VSTrade: 0.3.0.0 (3 july 2008)

[Captain{}Blood]

The link tot he download is broken, got any other links to the file?

[loki1950]

@Captain{}Blood just downloaded the file from the link in the first post of the topic

Enjoy the Choice

[GoldenGnu]

@peter

damn bugs! My programming skills isn't that great.
I'm in the middle of rebuilding the project, to make it more modular, which will sure take some time. So I can't offer any solution pronto, I'm sorry...

But, thank you very much for reporting the bug.

@Captain{}Blood

I just renewed my web-hosting, so maybe it was down while you tried...
please try again...

@loki1950

I downloaded it as well, It seems to work now...

[peter]

@peter

damn bugs! :? My programming skills isn't that great. :oops:
I'm in the middle of rebuilding the project, to make it more modular, which will sure take some time. So I can't offer any solution pronto, I'm sorry...

But, thank you very much for reporting the bug.

I'm just starting to try out the SVN version of vegastrike. I was hoping vstrade might work better with it, but it actually doesn't work at all :(

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -1
at java.lang.String.substring(String.java:1768)
at file.readers.MasterPartListCsvReader.read(MasterPartListCsvReader.java:66)
at file.readers.MasterPartListCsvReader.getData(MasterPartListCsvReader.java:50)
at file.BasesLoader.load(BasesLoader.java:140)
at program.Program.doInsertDataToUI(Program.java:462)
at program.Program.<init>(Program.java:81)

You're welcome for the bug reports. I see it as the duty of any user of Free software to send useful bug reports whenever possible. :)


I was thinking of having a look at the code myself, since I can hack Java. I've never done much with GUIs, but maybe I can fix the parser... I don't see a Makefile or anything, but javac vstrade/VSTrade.java seems to compile everything just fine. I'm asking in case you're in the middle of re-working the parser, or something. In which case a patch against the current code wouldn't do you much good.

Do you use svn or anything? I like darcs myself. It's not good for really big projects, but it's distributed, so it doesn't require setting up a server where multiple people have write access. You just need read access to each others repositories.

Any plans to add save-file monitoring? vsnav seems to be obsolete because the author never released the source (AFAIK). vegastrike totally needs a tool like that, and vstrade could be it.

[loki1950]

@peter have you tried the other two mapping tools VSMap3D(C++,Qt4) and vegamap(java) i like the 3d one myself source for both is provided as well


Enjoy the Choice

[peter]

@peter have you tried the other two mapping tools VSMap3D(C++,Qt4) and vegamap(java) i like the 3d one myself source for both is provided as well

I think I saw VSMap3D mentioned once, but forgot about it. Thanks. I tried to find them with google, but I guess it doesn't index the forums . Didn't take long with the forum search, though.

Neither of them load save files , but VSMap3D does have a feature not present in anything but vsnav: ability to find a system by name, or by sector and name. This helps a lot of you don't know where on the map to look!

The latest vegamap (0.1.1) is integrated into vstrade, so it doesn't provide anything new. If you want to use it standalone, though, you need the original vegamap. You could just uncomment the main() functions in the vegamap dir in vstrade, but that version has the keyboard input code removed, which is probably why the main() functions are commented. Without the kbd you can't turn on names... It otherwise works, though, FWIW The diff between the vegamap and vstrade's copy of vegamap is really quite small. (use diff -urw, to ignore whitespace changes.)

So thanks, Loki. Can anyone else confirm that there are no working tools that use any info at all from a savegame, for either 0.4.3 or current svn?

How about a data viewer, e.g. to parse units.csv so you can browse through ships easily? Someone wrote vsdataboy a while ago, but didn't release source AFAIK, and now I'm not sure it works right. (Maybe fields have changed...) I tried it, but the data it showed looked weird. I only tried it on a symlink farm in /tmp, because I was running it on the 0.4.3 data installed in /usr/share/games, and it wanted to write a temp file in the directory.

I'm going to start a new thread about what third party tools exist and work...

[GoldenGnu]

@peter

I hacked MasterPartListCsvReader.java a little myself...
Only 2 small changes... please try to compile with it instead (File attached) and tell me if works any better.

