MattG's Observatory plugins

[MattG]

I've updated BioInsights and Codex Companion today. A few small bugfixes, fixes issue with Atmosphere not being displayed in CC, de-prioritize bios that were potentially coloured by direct parent rather than main star, added a couple of blank lines at bottom to stop the annoying scroll to see the last entry, and if you do a Read All, it will show all records until the next time UI is updated to be more in line with Explorer (so you don't need to toggle off "Current System Only", and then back on if looking for something historical).

I've also released an updated version of Colliders. You'll need to do a Read All to repopulate existing data. This version incorporates some tweaked calculations suggested by @LCU No Fool Like One and is much better on certain collisions, but it's still not perfect. In particular, accuracy of collisions between small bodies with potential collision intervals of just a few days need further refinement. Let me know if you find any estimated collisions that are well off.

As usual, updated versions can be found here. Or, if you're using AutoUpdater, close Core and re-run it - twice (once to download the new versions then again to install them).

 

[MattG]

Want to help improve BioInsights? Please go confirm and/or vote on these 2 issues:
Cactoida Pullulanta Green is broken
ScanOrganic lacks variant details

These 2 issues didn't even get to confirmation stage yet. If you are able to, please add to both issues. BioInsights and Codex Companion will be better if we can get FDev to address these .

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

You're 2 or 3 versions behind. Update both BioInsights and CodexCompanion to newest versions, do a "Read All" in ObsCore, once that has finished open up CodexCompanion and see if it's working.

Yes, I see what I did wrong. I ran CodexCompanion after downloading it, but of course that runs from the download folder and the second time (running from a shortcut) it runs the old version. Doh!!

However when I installed both BioInsight and CodexCompanion properly and did a "read all", I still got the same issue. Flashing controls and eventually the messagebox. I did cure the problem by deleting the BioSights database and doing a read all again. I've kept a copy of the old database in case you might find it useful.

 

[MattG]

Yes, I see what I did wrong. I ran CodexCompanion after downloading it, but of course that runs from the download folder and the second time (running from a shortcut) it runs the old version. Doh!!

However when I installed both BioInsight and CodexCompanion properly and did a "read all", I still got the same issue. Flashing controls and eventually the messagebox. I did cure the problem by deleting the BioSights database and doing a read all again. I've kept a copy of the old database in case you might find it useful.

So just to be clear, you did a Read All and let that complete before running CC, and CC was still behaving oddly ? Read All should completely reset the database - I'll see if I can make this more robust. There is also a "control" database, I might see about adding an option to reinitialise that in CC, as well.

 

[Codger]

I tried the auto-update thing and it worked just fine. CodexCompanion I had to do manually, of course.

Thanks for all the great work on this.

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

So just to be clear, you did a Read All and let that complete before running CC, and CC was still behaving oddly ? Read All should completely reset the database - I'll see if I can make this more robust. There is also a "control" database, I might see about adding an option to reinitialise that in CC, as well.

The flashing controls came back again. So this is what I did.

• Deleted all the files in AppData\Roaming\ObservatoryCore\ObservatoryBioInsights.
• Ran Elite Observatory.
• Clicked on "Read All"
• Waited for read all to complete
• Ran CodexCompanion. It list all found items.
• Added persistent mark for all unseen biologicals in all regions.
• Closed CodexCompanion and restarted it. All OK. No flashing controls.
• Closed codexCompanion. EO still running.
• Played elite. Jumped to a couple of systems, doing FSS scan and DSS scans. Landed on planet and found new biological. Did 3 scans.
• Stopped elite
• Ran CodexCompanion. Flashing controls !!

 

[MattG]

The flashing controls came back again. So this is what I did.

• Deleted all the files in AppData\Roaming\ObservatoryCore\ObservatoryBioInsights.
• Ran Elite Observatory.
• Clicked on "Read All"
• Waited for read all to complete
• Ran CodexCompanion. It list all found items.
• Added persistent mark for all unseen biologicals in all regions.
• Closed CodexCompanion and restarted it. All OK. No flashing controls.
• Closed codexCompanion. EO still running.
• Played elite. Jumped to a couple of systems, doing FSS scan and DSS scans. Landed on planet and found new biological. Did 3 scans.
• Stopped elite
• Ran CodexCompanion. Flashing controls !!

Well, I know what is happening. I haven't the foggiest idea why. I can't reproduce it either.

