An EDMC plugin to count Background Simulation (BGS) work. BGS Tally counts all the BGS work you do for any faction, in any system.
Based on BGS-Tally v2.0 by tezw21: Original tezw21 BGS-Tally-v2.0 Project
This modified version includes manual Combat Zone tracking, Discord-ready information, quick Copy to Clipboard function for the Discord text and posting directly to Discord.
Download the latest release of BGS Tally - it's the file titled BGS-Tally.zip. Then:
- Launch EDMC.
- In EDMC, in File → Settings → Plugins, press the Open button. This reveals the EDMC plugins folder where it looks for plugins.
- Extract the BGS-Tally.zip archive that you downloaded, which will create a BGS-Tally folder. Move this folder into your EDMC plugins folder.
- Re-start EDMC for it to notice the new plugin.
- In EDMC, go to File → Settings → BGS Tally and click ☑ Make BGS Tally Active to enable the plugin.
The plugin writes your activity to three files in the BGS-Tally folder, so if you want it to keep your progress, before replacing your old BGS-Tally folder with the new one, move these three files across from old to new:
Today.txtYesterday.txtMissionLog.txt
It is highly recommended that EDMC is started before ED is launched as data is recorded at startup and then when you dock at a station. Not doing this can result in missing data.
The data is shown on a pop up window when the Latest BGS Tally or Previous BGS Tally buttons on the EDMC main screen are clicked - data collected since the latest tick in Latest BGS Tally and data from your previous play session before the latest tick in Previous BGS Tally. The tick time it uses is published here: https://elitebgs.app/api/ebgs/v5/ticks and the plugin displays this on the main EDMC window for reference.
The plugin also generates a nicely formatted 'Discord Ready' text string which can be copied and pasted into a Discord chat, or posted directly to a Discord channel if you wish (see 'Discord Integration' below for instructions).
The plugin can be paused / restarted by un-checking / checking the ☑ Make BGS Tally Active checkbox in File → Settings → BGS Tally.
The plugin includes both automatic and manual tracking of data. All automatic and manual data is totalled during the Latest Tick Data session and transferred to Earlier Tick Data at server tick.
The following activities are automatically collected from your in-game activity:
- Primary Mission INF +++
- Secondary Mission INF +++ *
- Election / War / CivilWar mission count †
- Total trade profit sold to Faction controlled station
- Cartographic data sold to Faction controlled station
- Bounties issued by named Faction
- Combat Bonds issued by named Faction
- Missions Failed for named Faction
- Ships murdered owned by named Faction
- Negative trade is counted with a minus sign in trade profit column
* The plugin tracks primary INF (for the mission giving faction) and secondary INF (for other factions) separately. Secondary INF can be excluded from reports if desired.
† The plugin will honor INF values if they are present for completed missions in the player journal. However, if no INF value is reported and the faction is in Elections, non-violent mission types are counted and reported. Similarly if no INF value is reported and the faction is at War or Civil War, violent mission types are counted and reported. Gathering a full list of mission types that count towards victory is still a work in progress.
The State column shows each faction state to give an indication on how missions are being counted.
All the above are totalled during the Latest BGS Tally session and transfer to Previous BGS Tally at server tick.
The plugin also includes manual tracking of Combat Zones (CZs). CZs are not included in Elite's Player Journal, so there is no way of automatically working out which CZs you have completed. There are fields for each category of CZ that you can manually change, and these values are incorporated into the Discord text report.
The plugin generates Discord-ready text for copying-and-pasting manually into Discord. However, as of v1.4.0, it also now supports direct posting into Discord using a webhook. You will need to create this webhook on your Discord server first. The steps are as follows:
- In your Discord server, click the Cog / Gear icon ⚙ alongside the channel name.
- In the menu that appears, click Integrations.
- In the Webhooks panel, click Create Webhook. (If you have any webhooks already set up on the channel, instead click View Webhooks and then New Webhook).
- In the Name field, give your webhook a name, for example 'BGS Tally' would be sensible.
- Click Copy Webhook URL.
- In EDMC, go to File → Settings → BGS Tally and paste the Webhook URL into the Discord Webhook URL field.
- Optionally, you can also set a username that the Discord post will appear as - type this into the Discord Post as User field. It would be sensible to type in your Discord username, but you can use anything you like.
Once the connection is configured, a new button will appear on the BGS Tally windows titled Post to Discord. This will automatically send your report to your Discord server via the Webhook you have configured.
If you post again within the same tick, the plugin will update your previous post, rather than creating a second post.
If you're concerned about the privacy of your BGS activity, note that this plugin does not send your data anywhere, unless you specifically choose to by configuring the Discord Integration (see above for instructions).
It writes the following three files, all in the BGS-Tally folder:
Today.txt- This contains your activity since the last tick.Yesterday.txt- This contains your activity in your previous session before the last tick.MissionLog.txt- This contains your currently active list of missions.
All three of these files use the JSON format, so can be easily viewed in a text editor or JSON viewer.
The plugin makes the following network connections:
- To EliteBGS to grab the date and time of the lastest tick.
- To GitHub to check the version of the plugin to see whether there is a newer version available.
- Only if configured by you to a specific Discord webhook on a Discord server of your choice, and only when you explicitly click the Post to Discord button.