Very first thing I want to make clear...
What Cmdr's Log is not:
If you are looking for a crowd-sourced trading tool, you can stop reading now because this isn't for you.
It will never grab data automatically from other sources. This is a manual entry log. If you want automatic, this is also not for you.
My belief is that the crowd-sourced tools violate the true spirit of the game. You are not supposed to know commodity prices of systems you haven't visited. If this were the case it would have easily been built into the game in the first place.
That out of the way...
What Cmdr's Log is:
Things to Note
There is no in-tool way to add new commodities that are not in the list. Aside from the rare commodities, all the major ones are there, so needing to add one will be a rare occasion. You can still add a commodity yourself, just edit the commodities_data.txt file in the folder. It will be obvious what to do. Doing this will not break your saves or anything.
I'd like to give some shouts out to the Commanders that helped test this thing and request features. Pretty much anyone that ever replied on this obscure little thread: Original Thread Right Here!
VERSION 1.6b IS NOW OUT
Download Link v1.6b, 64-bit
Download Link v1.6b, 32-bit (use 64-bit unless you know you need 32 bit)
Just one fix: Newly Added stations no longer start with junk commodities (only happened when using data entry mode).
Previous Version 1.6a
Just a minor update with a few changes
Previous Version 1.6
New Features
The Journal
Now you can log information that is station independent. Your journal can be used for anything. It automatically creates a title with the date stamp for you. There are two flavors of journal entry. The default type is a Commander's Log entry... this entry is for typical game things, like "I was interdicted by 2 Anacondas today! Make sure to get revenge on Cmdr Killzalot when I get a chance."
The other type of journal entry is Personal Log. I don't know how much this will get used, but I thought it could be a fun idea. This is stuff (think Star Trek) that you'd put in a personal log that is unrelated to specific game events, or even the game at all. You might put "I wasn't able to play for the entire weekend due to my internet being out!".
The Travel Log
You'll find two new buttons on the main interface, Ar and Dp. These are short for Arrive and Depart. There is a text field beside them that lets you know what the game thinks your current status is. When you land at a station, make sure it's highlight and hit Ar (or right click menu has it as well). This will log you as having arrived at that station. When you leave, the station, hit Dp, and your status will change to "In Space" and log your departure time.
Note: You can always hit Arrive on any station, even if you haven't departed your current one yet. This is to catch cases where you forgot to hit Depart. If this happens and you have Arrive without departing your previous one, it will simply mark your departure from that station as an unknown time; you'll get a warning popup when this happens, so you know.
To see the sum total of where you've been, hit the Journal button and on the resulting dialog, hit Travel Log button at the top to see your entire travel log.
There's a little hidden feature; let's say you land at a station, and hit Arrive and then you log out of the game to stop playing and shut down the tool, ie, done playing for the night. The next time you start the tool, it will see that you have arrived at a station and haven't departed yet (it just looks at the last entry in the log) and automatically highlights that station for you.
The New File
As a result of these two new features, there is a new file that gets created when you first run this update, journal.txt. It's in the same format as all the other files and hand editable if you feel like it
This is just the first pass of these features, but I wanted to get them out there. I'm sure there will be tweaks and improvements to it as we go along.
What Cmdr's Log is not:
- It is not online, nor will it ever be.
- It is not crowd-sourced, nor will it ever be.
- All the above is intentional.
If you are looking for a crowd-sourced trading tool, you can stop reading now because this isn't for you.
It will never grab data automatically from other sources. This is a manual entry log. If you want automatic, this is also not for you.
My belief is that the crowd-sourced tools violate the true spirit of the game. You are not supposed to know commodity prices of systems you haven't visited. If this were the case it would have easily been built into the game in the first place.
That out of the way...
What Cmdr's Log is:
- A handy replacement for what you would normally do with a pen and paper.
- It does not track or calculate distances between systems.
- You log only the data you care about. If you want to keep track of all commodities at a station, great. If you are rushed for time, and only want to log metals, that fine too!
- Naturally it makes things alittle easier than pen and paper. It will do all the searching for you and finding decent trade destinations.
- A notes field that basically IS pen and paper, you can type in whatever you want and it will be saved as data for that station.
- PC only, sorry. I know Alt-Tabbing out of Elite can be super annoying; use Data Entry mode to help with this.
Things to Note
There is no in-tool way to add new commodities that are not in the list. Aside from the rare commodities, all the major ones are there, so needing to add one will be a rare occasion. You can still add a commodity yourself, just edit the commodities_data.txt file in the folder. It will be obvious what to do. Doing this will not break your saves or anything.
I'd like to give some shouts out to the Commanders that helped test this thing and request features. Pretty much anyone that ever replied on this obscure little thread: Original Thread Right Here!
VERSION 1.6b IS NOW OUT
Download Link v1.6b, 64-bit
Download Link v1.6b, 32-bit (use 64-bit unless you know you need 32 bit)
Just one fix: Newly Added stations no longer start with junk commodities (only happened when using data entry mode).
Previous Version 1.6a
Just a minor update with a few changes
- Price now has the default focus on the Commodity Details window
- Sort headers now work in the Trades window (including price)
- You can now add systems with no stations
- Made a pass on greying out things you can't do based on the current selection
- Arrow Keys in the station list now properly select the stations
- Fixed various spelling and default sorting errors.
Previous Version 1.6
New Features
- The Journal
- The Travel Log
The Journal
Now you can log information that is station independent. Your journal can be used for anything. It automatically creates a title with the date stamp for you. There are two flavors of journal entry. The default type is a Commander's Log entry... this entry is for typical game things, like "I was interdicted by 2 Anacondas today! Make sure to get revenge on Cmdr Killzalot when I get a chance."
The other type of journal entry is Personal Log. I don't know how much this will get used, but I thought it could be a fun idea. This is stuff (think Star Trek) that you'd put in a personal log that is unrelated to specific game events, or even the game at all. You might put "I wasn't able to play for the entire weekend due to my internet being out!".
The Travel Log
You'll find two new buttons on the main interface, Ar and Dp. These are short for Arrive and Depart. There is a text field beside them that lets you know what the game thinks your current status is. When you land at a station, make sure it's highlight and hit Ar (or right click menu has it as well). This will log you as having arrived at that station. When you leave, the station, hit Dp, and your status will change to "In Space" and log your departure time.
Note: You can always hit Arrive on any station, even if you haven't departed your current one yet. This is to catch cases where you forgot to hit Depart. If this happens and you have Arrive without departing your previous one, it will simply mark your departure from that station as an unknown time; you'll get a warning popup when this happens, so you know.
To see the sum total of where you've been, hit the Journal button and on the resulting dialog, hit Travel Log button at the top to see your entire travel log.
There's a little hidden feature; let's say you land at a station, and hit Arrive and then you log out of the game to stop playing and shut down the tool, ie, done playing for the night. The next time you start the tool, it will see that you have arrived at a station and haven't departed yet (it just looks at the last entry in the log) and automatically highlights that station for you.
The New File
As a result of these two new features, there is a new file that gets created when you first run this update, journal.txt. It's in the same format as all the other files and hand editable if you feel like it
This is just the first pass of these features, but I wanted to get them out there. I'm sure there will be tweaks and improvements to it as we go along.
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