I don't have Linux *look shameful*, so I can only test on win XP, which make it hard to make it all work cross platform.

I'm planing to implement loading of the save games (so VSTrade can get bases from each system you have been to...), at some point, but, It's not that easy... *I'm a n00b*

Hopefully the rebuild will be more fail proof. But, as said before, my programmings skills isn't that great.

EDIT: removed useless attachment

[loki1950]

peter there are a few utilities to handle the cvs files http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=7143 for cvs_editor v2 which works on all cvs files and http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=7615 for vsdataboy for units.cvs


Enjoy the Choice

[peter]

@peter

I hacked MasterPartListCsvReader.java a little myself...
Only 2 small changes... please try to compile with it instead (File attached) and tell me if works any better.

It doesn't work any better . AFAICT, the problem isn't with finding quotes, so your code change doesn't do anything.

re: if (start >= 0 & end >= 0)
You should use &&, the logical, not bitwise, operator.
But I would write it:
if (start >= 0 && end > start)
s = record.substring(start+1,end);

I don't have Linux *look shameful*, so I can only test on win XP, which make it hard to make it all work cross platform.

Are you saying you can't reproduce the bug on your winxp system? with these versions of these files?
4ca75b72506afa938f04d66f0bfeeaea master_part_list.csv
644f876df06dc59488aaf30f8af72441 units.csv

I tried the modified version on a win2k machine (with Java 1.5.0_06), with the .csv files you ship with VSTrade, and I got identical results to Java 1.5.0_08 on my AMD64 Ubuntu machine. You can trust java; it really is cross platform.

It's Java, so everything is the same except File.separator. You don't use that anywhere except in constructing a path to the cargo images, which work for all the cargo that's loaded ok at all, and that has an image.

I'm planing to implement loading of the save games (so VSTrade can get bases from each system you have been to...), at some point, but, It's not that easy... *I'm a n00b*

Hopefully the rebuild will be more fail proof. But, as said before, my programmings skills isn't that great.

I'd love to see vstrade grow into a tool that does everything. The UI's already good for it; just add a tab for whatever, e.g. a ship viewer.

BTW, info about all the out-of-game tools needs to be on the Wiki somewhere. As a new player, it's taken me a while to find out what the current state of the available ones is. I added a link to http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/OOG_Tools on the main wiki page (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Vegastrike). If that's too bold, someone tell me where it should be linked from. I'll start by listing all the useful info Loki's been posting.

[Captain{}Blood]

Is there a way to get ship and upgrades included in the economy, I have the capability to haul a lot of cargo and ships are well with my capabilities.

[GoldenGnu]

@peter

Thank very much for the tips on coding Java, I really appreciates it!!!
Normally I only learn what I read on the net, It's very nice with some real advise! Thou, I get a little embarrassed about my programming skills

I'll link a beta of the rebuild ASAP, so you can see if it works any better
and maybe you can even help fix the parser?

After I recoded the parsers, it found loads inconsistencies between units.csv and master_part_list.csv (from VS 0.4.3, that is shipped with VSTrade 0.1.0.0). A lot of categories only exist in units.csv, which mean that they will be bogus (By the old data system), I guess. I don't know if that is it??? The whole data system have been remade, in a better way (hopefully)...

btw, please don't take the time to try to understand the old data system, it's WAY WAY more complex (read:stupid) then anything ever made by man before.

I can search prices for "electronics\bionics\enhanced organs" and "electronics\Robotic laborers", just fine... So I guess I don't quite understand how to reproduce the error. Hopefully the new version will fix the problem...

@Captain{}Blood

Not currently, I'm sorry...

The upgrades and the ships, are actual included when it loads. but, I removed them because my focus was on the cargo.

A feature request was posted some time ago, so it's my plan is to re-include them, maybe by the next release...

[GoldenGnu]

So here is the first alpha release after the rebuild. It's not in any way completed.

-The Trade (Named Bases before) and Price tabs can preform search and other basic functions.
-The starships and upgrades are included as cargo and you can search for them in the prices tab (Not 100% completed).
-Cargo, Vegamap, and Settings tabs are not completed yet, and have no functions.

