Discussion Commanders log manual and data sample

[orizh]

Currently it appears that scanning a nav beacon to reveal a system is not recorded in the event log. This seems like it would be a useful thing to add.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

A JumpStart and JumpEnd events would enable perfect use for both EDDI and my project.

Oh heck yes - JumpStart and JumpEnd would be infinitely better.

 

[hchalkley]

How do we get journal info for systems we already know everything for? For example, Gateway's system map is fully populated...

The system was designed to track your commander's gameplay including new discoveries, I'm sorry, but it was not designed as a mechanism to export data into other databases.

When docked an occasional HeatWarning journal entry shows up. Please can these be squashed when docked?

This is the sort of change that I can make at this stage
(under what circumstances do you get a heat warning when docked?)

When scanning stars I only receive a Scan journal entry if I have a detailed surface scanner. Is this intentional?

Yes, that's what the game designers asked me to do

That also raises another issue: large numbers are coming out in scientific notation.

That seems like the appropriate format for such large nuumbers

When is the Body parameter written on the Location event?

It is not written on start up when docked at a planetary port, nor when landed on a body.
Possible bug?

The "Body" parameter was only being written when dropping from supercruise to normal space. I can add this parameter to the "Location" event.

And in the same entry, "Docked" is showing up as 1 if docked and is not present at all if undocked, rather than being there all the time and either true or false.

I can change this so it's always written out for "Location", as true/false

More PowerPlay log complaints. I picked up Alliance Legislative Records in two different control systems to test how the log handles them. Not very well is the answer....

I'll look into these issues to see if this data can be improved.

 

[themroc]

The system was designed to track your commander's gameplay including new discoveries, I'm sorry, but it was not designed as a mechanism to export data into other databases.

I totally understand the mechanic. Still there is a reasonable demand to map the universe. To achieve this, a lot of people do this manually by text copy or with the help of error prone OCR software. Is the decision to not log already fully discovered systems into the log 100% final? If not, what can we do to convince you that it would make many people very happy? [big grin]

Edit: One (simple?) solution would be to give us a dump of all generally known systems with the body information. This way the Journal could remain as it is

 

[MattG]

I totally understand the mechanic. Still there is a reasonable demand to map the universe. To achieve this, a lot of people do this manually by text copy or with the help of error prone OCR software. Is the decision to not log already fully discovered systems into the log 100% final? If not, what can we do to convince you that it would make many people very happy? [big grin]

Just want to "+1" this. A SystemMap log entry when the system map is opened (or something similar) detailing all the attributes of known bodies would solve this - it's not like it's secret hidden information, it's just a huge pain to collate it...

 

[jgm]

This is the sort of change that I can make at this stage
(under what circumstances do you get a heat warning when docked?)

I don't remember doing anything in particular to cause the heat warning. I believe I was in a Cutter at the time, although I can't promise. Would it help if you had the journal entries for that time?

Any thoughts on the FSDJump event showing up at the wrong time? This is a massive one for me, and I suspect others, as it negatively impacts on one of the few pieces of functionality that existed before the journal.

 

[jgm]

And about scientific notation:

That seems like the appropriate format for such large nuumbers

Is this causing us to lose precision though? If not then it's fine, but if so then it's an issue.

 

[eventure]

The "Body" parameter was only being written when dropping from supercruise to normal space. I can add this parameter to the "Location" event.

Thanks for adding it, as the manual shows.

 

[Andargor]

I totally understand the mechanic. Still there is a reasonable demand to map the universe. To achieve this, a lot of people do this manually by text copy or with the help of error prone OCR software. Is the decision to not log already fully discovered systems into the log 100% final? If not, what can we do to convince you that it would make many people very happy? [big grin]

Edit: One (simple?) solution would be to give us a dump of all generally known systems with the body information. This way the Journal could remain as it is

+1

/5char

 

[eventure]

A wrong name for "Skimmer Components" commodity is written into the log. One "m" is missing.

{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:26:37Z", "event":"MarketBuy", "Type":"skimercomponents", "Count":80, "BuyPrice":754, "TotalCost":60320 }

 

[jgm]

A wrong name for "Skimmer Components" commodity is written into the log. One "m" is missing.

