Release Sextant - Exploration Assistant

[Stickymaddness]

Sextant is an exploration assistant and runs as a VoiceAttack plugin.

As a VR Explorer trying to do Road to Riches, I found the experience lacking. Having to take my headset off every few minutes to find which system was next or to see which planets I still needed to scan was a giant pain, not to mention a total immersion killer. So I created Sextant, a plugin for VoiceAttack that takes care of all of that for me.

Briefly, Sextant will:

• Import a route from the Road to Riches web tool
• Keep track of which systems/planets you have scanned
• On request, open the galaxy map, enter the name of the system you need to scan next and search for it
• Let you know (text-to-speech) what needs to be scanned when jumping into a system
• On request tell you which planets still need to be scanned in your current system
• Sextant has multiple responses to events and commands, which you can also customize

The source code (and documentation) is available on github under Apache 2.0.

I'd like to welcome ideas and contributions from the community, I'm sure there must be other route planning tools, or other things that I can add support for!

Check the wiki for installation and configuration.

 

[Daylend]

Loving the plugin so far, it's made things much simpler. Thanks!

One thing I did notice is that if you run find_next_system and the system name contains a duplicate character (EG HIP 11728, where 11 is the duplicate), it will only input the first character. Probably just a delay thing?

Also it would be really nice if we could just skip particular planets, or have a maximum travel distance to avoid going to planets really far away.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Stickymaddness]

Glad to hear it's made life simpler!

Is the find_next_system issue with duplicate characters happening a lot? I've done some testing and haven't been able to replicate it.

For far away planets or planets you don't want to skip, you can use skip_system and leave the planets you want to skip for last. Sextant doesn't track your distance to planets, but I could add something to skip the next planet (according to Sextant)

 

[Daylend]

Is the find_next_system issue with duplicate characters happening a lot? I've done some testing and haven't been able to replicate it.

Yeah, sadly it happens every time there's a system with two of the same character in a row. Working great otherwise!

 

[Stickymaddness]

Yeah, sadly it happens every time there's a system with two of the same character in a row. Working great otherwise!

I've uploaded a testing version here which has a longer duration for key presses, see if it fixes the issue.

 

[kRAyZZed]

Hi,

Firstly amazing idea, and I have started running this whilst using my Rift.

However I am having massive issues with the find next system command. It really seems to struggle to find the next system on the map. When I ask for the get system command it perfectly reads off the next system.

It just seems to struggle to find it on the map for me, it might be something to do with the same issue as above, as most of the systems start with the same name.

Would it be possible to add a command that, pastes the next system name from memory/clipboard? I could then use that in the search field and set it as destination?

I could potentially use a voice command along the lines of "Science Office input the next system" - and it could be input_next_system in Sextant commands?

Sorry if I am asking for too much, I just think that would be a great work around and would mean I could stay in VR for longer using this program.

Great work btw, I love using it once I am in the system, and I love the little information about what is in the next system etc

 

[Stickymaddness]

I've released Sextant 1.0.1 which contains a number of bugfixes as well as an overhaul of the input system which should fix the duplicate character bug.

Hi,

Firstly amazing idea, and I have started running this whilst using my Rift.

However I am having massive issues with the find next system command. It really seems to struggle to find the next system on the map. When I ask for the get system command it perfectly reads off the next system.

It just seems to struggle to find it on the map for me, it might be something to do with the same issue as above, as most of the systems start with the same name.

Would it be possible to add a command that, pastes the next system name from memory/clipboard? I could then use that in the search field and set it as destination?

I could potentially use a voice command along the lines of "Science Office input the next system" - and it could be input_next_system in Sextant commands?

Sorry if I am asking for too much, I just think that would be a great work around and would mean I could stay in VR for longer using this program.

Great work btw, I love using it once I am in the system, and I love the little information about what is in the next system etc

Glad to hear you're enjoying it!

Can you give me some more information about the find system issue you're having? Is Sextant able to correctly open the galaxy map? Does it navigate to the next search pane and enter the system name? etc.

Be sure to retest with the new version that I listed above.

 

[ancyberturtle]

Can you give me some more information about the find system issue you're having? Is Sextant able to correctly open the galaxy map? Does it navigate to the next search pane and enter the system name? etc.

I am having an issue with find next system as well with the most recent release. It is able to consistently open the galaxy map. But navigation to the next UI tab and entering the system name is an issue. It will work fully perhaps 10% of the time and I cannot find a pattern. I have even tried remapping the keybings in the settings.json file and elite. Sometimes it will navigate to the next tab but not enter the system name. I have also upped the key delay in the settings too. Any suggestions?

 

[Stickymaddness]

I am having an issue with find next system as well with the most recent release. It is able to consistently open the galaxy map. But navigation to the next UI tab and entering the system name is an issue. It will work fully perhaps 10% of the time and I cannot find a pattern. I have even tried remapping the keybings in the settings.json file and elite. Sometimes it will navigate to the next tab but not enter the system name. I have also upped the key delay in the settings too. Any suggestions?

I've just released a new version (download here), that has a new setting "KeyDownDuration" - this is the amount of time in milliseconds that Sextant "holds" down a key. The previous version this was set to 10, I've dropped it down to 5 by default with the new settings. Please test with this version, if you still have problems try dropping down the delay even further.

 

[Apoll]

find next

I am having the same problem with find next system. It doesn't even always open the galaxy map. I've fiddled with the key durations and pause durations and nothing seems to make a difference. I've made sure I had the right keys in the settings file. When focussing into a text field all of the keystrokes seem to be occuring.
I tried setting the settings to no key ("") for the three commands in the hope that I could just navigate to the system searcher and use find next system to have it paste in the system name, but it seems your code is too tight to allow for such shenanigans.

 

[Apoll]

update

after more fiddling I've managed to get it reliable with the following settings
"GalaxyMapOpenDelay": "2000",
"GalaxyMapUINavigateDelay": "500",
"KeyDownDuration": 20