Finally got around to working on Questor a bit again. You can view the change log here.

You can download the new version here. 

For now I'll keep adding blogs for each release, but I might just move that exclusively to the forums for Questor and keep this blog for 'other things'. For example, I'll be looking into Rift when it comes out. It looks fun, and I already played around with it a small bit.

It seems CCP has screwed around here and there and managed to break Questor. Damn you CCP! ;)

However, I think I've fixed the issues (ammo-change & stargate jumps). However if you still run into a problem, bug, or anything let me know using the comment section.

You can download the new version here.

Big note, new missions have been added to EVE and as such I recommend keeping a close eye on Questor.

Some of those new missions will need XML's or Questor will not be able to complete them.

I've finally finished the move from ISXEVE to DirectEve (my own code). This means Questor is now usable without an ISXEVE subscription. Note, Inner Space is still required!

Some of the changes:

• Tractor beam's will deactivate if a wreck / cargo container is within 2500m
• Wrecks will be unlocked if the ship has no salvager (just like cargo containers)
• Afterburner / MWD will no longer turn off if your speed tanking and are still being attacked. Note that the old behavior will still be used if your not speed tanking (e.g. if your no longer approaching an entity, then ab/mwd will turn off)
• Refactored the way Questor loots, it should handle lag better now.

I probably forgot to add some changes to the change log, so who knows what you will run into ;)

I've also decided to release a new utility called ValueDump. This utility has the ability to sell all the items in your hangar. Run it with 'dotnet valuedump' from the InnerSpace console. It will sell all items (or at least try) that are not in secure containers (like a station container). So move your ammo to safety!

By default this utility will not undersell items. Underselling is defined as 15% under median buy price (as returned by eve-central, cached in invitems.xml). This, however, is ignored if the combined value (item quantity * median buy price) is below 1.000.000 isk (its not worth the trouble of trying to sell it yourself).

You can download the new version here. Due to my work I have a lot less time to work on Questor at this moment (I was off the past 3 weeks :), so expect changes / updates to become a bit less frequent from now on. Sorry.

It seems I had a small bug in the previous Questor release which made it not work for pretty much everyone from the US.

You can download the new version here.

Update:
I've fixed the bug with Questor not seeing the ships in the ship hangar correctly. If you are having issues with Questor not switching to your combat / salvage ship then redownload Questor and it *should* be fixed (no guarantees).

On the last day of this glorious year we are blessed with a new version of Questor. I recommend backing up your old version of Questor, just to be on the safe side. After you have installed this new version, make sure you edit your settings xml file! See the included settings xml file and the changelog.txt file and apply all the changes. One very important change is the renaming of activateShieldBooster into activateRepairModules. I will laugh at everyone that loses his ship due to not checking their settings xml file :D

Some of the changes I already talked about in a previous blog. But since then I added drone-reloading, salvager-spreading and auto logon. I think I added some other stuff as well, so be sure to check out the changelog.txt file that is included in the zip.

As with the previous version of Questor, ISXEVE and InnerSpace are still required.

The Hacker Within wishes you all a Happy New Year!

A lot of people have been bugging me about an update to Questor and while I haven't fully decided yet if I want to release the source of PySharp and DirectEve (my custom libraries), I did decide that I wanted to release a new version of Questor.

So here it is, a new build of Questor, the user friendly version. Unpack the zip file to your ".NET Programs" folder in your InnerSpace directory.

To get started with this version, there are a few things you need to configure. Firstly, you need to rename the "rename_to_charname.xml" file to your charactername.xml, for example "IRBot.xml" if your char is called "IRBot".

Once that is done, you need to edit the XML file (any editor will do, even notepad), its a file which basically tells the bot which missions to accept, which ship(s) to use, what ammo to use, etc. I have added XML comments to each section. So you should be able to fill it in relatively easy.

Some of the sections contain id's, like type id and group id. These id's can be looked up in the InvTypes.xml file.

Once that is done, startup EVE with InnerSpace. Load up ISXEVE (at the moment its still required). And then load up Questor using "dotnet Questor" command in the InnerSpace console.

After that you'll get presented with a form with loads of different buttons. Normally there are only 2 interesting buttons. One is "Begin" and the other is "Auto 'BEGIN'" (ok not really a button). While there's more buttons, they are mostly there for testing.

If you filled in everything correctly in the settings XML file (e.g. "IRBot.xml"), then the bot should talk to your mission agent, accept a combat mission, fly to the mission, etc, etc, etc. The bot will decline all courier missions and decline missions in/into low-sec.

While the bot is able to automatically do all normal kill missions. Some missions require the bot to kill structures or pickup loot. These missions require (sadly enough) specialized mission-actions. I've included two sets, one for L4 Caldari Mission agents (might not be complete) and one for L4 Galente Missions (should be complete, at least was for my agent).

That in theory should be enough info to get you started. If you run into a bug or question, dont be afraid to leave a comment, however I'm not your help desk, stupid question as such will be ignored!

For all that missed the download link above, click here to download Questor.

Due to being extremely busy with work, I haven't had the time that I wanted on this project. Don't worry, I will release a version of the bot. But it will most likely not be based on ISXEVE. I've had it with their slow updates on requests and the fact that after several weeks (months?) of a promised performance fix. I'm not doubting the resolve of the ISXEVE team, I just have a feeling their not able to get the update working the way they want it (which would be bug free).

