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

[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.

[sq_paradox]

Thanks, and I'll take a look at whether my respawned bases have the same products... although they may not be representative of all respawned bases (only have 2 that respawned).

And once again, nice work.

Edit: My respawned pirated bases do not have the same products.

[Titaniumplanck]

This Thing has proved itself as valuable resource in my search for fortune... Basically WELL DONE!!!

[Shingen]

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

Really great work, but what exactly do the numbers represent? Say there is a -2.33 demand for stott spices in Argon Prime, does that mean stations, units, or percentage or what?

Also, does the program read my current game universe ( changed through game-play over time ), or does it read a default, generic game state as in the universe in a new game?

[LordSuch]

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

Really great work, but what exactly do the numbers represent? Say there is a -2.33 demand for stott spices in Argon Prime, does that mean stations, units, or percentage or what?

Also, does the program read my current game universe ( changed through game-play over time ), or does it read a default, generic game state as in the universe in a new game?

The numbers are standard factory units, basically 1 resprents the output or input of one factory. The frational units (generally 1/3 or multiples thereof) are due to either secondary resource (1/3 of a unit) or a mine with a yield that is not a multiple of 25. There is a bit more information in the FAQ at http://www.lagerchurch.com/lordsuch/faq.asp

Unfortunately the program does not read anything about your current save games, you have to enter the factory locations etc. manually.

HTH

Cheers

LS

[X-it]

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.

Thank you. Seems my logic was not quite Vulcan there...

And thanks again for this great tool. I hope this becomes a sticky, or at least included in the Ultimate Guide sticky already there.

[Grey Mark]

LS wrote

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!

One feature I would like to see in this fine utility is the ability to print off some or all of the data for a system.

Even without the ability to print the data, it is very usefull.

Brodie wrote

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

x-it wrote

And thanks again for this great tool. I hope this becomes a sticky, or at least included in the Ultimate Guide sticky already there.

I second or third those requests!

Mark

[Orillion]

First thing, nice program

i saw that you wrote : program does not read anything about your current save games.

Wold it be possible to pull the data from the savegame about factori locations and such from the save game ???

And the next thing, would it be possible to port the application to the Symbian OS ( version 7.0 ) its used by mobiles ( Motorola A920/A925, P800 and such ) Could be cool to have the info by the hand

[b-b-q]

I'm not easily impressed. This thing impresses me. Thanks and great job.

[LordSuch]

First thing, nice program
Wold it be possible to pull the data from the savegame about factori locations and such from the save game ???

And the next thing, would it be possible to port the application to the Symbian OS ( version 7.0 ) its used by mobiles ( Motorola A920/A925, P800 and such ) Could be cool to have the info by the hand

If someone has some documentation of the X2 save game file format I might consider reading the factories from the save file, however I've got a feeling that egosoft have changed the save game format in every patch they've released - and the idea of having to write and test a significant piece of code like that every time egosoft releases a patch fills me with dread

A port to Windows CE may be possible (I don't know if the compact .NET framework supports all of the API's I used) however it cannot be ported to Symbian unless someone releases a .NET framework for it (well without completely rewriting the application).

*thinks* I might think about that save game exporter if I can find some docs on the save game format.....

Edit: A custom universe save game could really screw that save game importer up....

Cheers

LS

[LordSuch]

LS wrote
One feature I would like to see in this fine utility is the ability to print off some or all of the data for a system.

Mark, what data in particular would you like to see printed?

Let me know and I'll look into it.

Cheers


LS

[sean|Bsc]

its a very cool program. lot less buggy than most.

my only concern is that is does not seem to have a knock-on effect -

if i wanna work out the next best factory to buy i look for big -ve numbers in the res. right?
like if crystals are like -10 then a good idea is to build a crystal mine.

from what i can tell energy cells are in a surplus in bascially every sector. i.e big positive numbers.
which actually disuades you from building any SPP's at all. in the game SPP would lose money if the NPC stations were at 100% production. but they're not there short of crystals.
if you program could say "if crystals are short then energy cells aint gonna be comming out at 100%" then it would accurately show that SPP's are a good idea.

[LordSuch]

my only concern is that is does not seem to have a knock-on effect -

if i wanna work out the next best factory to buy i look for big -ve numbers in the res. right?
like if crystals are like -10 then a good idea is to build a crystal mine.

from what i can tell energy cells are in a surplus in bascially every sector. i.e big positive numbers.
which actually disuades you from building any SPP's at all. in the game SPP would lose money if the NPC stations were at 100% production. but they're not there short of crystals.
if you program could say "if crystals are short then energy cells aint gonna be comming out at 100%" then it would accurately show that SPP's are a good idea.

Yup, -ve numbers are demand.

I agree with what you've said as I was thinking about it the other day, however when you start thinking about it, it becomes incredibly complex, for eaxmple if I have a lack of Soja Beans then:

Soja Husk production is low->
Crystal fab production is low->
Energy cell production is low->
Silicon mine production is low->
Crystal fab products is *LOWER*?

etc..

Also it doesn't cover the fact that I am using freighters much faster than the AI, so my factories are running at 100% by the AI's are not.

Also because products are being produced more slowly the resources are used more slowly, which in the end will have a knock on effect for the entire sector.

As you can probably appreciate, it just gets far too complex to even think about modelling this side of the economy.

When looking at the resource usage, you can get an idea that there may be some resource issues that you will need to fix if you want to use that product. i.e. some paranid sectors start of with Soja Husk +3 Soja Beans -2. This shows clearly that it is unlikely that the Soja Husk fabs will be producing at full speed.

On the SPP side of things, what do you have your jumps set to? If you set it to 5 then almost all the sectors will show up as having enough energy, however I usually use either 1 or 0, and sometimes 2.
Also you should note that most people "force sell" (i.e. have selling transports) for SPP's which does allow you to make a profit in a sector that has surplus energy.

A final note about SPP's is that the NPC ones appear to produce energy at a slightly lower rate than player ones, once I have proper information about this, I will update SectorPlanner appropriately.

I hope this helps

Cheers


LS

PS NPC Solar power plants always run at 100% as they don't *need* crystals to run - they're a secondary resources.

[Steel]

@LordSuch

That's a very very good piece of work. Well done. I'm sure it'll prove invaluable to lots of players.

Nice

Steel

[Orillion]

it could be nice to be able to print out where your facories is

[sean|Bsc]

LordSuch - yeah its missing some advanced 'effects', bet they'ed be hard to add.

still a great useful prog, my congrats.