{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:26:37Z", "event":"MarketBuy", "Type":"skimercomponents", "Count":80, "BuyPrice":754, "TotalCost":60320 }

These are ED's internal names for things; they're often oddly capitalised or incorrectly spelled.

 

[hchalkley]

More PowerPlay log complaints...

When dumping powerplay cargo, I can add a "PowerplayOrigin" value with the starsystem where they came from.

I can't do much about the spelling error at this stage, it's from game resources and would knock on to too many other things.

I can't easily pick up any powerplay info for the bounty event, I think the powerplay effects of that are handled server side.

When jumping into a star system, if you're pledged to a power, I can include the power(s) contesting/controlling the system, and the system state
eg: "Powers":["Edmund Mahon"], "PowerplayState":"Exploited"

The system state values I can list here are: "InPrepareRadius","Prepared","Exploited","Contested","Controlled","Turmoil","HomeSystem"

 

[MartinG]

That also raises another issue: large numbers are coming out in scientific notation.

That seems like the appropriate format for such large nuumbers

I fully agree, but only 2 or 3 significant digits is too low a precision. Both mass and radius ought to be output with at least 5 significant digits.

Also, would it be possible to include full stellar type (as shown in the galaxy map, e.g. "M5 V") for stars and star-like objects? Occasionally, scanning a system reveals additional stars, whose full types are then displayed in the galaxy map; but when there are many such stars, some orbiting others (the Alnitak system is a good example), it becomes messy to associate types with stars.

 

[Martin Schou]

When dumping powerplay cargo, I can add a "PowerplayOrigin" value with the starsystem where they came from.

That would be very helpful, as that allows us to track the amount of cargo we have from each system when dealing with inbound types.

I can't do much about the spelling error at this stage, it's from game resources and would knock on to too many other things.

I can't easily pick up any powerplay info for the bounty event, I think the powerplay effects of that are handled server side.

When jumping into a star system, if you're pledged to a power, I can include the power(s) contesting/controlling the system, and the system state
eg: "Powers":["Edmund Mahon"], "PowerplayState":"Exploited"

The system state values I can list here are: "InPrepareRadius","Prepared","Exploited","Contested","Controlled","Turmoil","HomeSystem"

This would also be very helpful - that makes it far easier for the log handlers to track if something should give merits or not.

 

[eventure]

The "Bounty" events writing a reward of 0, but in game I read 6,2k Cr.

Nevermind. My fault.

 

[Mack Winston]

I totally understand the mechanic. Still there is a reasonable demand to map the universe. To achieve this, a lot of people do this manually by text copy or with the help of error prone OCR software. Is the decision to not log already fully discovered systems into the log 100% final? If not, what can we do to convince you that it would make many people very happy? [big grin]

I second this. Entering data by hand is so painful I lose the will to live, and I don't see any gameplay benefits of *not* logging the information a commander has seen on their travels (even previously discovered information).

To prevent the log being bloated with already known data, I think an acceptable solution would be that if a commander honks a system that's fully explored, all the data is logged (basically a way a player can say "Give me a dump of the system data")

 

[hchalkley]

The "Bounty" events writing a reward of 0, but in game I read 6,2k Cr. [...]

Can you please put in a bug report with more details of the circumstances? (I can't find a "Cmdr Eventure" in the system in order to check server logs)

 

[MartinG]

I second this. Entering data by hand is so painful I lose the will to live, and I don't see any gameplay benefits of *not* logging the information a commander has seen on their travels (even previously discovered information).

Not only that, but important information is completely inaccessible (specifically, barycentric orbital parameters of binary pairs) and there is the issue of catastrophic precision loss with semi-major axes (“0.00 AU”) and masses (“0.0000 Earth masses”). Dumping to a log file could solve both problems easily.

To prevent the log being bloated with already known data, I think an acceptable solution would be that if a commander honks a system that's fully explored, all the data is logged (basically a way a player can say "Give me a dump of the system data")

Poor solution, IMHO. You would still have to visit all those systems, including those you’ve already visited before 2.2.