EDIT: removed link to the old ALPHA

[peter]

So here is the first alpha release after the rebuild. It's not in any way completed.

-The Trade (Named Bases before) and Price tabs can preform search and other basic functions.
-The starships and upgrades are included as cargo and you can search for them in the prices tab (Not 100% completed).
-Cargo, Vegamap, and Settings tabs are not completed yet, and have no functions.

It works! All the cargo types are loaded correctly. . Nice job.

I hope it's not just me again, but the tables can't be sorted by clicking on a column headers. I can change the column widths, though. Sun Java 1.5.0_08 on Ubuntu (Edgy) AMD64.

Also: in the price tab, setting the filter to planet:all is the same as all:all. It might be nice to be able to search just planets, or just rlaan stations, for example.

Also: it can still only parse the csv files you ship it with. Maybe I'll look at your parser and see if I can get it to handle the standard 0.4.3 units.csv (which has quotes around every field), and also the current SVN files. I've started playing the current SVN version, and the economy is more complicated: There are some extremely valuable cargo items, like 25000 credit recycling tanks (1m^3, 0.01 tons), and even whole factories that cost many millions of credits (~10000 m^3, 50000 tons). And AI cores: ~12million credits, 5? m^3. This makes it possible to trade without a cargo-focused ship. Also the quantities available are much larger (at least a factor of 10 at most bases). So a cargo computer would be even more useful than in 0.4.3...

[GoldenGnu]

It works! All the cargo types are loaded correctly. . Nice job.

Nice of you to test it!

I hope it's not just me again, but the tables can't be sorted by clicking on a column headers. I can change the column widths, though. Sun Java 1.5.0_08 on Ubuntu (Edgy) AMD64.

I know, I removed the current TableSorter Class, to implement another one, but I haven't gotten around to do it yet. I'll add sorting ASAP.

Also: in the price tab, setting the filter to planet:all is the same as all:all. It might be nice to be able to search just planets, or just rlaan stations, for example.

yerh, I was thinking the same thing, so It's already on my ToDo list.

Also: it can still only parse the csv files you ship it with. Maybe I'll look at your parser and see if I can get it to handle the standard 0.4.3 units.csv (which has quotes around every field), and also the current SVN files.

If you could mail me (my email is in the readme file) or just attach the files here on the forum, I'll do my best to correct it. I'll need both the master_part_list.csv and the units.csv (as they work as a team)

I've started playing the current SVN version, and the economy is more complicated: There are some extremely valuable cargo items, like 25000 credit recycling tanks (1m^3, 0.01 tons), and even whole factories that cost many millions of credits (~10000 m^3, 50000 tons). And AI cores: ~12million credits, 5? m^3. This makes it possible to trade without a cargo-focused ship. Also the quantities available are much larger (at least a factor of 10 at most bases). So a cargo computer would be even more useful than in 0.4.3...

As long as people find the program useful, it's pleasure to program it...

I'll release more development builds, as I get more done.
It's really nice with some feedback.

[peter]

I removed the current TableSorter Class, to implement another one, but I haven't gotten around to do it yet. I'll add sorting ASAP.

Glad to hear it's not an unknown problem... Did you say fancier sorting? That would be cool

If you could mail me (my email is in the readme file) or just attach the files here on the forum, I'll do my best to correct it. I'll need both the master_part_list.csv and the units.csv (as they work as a team)

ok, I emailed you the files from the Ubuntu package of VS 0.4.3, in case they're different from the official VS release or something. The SVN files are available from VS's repository:
https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/veg ... /units.csv
https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/veg ... t_list.csv

[GoldenGnu]

Thank you for sending the files and the links, that helps a ton! And I really have to thank you for all your help. It makes it a lot more fun, when you get some feedback and even bug reports.

It's going to be a good challenge to make the parsers compatible with all versions of the master_part_list.csv and the units.csv.

The easiest solution would be to ship VSTrade with the units.csv, you send, as it use the same syntax as the svn version. but for the master_part_list.csv I guess I have to make a work around, as the 0.4.3 version and the svn version use slightly different syntax.

