From the experienced players, what are the 'mandatory' 3rd party plugins?

Willyum-71

Willyum-71
After seeing cmdrs mention EDMC a couple times today on Inara, I DL'd and set it up... I started playing ED this past November and have been exclusively logged into Inara. I've been playing ED while on job injury so I have a lot of hours in a short time, but I'm still somewhat inexperienced because I slow-play mostly in solo... but I do visit nav beacons a lot.

I know there are a lot of tools that are awesome like neutron star plotters, ship builders, star maps etc. and things that can help a particular need... and I have made tons of credits and learned a lot just using Inara alone. But even Inara doesn't work alone and (I believe) relies on cmdrs using tools like EDMC. Most of the 3rd-party tool vids on YouTube are prior to EDO and most are years old. So what are the current must-have 'base' tools that every player really should be using as 'standard requirement', and maybe tips on using them effectively to help the community?... for example, I know I'll usually forget to start EDMC prior to starting ED, so I copied the app shortcut to the windows 'startup' folder and checked the minimize to tab box so it's always running (I'm hoping its a small enough app that it doesn't affect anything)(C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).
And I found 'EDHM UI' (HUD colors) to be a mandatory app for quality of life playing especially for VR players to be able to read thing easier.

Inara helped me 'get-from' the game and it looks like EDMC is to help 'give-to' the game. I absolutely Love ED as a 'lifestyle' simulator and plan to participate for a very long time (and now that I've been engineering ships to hopefully give me protection from gankers who kill for pleasure and no role-play at all... yeah I'm old! I prefer canyon running and enjoying the sights lol) I plan to start playing in Open more often.
 

aRJay

aRJay
In addition to those mentioned EDObservatory and EDDiscovery
EDDiscovery is an alternate to EDMC but gives you very good access to your logs and journals and tons of other features..
EDObservatory very good at pointing out things to discover when you scan a system or map a planet it also can let you know when you have travelled far enough to obtain a new bio sample.
 

Willyum-71

Willyum-71
aRJay said:
gives you very good access to your logs and journals
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I looked at EDDiscovery when I purchased the ED voicepacks, on the page it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2018 so I thought it was abandonware, but just now I did find a vid from the maker that shows that it is fully updated for EDO a couple months ago. It looks like a very advanced tool for serious explorers but 2 things really caught my attention... the map showing what cmdrs have already discovered which may help me find undiscovered systems ( right now my closest discovered planets are 5,000 LY out from the bubble and I'm sure there's something I can put my name on closer)... The other thing is what you mentioned, logs and journals. As I'm putting more and more time into ED it is now feeling like an investment and I've become scared of losing all my progress. I'm sure FDev probably has accounts double and triple backed up... but would those logs allow me to back up all my progress on my end as well?? I can't fight worth a damn, so I've been grinding for months to try to feel safe in open... spent so much hours and credits on protection that I'm feeling like I would have saved money by just getting blown up lol.

As an explorer primarily EDObservatory also seems like it would come in very handy, I'm sure I've driven right past some of the most beautiful sites without a hint that there's something here to see.... Must have passed right by Mitterrand Hollow about 10 times before the 'Winking Cat' made me go there lol. Thanks for the recommendations.
 

varonica

varonica
Willyum-71 said:
As I'm putting more and more time into ED it is now feeling like an investment and I've become scared of losing all my progress. I'm sure FDev probably has accounts double and triple backed up... but would those logs allow me to back up all my progress on my end as well?? I can't fight worth a damn, so I've been grinding for months to try to feel safe in open... spent so much hours and credits on protection that I'm feeling like I would have saved money by just getting blown up lol.

As an explorer primarily EDObservatory also seems like it would come in very handy, I'm sure I've driven right past some of the most beautiful sites without a hint that there's something here to see.... Must have passed right by Mitterrand Hollow about 10 times before the 'Winking Cat' made me go there lol. Thanks for the recommendations.
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No, journals and visited stars cache MUST be backed up by the user, I won't go into details here because I am short of time, but just search on how to back up ED journal files and visited stars cache.

In my opinion EDObservatory is a must have, with MattG's plugins, don't forget those, they add a lot of functionality, they may not all be necessary for you but some are vital, such as bio insights to find out what planets are worth visiting for bio!
 