Writing a system data dump (filtered by what’s supposed to be visible to the CMDR) every time the player opens the system map would be a better solution; after all, it’s not something one does thousand times an hour (at least not normally )

An even better, but more dev-time-consuming, solution would be to dump system data to a separate file named after the system whose map is being viewed.

 

[Esvandiary]

Poor solution, IMHO. You would still have to visit all those systems, including those you’ve already visited before 2.2.

Writing a system data dump (filtered by what’s supposed to be visible to the CMDR) every time the player opens the system map would be a better solution; after all, it’s not something one does thousand times an hour (at least not normally )

However, it is something that the player does as a normal part of playing the game, resulting in unnecessary dumps any time you open the system map in a mostly-unexplored system.

Honking a system that's already completely discovered isn't a normal action the player would take as a matter of course (other than flying around the bubble having just returned from a months-long exploration trip, at which point I accidentally honk here there and everywhere for a few days until I get out of the habit).

I'd agree with being wary about the potential for creating massive journal files on people's machines just from playing the game. The amount of data dumped about each body in a system could easily result in such a problem.

We're only just getting this feature now, I'd rather not see it given a bad name due to people complaining about massive journal logs.

 

[eventure]

Can you please put in a bug report with more details of the circumstances? (I can't find a "Cmdr Eventure" in the system in order to check server logs)

Here is the log:

