Community Event / Creation Elite Advisor - Maximise your trading potential!

Skunkworks · Aug 18, 2014

Announcement.

The real-time price feed is no more. Andreas, thanks for the Market Data Network - it was indeed fun whilst it lasted.
More details here

Proudly announcing the launch of EliteAdvisor.uk - a web site designed to help you maximise your trading potential.

The site's functionality includes:

Recommended Trades - tell it where you are, how much money you've got, the jump range of your ship and how many jumps you're willing to make; it'll make recommendations as to what to buy, where to sell it and how to get there.
Route Planner - want to find the fastest way from A to B? Tell the site where you are, where you're going and the jump range of your ship and it'll do the rest
Market Price Lookups - list the current market prices in each system
Find Commodity - need to buy some Crop Harvesters? This will tell you where to find them
Sell Commodity - lists the best places nearby to offload your cargo

The site is free to use and you don't need to register to use it. Anyone can enter updated price data, key in new systems and add jump routes between them, although we do ask you to register so as we can keep track of our most helpful members. A leaderboard is planned for the next release! We've got data on all the core systems at the moment, but we're looking for people with longer-range ships to help gather price and jump route data from further afield. The more data we can gather the more powerful this tool will become.

Please come over and take a look. This is a fan creation and as such entirely free to use and non-commercial. We're Elite enthusiasts first and foremost and we welcome input from the community, both on this thread and via the site's Contact Us page.

Now let's get out there and trade!

Skunkworks · Aug 20, 2014

Development Update

Well, it's certainly been an interesting couple of days! First of all I just want to say that the level of interest that the site's been getting is fantastic and thanks very much to those who've taken the time to provide direct feedback on their experiences so far.

Trawling through the site's logs a couple of things have become evident:

1) The Auto-completes for System and Commodity haven't been working so well for everyone, often leading to failed searches

2) Market Price and Trade route coverage, currently at 36% of known systems, is nowhere near good enough. People have been getting "No results found" in response to their queries if they reference systems that we've not yet got data for.

In order to resolve the first issue I've totally re-written the auto complete functionality and believe that it now represents a considerable improvement. Lookups are faster and will be double-checked whenever the text box loses focus (e.g.: you tab out of it)

As regards the second issue, I've added in some extra checks so that the system will tell you WHY you're not getting any results back. I've also been grinding hard for a ship that has longer legs so that I can explore further afield and seed the database with more Jump Routes and Market Prices. If any one else out there wants to help out in order to see just how powerful this tool can be at working out profitable trade routes then I'd be grateful for the help - just register with the site and update the data in the Jump Routes and Market Prices pages under the Star Systems menu. If you want to see where the data gaps are, just pull up the list of Star Systems and take a look for those with no market prices (excluding the Dead systems)

With that I'll sign off for now - its time to go exploring and see where my new ship can take me.

Adios!

Skunkworks · Aug 20, 2014

65% System Coverage and rising...

When Elite Advisor launched two days ago it contained 42 systems, of which only 16 had prices and jump routes - that was about 38% coverage.

Since then the number of systems has risen to 52 as we've started exploring further from the core systems. We've also catalogued a further 18 systems, bringing our total coverage to 65%.

The mission to reach 100% coverage continues, although it doesn't stop there. So far we're only mapping jump routes out to about 9.5 LY from each planet - for those of you flying ships with longer range you'll find that the proposed routes may involve a number of unnecessary waypoints. The easiest way to resolve this is to update the site with the longer range jumps yourselves - see the Jump Routes screen for more details on how.

We must also consider that the economy in Elite: Dangerous is a living, breathing beast. Although we're seeding the site with commodity prices now, these prices will change over time. In order to ensure that this site continually delivers reliable trading recommendations we'll all need to periodically check that the prices in the systems we pass through match those on the site and update the site's price data when it gets out of date. It only takes a few moments to do and it's well worth the time in order to ensure that you're trading as effectively as possible.

That's it for now - see you in the void.

Skunkworks · Aug 21, 2014

I've been hunting..

Alas, I wasn't chasing pirate bounties last night. I was after something much worse: bugs!