Willyum-71

Willyum-71
Idiot_Savant said:
What's EDMC exactly? Never heard of it
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The app and info is in the link she gave... but from my understanding Elite Dangerous is designed to be 'fully user driven'. I haven't gotten into BGS (background simulation) yet, that's part of next deeper dive... but all the system 'states' (war, famine, pirate attack etc) is supposed to be fully influenced by the players, which also means when the markets are up and down in different places it will change what happens there... EDMC informs the sites, that inform the players on what's going on where.... And depending on your chosen role, including Pirates, it can let you know what to do. such as if you are a Pirate and you looked at the crazy sales on Bauxite going on all last week (over 100 million an hour in a T9), then you know that will be the new hot spot for pirating... which will bring gankers, which also brings anti-gankers... then can change the system to Pirate attack... which will change the HGE materials available for people building ships and where explorers might want to avoid.... and all this triggers by the Players updating the markets in real time. There are many (maybe not 'many') but there are a lot of player controlled factions that can be heavily affected by the system state and can control flipping system, like flipping states in election years.

But even bigger than that is the power to go against the narrative of the actual game... as I said I don't fully understand this stuff so I hope someone will correct me where I'm wrong.... But just recently one of the large faction was recruiting people to go against one of the recent CG's because they felt they were too heavily influenced with the outcome, because people like me will sell out their own mothers for some shiny new pre-engineered modules. And I believe Galnet reported that they were almost successful in changing the game (and I suspect that's why the last CG included giving away some Chieftains to the top cmdrs to give the pre-determined losing side a chance.)

So bottom line (literally) is EDMC and all other tools like it influence the 'who, what, where', in the Galaxy. (I expect corrections cause I'm new to this...)
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
"Mandatory" is pushing it - comparing traffic reports in-game with the equivalent numbers seen by 3rd-party tools suggests that fewer than 5% of active players use them (though the figure is higher among certain groups)

It very much depends what you want to do: if you make use of the various websites like Inara, EDDB, EDSM, etc. then you might want to contribute to their data as well - there are various options - EDMC, EDDiscovery and EDDI being the most commonly-used ones. All three also have other features which may or may not be useful to you. With EDSM and Inara those tools can also link up with your accounts on those sites to update your data there.

I personally use EDDiscovery - mainly for the data upload, but occasionally for looking back through the journal files conveniently.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Well, if you visit EDDB and Inara, you rely on data collected by CMDRs using EDMC (or other tools sending that data to the ED data network).

Ian above (I think) was the first one to mention it - EDSM for explorers. You'll need an account there to use it fully. Otherwise, +1 for EDDiscovery. EDObservatory for flying in VR, if you don't mind the occasional voice telling you about interesting features in the system after the initial scan. Nearly fell off my chair the first time that happened to me :) .

The problem with flying in VR is that none of the tools that rely on screen overlays work.
 

Cmdr. Numa

Cmdr. Numa
Nothing is mandatory, but I'm running ED Discovery and am using Inara with api access. EDD is the one tool that does it pretty much all. It feeds the EDDN network, reports to Inara, EDSM and a few others, provides additional voice feedback and has voice control.
 

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
Never used a plug-in.
If I'm building a ship I'll plan it in EDSY.
Canonn is probably the other site I use most if I want some specific info.
Inara's CG tracking can be interesting, but don't rely on the numbers.
 

robbyp

robbyp
EDD of course ;-) EDD is not abandonware! Where did you get that idea from?

Its been continually updated for the last 6 years. It feature voice cockpit, voice recognition, 3d maps, over 55 panels of information. Its not just for exploration, its for everything you do in Elite - trading, mining (decidated mining panels), Engineering (planning), Material trading, Combat, Compass, OBS, Full journal history, multi commander support, Inara/EDSM integration, EDDN, Tablet support via web browser, etc,etc,etc.

15.1 will be out by next week and feature a new Engineers panel and a new Discoveries search system. A new discoveries panel, and integration into the Surveyor panel will allow you to spot interesting bodies and show historical interesting bodies. Many stock searches will be provided (such as moons withing rings) plus the ability to easily edit these searches or make up new searches to find and identify bodies your interested in visiting.

Here is the forum post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ecognition-speech-star-maps-webserver.329643/

here is the help wiki : https://github.com/EDDiscovery/EDDiscovery/wiki

Videos are at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6CMbualdRleR47ocYPnokg

Some images from EDD:

3dmap1.png


Main page:
intropic.png


Compass:
compasstransparent.png


Tablet:
website4-2.png
 

Willyum-71

Willyum-71
lol ok ok, I get it... 'mandatory' might have been a bit strong. Maybe I should have just said 'game changers' lol. Most of the third party tools are awesome, but some tools just really take gameplay to the next level.
 
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