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

[D_Zorro]

Some of you may know that I have been working on a .NET application that can help you plan your empire in X2, known as SectorPlanner. For the old-timers this was originally spawned from the desire for something similar to the Utopia spreadsheet for X-T.

Basically SectorPlanner makes it easier to spot those lucrative areas in the X Universe for building factories and then helps you keep track of your factories, their effect on the surrounding economy and most importantly the profit they are making for you.

*WARNING* SectorPlanner does display the entire map, including all hidden sectors, if you haven't explored all the map, you may want to wait until you have before using it.

You can download SectorPlanner here.

*EDIT*
If that link doesn't work try this:
http://www.megspace.com/internet/lordsuch/

If that still doesn't work, please leave a message here or PM me and I'll arrange other hosting.
It seems that the site works for some people, but not for others.... mmm.
*EDIT*

The major features are:
i) Full map with every NPC station and their in game requirements listed.
ii) A dynamic resource usage display that informs you of the overall production / consumption of all products in the sector and the surrounding areas.
iii) Ability to add your own (player) factories that are reflected in the resource usage displays.
iv) If you set the resource pricing for your factories, it will calculate your profit overall and by sector.
v) A factory pricing calculator useful for finding the minimum selling price given the current buy price(s) for your resources.
vi) A search facility that can locate places selling either a product or a station.
vii) XML based data file generated directly from the X2 data files, therefore the 1.4 version should be release very shortly after the release of X2 1.4
viii) You *could* install it on your work computer and then work out where your next bunch of factories are going to go instead of working - not that I would do such a thing

I would like any feedback that people have on SectorPlanner, whether good, bad or indifferent, please let me know either via this thread or via PM.

Cheers


LS

Looks like this could be a very handy tool indeed.



DZorro,

[Zathos]

Looks like a great idea...but I can't get it running.
Something about quickview.exe not being there

[FuzzyLightning]

Let the Profitsss roll in!

Brilliant Work... Hail Lordsssuch!

Fuzzy Isss Very happy....





-FuZzEh!

[Hroch]

Looks cool as custard, but, forgive me if I'm being stupid - on the resource usage panal, some negative resources are highlighted and some are not. What's the difference? And does a negative resource represent a shortfall, and a positive a surplus of that resource, or the other way around?

Cheers.

[Hroch]

Hang on, let me guess, the highlighted resources are from different races other to that which owns the sector... actually I'm not so sure!... I'd still like clarification on my second question though, thanks.

[Hroch]

Actually, I think I am being stupid, I came across the 'find greatest need' thingy which kind of answers the second question.

This thing is great, cheers dude.

[LordSuch]

Looks like a great idea...but I can't get it running.
Something about quickview.exe not being there

Zathos, you will need the microsoft installer installed if you're running Win 98, or it could be because you're trying to run it directly from the zip file. If you still have difficulties let me know via PM and I'll try and help you out.

Looks cool as custard, but, forgive me if I'm being stupid - on the resource usage panal, some negative resources are highlighted and some are not. What's the difference? And does a negative resource represent a shortfall, and a positive a surplus of that resource, or the other way around?

Hroch, sorry this isn't well documented (or documented at all!)

The highlighted resources are thoses that aren't produced "locally". By local I mean within the number of jumps specified. I.e. if you select Queen's Space, you will see that Teladianium is highlighted with jumps = 1, as it is not produced in Rolk's Drift, Queen's Space or Melenlau's Frontier. However if you up jumps to 2 it will no longer be highlighted as Ceo's Buckzoid produces it.

As for the values; a negative number means that there is a shortfall (demand) for the product, a positive number means that there is a surplus.

HTH

LS

[X-it]

This is just incredible. Very handy indeed. Thank you very much for sharing this with us!

[Grey Mark]

LS

Your new URL works fine, and I can down load from it. Thanks again for the email.

Mark

[Zathos]

Looks like a great idea...but I can't get it running.
Something about quickview.exe not being there

Zathos, you will need the microsoft installer installed if you're running Win 98, or it could be because you're trying to run it directly from the zip file. If you still have difficulties let me know via PM and I'll try and help you out.

Ah..direct from the zip file it was..
..
..working now and I'm very impressed
It's given me some good ideas for my next few loops. Thanks LS

[Tinder]

Great work LordSuch - just the kind of thing I've been waiting for. Planning to start a fresh game when 1.4 comes out and this is going to the be ideal companion. Seriously impressed with what you've done with the Sector Planner - well done!

[old elite pilot]

down load no problem now to plan a fresh empire thanks very good work

[Brodie]

Great stuff, if there are any Moderators listening, THIS NEEDS TO BE STICKIED!!!!!!!

You might wanna include a help guide for the younger players and the stupid ones like me! lol

Good work fella!

[White Tiger 30]

Very Nice Sir!

[X-it]

Ok I've had a brief look at it now, and I'm very impressed indeed. The Station Calculator and the Greatest Needs features are also very welcome.

A few questions:

- What does the orange(?) colour of some wares in the Resource Usage list indicate? At first glance it looks like it indicates the demanded/negative goods, but some of the negative ones are white as well.

- What exactly does the value of the above mentioned list indicate? Like in Kingdom End there is a -6 value of energy cells. Does it mean that there are not enough energy produced in the sector to 'fuel' 6 of the stations there?

- When adding your own stations to a sector, I suspect adding the ones of your own closed loops will give false results. So it's best to leave those out, and only add the ones actually selling to the AI?

Thank you once again for providing us with this. It will be of great help indeed.

Edit: I just found the answer to the coloured wares in the FAQ. Sorry for not noticing earlier.

Regards,

[Jethro Smiles]

PEACHY

[LordSuch]

- When adding your own stations to a sector, I suspect adding the ones of your own closed loops will give false results. So it's best to leave those out, and only add the ones actually selling to the AI?
Regards,

A closed (or open for that matter) loop shouldn't matter as long as the complete loop is implemented as you should be consuming all of the resources you are producing apart from the final product - which is correct.

In essence the resources your loop factories create are consumed by your other loop factories and therefore cancel each other out in the resource usage display - as would be expected.

It could cause a little confusion as you could produce more silicon / ore than you use but is not available to NPC's (due to trade with other races set to no), although as long as you're aware of this it shouldn't cause any problems.

HTH

LS

[LordSuch]

- What exactly does the value of the above mentioned list indicate? Like in Kingdom End there is a -6 value of energy cells. Does it mean that there are not enough energy produced in the sector to 'fuel' 6 of the stations there?

X-it: Sorry I missed this point in the first response....

A negative value indicates demand and a positive value indicates oversupply.

You might wanna include a help guide for the younger players and the stupid ones like me!

I will try to put something brief together on the websites in the next few days, along with adding to the FAQ, however I would like to get some more questions etc to locate the areas where things need more detailed explanation.

If anyone has any issues or thinks the user interface could be improved in certains areas (I know of a couple of places already!) or even has feature requests please let me know as I would like SectorPlanner to be as useful as it possibly can be!

Cheers

LS

[sq_paradox]

Would it be possible for you to add the ability to add NPC Pirate Bases to sectors in the next version?

[LordSuch]

Would it be possible for you to add the ability to add NPC Pirate Bases to sectors in the next version?

Paradox, yeah I was looking into it yesterday (well early hours of this morning actually!). I can add the functionality, the only problem is that the products stocked by pirate bases varies. However I could make it so that you can add a "standard" pirate base and then you might have to add or remove one to two products to make it fit the new one in your game.

If someone knows differently (i.e. all respawned pirate bases have the same products) then please let me know!

Cheers

LS

PS I'll put this on the todo list for the next release.