It looks that the algorithm I was using to determine the best routes between the stars, which worked beautifully on the small data set we started out with, didn't scale at all well. As the number of stars in the database increased and more importantly the number of routes between them skyrocketed, the number of potential routes generated by the algorithm increased exponentially and pretty much bought the database server to its knees (cue the humble apologies to my hosting provider!)

After a very fruitful evening of researching online I've implemented a new algorithm that is unbelievably fast and can yield the best route between any two stars in under 20 milliseconds on my dev server. It'll give best fit results from any single system to EVERY star in the database in under 60!

As a result, the issues that some of you have encountered in the Route Planner, Trade Recommendation and Commodity Find/Sell screens have now been quashed. I would contact the people affected by this directly, but I don't know who you are (the joys of an anonymous system!). All that I can ask is that if you experienced problems with this functionality in the last couple of days that you give it another go and see what you think.

Tonight I plan to fire up the Viper and head back out into the void on my mission to get 100% coverage. If anyone feels like helping out then fire up your engines and join the crusade! The Star System : List screen shows where the gaps are - if there are any near you then head over and gather the Jump Routes from your Navigation Hud and the Commodity Prices - once they're in the database then you'll be able to benefit from them, along with all the other users of the site.

Thanks again - good hunting!

ErikNM · Aug 21, 2014

Thanks, mathematics is a beautiful thing. This is a great tool for pirates as well; by identifying the most profitable trade routes, you identify the likely location of the most profitable targets. Then again it's also a great tool for bounty hunters; by identifying the most profitable trade routes, you identify the most profitable targets of pirate attacks, which also lets you identify the most likely location of notorious pirates. It's a doubly great tool for traders; by identifying the most profitable trade routes, you identify the most profitable targets of pirate attacks, which also lets you identify the most likely location of notorious pirates, which again let's you identify the most likely location of intrepid bounty hunters whom you may employ to take down particular pirates who have wronged you. This of course makes the tool doubly great for pirates, because by identifying the most profitable trade routes, you identify the most profitable targets of pirate attacks, which also lets you identify the most likely location of notorious pirates, which again let's you identify the most likely location of intrepid bounty hunters whom traders may employ to take down particular pirates who have wronged them, which of course makes it an even more reliable way to locate profitable trader victims. Now of course this makes it a doubly great too for bounty hunters as well, because... oh, you get the idea.

Skunkworks · Aug 21, 2014

My head hurts...

Skunkworks · Aug 22, 2014

We're almost there...

It's been another productive evening with the Viper - we're now up to 81% coverage of the systems in the Elite: Dangerous Beta.

Of the 55 systems available we've found 52 (still searching for the last 3... :S ) and there of these are only 10 left to catalogue. Six of these I should be able to do this evening, but I need to ask for some help from the community to deal with these last four because my little Viper doesn't have the legs to reach them:

Aganippe
LHS 2819
LHS 5287
Ross 1051

If any of you can reach these systems then I'd like to ask if you can register with the site (if you've not done so already!) and fill in the Jump Routes and Commodity Prices for them. I won't benefit from getting this data in the system since I can't reach these stars (yet!), but you will, as will plenty of other players.

That's it for now. Time to get back to the day job and counting down the hours until I can launch again...

peterbbb · Aug 24, 2014

Just taken a quick look at your website and the tools. It looks really interesting. It does something I have been looking for and not found until now. That is the ability to find great, profitable, trade routes and have the route planned. I might be venturing further afield because of your help. Thanks.

Skunkworks · Aug 26, 2014

What a weekend!

Well, it's been an absolutely fantastic weekend for the Elite Advisor web site.

First of all we've hit the 100% coverage mark

. Elite Advisor now contains market prices for every system in the Beta (excluding those without space stations, of course). We've also got all the jump routes between systems mapped out, so our route plotting tool can now find you the fastest way from A to B regardless of where you are or what jump range your ship has.

I want to take this opportunity to say a BIG THANKS to all of you who heeded the call and helped provide the last of the data. Reaching 100% coverage has been the main goal we've been looking to achieve since the site went live just a week ago with a mere 36% and it's great to have hit it so quickly.

And this is not our only news...