About the table sorting issue, it's more of a license issue, really... I used the TableSorter class from one of the Sun Java Tutorials and It's released under their tutorial license, which AFAIK is not compatible with GNU GPL. So I have to find a new one. It's rather complicated to sort a JTable, so I can't really write the code myself, unless I do a lot of reading up on it, which is what I plan to do, if I don't find some GNU GPL code, that do it all for me.

Well, I guess I have some coding to do, so I'll get right on it...

[peter]

Thank you for sending the files and the links, that helps a ton! And I really have to thank you for all your help. It makes it a lot more fun, when you get some feedback and even bug reports.

It's going to be a good challenge to make the parsers compatible with all versions of the master_part_list.csv and the units.csv.

The easiest solution would be to ship VSTrade with the units.csv, you send, as it use the same syntax as the svn version. but for the master_part_list.csv I guess I have to make a work around, as the 0.4.3 version and the svn version use slightly different syntax.

hmm. Having two modes for the parser might work, but seems ugly. I haven't really compared the formats, so any thoughts on how hard it is to autodetect the format? Making the user specify if it's SVN or 0.4.3 files is bad.

About the table sorting issue, it's more of a license issue, really... I used the TableSorter class from one of the Sun Java Tutorials and It's released under their tutorial license, which AFAIK is not compatible with GNU GPL.
So I have to find a new one. It's rather complicated to sort a JTable, so I can't really write the code myself, unless I do a lot of reading up on it, which is what I plan to do, if I don't find some GNU GPL code, that do it all for me.

Hmm, yeah, TableSorter.java in 0.1.0.0 looks pretty funky. You can probably just sort the underlying table, instead of implementing a mapping layer on top of it like TableSorter. But I googled around some for "sort jtable" and found lots of links to stuff... This LGPLed project might be interesting:
http://publicobject.com/glazedlists/
Or maybe it's too heavyweight; I didn't try to really read up on it, since coding GUIs is not my favourite activity. I'm more interested in coding up an optimal trade route finder, if I ever get around to it.

[GoldenGnu]

hmm. Having two modes for the parser might work, but seems ugly. I haven't really compared the formats, so any thoughts on how hard it is to autodetect the format? Making the user specify if it's SVN or 0.4.3 files is bad.

I think I made the parsers compatible with all versions of master_part_list.csv and units.csv now.
The only syntax different between the versions of the master_part_list.csv, is that later versions use quotes around strings. Later versions of units.csv, also use quotes around strings, but it use a different field number for the cargo. Lucky enough you can distinguish the later versions of units.csv, by the number of fields, so It should work now. It has properly gotten somewhat slower, but, I did the best I could, with my limited abilities.

Hmm, yeah, TableSorter.java in 0.1.0.0 looks pretty funky. You can probably just sort the underlying table, instead of implementing a mapping layer on top of it like TableSorter. But I googled around some for "sort jtable" and found lots of links to stuff... This LGPLed project might be interesting:
http://publicobject.com/glazedlists/
Or maybe it's too heavyweight; I didn't try to really read up on it, since coding GUIs is not my favourite activity. I'm more interested in coding up an optimal trade route finder, if I ever get around to it.

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a try...
I don't mind coding GUI. There is some strange things with swing, but mostly It's unthinkable easy (Compared to C++, and the Win32 API, IMHO), except for sorting tables
If you ever make a "optimal trade route finder" in java, I would love to help, if you need a GUI, or something.

edit: removed link to old alpha

[GoldenGnu]

Yet another development build...

This is a ALPHA release of the VSTrade.
It's released for testing purpose only, expect bugs and incorrect data.
Download VSTrade: 0.1.0.3 ~ 6.3MB

For regularly use, please use the latest stable release: VSTrade: 0.1.0.0

Please report bugs in this thread

Changes since 0.1.0.0:

Features:
-Advanced table sorting (Provided by Glazed Lists)

Fixes:
-The parsers have been updated to read the latest versions of the csv files
-Disabled non functional elements in the settings tab.

Known Issues:
-To run you need to have master_part_list.csv & units.csv in the working directory
-Cargo tab: isn't stable and might crash the program.
-Settings tab: doesn't save settings and have most elements disabled.
-Vegamap tab: isn't completed

[peter]

Yet another development build...
...
Features:
-Advanced table sorting (Provided by Glazed Lists)

Fixes:
-The parsers have been updated to read the latest versions of the csv files
-Disabled non functional elements in the settings tab.