For some of the data actions, CC will try and get a file lock to ensure BI isn't doing anything. They'll wait a set number of seconds for that lock and if they fail, they give up - which is what you see. But the operations that require a file lock should be finished in milliseconds - they "delay" waiting for the lock should be imperceivable.

Is it possible AV software is doing somethign that's keeping that lock file open?

I have seen at least a few tweaks I can make (which might stop the controls flashing), and I will improve the logging to help diagnose what's happening - but I can't think of anything that could cause such an odd issue.

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

Well, I know what is happening. I haven't the foggiest idea why. I can't reproduce it either.

For some of the data actions, CC will try and get a file lock to ensure BI isn't doing anything. They'll wait a set number of seconds for that lock and if they fail, they give up - which is what you see. But the operations that require a file lock should be finished in milliseconds - they "delay" waiting for the lock should be imperceivable.

Is it possible AV software is doing somethign that's keeping that lock file open?

I have seen at least a few tweaks I can make (which might stop the controls flashing), and I will improve the logging to help diagnose what's happening - but I can't think of anything that could cause such an odd issue.

I'm quite happy for you to give me a copy of the dll with heavy logging and I will send the log file back to you. I never used to have this problem, but I have changed my style of play recently. I was doing the Cannonn Challenge, doing lots of jumps and scans of anomalies. Finished that, so now doing biological searches. Jump, FSS, DSS, land, scan with ship or SRV, 3 scans with hair drier, take off and repeat.

I have tried turning my AV off. Same result. I have not played the game today, so journals are unchanged from yesterday, but when I run CC I still get the same issue. Observatory, and hence BI, is not running.

 

[MattG]

I'm quite happy for you to give me a copy of the dll with heavy logging and I will send the log file back to you. I never used to have this problem, but I have changed my style of play recently. I was doing the Cannonn Challenge, doing lots of jumps and scans of anomalies. Finished that, so now doing biological searches. Jump, FSS, DSS, land, scan with ship or SRV, 3 scans with hair drier, take off and repeat.

I have tried turning my AV off. Same result. I have not played the game today, so journals are unchanged from yesterday, but when I run CC I still get the same issue. Observatory, and hence BI, is not running.

Can you give this a quick try: close CC, then check in the appdata folder (where you deleted everything last time) and see if there's a .lck file - probably BioInsights.db.lck or similar? Try just deleting that, and retrty CC.

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

Can you give this a quick try: close CC, then check in the appdata folder (where you deleted everything last time) and see if there's a .lck file - probably BioInsights.db.lck or similar? Try just deleting that, and retrty CC.

Yes there is a file call BioInsights.db.lck, but I am not too surprised because CC bailed out. If I delete it and then run CC I still get the same problem. When the message box is clicked the app closes, leaving the .lck file behind.

 

[MattG]

New releases
Updated BioInsights to fix an issue with region-specific marks causing unexpected behaviour in certain circumstances.
Also, first release of CodexEntries to unsurprisingly notify of new Codex Entries.

 

[ZcottD]

BioInsights is really great, previously I was trying to keep a lot of the info on credit values in my head and that didn't work too well. Combined with Observatory's botanist overlay its pretty much perfection for me.

Evaluator is cool, has lots of good info while out exploring but for me its also missing some that I would really like.

Instead of:

System | Body | Type | Terraformable | Current Value | Potential Value | Map | Done | Total Value

My prefered layout would be:

System | Body | Type | Distance | Gravity | Terraformable | Scan Value | Map Value | Total Value | Map | Done

The distance I would be looking for is from the primary star where you jump in to each of the bodies, to determine if its worth flying to them. And the gravity would be helpful to glace at when landing to know what to expect.

Just throwing my 2 cents out, thank you for the work you have done!

 

[MattG]

I finally got round to updating SignalMonitor.

It will still notify when it detects Unregistered Communications signals, Listening Posts, or Notable Stellar Phenomenon in a system - but these can now be individually enabled or disabled.

I've also added the ability to check for up to 5 hotspot types in rings, with minimum hotspot counts. e.g. if you're looking for Tritium hotspots and are only interested in 3+ hotspots, go into settings and set "Hotspot Resource 1" to Tritium and the threshold to 3 - you'll then receive notifications for each scanned ring that has at least 3 Tritium hotspots.

You can download it here

 

[MattG]

BioInsights is really great, previously I was trying to keep a lot of the info on credit values in my head and that didn't work too well. Combined with Observatory's botanist overlay its pretty much perfection for me.

Evaluator is cool, has lots of good info while out exploring but for me its also missing some that I would really like.

