are looking so poor that I don't want to add a seller to each mine. I just wait for large ore/silicon stocks to build up then use the e-cell ship to sell the products (if the AI hasn't already bought them).

The mines buy at 15cr, silicon sells at 504 and ore at 130. It was fortunate that I bought argon mines because they were relatively cheap.

Would anyone recommend buying seller ships, i.e. will this improve the profit returns on these mines, or increase the prices or both?

[GuiltyCol]

I have 2 silicon mines (yield 64 and 56) and an Ore Mine (yield 64 I think if memory serves) in the Ore Belt. All 3 have sales ships on a jumpr radius of 3, and I sell at 620 and 640cr Silicon respectively, and 160 for Ore. They all buy energy at 9cr and they all make a tidy profit, but only cos I use sales ships, otherwise they just fill up.

Just downloaded the app, thanks in Advance LordSuch, running it now: 3... 2... 1...

[LordSuch]

Sector Planner v1.3 released

It contains the following new features:
i) Ability to select a resource in the resource usage grid and the see its per sector usage stats
ii) Significantly increased the speed of the greatest needs when jumps = 5
iii) Option to include sunlight levels in the SPP output / input calculations (only for player SPPs)
iv) Removed non-produced items from the greatest need calculator
v) Show the locations of shipyards, docks and pirate stations on the map.

Also the following bug fixes are included:
i) Fixed bug that cause the scroll extents on the main window to be incorrectly set
ii) Corrected resources for Teladi 5 MW shield fabs (Note: This will not update any Teladi 5MW shield fabs you have already placed.)
iii) Sunlight levels corrected
iv) Price for Q. Tubes fixed
v) Fixed error when adding a pirate station.

As usual you can download it from: (you might need to ctrl-F5 to force a full refresh to see the new page with V1.3 on it).

http://lordsuch.does.it/
OR
http://www.lagerchurch.com/lordsuch/

Please backup your Sector Planner save files before loading them into the new version of Sector Planner (just in case).

Mini FAQ:

Q) How do I see shipyard's etc. on the map?
A) View->Shipyard Locations

Q) Why does the "suns" option only effect player SPPs?
A) Because I don't have any accurate information about the effect sun % has on NPC SPPs.

Q) I have just added a pirate base, but it doesn't show on the map?
A) After adding a pirate base, go to Tools->Redraw universe, you should now see your pirate base.

Q) When I right click on the Resource Usage display to get to the sector breakdown, the option is greyed out.
A) The value of jumps needs to be at least 1 - you're already seeing a sector breakdown if jumps = 0

Q) Why wasn't the sector view included in this release?
A) Because of the time it would take to implement... However if someone would like to write a .NET control (C# preferably) that could display the sector grid in a nice way then I will implement the rest.

As usual any questions, comments or bugs, please let me know.

Cheers

LS

[manniac]

MY GOD this tool rulez. AWESOME work LordSuch, absolutelly brilliant. This is what i was missing since I 1st started to play XBTF. Wooohooo, back to planning table

[Rapier]

Bestest Birthday pressie this year, nice one LS.

[The_Abyss]

Continued great work and good new developments.

[-River-]

This is such a valuable tool ! It makes planning so much easier now that I have just figured how to use it.

The new shipyard feature is very useful, esp after a fight.

Many Thanks !!

[The Flash]

Great tool, invaluable when planning where to put those darn factories so that they can make money.

One observation: when adding a STOCK factory (Silicon or Ore for example), I can set the buying cost for Ecells to zero correctly, however, in the great scheme of things the program still consider the factory using 1 Factory unit of Ecell resources. I have put three of thos in PE (all stock mines where I supply ore and silicon from my mobile mining operation) and this is resulting in incorrect calculation for Ecells requirements in nearby sectors.

Otherwise, great tool, keep it up for us would-be-tycoons!