Discussion What is the most efficient way to crowdsource the 3D system coordinates

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
Athan said:
http://edstarcoordinator.com/
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You seem tho have missed the topic "List of tools and programs created for the crowd source project." of my OP. A lot of commanders have created solutions for the project. The EDStarCoordinator you were pointed to is one of the tools. Atm it has as advantage that it has support for TGC - The great collector. Both are made by TornSoul. So far I've used RedWizzards tool. It runs in your browser. it has quit a few nifty features. He is also the maintainer of TOR (the one reference). Also good to know, during Beta2/3 the following stars were classified as good reference points: Sol, Wolf 497, Huokang, Demeter and Fu Haiting. There are more but I've to look them up ;-)

List of tools and programs created for the crowd source project.
Not all tools created by commanders have been made public.
Before I give a list of tools I have to give credit to Codec. He was the first person who published a spreadsheet with input form. It also calculates/shows coordinates. Atm most crowd source data is coming from other tools.

The tools are listed by commander name - in alphabetic order.
  1. Biteketkergetek. Verifier tool. Verifies calculated 3D coordinates by crowd source project. Takes 1/32LY grid into account. Sourcecode.
  2. Chromatix.Generates 3D map with routes based on fuel-efficiency. Thread "Complete Maps of the Bubble ". Sourcecode.
  3. CMDR Generic EventHandler. Trilateration solution in C#.
  4. Harbinger. Web based. Website
  5. JesusFreke. Verifier tool. Verifies calculated 3D coordinates by crowd source project. Takes 1/32LY grid into account. . sourcecode.
  6. RedWizzard. Web based. Runs locally in your browser.Github url. Download as zip.
  7. Snuble. Webbased tool. Shows bubble/pill split up in grids. Useful to communicate in which part of the bubble a volunteer is collecting distances. Website. Sbuble also created a tool using the Galaxy Map to determining coordinates of a star system. His method and explanation can be found here.
  8. TornSoul. Web based tool. Has a web-api for retrieving systems and distances. EDStarCoordinator.
  9. TunaMage. Google spreadsheet. Can be download as an .xlsx file for Excel. System Plotter.
Which tool is best?
I won't answer that one here as they all are (technically) beautiful and suited for the crowd source effort. Try them out. You can ask the commanders in the forum which tool they like the most - for a certain task.
 

JesusFreke

J
DRY411S said:
Thank you. So I'm not wasting my time if I keep punching in data of systems I'm visiting around where I've started?
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Nope! The distances are still stored in the database, and all distance data is useful. Those distances will be added to any future distances that you or someone else may add, which will help to calculate and/or verify the coordinate.
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
Serpentstar said:
What I am curious to know is which tools are currently using the distance resources... I too, have been trying to add systems as I encounter them when using Thrudds. The issue is I don't know how long to wait before they are updated on the back end to be provided on the front.
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You seem to have missed the "List of third party tools using star systems (coordinates)." topic on the OP. I have to update it because I believe I miss two or so - they were made public after I created the OP. Note to self: Update OP.

List of third party tools using star systems (coordinates).
The tools are listed by commander name - in alphabetic order.
 
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wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
calculating coords tool authors - are you planning support for TGC?

Its time to (again) give this thread the love it deserves. So expect quite a few posts today ;-)

Now that Gamma is released, the pill is no more its almost time to get into full gear wrt to getting distances. I said almost because Michael Brookes said it is possible that with release the seed for the Stellar Forge might change again - partially or completely.

Afaik TGC is in Beta and can be used/tested. TornSouls own EDStarCoordinator has support for TGC - The Great Collector. In this thread quite a few/lot commanders have created tools to calculate coordinates based upon gathering distances. Once again I want to thank you all for the hard work you have put into this. Without you all we wouldn't have come so far!!

Now my question: Are you (tool authors) considering adding support for TGC?
That would be extremely cool. That way commanders don't have to post the results of your tool here and be put in RedWizzards TOR (the one reference) and or TGC. I don't think there is one tool which is best for everyone, a choice is always good. That is one reason I hope that you continue to support/enhance your tools ;-)
 
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jnye

J
Has anyone tried mining the game data files for information on systems? I've looked at the files for a little bit and can see names of system, stations, planets, etc. Should I continue looking there or has someone already done that?

This is a very long thread and I've tried searching through it as best as I could. Sorry if this has been mentioned before.
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
@Tornsoul. A few questions:
  1. What is the current status of TGC?
  2. Are their plans to extend the functionality of TGC and its API?
  3. How many algorithms does TGC use atm to calculate the coords? As in do you use your own algorithm or do you also use the algorithms of the other tool authors.

Iirc you wrote that its not possible to upload coordinates, only distances are accepted. If/when the other tools have support for TGC would it not be an advantage to gather the coordinates they have calculated - aside from the distances. That way you have an additional check for the coordinates you calculate.
 

DRY411S

D
jnye said:
Has anyone tried mining the game data files for information on systems? I've looked at the files for a little bit and can see names of system, stations, planets, etc. Should I continue looking there or has someone already done that?