Instead of:

System | Body | Type | Terraformable | Current Value | Potential Value | Map | Done | Total Value

My prefered layout would be:

System | Body | Type | Distance | Gravity | Terraformable | Scan Value | Map Value | Total Value | Map | Done

The distance I would be looking for is from the primary star where you jump in to each of the bodies, to determine if its worth flying to them. And the gravity would be helpful to glace at when landing to know what to expect.

Just throwing my 2 cents out, thank you for the work you have done!

I have tweaked Evaluator a bit. It's not quite how you asked, but I have added Distance and Gravity (which will only be shown for landables).

I've also increased the number of systems shown to 10, but added an option to show the Newest system first (at the top), which is enabled by default - so no scrolling necessary.

It's available here

 

[ZcottD]

Oh thats so good! Having both those bits of info is really handy for me, thank you so much!

With "Newest system first" checked, I noticed as I'm scanning the systems in FSS that the system will jump around in Evaluator. When I jump in to a system it adds it at the bottom, then I honk and it moves the system to the top. When I find a signal and zoom in so the game IDs the body, in Evaluator the system drops back to the bottom, and the next body I find brings the system back to the top in Evaluator. It'll keep jumping around like that with each FSS scan and can end up at the bottom instead of the top. This is all without touching the sorting of the columns.

Unchecking "Newest system first" keeps its right at the bottom all the time.

 

[MattG]

Oh thats so good! Having both those bits of info is really handy for me, thank you so much!

With "Newest system first" checked, I noticed as I'm scanning the systems in FSS that the system will jump around in Evaluator. When I jump in to a system it adds it at the bottom, then I honk and it moves the system to the top. When I find a signal and zoom in so the game IDs the body, in Evaluator the system drops back to the bottom, and the next body I find brings the system back to the top in Evaluator. It'll keep jumping around like that with each FSS scan and can end up at the bottom instead of the top. This is all without touching the sorting of the columns.

Unchecking "Newest system first" keeps its right at the bottom all the time.

I think I know what's happening there, I'll try and sort it when I get a sec.

 

[MattG]

I think I know what's happening there, I'll try and sort it when I get a sec.

A fixed version of Evaluator is available here

 

[Codger]

@MattG

I have, and have always had, a slight problem with BioInsights. The little popup notification that says when you've travelled enough distance doesn't always pop up. For me it works about 90% of the time. No one else seems to be complaining about this, so maybe it's just me.

Today I landed on a planet that had 1 bio (a bacterium informem). After finding the first one I got back in my ship and cruised along for a bit looking for another. It was quite a while before I found another, so I landed to see if it was scannable. The pop-up had not shown up, but I thought it must have been more than 500 meters, and in fact it was. I scanned the second one, then got back in the ship to find the 3rd one. Again, no pop-up, but I was able to scan the thing.

Perhaps something is wrong with my journals?

Here's today's journal, in case you can see anything that might be causing the problem.

Thanks muchly!

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

@MattG

I have, and have always had, a slight problem with BioInsights. The little popup notification that says when you've travelled enough distance doesn't always pop up. For me it works about 90% of the time. No one else seems to be complaining about this, so maybe it's just me.

Today I landed on a planet that had 1 bio (a bacterium informem). After finding the first one I got back in my ship and cruised along for a bit looking for another. It was quite a while before I found another, so I landed to see if it was scannable. The pop-up had not shown up, but I thought it must have been more than 500 meters, and in fact it was. I scanned the second one, then got back in the ship to find the 3rd one. Again, no pop-up, but I was able to scan the thing.

Perhaps something is wrong with my journals?

Here's today's journal, in case you can see anything that might be causing the problem.

Thanks muchly!

I had this problem and it was caused by the video screen mode that I was using. Not got my gaming PC with me at the moment, but from memory I needed to change from full screen mode to see the popups. Or was it that I had to change to full screen. Anyway, have a play with that. I was seeing the popup when I did an ALT-TAB, but now when the game was playing.

 

[Eahlstan]

I had this problem and it was caused by the video screen mode that I was using. Not got my gaming PC with me at the moment, but from memory I needed to change from full screen mode to see the popups. Or was it that I had to change to full screen. Anyway, have a play with that. I was seeing the popup when I did an ALT-TAB, but now when the game was playing.

In that case - being in full screen and not in borderless windowed - it wouldn't work at all, not just error out in 10%.
To me it sounds more like coordinates being discarded when switching to the ship - or something similar.