Route Planner panel

The ROUTE PLANNER helps you in setting up a route between stations in your trade zone. A route can be created two ways:

1. By selecting stations one after another (A > B > C > D >...). This useful for gaining maximum profits with no regard to the final destination.
2. By selecting the start and destination stations (A > Z) and adding stations in between (A > ... > ... > Z). This is useful for trading while travelling somewhere, like trading on the way to an engineer, community goal location, FC.

## Creating a Route

A route can be created by following these steps:

1. Select the appropriate station filter so that only stations appear that match your search profile.
2. Select the cargo capacity you want to use for trading (also done at the station filter). By default it is your complete cargo hold.
3. Select the first or current market, when docked somewhere, and select to commodity you want to buy from.
4. Click the SELECT button to add your first station to the summary.
5. By selecting the second market, you choose, if you want to have a designated end station for the route you planning or following only the highest profit.
6. When clicking the SELECT NEXT STATION, you choose the way of the profit, all other buttons defines an end station.
7. When you have selected an end station, you choose next the stations in-between the start and end station. Choose for every station the commodity to buy next. All stations listed are buying the selected commodity from the last station. The list of stations to choose from contains a column showing the distance left to the end station in light years, so you can estimate to find a station selling the commodity, you have selected for the end station to sell, when in range of the end station defined at the filter (Market Distance).
8. If you have chosen the same commodity as the end station and you are only one jump away, the route is complete and the station selection area disappears. Now you can preview, start or save the route and give it a name.
9. When you have chosen no end station at step 5, you have to click the CANCEL SELECTION button to complete the route. Then you can also preview, start or save the route and give it a name.

Each step is further explained below.

### Define Filters

There are also many filter options, which affecting the station list to choose from for the route.

**SEARCH RANGE:** This is the distance from your current position in space, where TCE looking for markets to choose from. The higher the value, the more time is required to complete the list of available station to choose from, so be patient.

**MARKET DISTANCE:** This is the distance between the last selected market and the following to choose from. The higher the value, the more time is required to complete the list of available station to choose from, so be patient. I recommend to select a range of your min. jump range, so you have not to jump multiple times to reach the next station, but if you want to get faster to your destination, a higher range could be more effective.

**STAR DISTANCE:** This is the distance between the local primary star and the station in light seconds. Stations closer to the star mean less travel time, but can also reduce your chance of finding better deals.

**PROFIT/UNIT:** The minimum number of profit you want to have for a commodity. Higher values reducing the number of displayed commodities and stations to choose from.

**STOCK:** The minimum number of stock available for a commodity at a station. If you have not created a loop route, the value should be equal to your available cargo space.

**DATA AGE:** This is an important filter, which defines the minimum age of the price for a commodity. If using EDDB-Relay, you have recent updates of commodity prices for most stations, so I recommend to select a value between 3 to 7 days. Otherwise the value has to be higher to include more available stations for your route to choose from.

**CARGO CAPACITY:** This value defines the available cargo space, you want to use in your route. It effects directly the TOTAL PROFIT row value, where you can see, how much profit you will make with the given commodity. By default the value is as high as your current installed cargo hold.

The **COMMODITIES SELECTED/EXCLUDED** filter selects the commodities, you don’t want to trade with. The list of commodities is partial auto-populated, because some commodities can’t be traded between stations and some don’t meet the requirements of making as much profit as you have set at the profit/unit filter. So if you change the profit/unit, you will see, that the number of excluded commodities will raise or fall.

Click on the filter setting to open a list, where you can see, which commodities were excluded. You can add and remove them manually, as you like.

The other filter are self-explaintionary.

### Selecting Trade Market and Commodities

At the beginning, the ROUTE SUMMARY is empty and you can choose to select the current market, when docked somewhere, or a start market, which can be anyone within the search range.

After clicking one of the two buttons a list of available stations to choose from will appear, including their stats and distances. The distance value is the range between your current location and the station in light years.

You can also sort the list by clicking a column header to find the market you like.

Select your first market by clicking on it, you can now select the commodities you want to buy from that station. The price is the actual buy/sell price of the commodity and the Balance is the difference between the buy/sell price and the galactic average buy/sell price. The list of commodities is initially sorted with the greatest difference between the market and galactic average price at the top (the aim being to buy the lowest below galactic average and sell the highest above galactic average).

At the BUY COMMODITIES list you can see two columns showing MARKET and PROFIT. The market column showing the number of follow-up markets, where the commodity can be traded and the profit column showing the maximum profit you can make with the commodity.

Once the market and commodities are selected, the next step is to add the trade market to the register by clicking the SELECT button.

### Completing the Trade Route

To complete a trade route with an end station, you have to select the same commodity, you have selected at the end station to sell, at the selected station to buy within the selected market distance at the station filter.

For a route without a designated end station, you have to click the CANCEL SELECTION button at the Route Summary.

This will finalize the trade route.

### Preview the route

A complete route can now previewed, saved and started. When previewed, the Trade Overview panel appearing with more informations about the route. At the bottom of the panel there is a next and previous button to cycle through the selected stations. The hide button return you to the Route Planner panel.

### Starting/Stopping a Route

The START ROUTE button closes the panel and the auto-destination mode selecting automatically the next trade station of the route. An indicator appears in the middle of the center displays, which shows DIRECTING, if you have not reached the first station of the trade route.

When the fist station was reached or it is your current station, the DESTINATION DISPLAY shows automatically the next station of the trade route and the indicator switches to ROUTE ACTIVE.

The POSITION and DESTINATION DISPLAY shows now more information’s about the commodities to buy. Also the buy and sell price is shown.

To stop an started trade route, you can click at the STOP ROUTE button. A trade route stops automatically when reaching the last selected station of the route.