Just a thought...

[JohnJellicoe]

So...

Always in the never ending quest to make the turns into data-ish...

I did note that you can combine pdf's into one file, so essentially take your turns and merge them into one file, which does at least allow for searching for specific text.  

MacOS this is a native function.  

For Windows, found a freeware in the windows store called, appropriately enough, "PDF Merger & Splitter".

 

It does seem to be helpful, and has helped me be more efficient at not ordering scans more than once...

 

Probably less of an issue for long-standing players, but as a relatively new-ish person, good to have some tips.  

 

Regards.  

[Sakarissa]

Here are some things I do to help with this.

1) If you have all your pdfs for a specific empire in one folder and nothing else, you can use Adobe Reader (the free version and not Pro) to search all the pdfs in the folder. You have to click on the Edit pulldown and click on Advanced Search. The rest is fairly easy to figure out. For instance, you can put in Fleet Sighting in the search field and it will search all the pdfs in the folder for anything that matches that string. If you are looking for SSs (System Scans), then put in the search field "System Scan of the Tarsis". Simply replace Tarsis with the name of the system you are looking for. For GEOs, "Tarsis-1, conducts a detailed Geological". Simply replace Tarsis-1 with the system name and orbit you are looking for.

2) On my research tab in my spreadsheet, each tech has 4 columns that I use - Tech (name of the tech), Sci (number of SCI/Expl hits I have on the tech), Status (percentage of reseach done on it), and Turn (This is the turn number of my results that I popped the tech and where the ANZ resides for that tech). In the below example, That tech accumulated 10 Science hits while researching it, it's at 100% so it's completed, and I completed it on turn 205. If I have expl and sci hits on a tech, I used the notation 1E+7S to denote that.

1st Generation Social Engineering

10S

100

205

 

3) I also keep a tab in the spreadsheet for GEO results. I don't have a turn column in there but usually I don't need one. I also keep another tab with the CSV info for an orbit.

4) I use Excel for my star maps. While a little clunky, it works. I put in a entry for every star system (see below for an example. The gridlines didn't copy over sadly). I color code things on these entries. If the system has at least 1 Gas Giant (GG), then I color the text in the orbits cell as blue. If it's a nexus, then I put nexus and color the text red. If a warp point hasn't been SURV'd yet, then it's purple. If I've SURV'd it, then I use black. I insert arrows from the Shapes section to point to where a warp point goes. If it's a two way warp point, the arrow is black with arrow points on either end. If it's a one-way, I color it red. I also put a note on the cell with the system name. I put in the turn number I did the SS and list the orbit numbers with what type it is (terrestrial, frozen rockball, etc) so I can hover over that cell and see the note with all that info. 

Jorise

30 Orbits

C54181

C116182

 

Hope these tips help.

[hobknob]

While it takes a bit of work, I put all of my data into an excel spreadsheet so I have it in one place.

[Lord Deependra]

I have one spreadsheet for Planets, covering all System Scans, CSVs, ORBs and GEOs (including a reference to the turn so I can look it up and double check). Another one for the Map, with a circle for each system with the name, number of planets and a G if it has at least 1 gas giant. The warp points are separate symbols linked to the system and to the warp point at the other end. Then I have the Research spreadsheet with columns for each turn and research planned out many turns in advance. Then there are Ship Design spreadsheets - one for each class I have designed. And a Production spreadsheet for each homeworld. With the production spreadsheet, I can put in what I want to achieve eg a warship, 2 scouts and 10000 AICs a turn and it will backfill all the production orders, down to how many resources I need to make out of Raw Resources. And both the Ship Design and Production spreadsheets pull the necessary data from the Tech spreadsheet which contains data on pre-requisites and components.

I like spreadsheets 😃

 

 

[JohnJellicoe]

definitely a lot of spreadsheets... have some monster ones.  Tried to get a good xml extract set up to port directly in, but could not get that working like i wanted to.

My problem was my spreadsheets lagged several months behind my turns, and by the time I got them in a form that I liked, I had a good 18 months of turns, so hence the need to organize the turns into the one file so I could verify what I had and had not done...

I reworked the production spreadsheets in a way that made sense, linked them to ship design sheets, and planet data, and reorganized that a few times...

Definitely has been a slowly improving process...

Didn't help when my motherboard crashed and fried my SSD drives last week and lost a lot of data from my last backup (yes, real time backups  now...  )

[Hershberger_rt]

I personally use an Access Database to store everything.  I process all the data via Bash Scripts, to format it for input, using the native import functions for the database.  Then export it into Excel to view and work with.

In Excel I have a generic sheet that shows any systems I wish to view, choosing the system from a drop down list.  It combines all available data for each planet, include the turn a certain command was performed (GEO, ORB, etc), Pop Groups, Number of Resource Extractors (with expected Yields), etc.  It includes a section that consolidates and displays GEO data system wide, and computes Optimal Extractor Levels to best utilize the available population.  This is only system wide, but at some point I plan to expand it to show Pop Utilization Empire Wide.

There is a similar sheet for each POP Group, that shows Colony Complex amounts, Stockpiles and Production at that location.  It includes Power Usage and Support Building levels compared to Total Pops.

A single sheet for all Active Ship Designs, each design is 100 or so rows in three columns, so the Ship Names run across the top of the page, with their components and ratings listed below.  For Ship Design I use a single sheet that computes rating values on the fly and creates the Production Orders needed to build a ship of the class.  I also have a section where I can (roughly) model combat performance vs known DMK designs.  It currently requires a bit of setup to compare different fleet compositions, and tends to over estimate the required force projection.  Which I guess is better then underestimates, so I haven't refined it much.

A sheet for production to show current values and allow editing.  It computes how much of what will be produced based on current stockpiles on that planet, and very generally system wide.  It does fail here since I haven't written anything to compute travel time for fleets.  But gives me enough of a view of expected production to fine turn that and population usage.

Research is another sheet, but mostly just shows what I've finished and what I plan to accomplish.  I haven't yet implemented anyway to track Exploration or Sciences Hits.  But have written code extrapolate Completion Turn based on the Research Report and Level estimate.

Mapping I use both PowerPoint and Graphviz.  I have a sheet to create Graphviz Scripts.  Warp Lines are Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Red for A, B, C, D, or E+; point from origin to destination, two lines if the warp is both directions.  One if not.  PowerPoint is more detailed, showing system, orbits, fleets present, Hostiles.  But obviously takes much more time to complete.  And since I'm not very good with PowerPoint none of it is dynamic, unfortunately.

I create the Turn Order csv doc by hand (I don't use the Turn Entry Program), and have a couple sheets that format orders correctly, so I don't have to keep looking them up.  This includes a section where I can drop the raw output from SNFindPath, and get a start to finish Convoy Route.  And a sheet to check that I formatted the orders correctly, and checks for spelling errors.

There are a few basic reference sheets for data I just want close at hand, Orders List, Empire Setup Codes and Info.  Also I have a sheet for each Empire's Species details.

One Excel Doc for each empire and one Database to store all data from all empires.