A lot of work has gone into the trading engine over the weekend. A new suite of trading tools is currently in Beta and should be ready for launch in the next couple of days. I'm not going going to spoil the surprise just yet, but as pleased as I am with the current functionality, the new trading engine simply blows it out of the water. To peterbbb and the rest of the Elite: Dangerous community I say "watch this space..."

Skunkworks · Aug 28, 2014

Version 1.2 is here!

As promised, a new version of the site has just been launched and the new trade engine is available for use!

Now my first experience of Elite was on a BBC B micro-computer. 32k of memory (yes kids: back in those days computer memory was measured in Kilobytes rather than Gigabytes!). I have fond memories of the old wire-frame graphics, the tinny audio and the joy of crash-landing my cobra every time I tried to dock. For those of you who played the original, you probably remember the novella that came in the box: The Dark Wheel. There's a line in the opening chapter that always stuck with me: "an empty hold means an empty head" and that line provided inspiration for this latest update. Essentially, in order to maximise your trading potential you should never travel anywhere without a hold full of profitable goods.

With this in mind, I've updated the Route Planner to also include the best trade for your journey from A to B, taking your cash balance and cargo space into consideration. The same is true of the Commodity Find & Sell screens - if you're going somewhere to find or sell a particular commodity it makes sense to fill the rest of your hold up with something that'll turn you a juicy profit when you arrive.

For those of you flying Haulers, you probably want to avoid trading in low-security systems since your ship is pretty helpless in the face of pirate attack. To help with this, the screens have been updated so that you can specify the minimum security level of your destination system, thus filtering out Anarchies and the like if you wish.

But the best is yet to come.

The Trade Recommendation facility has had a major overhaul. Version 1.1 of the site saw a new algorithm to overcome scaling issues, but 1.2 has gone leagues beyond that. The page will not only calculate round-trip trades, but it will also find the best round-trip route within a specified number of jumps of your current location. Why is this cool? Because the system you're in may not be all that good for trading from, but there's certainly something better just a few jumps away. And whilst you're on your "positioning run", going to the start of your new round-trip trade route, it'll also recommend some goods to take with you from your current location, because an empty hold means an empty head.

I've also put a lot of effort into the performance of the trading algorithms and the site as a whole, as a result of which you should now find that you're getting results even faster than before. You can essentially work out the best trades across the every system in the Beta in about 3 seconds under normal circumstances. Try it for something like a Cobra with a 3-jump limit and the results take about a second to generate. Now that's fast!

There are more ideas in the pipeline and more updates will be on the way. If there's anything you'd like to see added to the site then please feel free to drop me a line via the "Contact Us" page or in reply to this thread - I'll be more than happy to discuss them.

Now get out there and make some money!

Skunkworks · Aug 28, 2014

Site Alert

It looks like the web server's been struggling a bit today. I don't know if it's related to the Elite Advisor site or one of the multitude of others that are co-hosted on the same machine.

I've restarted the website and its application pool just to be on the safe side. Testing indicates that the site is now back to running at normal performance levels, so please feel free to head back in if you were inconvenienced by any drop-outs this morning.

I will continue to monitor the site through the day and post any updates as necessary.

Skunkworks · Aug 28, 2014

Well the site seems to have been behaving itself very well this afternoon, serving up trade recommendations at a cracking rate. As such I'm at a loss to explain the earlier timeouts. I've emailed my hosting provider to see if they're aware of anything at their end, but have yet to hear back.

At the risk of tempting fate, normal service appears to have been resumed, but I shall continue to monitor the situation, just to be sure.

Viking84 · Aug 28, 2014

Incredible tool - makes trading less daunting for us newbies

What are the plans for keeping this tool alive once the full game releases? Manually updating a few billion stars could be tough

Skunkworks · Aug 28, 2014

You're right - keeping the prices in 46 stars up to date by hand is enough of a pain (thankfully prices aren't really moving much in the beta), but once Elite: Dangerous goes live and the number of stars sky-rockets it'll be completely unworkable.

I've been looking into a number of options in terms of automating a feed of price data and R&D is already underway. My aim is to provide a lightweight tool that players can run in the background on their PC to pick up price data as they interact with the commodity markets. There are already tools out there that do this by memory scraping, such as Andreas' Market Dump tool, which I think is what provides Slopey's BPC with its data. I'm working on something similar in C#, which has some great tools for robust memory scraping in the .Net 4.5 libraries. More news on that later.