Yeah, very cool to have it work for the SVN files. The multiple sort columns is also handy for dealing with the output of considering all cargo from any to any. (There seem to be some _very_ profitable trade routes involving ocean planets with massive quantities of nutripacks or salted thok).

Is it possible to make it possible to turn off sorting on a column by clicking on it a third time? I had a look at the code, but my eyes started to glaze over pretty quickly with all the jtables and other objects I didn't want to read docs for...

I noticed that some cargos are listed as zero price at everywhere but ocean planets, but in-game I've traded them. I think VS currently sets price multiplier to 1.0 +/- 0 for places that don't have a price defined for it. I can't quote you a line of source code, but that's my guess based on what I've seen in-game. It would be nice if vstrade did the same thing.

Also useful would be to take advantage of the way Vega Strike has the same price-factor for a group of cargos. vstrade could aggregate all the cargo in a category into total price for all cargo in the category. average quantity * average price summed over all items in the category. Displaying something useful to the user about how much cargo space it's going to take, and how subdivisible it is would be nice. Or the user could just toggle that mode off if they want to see how well a possible trade route could actually work given their cash and volume available.

Known Issues:
-To run you need to have master_part_list.csv & units.csv in the working directory
-Cargo tab: isn't stable and might crash the program.
-Settings tab: doesn't save settings

Although save acts like apply.

[GoldenGnu]

Yeah, very cool to have it work for the SVN files. The multiple sort columns is also handy for dealing with the output of considering all cargo from any to any. (There seem to be some _very_ profitable trade routes involving ocean planets with massive quantities of nutripacks or salted thok).

It's all thanks to your feedback, really...

Is it possible to make it possible to turn off sorting on a column by clicking on it a third time? I had a look at the code, but my eyes started to glaze over pretty quickly with all the jtables and other objects I didn't want to read docs for...

I don't know, but I'll definitely look into it.

I noticed that some cargos are listed as zero price at everywhere but ocean planets, but in-game I've traded them. I think VS currently sets price multiplier to 1.0 +/- 0 for places that don't have a price defined for it. I can't quote you a line of source code, but that's my guess based on what I've seen in-game. It would be nice if vstrade did the same thing.

That is interesting! Last time I checked, cargo that isn't in the units.csv was just traded for 10 credits, so for the ease I just set it to 0 (zero). What version are you running? Maybe it chanced after 0.4.3.

I guess, I have to research it again. The problem, is that I don't got the SVN version. Which make it a tad hard to do. I guess I'll have to download it ASAP.

Also useful would be to take advantage of the way Vega Strike has the same price-factor for a group of cargos. vstrade could aggregate all the cargo in a category into total price for all cargo in the category.
average quantity * average price summed over all items in the category. Displaying something useful to the user about how much cargo space it's going to take, and how subdivisible it is would be nice. Or the user could just toggle that mode off if they want to see how well a possible trade route could actually work given their cash and volume available.

I'm not 100% sure what you want (I had to look up some of the words you used). I read it several times, so hopefully I understood you correct. but, if I didn't, please correct me.
Would this do:
Simply have a radio button: Cargo /Category
Cargo: search like it does now.
Category: search only categories
Price table columns:
-Total price (for all cargoes in the category)
-Total quantity (for all cargoes in the category)
-Average quantity
-Average price
Trade table columns:
-Total profit (in percent and in cash)
-Average profit (in percent and in cash)
-Total quantity
-Average quantity

I don't know what "subdivisible" means, but, if you could explain it to me in simple English, I'll do that as well
Also, I'm not sure what good: "average quantity * average price" does. Could you please explain, why you need that, as well?

I'm in the process of redesigning the Loadout adviser. I might just make a new tab for it, and only displaying the Cargo, that you need to buy.

Although save acts like apply.

True. What I meant, was, that It doesn't save the settings to the hard disk.
The settings are updated in-program, thou.

