MattG's Observatory plugins

[MattG]

Quite some time back now, Vithigar mentioned he was working on a new version of Observatory that would allow plugins. This immediately piqued my interest, and I've been watching the project progress with anticipation. Now we have our hands on the new version I've been busy writing some plugins and figured I'd release them into the wild in case others find them useful.

You can find the plugins here

A quick summary of them:

• Evaluator - this will give a system value breakdown. You can hide bodies below a certain value, tag bodies over a certain potential value to be mapped, and set maximum distances you're prepared to travel to map certain body types. If you use EDD, it's probably similar to what you've seen there. It only shows the last 3 systems - this might change in a future release.
• BioInsights - this will attempt to guess what Bios might be on a body based solely from the FSS scan. If you decide to land on the body, it'll whittle down the options as you start scanning things. It'll give you their base value (though expect this to be doubled for anything not already reported). This plugin is particularly useful when hunting a specific Bio in a region, or for maximizing potential profit vs effort. It will also send a notification when you've travelled far enough away from the last sample to be able to take another one. There are a few caveats: it only works for Odyssey Bios - I might add Horizons later, but no real motivation to do so. It probably only works in English - it's on my to-do list to fix that. Where multiple variants of a species are possible, it seems random which will be present - in these cases you'll see all possibilities but it can't tell you which it will be (even some of the journal data is missing this information). It's not perfect, but it's getting better. If we can narrow down the rules a bit more we can make it even more accurate.
• SignalMonitor - this is a simple plugin to send a notification when it detects Unregistered Communications signals, Listening Posts, or Notable Stellar Phenomenon in a system.
• BoxelStats - this plugin is primarily designed for explorers doing surveys. It'll provide information like observed Helium range, ELW / TF-WW / TF-HMC counts (and ratios after 50 systems).
• Telegram - send notifications to a phone or Telegram-enabled device

Plugin	Latest Version	Last Updated
Evaluator	1.2.2.7989	24-Mar-2025
BioInsights	1.2.2.6440	24-Mar-2025
BoxelStats	1.2.1.2137	21-Jan-2025
Telegram	0.22.347.1526	13-Dec-2022
Colliders	1.2.0.33363	28-Nov-2024
StellarOverlay	1.2.2.5633	28-Feb-2025
AstroAnalytica	1.2.2.7963	24-Mar-2025
SignalMonitor	Deprecated - use AstroAnalytica	Deprecated
CodexEntries	Deprecated - use AstroAnalytica	Deprecated
Galactic Exploration Catalog	Deprecated - use AstroAnalytica	Deprecated

To install the plugins, download the zip and extract them into the plugins folder inside wherever you've installed Observatory. Re-run, and they should be present.
You'll now download .eop files instead of .zip (they're just renamed .zip files). If you used the ObsCore installer, you can just double click the eop file and it'll install itself before launching ObsCore. Or, you can just copy the eop to the plugin folder and re-run ObsCore, and it'll also install it (you'll need to do this if you don't use the installer version).

Any problems or questions, let me know and I'll try to help.

Finally, thanks to: Vithigar for new Observatory without which this wouldn't be possible, my IGAU compatriots for their help, data, feedback and testing, and DSN/Cannon for the additional data in DSN's Exobiological Flora guide.

 

[varonica]

Downloaded, testing!

 

[BL1P]

Ok

 

[Stephen_WS]

Hi, great work on this, however you say download the .zip files to the plugins folder, do I have to make one and add the files there?

o7

 

[MattG]

Hi, great work on this, however you say download the .zip files to the plugins folder, do I have to make one and add the files there?

o7

So, if you used the installer for Observatory it will have created a plugins folder wherever you installed it to - not sure what the default location is.

If you just extracted Observatory from the ZIP file, it still includes a plugin folder - it contains ObservatoryExplorer.dll and ObservatoryBotanist.dll.

Whichever option, you need to extract my plugins into those plugin folders. You also need to extract the contents of the ZIPs - you can just place the ZIP itself in the plugins folder.

Edit: And make sure you're using the latest version of Observatory - check the link to it in first post.

 

[Stephen_WS]

So, if you used the installer for Observatory it will have created a plugins folder wherever you installed it to - not sure what the default location is.