With that in mind I have (re)started work on my own way to access the inner workings of EVE. Most of you probably don't know this, but I wrote a Proof of Concept innerspace extension for EVE before ISXEVE came out. It only did a few basic things, but due to time constraints I never finished it. If you search around the web, you might still find the source code. However that code is severely outdated.

To give you guys a sneak preview of the C# Python 'Access Layer' (which I have called PySharp) that I am working on, this is how easy it has become:

using (var pySharp = new PySharp())
{
    var builtin = pySharp.Import("__builtin__");
    var shipid = (long) builtin.Attribute("eve").Attribute("session").Attribute("shipid");
    var items = builtin.Attribute("eve").Call("GetInventoryFromId", shipid).Call("ListCargo").ToList();
    foreach(var item in items)
    {
        var invType = builtin.Attribute("cfg").Attribute("invtypes").Call("Get", item.Attribute("typeID"));
        var name = (string)invType.Attribute("name");
        InnerSpace.Echo(name);
    }
}

This code takes care of releasing the Python references once the PySharp instance gets released. If anything in a chain of attributes fails, the code will handle the error gracefully and will not throw an exception or crash eve. Tbh, PySharp is close to brilliant.

I will be using the above code to write an API (which I have called DirectEve) and switch the bot over to that API.

There's one downside, this code could potentially cause CCP to improve their security. I mean, seriously this is just TOO easy.

It's been a while since my last post, this has mostly been due to a very tight deadline I have at work. It's hard to keep up the blog when I'm even working in the weekends :(

However I have made a lot of progress with the bot. I wont upload a new source just yet (hence the 4.5-part instead of 5), mostly because I am waiting for the performance-release of ISXEVE. I'm beta testing the release and it still has some bugs, but as soon as those are gone then the new version of the mission bot will be released. Releasing it now would result in unacceptable performance (truly unacceptable!).

But to give you a bit of a heads up on what has been added since the last release:

• Drone support, although it still loses drones in missions (The Mordus Headhunters eats up drones), the support works pretty darn good! :)
• Loot-pickup support, this means it will check each can to see if the mission item is in there.
• Full mission "scripting" support, allowing you to select what actions the bot will take in missions.
• Priority-looting, using an XML with market-prices from eve-central the bot is able to dump less-valued loot and pickup more valuable loot.
• Create salvage bookmarks (if a mission has more then x-wrecks left then it'll make a salvage bookmark for that mission pocket)
• After-mission salvaging, the bot has the ability to jump into a salvage ship after completing a mission and visiting the bookmarks that it made to salvage (and loot) all the wrecks there.
• Better ammo-support, you can have multiple types of ammo with multiple ranges, and it will pick the right type of ammo for the right range. (I will be adding additional options to this in later versions, to (for example) select rage-torps for battleships)
• Speed tanking, when enabled the bot will orbit the target its attacking (it still has some bugs but works pretty well)
• And most importantly: a settings-xml file which allows you to change any setting in the bot

There are still bugs in there, but its getting very close to perfect for combat missions. 

I hope that the ISXEVE performance update gets released soon, as I can't really release it like this. It would be too slow.

Well after a weeks worth there is now partial support for pickup missions. The MissionController doesn't actually wait for loot (yet), nor will it check every can / wreck (yet), but it does pickup loot. But I got a bit annoyed by the performance issues with ISXEVE, so I decided to "motivate" the people behind ISXEVE a bit, perhaps more on that in a week (for now the motivator stays private).

I also squashed a couple of bugs here and there (like panic mode only working once).

This week its all about finishing support for pickup missions and start working on drone support.

Somewhere in between I will also look into using the right ammo for the mission (if the faction of the mission is known through either XML or mission information). Should not be 'that' hard.

Sunday was very productive, I've finished a lot work on the Mission Controller. The Mission Controller is responsible for the actions within a mission, with that finished the bot becomes very close to a workable release. Currently it supports a range of actions, but an important action is not finished yet (picking up items in space). I'll work on that in the coming days.

I also added a Panic mode after I nearly lost my ship due to it running out of cap, being scrambled and having no shield. Lets just say that's not what you want in a (over priced) mission running ship ;)  The panic mode keeps track of your cap (it does assume that you can actually tank everything, perhaps I should change that) and makes all warp-scramblers a priority target (e.g. they get killed before anything else).

Other then that I also fixed a number of bugs, although I still havent found one that causes a popup screen every so often (although I did manage to lower its occurrence).

With the above done, the state of the current bot means that it can run a 'normal' kill-everything mission without interference from a person. Anything else requires manual interaction (picking up items, destroying certain structures, etc).

So the TODO list looks a bit like this at the moment (ordered by 'priority'): 

• Fix bugs ;)
• Add support for pickup missions
• Add looting for wrecks (keeping in mind the amount of space needed for the pickup mission)
• Add auto-learning for mission damage types (e.g. if you do "Gone Beserk" then it should take different ammo types the first time, but the second time it should only take the 'correct' ammo for the mission).
• Allow custom mission actions when needed, the idea is that the bot is able to most of the missions without user defined actions though.
• I might add support for courier missions, since they can be profitable in some of the mission arcs.
• Anything else I can think off :)