Fansite: https://CMDR.club + Routeplanner discontinued.

[Peter Powers]

the design plan indicates all that is incorporated in the game with gameplay elements....

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6089]...

I very much prefer if I can plan the route out of game, so I can display it in a way where it is helpful to me, rather than in the 3d mess that is the map.

I also prefer it in a format that I can share with my friends, and in a way that I can put it on my tablet, so I can look at the route on that device while playing or use the route on that device to show to my friends.

[Peter Powers]

Getting a stable game is more important just now, despite your efforts with the 3rd party tool. Hopefully the API will give you an opportunity to create something useful in future.

A tool that reads from the client only risks making it less stable when you are using it. If you don't use it it can't destabilize your game.

The ability to run a tool that retrieves the star data for me risks exactly one machines and to be more exact one sessions stability - the one where it is run.

The easiest way to deal with that is "no support as long as you run those tools".

Btw: If you run obs or shadowplay you are lowering the stability as well (infact my game crashes a lot more when running either one).. And strictly speaking they are 3rd party tools that read data from the client.. So anyone realized those aren't allowed now either?
Want to make a bet that FD won't close your streaming posts?

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

As much as I appreciate the work that went into making the bpc etc programs I will not miss them.I would suggest that those who made these programs should have contacted ED before they put time and effort into the programs to see if they would be allowed.

Apparently the information that ED will have it's own trade route planner(be it by upgrade in game purchase) in the galaxy map was already available ,so it was a bit pointless to put the effort into making a 3rd party program in the first place.

But now we have people complaining that they no longer have their gadget that did all the work for them, in this case it is the fault of ED(as far as I know) for not making their policy on 3rd party programs clearer sooner thus putting a stop to them before they became popular and people got comfortable with them.

So they are gone,deal with it ,lets move on.

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I very much prefer if I can plan the route out of game, so I can display it in a way where it is helpful to me, rather than in the 3d mess that is the map.

I also prefer it in a format that I can share with my friends, and in a way that I can put it on my tablet, so I can look at the route on that device while playing or use the route on that device to show to my friends.

This sounds like good suggestion for feature for upcoming mobile app no? I would second that.

[Apec Valorian]

The core feature so far was the route planner which with an average of about 200 users / more than 1800 route searches per day seemed to benefit quite a few players. The first iteration of the route planner i build when there wasn't that many star systems ingame yet, and the data was based on some other players effort getting distances and such by manually measuring stuff on his screen for each single star. That this method won't work for more than a few systems should go without saying. [...]

Triangulation should be the way to go.

Presuming you already have a set of star systems with known coordinates, the position of any additional star system can be computed from the distances to the three nearest known systems (except for a few rare special cases). For more accuracy, use a few more known systems for reference.

As for the first three star systems, you don't really need to know their true coordinates either: All that matters is that you get the distances between the three systems right.

[lefty1117]

As much as I appreciate the work that went into making the bpc etc programs I will not miss them.I would suggest that those who made these programs should have contacted ED before they put time and effort into the programs to see if they would be allowed.

Apparently the information that ED will have it's own trade route planner(be it by upgrade in game purchase) in the galaxy map was already available ,so it was a bit pointless to put the effort into making a 3rd party program in the first place.

But now we have people complaining that they no longer have their gadget that did all the work for them, in this case it is the fault of ED(as far as I know) for not making their policy on 3rd party programs clearer sooner thus putting a stop to them before they became popular and people got comfortable with them.

So they are gone,deal with it ,lets move on.

Crap response. FD knew for months that these tools were being worked on and only now did they decide to put a stop to them. The gadgets do not do "all the work", they are aids that help in decision making and frankly if the UI was good enough these tools wouldn't be necessary. With any luck FD have enhancements in the pipeline that provide this kind of functionality.

It would have been better form for FD to announce an API officially at the same time that they shut these tools down. It's wisest to harness the energy of your community rather than try to snuff it out. If you make elements of your game available to developers, they can end up enhancing it for you - for free! Blizzard has been great at doing this - just look at all the WoW addons over the years that they've incorporated into their default designs. Missed opportunity by FD.

[Armored]

To all the players out there creating tools for the ED Community I want to give you my utmost gratitude. With that said I do hope all of you take these changes with a grain of salt. As making tools for a "beta" isn't the most ideal thing to do or at least not to fully give up hope in such matters until the final release.

Creating tools during the beta is amazing and very nice for we the community to start to get a handle on them etc... Also it is good for you guys to get the feel for the game data etc and also if you will a head start on building your tools as well as the user base that uses them as well. So all is not lost I hope you all hang in there and see what the final release brings!

[Kicks]

Thanks for a great tool but FD killed it ,
it helped me plan out and find stuff in game I wouldn't have gone to and after seeing this and the removal of Slopey's tool

i'm starting to lose a bit of love for the game after being a backer and buying the paint jobs plus other bits

I may as well go back to my copy of elite on my BBC B and 5 1/2 floppy drive

FD didn't kill anything. As useful as the tools are to some, they are developed outside of FD and without permission, not support. In the case of MarketDump, it also crashed people's game-client. FD have done absolutely the right thing at this juncture, in officially not allowing tools that interfere with the game client itself.

If I had been one of the programmers trying to debug an issue in code I wrote, and found out it was because some guy on the internet was screwing with the program, I'd have flipped my lid.

As for the OP's post, I'm going to go ahead and say that whilst I appreciate his work - I believe 3rd party tools and wikis can *sometimes* detract from the experience of the game (Note: Subjective viewpoint alert!!! ). I used to enjoy figuring stuff out in games, and then when real-live (tm) took over I'd find myself using wikis attached to MMOs to quickly find out which mob to kill, which dungeon to run, and what loot could be found where. Sure as hell took the mystery and fun out of it and it turned in to a point to point experience. My own fault entirely!

In Elite: Dangerous, I've managed to trade and make a tidy profit, purely by using the galaxy map (which could use a few more features, I admit), and exploration has been a blast. One thing that led me to other places, were the courier missions. Low value, but by picking one and using the galaxy map to trade on the way I forced myself to discover new systems and new space-stations. All of that is going to be even more awesome in Beta2.

Note also that the developers haven't made a comment that it was for economic reasons... as had been mentioned in many "to use, or not to use" threads in the past, if 1000 people see that trade-route A is profitable, then a large percentage of the "if-you-snooze-you-lose" group, are going to be sorely disappointed. Prior to the dynamic economy, this wasn't a problem, it was either profitable or it wasn't. Once the dynamic economy kicked in, the use of 3rd party tools could be detrimental to the trader using them. So, whilst I didn't use the tools myself, I had no particular argument with another players' experience.

Everyone can be swim in money in the final release. You don't even need a pen and paper or a spreadsheet (though it might help if you have a bad memory ). Every player will need to learn to look at the GALNet Feed (whatever it looks like), and figure out exactly how they can profit from a particular conflict, or other event. The only players that will lose out, are those who are unwilling to go further afield, or who cannot react to a dynamic universe.

So irrespective of the 3rd party-tools, when a gold-rush occurs, which of you are going to be quick enough to make a mountain of cash, and which of you are going to wonder why it is not profitable, if you were a week or two late?

Happy trading out there, commanders

[PhilHibbs]

The OP says that this is discontinued... but it still seems to be working... what's the situation? Is the data being updated along with all the other sites that are using the 20,000 systems that were released plus the trilateration input, or is it becoming out of date? This is a great route planner, fast and easy to read.