If you just extracted Observatory from the ZIP file, it still includes a plugin folder - it contains ObservatoryExplorer.dll and ObservatoryBotanist.dll.

Whichever option, you need to extract my plugins into those plugin folders. You also need to extract the contents of the ZIPs - you can just place the ZIP itself in the plugins folder.

Edit: And make sure you're using the latest version of Observatory - check the link to it in first post.

Thanks so much, got it working

o7

 

[varonica]

After some testing I am finding these plugins most useful, well done!

 

[varonica]

Quite some time back now, Vithigar mentioned he was working on a new version of Observatory that would allow plugins. This immediately piqued my interest, and I've been watching the project progress with anticipation. Now we have our hands on the new version I've been busy writing some plugins and figured I'd release them into the wild in case others find them useful.

For now there's just 2 of them, but there's a few more in the pipeline. You can find the plugins here

A quick summary of them:

• Evaluator - this will give a system value breakdown. You can hide bodies below a certain value, tag bodies over a certain potential value to be mapped, and set maximum distances you're prepared to travel to map certain body types. If you use EDD, it's probably similar to what you've seen there. It only shows the last 3 systems - this might change in a future release.
• BioInsights - this will attempt to guess what Bios might be on a body based solely from the FSS scan. If you decide to land on the body, it'll whittle down the options as you start scanning things. It'll give you their base value (though expect this to be doubled for anything not already reported). This plugin is particularly useful when hunting a specific Bio in a region, or for maximizing potential profit vs effort. It will also send a notification when you've travelled far enough away from the last sample to be able to take another one. There are a few caveats: it only works for Odyssey Bios - I might add Horizons later, but no real motivation to do so. It probably only works in English - it's on my to-do list to fix that. Where multiple variants of a species are possible, it seems random which will be present - in these cases you'll see all possibilities but it can't tell you which it will be (even some of the journal data is missing this information). It's not perfect, but it's getting better. If we can narrow down the rules a bit more we can make it even more accurate.

To install the plugins, download the zip and extract them into the plugins folder inside wherever you've installed Observatory. Re-run, and they should be present.

Any problems or questions, let me know and I'll try to help.

I expect the next plugin to be made available to be a Telegram one, to replace the functionality in old Observatory.

Finally, thanks to: Vithigar for new Observatory without which this wouldn't be possible, my IGAU compatriots for their help, data, feedback and testing, and DSN/Cannon for the additional data in DSN's Exobiological Flora guide.

Spotted an anomaly of some sort, Ammonia World, first discovery and first mapping so it has a reasonable value, but it doesn't show up at all in evaluator even as a body!

Here's the system map after a full scan, you can see the Ammonia World sitting right there in position 9;

But this is what I get in Evaluator.

I have scrolled right to the bottom, first thing I checked but it doesn't show a body 9 at all! I haven't checked other Ammonia Worlds, I just scan them as part of my normal exploration, I will have to keep an eye on it.

Jumped to the next system just in case it was a formatting error of some sort and it would appear at the end then, but no still only 8 bodies listed in evaluator.

 

[MattG]

I will double check, but I don’t think it does anything special for AWs. I assume you hadn’t previously scanned it or anything? Body 10 and the moon also don’t show - were those scanned? What’s your minimum value set to?

 

[Eahlstan]

Are you sure you're all the way down? Also the journal entries of that system might be good to have in case it's really abug.

 

[varonica]

I will double check, but I don’t think it does anything special for AWs. I assume you hadn’t previously scanned it or anything? Body 10 and the moon also don’t show - were those scanned? What’s your minimum value set to?

Just to clarify, there is no body ten, the highlight arrow of my location is body 8, the WW, the AW, body 9 is the last planet with the moon, that's highlighted orange! All new discovery, previously unvisited system, so no body ten, only 9 bodies in total. My values I have left at default, but scanned value of the AW with first discovery and mapping was well over the million.

 

[varonica]

View attachment 262000
Are you sure you're all the way down? Also the journal entries of that system might be good to have in case it's really abug.

