Abandoned [RELEASE] Trade Computer Extension

earnorbust · Oct 30, 2015

Hello again Eventure

Thank you for your great tool. I was just wondering why you didn't install two more filters to calculate true Profit trading. Showing the most profitable trades depends on ship cargo space and Investment being used for the trade trip. Showing the most profitable wares as an absolute Price doesn't really solve the Profit calculations which also depend on cargo space and credit Investment for the trip. For example, if I have 6 tons of cargo space free and could only invest 10.000 credits in a trading trip, and TCE Shows "Gold" (Price 9.000) as the best Profit with 500 credits and "Titanium" (Price 3.000) as the fifth best Investment with a Profit of 300 credits. But the most profitable transport would be "Titanium", and not "Gold", considering that I can only buy one "Gold" ware earning me a Profit of 500 credits, but three "Titanium" wares with a Profit of 900 credits. Including these two filters (cargo space and transport investment) to your TCE would be a fabulous update!

eventure · Oct 30, 2015

Eewec said:
I think the problem you are seeing is related to why the distances never seem to be quite accurate when I create a new system in my DB; Stellar drift. All the stars and such are in motion and not in fixed locations. This is also true for those things orbiting the stars. Not sure how this affects the sectors and such that they occupy but would explain why some things now occupy different sectors than they did when first created. Not sure how that could be fixed either.

All location ID's within a star system are fixed independent of the movement of planets. If sometimes TCE didn't find a location with the recorded ID, it happens because FD changes the ID's behind the scene.

earnorbust said:
Hello again Eventure

Thank you for your great tool. I was just wondering why you didn't install two more filters to calculate true Profit trading. Showing the most profitable trades depends on ship cargo space and Investment being used for the trade trip. Showing the most profitable wares as an absolute Price doesn't really solve the Profit calculations which also depend on cargo space and credit Investment for the trip. For example, if I have 6 tons of cargo space free and could only invest 10.000 credits in a trading trip, and TCE Shows "Gold" (Price 9.000) as the best Profit with 500 credits and "Titanium" (Price 3.000) as the fifth best Investment with a Profit of 300 credits. But the most profitable transport would be "Titanium", and not "Gold", considering that I can only buy one "Gold" ware earning me a Profit of 500 credits, but three "Titanium" wares with a Profit of 900 credits. Including these two filters (cargo space and transport investment) to your TCE would be a fabulous update!

I disagree here.
For me, I don't want an app, which tolds me, what I have to do in game.
TCE providing neutral data you gathered and showing expected profit's of goods. It is your turn to make something out of it. Your example is pretty easy, if you could add one and one together.

At the beginning, where you have limited capablities in cargo and money, but using TCE let you overcome these limitations pretty fast and thereafter such filters are no longer needed.

Djuwanna · Oct 30, 2015

Hey Eventure! First off, thanks for looking into my hi-res (Surround mode) issue, the latest patches have made the world of difference!

I have a question (maybe asked already?) - I'm trying to save routes I've created, but the Save button is dead. Is this a future update, or did I miss something I should have done?

Best,

Oh, and one other thing I'm just noticing (now that my windows all work ;-)) - occasionally my Star System Summary screen will show blank entries under Space Stations, but for systems I've already landed at all of the stations in (see pic below) - if I quit and reload TCE, they show up. I've tried using TDM to reimport my database but it makes no difference. Bug?

eventure · Oct 31, 2015

Djuwanna said:
Hey Eventure! First off, thanks for looking into my hi-res (Surround mode) issue, the latest patches have made the world of difference!

I have a question (maybe asked already?) - I'm trying to save routes I've created, but the Save button is dead. Is this a future update, or did I miss something I should have done?

Oh, and one other thing I'm just noticing (now that my windows all work ;-)) - occasionally my Star System Summary screen will show blank entries under Space Stations, but for systems I've already landed at all of the stations in (see pic below) - if I quit and reload TCE, they show up. I've tried using TDM to reimport my database but it makes no difference. Bug?

View attachment 72041

Must be a bug, but I didn't find an issue in the routine. Must be a data leak in the back. So please tell me:
Did you added or registered all stations? Did you leave the system in between?

Djuwanna · Nov 1, 2015

Should I call a plumber? Just kidding!

Eventure said:
Must be a bug, but I didn't find an issue in the routine. Must be a data leak in the back. So please tell me:
Did you added or registered all stations? Did you leave the system in between?

All stations in that system are fully registered and commodities scanned. Star class is registered. I started several systems away, but the systems in between either had fully registered/scanned stations or no stations (their star classes are also registered). So this pic was taken upon arrival at final destination. Noticed another (similar?) issue, see new pic - went to scan a commodities update at a previously scanned station, it showed the correct location in the "Current Station" field, but when I went to scan it came up as Arrhenius Station (coincidentally the first alphabetical station in the list of known scanned stations).

