EDPA Usage Guide

Installation

Simply double-click the installer. There are no additional steps. EDPA will run once you finish installing.

Voice

EDPA uses Microsoft’s text to speech API. All available voices will be displayed in this selection box. You can install additional voices by following instructions here.

Journal Folder Location

EDPA will guess your journal folder location. This will be displayed on screen. If this does not match, you can click the ‘Change’ button and select the folder that contains all your journal files. The folder will be monitored for changes which will automatically happen when you play the game. Every time you do a system jump, the system, if populated, will be added to the internal database. Every time you dock, the station will be added. The System and Station count should go increase accordingly. If it does not, your journal folder may not be set correctly.

Reset All Data / Import Past Journals

This will purge the internal database of previously collected data. You will also have an option to go through your previous journal files import data from there. If you want a head-start, it is recommended that you do this when you after your first installation. Note that market data cannot be restored as it is never archived by Elite Dangerous’ journaling system.

Download Station Data From EDSM

Downloads the nightly dump from EDSM. This is the same source that EDDB relies on. Use this if you want all the data. Since this does not include market data, you’ll probably only need to update it once. If you find inaccuracies such as blackmarkets no longer being available due to powerplay or BGS changes, it may be time to update again. The EDSM download will never overwrite newer data you might have obtained from your travels.

Downloading data from EDSM is strictly optional. EDPA will collect data as you travel in-game. If you wish to experience Elite Dangerous as Frontier intended it before everybody started aggregating their data via offline tools, avoid this download.

Download Market Data From EDSM

Downloads another nightly dump from EDSM. This contains market data from EDDN. Bear in mind that because you can at best get updates once a day, it will never be as up to date as Inara or EDDB. This will never overwrite newer data obtained from your travels. It is recommended you run this if you anticipate going out mining or trading.

Like the station download, this is strictly optional. However, whether you download or not, it is highly recommended that you take a peek at the commodity market everytime you land at a station. This is because EDPA can only collect market data when you do so.

Search Radius

This is the distance in light years that EDPA will search to fulfill your query. This number is a matter of personal preference. The biggest impact it has is on finding the best price for your cargo. If you set a large number, you may be sent many jumps away. It is all a matter of price vs convenience. I find 150 works fairly well in the bubble, but you may want a smaller number if you have a short jump range.

Max Supercruise Distance

This is the distance from the initial jump point in the system to the relevant station. If you do not wish to get sent to Hutton Orbital, set this number wisely.

Max Market Data Age

Market data can come from two sources. The first is your own journals whenever you browse the commodity market. The second is the download from EDSM. Especially in the second case since this is common data shared by everybody, the data goes stale after some time as everybody rushes to buy/sell at the top few stations. Therefore, it is wise to ignore data older than a certain age. Also note that the EDSM Market Data Download will not update EDPA with market data older than this setting.

It is recommended to set this to a larger value if you do not use EDSM data, and a smaller value if you do.

Next / Previous

It is recommended to always have bindings for these two. When you search for something, the results will get stored in a list. There can be as many as 40 results, usually sorted by distance. Next / Previous will let you navigate this list should you not want the top result. EDPA will read out the system names and any other relevant information each time you press the key. Whenever something is read out, the relevant system name will be copied to your clipboard. It is recommended that you have a keybind for Ctrl+V, which will let you paste the system name into the Galaxy map.

To bind a hotkey to each of these (and other functions), click the “Unset” button, and you will be prompted to press your key combination. Take care that this does not clash with any of your Elite Dangerous keybinds. (unless you want them to) If you assign the same hotkey combination to more than one function, the previous one will get reset.

Say that again

This will simply repeat the last result EDPA reported, as well as copy the relevant system to the clipboard. Good for Voice Attack users with lots of keybinds, or scripters.

What System Am I In?

This will tell you the name of the current system and copy it to clipboard. Mainly intended for use in scripts.

Mute the Next Action

The next keybind you press that would say something, will not. Some may not care for rifling through the results and happily take the first choice, prefering that EDPA not interrupt their enjoyment of the Blue Danube Waltz.