[peter]

That is interesting! Last time I checked, cargo that isn't in the units.csv was just traded for 10 credits, so for the ease I just set it to 0 (zero). What version are you running? Maybe it chanced after 0.4.3.

I guess, I have to research it again. The problem, is that I don't got the SVN version. Which make it a tad hard to do. I guess I'll have to download it ASAP.

Yes, this does seem to be something that changed from 0.4.3 to the current SVN. There are some planets that won't buy anything (i.e. uninhabited ones). Everything on the sell side is red, like when you can't buy something.

This change even affects upgrades. You used to be able to fix expensive upgrades by landing on a molten planet (!) and selling it for 5, buying it back for 10. Now the repair cost is the same everywhere. (Although I haven't had to sell and re-buy anything yet.)

The SVN version is fun to play.

Also useful would be to take advantage of the way Vega Strike has the same price-factor for a group of cargos. vstrade could aggregate all the cargo in a category into total price for all cargo in the category.
average quantity * average price summed over all items in the category. Displaying something useful to the user about how much cargo space it's going to take, and how subdivisible it is would be nice. Or the user could just toggle that mode off if they want to see how well a possible trade route could actually work given their cash and volume available.

I'm not 100% sure what you want (I had to look up some of the words you used). I read it several times, so hopefully I understood you correct. but, if I didn't, please correct me.
[/quote]

Oh yeah, you're in Denmark, so I guess Danish is your first language. Your English is so good that I didn't think about any language barrier. And I'm not sure I explained it well, anyway.

What I really want is to reduce the number of rows in the output, by combining rows that don't really tell you anything new. i.e. if buying entertainment/books here and selling there is profitable, then the same applies to entertainment/erotica. It's possible to summarize the whole category in one row.

Useful pieces of information to include in such a summary:
total value of goods in the category (i.e. how much you can spend on it, total)
total cargo space to buy up everything in the category

This isn't a perfect summary, some categories have one really expensive thing that you might not be able to afford even one of, and all of the available number of items in the rest of the category aren't as valuable as one of the high-value one. e.g. AI Cores or Automated Factories. Industrially Manufactured/Electronics has two items: AI cores and PAI Wetware. cores are worth ~12million credits. PAI wetware is worth ~11750 credits. An ocean planet has 100 of each, so you can't buy 5 million credits of goods in that category, only ~1mil or multiples of 12mil.

Anyway, I think it would be useful to show per-category rows.

Also note that some of the high-value construction cargos in SVN aren't 1m^3 per unit...

BTW, subdivisible is not English, but if it was, it would mean "able to be divided, or broken into pieces".

In the price table, I think it would be most useful to reveal the game mechanics behind the prices, by allowing the user to display a column showing the price multiplier for that good or category. That would let you ask the question "what does this planet have cheap, and what will they pay a lot for?". Sorting by price for all goods doesn't give you that, and it's hard to remember what the base price for everything is when they're not in their usually category order. Currently I think you'd have to ask vstrade what profitable trades there were from that planet to an ocean planet, or the other way around. That's a round-about way of finding out whether you should land and sell some of your cargo or not.


I played some VS this afternoon, and what I really wanted to know, was what can I do in a system that has planets/stations x, y, and z (and another station on the other side of a jump point or something). You can find good trades for all<->all, or a single type<->all, but what would be really useful would be if I could select a set of bases, and find all good trades from any to any in that set.

[loki1950]

a reminder that zeog is reworking the economy and only oceanic planets have everything for sale ATM in SVN.

Enjoy the Choice

[Captain{}Blood]

What is needed to get it working in Linux?

[peter]

What is needed to get it working in Linux?

you mean vstrade? Just a JVM such as Sun's. The program is a jar file that you run with java -jar vstrade.jar. Other than a strange bug with the stable version, I've never had any problem running it on GNU/Linux with Sun's JVM v1.5 (java -version). GoldenGnu develops it on Windows, but it's pure Java, and doesn't do anything non-portable.

It comes with source, too, so you can compile it up however you want. It uses a swing GUI, though, so I think the Free software JVMs like gcj/gij won't have the libraries to run it. Is sun's JVM Free (as in libre) now, or was Sun opening up Java something else entirely.