Got to say again how much I appreciate the degree of attention you're giving us all here - will continue to try to provide as complete and accurate a picture as possible.

Davo OHno · Nov 1, 2015

Okay. Let me first begin by saying... I've been away for some time. I've updated TCE, but now it does not seem to be working correctly. When I go to scan the market nothing shows up in the TCE commodities window. However, looking in the folders it appears to have scanned. It does not save multiple scans though, it overwrites them. The commodities window doesn't give me the option to save as it did before (not sure if that is to be expected anymore). In game the TCE commodities window is blank upon scanning though.

eventure · Nov 1, 2015

Davo OHno said:
Okay. Let me first begin by saying... I've been away for some time. I've updated TCE, but now it does not seem to be working correctly. When I go to scan the market nothing shows up in the TCE commodities window. However, looking in the folders it appears to have scanned. It does not save multiple scans though, it overwrites them. The commodities window doesn't give me the option to save as it did before (not sure if that is to be expected anymore). In game the TCE commodities window is blank upon scanning though.

Welcome back,

did you tried to activate the OCR Process window to check, if an error is reported?
Is your game and your selected OCR language the same?

eventure · Nov 1, 2015

Djuwanna said:
All stations in that system are fully registered and commodities scanned. Star class is registered. I started several systems away, but the systems in between either had fully registered/scanned stations or no stations (their star classes are also registered). So this pic was taken upon arrival at final destination. Noticed another (similar?) issue, see new pic - went to scan a commodities update at a previously scanned station, it showed the correct location in the "Current Station" field, but when I went to scan it came up as Arrhenius Station (coincidentally the first alphabetical station in the list of known scanned stations).

Got to say again how much I appreciate the degree of attention you're giving us all here - will continue to try to provide as complete and accurate a picture as possible.

View attachment 72300

Did the issue with switching stations at the Commodity panel happens only, when you following a selected trade route?
Can you change back to the right station? If so, when closing and reopening the panel, did you issue happens again?

Davo OHno · Nov 1, 2015

Eventure said:
Welcome back,

did you tried to activate the OCR Process window to check, if an error is reported?
Is your game and your selected OCR language the same?

Thank you for the reply. I sorted. Seems it didn't save the ocr file location on set up. Or I f'd it up.

Thanks again.

Conehead · Nov 1, 2015

Just started again with ED after some months. Stumbled over TCE and want to give it try.

While scanning using EliteOCR I get this message:

[=== ] Image too small! Minimum market width required: 1065px, given: 0px

What I've checked so far after scanning some last pages here:
- TCE, EliteOCR ad game langauge is alligned
- FOV is OK
- Directories are well configured
- EliteOCR is trained
- Using the same screenshot manually in EliteOCR gives perfect results.

Any hints are welcome

EDIT:
I tested a and investigated a bit more. Against what I thought before, TCE seems to create its own screenhots and places it in \OCR_BMP subdir. But this screenshot is always black. A big black plane.
I guess thats the reason for the problem. But, what to do?

EDIT 2:
Some questions:
1. I tried to "out-source" the OCR by dropping a "export.csv" into \OCR_EXPORT subdir. The file was manually created with EliteOCR and I dropped after TCE cleans up the directory (more precisely, when TCE wait for OCR window to be closed). But TCE didn't import it. Is there a special file structure for TCE defined or does TCE recognizes the error from EliteOCR and doesn't import it?

2. Is there any way, to add/modify sell/buy prices manually in TCE? I couldn't find anything related in manual or GUI.

eventure · Nov 1, 2015

Conehead said:
Just started again with ED after some months. Stumbled over TCE and want to give it try.

While scanning using EliteOCR I get this message:

[=== ] Image too small! Minimum market width required: 1065px, given: 0px

What I've checked so far after scanning some last pages here:
- TCE, EliteOCR ad game langauge is alligned
- FOV is OK
- Directories are well configured
- EliteOCR is trained
- Using the same screenshot manually in EliteOCR gives perfect results.

Any hints are welcome

EDIT:
I tested a and investigated a bit more. Against what I thought before, TCE seems to create its own screenhots and places it in \OCR_BMP subdir. But this screenshot is always black. A big black plane.
I guess thats the reason for the problem. But, what to do?

Did you using a multi-monitor setup? BennyBoy reported such an issue on his side months ago.

Conehead said:
EDIT 2:
Some questions:
1. I tried to "out-source" the OCR by dropping a "export.csv" into \OCR_EXPORT subdir. The file was manually created with EliteOCR and I dropped after TCE cleans up the directory (more precisely, when TCE wait for OCR window to be closed). But TCE didn't import it. Is there a special file structure for TCE defined or does TCE recognizes the error from EliteOCR and doesn't import it?