Closest XXX

Find stations that contain the XXX service that you are looking for. This will be in the form of a list sorted from closest to furthest. You would usually be happy with the first one, unless you want to avoid it for some reason. (e.g. You are hostile to that station’s faction)

Unmapped Earthlike, Water, Ammonia or Terraformables

This is for all you mercenary explorers. When you scan a body using your FSS scanner, EDPA will remember if it is worth a lot of money. Hitting this hotkey will verbally list out the valuable bodies. When you map the body using your detailed surface scanner, it will remove the body from the list. The list is sorted by distance from the primary star. EDPA will clear this list when you make an FSD jump or exit EDPA.

Massacre Stacking Information

This will sum all the kills required for your massacre missions by different factions. This will help you balance out the missions so that you have a roughly equal number of targets required by each faction, maximising your efficiency.

Massacre Mission Targets Left

Tells you how many more kills you need to finish all your massacre missions.

????? systems with ????? factions

Searches within your search radius for all systems with your specified allegiance (Empire, Federation, etc.) that contains factions with your specified state (outbreak, boom, etc.). This will help you find High Grade Emmision signal sources to find specific materials, or make educated guesses at possible trade routes given your extensive knowledge of the background simulation.

These systems are sorted in a greedy travel order. That means the first system will be the closest, the second will be the closest to that one, and subsequent ones follow. This will generally lead to short jump distances at the beginning of the list, and much longer ones for the remaining few. It is assumed that nobody would go through the full list so the last few won’t matter, but if doing a very limited search (e.g. independent outbreak systems), it may be worth paying attention to jump distances getting uncomfortably long.

Best Station To Sell Cargo

This will look into your cargo hold, pick the most bountiful (by quantity) one, and find a station that offers the best price for it. For brevity, the price is rounded to the nearest 2 significant figures. (i.e. 320 could be any number between 315 and 324. 34000 could be any number between 33500 and 34599) Occasionally, it will also add that there is low demand. This means that you are carrying more of the commodity than 25% of the station demand. This may result in lower-than-expected prices. Unlike the previous searches, these are sorted by price rather than by distance. So managing your search radius is important.

Best Buy For Return Trip

This will tell you what commodity to buy at this station to sell for the best profit at the station you just came from. Sometimes, there are just no good deals, and EDPA will tell you so. EDPA will also provide a low demand warning if the total amount you could buy might exceed 25% of the other station’s demand. It is 100% recommended to open the commodity market first prior to using this feature as it will guarantee the most up-to-date information. If you have checked the commodity market at both stations, this feature will never depend on downloaded data.

The idea behind this function is to help you establish trade loops. Buy a product that the commodity market tells you is below galactic average. Find the best station to sell to within your jump tolerance. Then find another commodity to buy there and sell back to the original station. It is similar to trade loops in Inara and EDDB. Not as profitable but much more immersive.

Predefined Route

You can manually type in a bunch of systems. One system per line. EDPA will remember this forever until you set it to something else. Pressing the hotkey will load this list, allowing you to use Next/Previous hotkeys to efficiently enter the system names into the galaxy map. This is handy if you are planning a todo list of places you want to go for a particular session.

When you do use the Next/Previous hotkey, EDPA will insert an asterix before the name of the current system so you know where you last left off. You may manually relocate the asterix to jump to another place on the list.

If you want an additional reminder on any of the systems, add a colon (:) after the system name, followed by any annotation you like. When you use the Next/Previous hotkey, the annotation will be read aloud. However, only the System name will be copied.

If you use Spansh to find a route, you can hit the “Download As CSV” button to save the route to a file. Use the “Import CSV” button in EDPA to populate the route. If you import a Road-to-Riches route, each system will be annotated with the bodies you need to scan. If you import a Fleet Carrier route, it will annotate reminders on when to restock tritium. For all other types of routes, it only imports the system name.

Whenever you make a change to the Route box or any other box for that matter, remember to click outside the box or press the tab key to save your changes.

Other things that are good to know