This is a very long thread and I've tried searching through it as best as I could. Sorry if this has been mentioned before.
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Frontier have stated that it's verboten.
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
Serpentstar said:
Yup, I missed it. Oops. To busy being excited for having found a viable option for OCR gathering...heheheh.
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That reminds me, did not get around writing you a PM back about that EXCELLENT/GREAT news. Its coming this evening!! Now EDDN can get some more data input ;-)
 
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wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
iotzan said:
That IS excellent! My fingers are tired from inputing data to so many tools :)
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OCR-ing will of course be a great (additional) source for EDDN - Elite Dangerous Data Network.. Thrudd and kfsone (Trade Dangerous) have already set 'we are in'. EDDN is not out yet. Basically TGC is for static data, EDDN will be for dynamic data like commodity market prices. Slowly the puzzle gets completed ;-)
 
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wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
Also GOOD news. Slopey of the BPC trading tool today wrote the following: "I'll be adding in a way to crowd source the distances, the same as we did back in Beta 2, in due course.". Note: he means Premium Beta 2. That is great as his tool is very popular. I created a post where I told him about TGC, so hopefully he will be using that.

Note: The BPC commanders are a very dedicated bunch. All distances for the 55 systems of PB2 were gathered in 2 days or so. As we didn't have coordinates to start with it meant we had to take the distances from a star to every other start. (55-1 in that case). Not the 5+ for every star system we have to do now ;-)
 
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RedWizzard

RedWizzard
wolverine2710 said:
Now my question: Are you (tool authors) considering adding support for TGC?
That would be extremely cool. That way commanders don't have to post the results of your tool here and be put in RedWizzards TOR (the one reference) and or TGC. I don't think there is one tool which is best for everyone, a choice is always good. That is one reason I hope that you continue to support/enhance your tools ;-)
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I plan to have a version of my tools that submits to TGC in the next couple of days.
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
jnye said:
*puts down hex editor*
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NOT entirely sure if you should do that. When FD changed their data access policy they ALSO stated they would tighten the security of ED and the protocols. I assume so that things like scraping data would not be technically possible any longer. Suppose you are going to be white-hat hacker and try to hack ED and for example get the following working:

  1. A program that extracts from ED the coordinates for the 150.000 or so hard coded systems which come from the existing stellar catalogs.
  2. A program that unravels the PG algorithm in such a way that you can get the coordinates for all the procedurally generated star systems.

It would be a prove that FD has not been able to secure ED and that it needs to work on that. Assuming they choose to do secure ED more. The same goes for the protocols. At that point I would contact Michael Brookes and provide him with your results.

Suppose you have extracted from ED all the stellar catalog coordinates and the PG coordinates. Are you able to share those coordinates with us? I would have to say NO. UNLESS FD tells you that you are allowed to distribute the data as a gesture of good faith and recognition of your white hat hacker work.

To be clear: I'm NOT encouraging anyone to hack ED and its protocols - at least NOT for bad purposes. I think it would be in the best interest of FD if security is really tightened. If you or anyone else can prove to them its still hackable I think that would be great and they can fix things. If you are in doubt whether or not you are allowed to play the white hat hacker game may I suggest sending a PM to Michael Brookes and tell him about your intentions and see what he has to say about it. Security by obscurity is NEVER a good thing....
 
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RedWizzard

RedWizzard
wolverine2710 said:
[*]A program that extracts from ED the coordinates for the 150.000 or so hard coded systems which come from the existing stellar catalogs.
[*]A program that unravels the PG algorithm in such a way that you can get the coordinates for all the procedurally generated star systems.
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I'd be a little surprised if either of those things are in the client software now. With offline cancelled there is no need for them to be in it.
 

graham.reeds

G
Extraction of the hard coded stsrs would be possible. The algorithm for PG would require disassembly and extensive analysis to understand how it worked it out.
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
RedWizzard said:
I'd be a little surprised if either of those things are in the client software now. With offline cancelled there is no need for them to be in it.
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That is possible. When wtbw extracted the coordinates for SB2 (it were all NOT PG ones) he got them from the ED program iirc. So at that time they were in. Things can have changed though. When FD wants to ease the burden of the FD servers (cpu,bandwidth) it sounds logical to me to have those in the client though. Same as with all the descriptions of a star system. There is of course only one way to find out for sure.....
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
wolverine2710
graham.reeds said:
Extraction of the hard coded stars would be possible. The algorithm for PG would require disassembly and extensive analysis to understand how it worked it out.
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The whole point is of course if ED has tightened the security or not. I have no doubt that when its NOT secured (enough) that soon after the official release when the gates are opened and a potential much younger audience enters the arena that NASTY things will happen. We will see aimbots, we will see the PG unraveled, tools will try to manipulate stuff like stats etc etc.

I know for a fact that in SB3 it WAS still possible to scrape the market data. Worked like a charm. Someone reverse engineered Andreas marketdump program and created a new scraper..... Don't know if its still possible now with Gamma....

In my personal opinion I would love to see FD release a web-api, or just dumping lots of data in an XML file which can be used. It would give hackers less of an incentive to hack ED and its protocols. But that an entirely different conversation.... They said they would CONSIDER a web-api after release. If this is still the case I don't know.
 
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