TCE uses the command line tool to process the screenshot.

Conehead said:
2. Is there any way, to add/modify sell/buy prices manually in TCE? I couldn't find anything related in manual or GUI.

Manual page 17 - Commodity panel - View Prices

"When clicking on a displayed value of the SELL, BUY or STOCK column, you can change it manually. Press enter to finalize the input done."

Djuwanna · Nov 1, 2015

As a matter of fact yes I was following a trade route I selected. I could not change it to the right station, however exiting and restarting TCE showed the correct station upon restart. Regarding my issue with saving a route, I have verified that I cannot save a two-station loop, but when I tried making it a four-station loop (same stations two times), it let me save it. I will try to recreate the "incorrect station displayed in commodity window" issue and test your questions, will provide findings.

Conehead · Nov 1, 2015

Thanks for replies.

Eventure said:
Did you using a multi-monitor setup? BennyBoy reported such an issue on his side months ago.

No multi monitor. Single 4k monitor, Windows 10 64b.

Eventure said:
TCE uses the command line tool to process the screenshot.

Understood. But the question was meant differently. As the screenshot seems not to work properly for me, I thouht I can give TCE the result its expects by putting a manually created export.csv into the \OCR_EXPORT subdir. But its doesn't import the file. Is there aynhting special with it?

Eventure said:
Manual page 17 - Commodity panel - View Prices

"When clicking on a displayed value of the SELL, BUY or STOCK column, you can change it manually. Press enter to finalize the input done."

Manual: sorry, hadn't found while scanning the manually. Will give it a try.

eventure · Nov 1, 2015

Djuwanna said:
As a matter of fact yes I was following a trade route I selected. I could not change it to the right station, however exiting and restarting TCE showed the correct station upon restart. Regarding my issue with saving a route, I have verified that I cannot save a two-station loop, but when I tried making it a four-station loop (same stations two times), it let me save it. I will try to recreate the "incorrect station displayed in commodity window" issue and test your questions, will provide findings.

No, you can't save a 2-way route. The route planner is designed for routes with a minimum of three stations. All registered stations must have a checkmark before to save the route. Check the manual (page 36- 38), how to use the planner and complete a route (looped/non-looped).

Conehead said:
Thanks for replies.

No multi monitor. Single 4k monitor, Windows 10 64b.

Understood. But the question was meant differently. As the screenshot seems not to work properly for me, I thouht I can give TCE the result its expects by putting a manually created export.csv into the \OCR_EXPORT subdir. But its doesn't import the file. Is there aynhting special with it?

Here is my last export.csv:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ocrresult>
    <setup>
        <language>eng</language>
        <inputfile>D:\Elite Dangerous\TCE\OCR_BMP\Screenshot.bmp</inputfile>
        <resolution>1920x1200</resolution>
        <marketWidth>1140</marketWidth>
        <filetimestamp>2015-11-01T20:13:38+00:00</filetimestamp>
        <ocrtime>2015-11-01T20:13:40+00:00</ocrtime>
    </setup>
    <location>
        <system fromlog="true"></system>
        <station conf="1.0">Ising Vision</station>
    </location>
    <market>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Animal Monitors</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">207</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">224</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">14078</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Aquaponic Systems</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">185</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">199</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">155231</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Auto-Fabricators</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">3229</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">3283</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">252784</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">High</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Bioreducing Lichen</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">817</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">844</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">4944</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Computer Components</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">733</sell>
            <buy></buy>
            <demand conf="1.0">175351</demand>
            <demandlevel conf="1.0">High</demandlevel>
            <supply></supply>
            <supplylevel></supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">H.E. Suits</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">320</sell>
            <buy></buy>
            <demand conf="1.0">43665</demand>
            <demandlevel conf="1.0">Med</demandlevel>
            <supply></supply>
            <supplylevel></supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="0.7">Land Enrichment Systems</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">4554</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">4631</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">5327</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Resonating Separators</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">5452</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">5542</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">188869</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Robotics</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">1455</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">1499</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">432447</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">High</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Synthetic Fabrics</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">101</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">113</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">64774</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Biowaste</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">15</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">20</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">8669</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Chemical Waste</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">108</sell>
            <buy></buy>
            <demand conf="1.0">15373</demand>
            <demandlevel conf="1.0">High</demandlevel>
            <supply></supply>
            <supplylevel></supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Scrap</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">37</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">44</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">39275</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Non-Lethal Weapons</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">1631</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">1680</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">1078</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <commodity conf="1.0">Reactive Armour</commodity>
            <sell conf="1.0">1871</sell>
            <buy conf="1.0">1904</buy>
            <demand></demand>
            <demandlevel></demandlevel>
            <supply conf="1.0">3493</supply>
            <supplylevel conf="1.0">Med</supplylevel>
        </entry>
    </market>
</ocrresult>

Is this different to your own made one?

