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

[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!

[LordSuch]

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.

The only option you have here (assuming there is no actual production in your silicon / ore mines) is to set the yield of the mine to zero. This will then result in zero output and zero input - admitedly you then have to mentally allow for the silicon or ore you are adding, but that might be easier than working out all the local demand / supply of energy cells.

HTH

LS

[xalien]

I noticed some bug in 1st release, now I've upgraded to 1.3 and it's still there: whenever I try to place Soyery in Paranid Prime (haven't tried anywhere else) I get an SPP. Has anybody else placed Soyeries in there with Sector Planner?

Have you discovered the secret of time travel? Version 1.3 is in development and hasn't been released yet!

I have tried all versions including the beta versions that were not publicly released and cannot replicate this problem.
The spp is right next to the soyery in the drop down list - are you certain that you're not accidently selecting a spp?

If you're still having this problem, please let me know the full version number in the Help->About box.

Cheers

LS

OK, yesterday I've downloaded the last version (don't remember exact number, I'm not at home right now) and that's what I get:

1. When placing Soyery I get SPP:
http://www.zippyimages.com/files/59380/so--spp.jpg
2. When placing SPP I get Soyfarm:
http://www.zippyimages.com/files/59381/spp--sf.jpg
3. When placing Soyfarm I get Soyery:
http://www.zippyimages.com/files/59382/sf--so.jpg

Based on these "rules" I can now place any factory I want, so it's no biggie, especially if I'm the only one experiencing this.

[LordSuch]

x2alien: Do you run English windows? I'm wondering if this could be a sort order based issue.

What order do the soyery, soyfarm and Solar Power Plant appear in the drop down list?

If you can let me know this, I'll have a look into it.

Cheers


LS

[Birdman]

Fire up the Greatet Needs calculator, click on the top line, scroll to the bottom, hold shift and click on bottom line. This highlights all of the list. Then CTRL-C , paste into Excel (this keeps the table format intact). This also works for the Station Roster.

[Birdman]

Excellent job on the Planner!!

Was looking around for the best credits per hour to use someof the extra off a double (may make it triple) loop, and found 3 MIA factories from the Sector Planner 1.3 (1.3.1609.29.371).

BTW, Argonopedia is missing the Boron stations too.

Checked my list of Shipyard products and found:

Argon Mobile Drilling System Factory: cycle time 01:20:00 (Argon Prime)
Resource Min Max Per Cycle Capacity
Energy Cells 9 23 1200 5000
Meatsteak Cahoonas 48 96 800 3332
Ore 77 175 200 832

Boron Beta HEPT Laser Forge: cycle time 02:40:00 (Great Reef)
Energy Cells 9 23 1200 5000
BoFu 190 394 400 832
Ore 77 175 400 832

Boron Hornet Missile Factory: cycle time 00:06:00 (Great Reef)
Energy Cells 9 23 90 5000
Ore 77 175 15 832
BoFu 190 394 15 832


For the interm (before you get the print function added), see prior post this thread.

***EDIT***
Oops, found the other one.

Teladi Gamma IRE Forge: cycle time 00:04:00
Energy Cells 9 23 60 5000
Nostrop Oil 35 109 40 3332
Ore 77 175 10 832

Thanks for the fine work you have done!

[LordSuch]

Birdman,

Thanks for the heads up about the missing factories, I will make sure they get into the next service release.

You can use the Ctrl-C trick on any of the grids, some of them you will have to click and drag on the row headers on the left hand side to select the grid.

HTH

LS

[veelad]

Lord Such

Ive just found the sector planner which looks superb and just what i need to carry on with my empire

but what is that .net thing you need to download to get sector planner to work?

what is its overall purpose, as im always reluctant to download anything that may affect the running of my machine

cheers bud

[Birdman]

Lord Such

Ive just found the sector planner which looks superb and just what i need to carry on with my empire

but what is that .net thing you need to download to get sector planner to work?

what is its overall purpose, as im always reluctant to download anything that may affect the running of my machine

cheers bud

veelad,

the .NET is a framework or common interface for several different programming languages. That way any application can be run, no matter what P/L it is written in if it completly follows the .NET framework.

Birdman

[Rapier]

Site appears to be down. Any News?

[blumblumshub]

Would any of us have got WinXP if Linux was supported more?
I think not
Blum