Spoiler

{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:10:39Z", "event":"Fileheader", "part":1, "language":"English\\UK", "gameversion":"2.2 (Beta 2)", "build":"r121783/r0 " }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:11:15Z", "event":"LoadGame", "Commander":"Hellmachine", "Ship":"Asp", "ShipID":4, "GameMode":"Solo", "Credits":5072246, "Loan":0 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:11:15Z", "event":"Rank", "Combat":1, "Trade":4, "Explore":3, "Empire":0, "Federation":7, "CQC":0 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:11:15Z", "event":"Progress", "Combat":78, "Trade":97, "Explore":21, "Empire":17, "Federation":11, "CQC":0 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:11:17Z", "event":"ApproachSettlement", "Name":"Walz Depot" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:11:46Z", "event":"Location", "Docked":1, "StationName":"Walz Depot", "StationType":"", "StarSystem":"Sol", "StarPos":[0.000,0.000,0.000], "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Refinery;", "Economy_Localised":"Refinery", "Government":"$government_Democracy;", "Government_Localised":"Democracy", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_high;", "Security_Localised":"High Security", "Faction":"Mother Gaia" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:11:47Z", "event":"Docked", "StationName":"Walz Depot", "StarSystem":"Sol", "Faction":"Mother Gaia", "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Refinery;", "Economy_Localised":"Refinery", "Government":"$government_Democracy;", "Government_Localised":"Democracy", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_high;", "Security_Localised":"High Security" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:18:57Z", "event":"RefuelAll", "Cost":53, "Amount":1.035588 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:26:37Z", "event":"MarketBuy", "Type":"skimercomponents", "Count":80, "BuyPrice":754, "TotalCost":60320 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:32:50Z", "event":"LoadGame", "Commander":"Hellmachine", "Ship":"Asp", "ShipID":4, "GameMode":"Solo", "Credits":5011873, "Loan":0 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:32:50Z", "event":"Rank", "Combat":1, "Trade":4, "Explore":3, "Empire":0, "Federation":7, "CQC":0 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:32:50Z", "event":"Progress", "Combat":78, "Trade":97, "Explore":21, "Empire":17, "Federation":11, "CQC":0 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:32:51Z", "event":"ApproachSettlement", "Name":"Walz Depot" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:33:10Z", "event":"Location", "Docked":1, "StationName":"Walz Depot", "StationType":"", "StarSystem":"Sol", "StarPos":[0.000,0.000,0.000], "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Refinery;", "Economy_Localised":"Refinery", "Government":"$government_Democracy;", "Government_Localised":"Democracy", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_high;", "Security_Localised":"High Security", "Faction":"Mother Gaia" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:33:10Z", "event":"Docked", "StationName":"Walz Depot", "StarSystem":"Sol", "Faction":"Mother Gaia", "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Refinery;", "Economy_Localised":"Refinery", "Government":"$government_Democracy;", "Government_Localised":"Democracy", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_high;", "Security_Localised":"High Security" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:51:23Z", "event":"Undocked", "StationName":"Walz Depot" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:51:58Z", "event":"SupercruiseEntry", "StarSystem":"Sol" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:53:33Z", "event":"FSDJump", "StarSystem":"LHS 450", "StarPos":[-12.406,7.813,-1.875], "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Colony;", "Economy_Localised":"Colony", "Government":"$government_Corporate;", "Government_Localised":"Corporate", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_medium;", "Security_Localised":"Medium Security", "JumpDist":14.781, "FuelUsed":1.702366, "FuelLevel":30.297634, "Faction":"LHS 450 Blue Life Corp.", "FactionState":"Boom" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:55:51Z", "event":"FSDJump", "StarSystem":"LHS 3262", "StarPos":[-24.125,18.844,4.906], "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_HighTech;", "Economy_Localised":"High tech", "Government":"$government_Corporate;", "Government_Localised":"Corporate", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_medium;", "Security_Localised":"Medium Security", "JumpDist":17.464, "FuelUsed":2.542148, "FuelLevel":27.755486, "Faction":"LeMat partnership" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:58:56Z", "event":"ApproachSettlement", "Name":"Whitworth Park" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:59:08Z", "event":"SupercruiseExit", "StarSystem":"LHS 3262", "Body":"Akan" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T14:59:45Z", "event":"ApproachSettlement", "Name":"Zamyatin Settlement +++" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:12:18Z", "event":"CommitCrime", "CrimeType":"assault", "Faction":"LHS 3262 Solutions", "Victim":"Bubba", "Bounty":400 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:12:23Z", "event":"HeatWarning" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:15:35Z", "event":"Bounty", "Reward":0, "VictimFaction":"Mob of LHS 3343" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:15:36Z", "event":"CommitCrime", "CrimeType":"murder", "Faction":"LHS 3262 Solutions", "Victim":"Bubba", "Bounty":6000 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:15:39Z", "event":"HeatWarning" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:19:58Z", "event":"DockingRequested", "StationName":"Whitworth Park" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:19:59Z", "event":"DockingGranted", "LandingPad":12, "StationName":"Whitworth Park" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:02Z", "event":"DockingDenied", "Reason":"Hostile", "StationName":"Whitworth Park" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:29Z", "event":"ShieldState", "ShieldsUp":false }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:42Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.709786 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:46Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.568811 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:51Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.313095 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:54Z", "event":"HullDamage", "Health":0.190034 }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:20:56Z", "event":"Died", "KillerName":"$ShipName_Police_Federation;", "KillerName_Localised":"Federal Security Service", "KillerShip":"eagle", "KillerRank":"Competent" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:21:16Z", "event":"Resurrect", "Option":"rebuy", "Cost":745072, "Bankrupt":false }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:21:17Z", "event":"ApproachSettlement", "Name":"Walz Depot" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:21:40Z", "event":"Location", "Docked":1, "StationName":"Walz Depot", "StationType":"", "StarSystem":"Sol", "StarPos":[0.000,0.000,0.000], "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Refinery;", "Economy_Localised":"Refinery", "Government":"$government_Democracy;", "Government_Localised":"Democracy", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_high;", "Security_Localised":"High Security", "Faction":"Mother Gaia" }
{ "timestamp":"2016-09-21T15:21:40Z", "event":"Docked", "StationName":"Walz Depot", "StarSystem":"Sol", "Faction":"Mother Gaia", "Allegiance":"Federation", "Economy":"$economy_Refinery;", "Economy_Localised":"Refinery", "Government":"$government_Democracy;", "Government_Localised":"Democracy", "Security":"$SYSTEM_SECURITY_high;", "Security_Localised":"High Security" }

Made a trade from "Walz Depot" to "Whitworth Park". Close to "Whitworth Park" there is "Zamyatin Settlement +++".
Didn't know, that I was close to it (programming aside), got attacked, killed the attacker, continued to "Whitworth Park" and got attack by "Whitworth Park" security. Game Over!