Getting the Most from the Mission Explorer
The Mission Explorer module contains a powerful search capability; this tutorial covers getting the most from that!
Common tasks which the search can assist with are:
- Commodity searches - Find stations with a certain quanity of a particular commodity (eg 50 tons of palladium)
- Station facility searches - Find tech broker/material trader stations near my current location
- Systems selling Scorpion SRV
- Finding Signal Source materials - Find the systems with a specific BGS pattern
- Completing Source and Return Missions - Route Optimiser commodity searches
Search Basics
Let's start with the Commodity Search tab on the Mission Explorer window. The top line of this window displays the current system name, your ship, it's landing pad size, your cargo capacity and the jump range (unlaiden). If this is empty it's because Cougar Display hasn't yet received a loadout event from Elite Dangerous; this event is generated when you load your current commander in Elite.
This section is important because once the system knows your location and ship capability, it can then calculate stations and systems near your location taking into account the number of jumps to get there (more on this later)
The main part of the search is split into three regions, each one focusing on the input that relates to the region.
- Search (INARA) Sends requests to INARA website and displays the results (which can then be sorted).
- Common Search Filters is a set of conditions to be applied to the search. These conditions are applied to all searches and thus are always in effect.
- Commodity Search is an optional set of conditions which are useful when looking for a specific commodity and quantity (for Elite Missions, for example).
It's important to know right from the start that all three sections are always affecting your search results. Hopefully the defaults values for the filters are sensible so that they don't exclude too many entries from the results. (for example, this means that Station Options and Pad Size filters are always being applied to every search)
1. Search (INARA)
Select a search option from the Quick Search
This drop-down list contains one of:
- BGS State
- Material traders
- Technology Brokers
- Interstellar Factors
- Fleet Carrier Administration
- Scorpion SRV vendors
- Anarchy Systems (outbreak)
- Damages Stations
- Compromised NAV Beacons
Searching
Searching involves the use of filters and search options. The Quick Search region contains a list of options (such as "Fleet carrier Outfitting").
Click the Search near me button to begin the search and display the results.
Note: Common search Filters can affect the number of results returned
Example
Let's work with an example.
Suppose we want to find all Starports with a minor faction state of Outbreak in with an Anarchy system government.
To do this we would select the following option:
- Select Quick Search to "Anarchy systems (outbreak)"
The results show the number of records found. Tip: Clicking on the column titles will sort the results.
2. Searches near me / Common Search Filters
So far the basic search button has searched the entire database and found matching systems/stations according to your criteria - namely attributes of those stations and systems, eg faction name.What if you want to find the closest station to your current position?
Well, the system knows your current location and offers a simple way to reduce the number of results returned back by the search function. This is where the Common Search Filters come into play.
Every search so far has included the use of the filters in the Common Search Filters region. You may have not even noticed that it was being used - that's because the default values are generally the useful ones.
By default, the system searches all results. If you click the search near me button then the current system or specified system (Sol if it's blank) is used as the reference point.
Additionally, Station Distance and Star Distance are used to filter the results returned. If you find too many results, try reducing these values and conversly if there are too few results.
Tip: These two values can be blank, this allows any star distance or station distance in the search.
Station Options These options filter the results so that only certainkinds of stations are returned in the results set, for example planetary bases are excluded by default. To set these options takes a bit of getting used to. There are 3 combinations that the check boxes can be set to. Firstly the option can be checked/unchecked - eg Docking. This means that the option is either included or excluded from the search filter. If it's included, then the yes/no checkboxes add to the filter with either true or false.
The landing pad size filter in the Commodity Search region also filters the results. The default is to use any size your ship supports, but you can target a specific size if you wish.
BGS Searches
Some times it's desirable to locate specific types of USS drops when material hunting (eg Imperial Shielding). To do this you'll want to find systems that are in a particular state.By selecting BGS State from the options in the Quick Search list, a selection of possible BGS states is shown.
Using this, you can select multiple states that a system has to be in.
This is particularly useful for material hunting, or miners looking to find stations/systems with a specific pattern of state to get high selling prices.
Void Opals with a selling price of 1.6M CR are found when the states are Boom or Investment, plus Expansion, plus Civil Liberty, plus either Public Holiday or Pirate Attack.
Void Opals with a selling price of 1.1M CR are found when the states are Boom or Investment, plus Expansion, plus either Public Holiday or Pirate Attack.
Quick Searches
There are some occaisions where setting all the filters and search criteria would be too cumbersome.To help, a special filter has been created - Quick search
This filter is used to search for any of the following:
- Interstellar Factors
- Tech brokers / Guardian Tech brokers
- Material Traders (raw, manufactured, encoded
- Fleet Carrier Outfitting
- Scorpion SRV Outposts
You are then free to click the Search near me button to search. Common Search Filters are also in effect (so landing pad size is taken into account).
3. Commodity Searching
Commodity searching adds the ability to include any available material and quantity into the search criteria. The Category drop-down list is a quick way to find the commodity you may be looking for. By selecting an entry, the Commodity drop-down list is populated with the entities for that category.
When a Commodity and Quantity are specified, the search function will limit the resulting stations to those offering the specific item for sale. Note this could be out-of-date by the time you reach the station due to the delay between the community gathering data and the update to INARA database.
Click the Find button to execute the search. This search is always a "search near me" variety and thus the Common Search Filters are also in effect when the search is performed.
Results from the Commodity search are ranked, and the ranking is based on cmdr ease and convienience. For example, a system 2 jumps further away is favoured more than a long supercruise journey; a station with a small landing pad is favoured over a large pad station (quicker to dock).
The Max Price Age setting specifies how fresh the results need to be. The default setting of (0) zero allows any age; otherwise the value is in hours.
When a rank is negative, it means that the entry has been boosted by the algorithum and is thus the best match. When a rank is above zero, then that system has been negatively impacted by the algorthium and is not considered optimal.