Can you try to change your resolution to a lower one (1920 x 1080 for example), if the black screenshot issue is still present?
GFX Driver up-to-date? What Excel version you are using?

Conehead · Nov 1, 2015

Eventure said:
Here is my last export.csv:

Is this different to your own made one?

Yap! I create mine with the EliteOCR GUI hiting the "Export" button. This creates a real CSV file. The one you expect is an XML file structure, which seems to be created by commandline only. I will check to create it by GUI or will do some batch file magic to produce it. I saw some pages before the command line. Will give you feedback.

Conehead · Nov 1, 2015

Eventure said:
...

Can you try to change your resolution to a lower one (1920 x 1080 for example), if the black screenshot issue is still present?
GFX Driver up-to-date? What Excel version you are using?

Tried to change resolution already. No Effect. GFX up to date, Excel is Offiec 365 32b v15.

Is the screenshot made by office? Or do you use a third party tool or library?

eventure · Nov 2, 2015

Conehead said:
Tried to change resolution already. No Effect. GFX up to date, Excel is Offiec 365 32b v15.

Is the screenshot made by office? Or do you use a third party tool or library?

Its is made by an API of Excel.
Sorry to say that, but the problem is not TCE.
If you are using Win10, please check your Windows/Office installation by:
1) Open a Command Prompt as Admin
2) type sfc /scannow
3) When that completes, shut down and restart PC
4) Uninstall Office fully
5) Restart
6) Install Office

Otherwise, are you using SLI? If so, try to use only one GFX to check, if something changes.

Conehead · Nov 2, 2015

Eventure said:
Its is made by an API of Excel.
Sorry to say that, but the problem is not TCE.
If you are using Win10, please check your Windows/Office installation by:
1) Open a Command Prompt as Admin
2) type sfc /scannow
3) When that completes, shut down and restart PC
4) Uninstall Office fully
5) Restart
6) Install Office

Otherwise, are you using SLI? If so, try to use only one GFX to check, if something changes.

OK, thanks for this hints. Will switch off SLI first to test, then reinstall office.

BTW: nice tool so far I could check it. Never thought that you can do such things with Excel and VB. Good Job and +1 from me!

eventure · Nov 2, 2015

Conehead said:
OK, thanks for this hints. Will switch off SLI first to test, then reinstall office.

BTW: nice tool so far I could check it. Never thought that you can do such things with Excel and VB. Good Job and +1 from me!

It is mainly VBA and as I port TCE to vb.net at the moment, I can now see, how old and backward VBA is.

Conehead · Nov 2, 2015

Some Feedback:
- SLI switched off -> no change, in any test scenario.
- Office reinstalled -> slight changes in the problem, but still a problem (see below).

so I continued to play some more and found two issues:

1. Issue:
I have a native screen res of 3840x2160 (4k Screen) and also using htis for OS desktop. In-game I set the resulution to 2560x1440 as the native res is to much for my outdated SLI cards.
In a borderless window the OS resulution remains, but the game (or the OS, or the GFX driver, I don't know) scales it up to a full screen window. So we have a logical in-game resolution of 2560x1440, but still a 4k fullscreen window for the OS. That has the effect, that the function "GetWindowRect" in the below code returns the OS window resultion (3840x2160), instead of the logical in-game resultion.
I'm not sure what is the real reason (saving a window which is smaller than the given rect, or if it is really out-of memory), but in any case it results in a "not enough memory" message from the function "stdole.SavePicture".

Code:

       If EDRun Then            AppActivate ("Elite - Dangerous (CLIENT)")
            hWnd = FnFindWindowLike("Elite - Dangerous (CLIENT)")
            GetWindowRect hWnd, udtRect
            SetForegroundWindow hWnd
        End If
        If No_Cap = False Then
            stdole.SavePicture hDCToPicture(GetDC(0&), udtRect.Left, udtRect.Top, _
            udtRect.Right - udtRect.Left, udtRect.Bottom - udtRect.Top), BMP_Target
        End If
        If EDRun Then
            AppActivate ("Elite - Dangerous (CLIENT)")
        End If

2. Issue:
Having OS desktop resulotion = in-game resultion makes the problem change:
Both Resolutions = 2560x1440 do work properly, OCR screen scan is perfect.
Both Resolutions = 3840x2160 does result in a black screenshot, but no out of memory message.

So I did myself a workaround for the moment, by adding using SETRES.EXE (freeware tool) and creating batch files, lowering the OS screen res priot to launch ED.
That makes it work, but switching to desktop in game doesn't look nice (but that's not a big issue).

Just came to my mind:
@eventure: I'll try to test, and hardcode my in-game res to the save picture function to see if problem persists.

OK! Maybe not my best idea, as I already failed to start it in debug mode or anything like this.