I double checked to make sure I was scrolled to the bottom, grabbed the scroll bar and dragged down but nothing, then I scanned the next system and checked since it shows the values of the previous system and it still only showed 8 bodies. I also checked in EDDiscovery and that showed the AW and moon fine so it would appear the journal is correct otherwise it would also cause problems with EDDiscovery. It's all rather strange!

The only thing different about the AW is it's a lot further out than the rest, I have left the values for max distances for all objects at 0 which I assume means infinite so that shouldn't affect it.

 

[varonica]

Ok after further testing I believe it's some sort of display error, it never shows the last body in the system no matter what it is, so it's not peculiar to AW's so don't concentrate on AW's! I only picked it up with the AW as that's one I was going to scan because I knew it was valuable and it didn't show up in evaluator. So when it throws up the display in evaluator it's cutting off the last line of data!

Edit, to be honest I am not sure where it is cutting off data, it seems to be the last one or few lines depending on what bodies there are in the system. Just scanned antoher system with two gas giants and the main star showed up but no bodies in evaluator, however other systems with gas giants they do show up, but this one only had the two gas giants!

Edit, ok some gas giants are below the min cutoff value for display, playing around with that setting at the moment!

 

[MattG]

OK, I think I've found the issue. Although it reads AWs just fine, it is not correctly determining they're actually AWs and therefore treating them as rocky bodies so their value is garbage and will fall under the default minimum display value. Thanks for the report, I will get that fixed (probably tomorrow). In the meantime, it might be worth setting the minimum display down to 0 to verify nothing else is missing.

 

[varonica]

OK, I think I've found the issue. Although it reads AWs just fine, it is not correctly determining they're actually AWs and therefore treating them as rocky bodies so their value is garbage and will fall under the default minimum display value. Thanks for the report, I will get that fixed (probably tomorrow). In the meantime, it might be worth setting the minimum display down to 0 to verify nothing else is missing.

I tested it at 0 and it seemed to work as expected, then set different values to see what happens, got it set back at 10000 at the moment as that weeds out most things that clutter up the display, I will keep double checking by eye and the Observatory just in case something else slips by!

 

[MattG]

OK, I think I've found the issue. Although it reads AWs just fine, it is not correctly determining they're actually AWs and therefore treating them as rocky bodies so their value is garbage and will fall under the default minimum display value. Thanks for the report, I will get that fixed (probably tomorrow). In the meantime, it might be worth setting the minimum display down to 0 to verify nothing else is missing.

I've now put up a fixed version of Evaluator that actually recognises Ammonia Worlds properly.

(Somehow I'd managed to misspell it as "ammonina" )

Edit: Added SignalMonitor to page, and updated first post with a table of latest versions + release dates.

 

[varonica]

I've now put up a fixed version of Evaluator that actually recognises Ammonia Worlds properly.

(Somehow I'd managed to misspell it as "ammonina" )

Edit: Added SignalMonitor to page, and updated first post with a table of latest versions + release dates.

Ok I've grabbed that and installed SignalMonitor, but I have noticed one more unusual behaviour of evaluator.

If I jump in to a system in my FC evaluator won't record any details for that system. My current system KOI 4950 has a terraformable WW but evaluator shows nothing for this system, not even the primary star, completely blank.

The system;

Evaluator;

 

[MattG]

Ok I've grabbed that and installed SignalMonitor, but I have noticed one more unusual behaviour of evaluator.

If I jump in to a system in my FC evaluator won't record any details for that system. My current system KOI 4950 has a terraformable WW but evaluator shows nothing for this system, not even the primary star, completely blank.

The system;

Evaluator;

Ah, yes. The problem here is it's expecting the FSDJump event as the marker of a new system and doesn't get it from a FC. I will have a think about how to deal with cases like that.

 

[varonica]

Ah, yes. The problem here is it's expecting the FSDJump event as the marker of a new system and doesn't get it from a FC. I will have a think about how to deal with cases like that.

Ok, I note BioInsights does the same, but Explorer doesn't, it still shows alerts as normal, so that must handle the system entry event differently.

 

[MattG]

Ok, I note BioInsights does the same, but Explorer doesn't, it still shows alerts as normal, so that must handle the system entry event differently.

I've uploaded a speculative fix for Evaluator. If it does the trick I'll apply similar logic to BioInsights.