So in answer to your question, yes - there are most definitely plans in place and underway to keep this site alive and thriving once Elite: Dangerous goes live and the whole galaxy is opened up to us. I'm really excited by where this is going and look forward to seeing how the site and the suite of tools it offers will evolve and grow over time.

Viking84 · Aug 29, 2014

Sounds great, I wonder if ED will actually open up for such datadumps natively or if it will have to be "hacked" out.

In any case I will certainly be signing up for the tracker program once it goes live

Skunkworks · Aug 30, 2014

OK, so it just got Real...

Real-time, that is (or near enough)

It's been another interesting day, to say the least. Even with all the work I've put into the market price data entry screen to make it as smooth as possible, entering prices into the system by hand is still a time-consuming task and I want to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to all of you who have been updating the site data this way.

The good news is that you won't need to do it any more.

I've been researching ways to negate the need for keying in data manually and on the forums today I discovered the Elite Market Data Network, created by Andreas Bogk. The data on this network is sourced by players running a program on their PCs, which reads Elite's price data right out of the game's memory and uploads it to a central server, from where it is broadcast to subscribers. This is the same feed used by Slopey's BPC, the most popular desktop route mapping software out there.

I've written the necessary code and this evening turned on the feed, directly into the Elite Advisor database and from there to your trade recommendations. It may take a few hours to update commodity price data across all the systems, but from that point on the database will be updated every two minutes, 24/7.

At the moment there's absolutely nothing that you need to do in order to make use of this wonderful new facility. Over the weekend I'll be updating some of the site's content and will be adding a page describing how the feed works in more detail, in which I will post a link to Andreas' Market Dump tool - the software that reads market data from Elite and posts it to the network. If you're not already running Slopey's BPC (in which case you're already running Market Dump in the background) then I would ask that you download this tool and use it yourselves to support the network and help keep the market data flowing to the entire community.

This is great news for Elite Advisor and for all the users of the site as we can now provide ever more accurate and profitable trade recommendations to anyone who chooses to use the site.

My sincere thanks go out to Andreas Bogk for all his hard work in developing the tools and the network that have made this possible.

peterbbb · Aug 30, 2014

Fantastic. This is my tool of choice by far. Simple and elegant and provides the information I need and want. I think the auto scanning of commodity prices was really needed as the info was quite in error of late. I do think that the extension that would be really valuable but probably has to be hand crafted, would be to support exploration and tourism. To suggest places to visit, and to have a route plan. Cook's Tours in space. But great work and so supportive of the rest of us.

Viking84 · Aug 30, 2014

Excellent upgrade, the trades were all a bit off last night, good to be back online

Skunkworks · Aug 30, 2014

Yeah - I was grinding last night, trying to earn enough for a cobra. Following the recommendations I found that Commodities are frequently being withdrawn from the markets, meaning that Elite Advisor can suggest trades for commodities that can't be bought at the stations en-route.

I'm currently updating the data feed tool to automatically remove prices for withdrawn commodities and hope to have an update out tonight to minimise the odds of this happening in the future.

Skunkworks · Aug 31, 2014

First of all: thanks to everyone for the feedback, both on this thread and via the Contact Us page - it's great to see the amount of interest that the site has generated and to know how many of you are keen to help make it better

Since the price feed came online the main issue we've noticed is that whilst it is feeding in new and updated prices, it is not removing prices for commodities that are no longer available at each station, since this data is not available in the feed we're using. As a quick fix I've added functionality to the Star Systems ->Prices screen so that registered users can delete prices that are no longer applicable. This has gone some way to resolving the issue, but the moment that new prices are published in the feed then they are added straight back into the site, meaning that someone has to go remove them again when they get withdrawn in the game. For commodities that come and go regularly this is a real pain.

With this in mind I've taken the decision to TEMPORARILY disable the feed. This way, the price data is back in the hands of the user community. I'm working on a new way to handle the price feed such that the site can recognise when a price is no longer applicable and remove it automatically. Once I've completed this I'll switch the feed back on and keep a close eye on things.