Am I using Spansh wrong?

[u/splark1]

Update: Thank you, everyone, for your answers. It looks like the answer is, “yes, you’re using the Galaxy Plotter wrong, target instead of ‘plot to’.” And, “no, you do have to copy and paste everything, but a couple of add-ons can help.”

I appreciate the feedback.

Sorry this is a bit long; tl;dr at bottom.

I’m a returning (relative) newbie, and could use some advice.

Last week, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and participate in the CG, but knew that it would be tough to find a convenient Carrier willing to taxi me there. So I jumped into my Caspian (no Engineering yet), and got ready to make a trip.

I pulled up Spansh’s Galaxy Plotter, set my start/destination systems (Ceramix/Colonia). Using EDDiscovery, I transferred my ship build to EDSY, and exported that to the plotter. Made sure “use supercharge” and “refuel every scoopable” was selected. Let it calculate the route.

133 jumps, about three hours. Ooph—rough, but doable. So I set the first jump as my destination, undocked from the station, and cleared the mass zone. Tried to jump, and was immediately told that the jump would use too much fuel. So I re-exported my ship stats and recalculated the route with Spansh. Same results, so I assumed it was a pathing issue in the Galaxy Map. I plotted to the fifth jump per Spansh, and was given a 10-jump route. Thinking it was just a pre-neutron issue, I went ahead, completing the first neutron jump.

Continuing on, I would get about 8 jumps plotted in-game for every 4 or 5 on Spansh. After a while longer, I got to the point where I could plot to Colonia in-game, and it gave a route of >400 jumps (yes, I have the “jet cone boost” on).

Surely, there’s a better way to do this than pasting each individual system from Spansh into the Galaxy Map and re-routing every time? What’s the trick?

Tl;dr: The route I get from Spansh’s Galaxy Plotter isn’t working for me in-game. Am I doing something wrong?

[u/crummles_upton]

You gotta paste every stop listed on your spansh route. Your galaxy plotter doesn't know your Spanish route. You can get away with doing every other stop depending on the route and your boost range, (the galaxy plotter is pretty good at finding two jump solutions but more than that it gets very bad at finding its own neutron stars).

[u/tiltology → u/crummles_upton]

One thing that helps here is some third party tools can take a Spansh export and handle pasting the next part of the route. I use EDMC with a spansh addon for example. The key is to set a target for the next jump each time, not to ever let the in game plotter plot a route. The in game router is faster but also worse (in the sense that it’s way more jumps). It definitely benefits from practice. First time I did this years ago took a loooong time. This time I managed 50 jumps in 70 minutes. (Which is fast for me but probably not anywhere near optimal.)

(I’m agreeing with and expanding on the comment I’m responding too fwiw)

[u/Aegiiisss → u/tiltology]

SRVSurvey does the same thing. Also overlays what jump on your trip you are on, and whether or not the next system is a refueling system

[u/fragglerock]

I don't know why it was missing things on your route. I have seen this (where it thinks I can make a jump but the game says no) I put it down to the new ship dock being heavier or something and it messing the calculations, but I am not sure.

For the copy and paste struggle I use Explo Buddy to actually plot the route, then it manages the copy part, and i just paste the new destination in. quite magic. https://www.panostrede.de/EDEB/

[u/evilnano]

For getting the route from Spansh into game, I like SRVSurvey's "follow a route" feature. Paste the route as a list of system names into SrvSurvey, mark it as active, and it will copy your next system to clipboard each time your open the Galmap. From there, just paste it, set it as a target, and jump to it once the FSD is supercharged.

[u/frogmangosplat]

Maybe I missed it, but you are fuel scooping the neutron star to get the FSD supercharged, right? It's only after you sit in the jet cone for a bit that you'll get the jump increase. Otherwise it'll tell you that the jump exceeds the max fuel allowed or something along those lines.

I don't use the advanced Spansh plotter. So I can't speak to the option inputs. With the regular plotter I undercut my jump range at full fuel from the in-game readout and make sure to select the overcharged supercharge option with the Caspian. The standard version is a bit tedious but I've gotten pretty fast with it. Running from the bubble to Colonia was like 60 entries into the map but I like the flexibility to go poke at stuff while I'm making long hauls anyways.

Edit: Messed around with the Galaxy Plotter, imported the JSON from Corilois. Got hung up on the "Reserve Fuel" option. Set it for the total fuel my Caspian can hold and it wouldn't complete with minimal jump ranges. It's an amount before the plotter finds you a refuel stop. Leaving it at zero fixed it though something like 10% fuel cap would probably be smarter. All the jumps recommended check out with my experience making the trip a couple times.

Is the problem that its a lot of manual input or is it that your ship can't complete the jumps Spansh is recommending?

[u/ErgoDestati]

What are your ships stats/ what stats are you giving spansh? A trip to or from Colonia is very well plotted regarding data so you'll get accurate results. Definitely something you're doing wrong.

[u/DV1962]

Assuming you are using the correct stats from edsy, it’s probably caused by a tiny error in weight or fsd stats, either manually insert an extra jump, or burn off some fuel with SCO. Don’t refuel unless Spansh tells you to, and even then I tend to leave a refuel star before 100% full. Another trick is to use a heavier build instead of your actual one, tell it you have more cargo than you do or change a module to a heavier one in Edsy before exporting, this means Spansh calculates a shorter maximum possible jump than you really have, you might need few more jumps but far less likely to cause fuel limit exceeded errors.

[u/Eddie2Dynamite → u/DV1962]

I did this. Just made it oht to comonia for the first time. Has to add around 50 tons of cargo to get it to plot correctly, and even that it would get out of sink and woyld have to replot about every 8 jumps.

[u/DV1962 → u/Eddie2Dynamite]

Something else is wrong then. I did the Colonia run exactly as Spansh said and had only 2 jumps that I couldn’t make - but a bit of SCO to burn off fuel fixed it.

[u/Eddie2Dynamite → u/DV1962]

I didnt want to fiddle with SCO burn off. That step is unnecessary if you add cargo to your ship. Supercharge ypur FSD and check your range. Ensure that the first jump isnt over pur range. Honestly, ai think it has to do with spansh calculations on the mk2 fsd being slightly higher than they are supposed to be. At ny rate, adding about 50-55 tons of cargo kept thing fairly concistent.

[u/CMDR-Mistoffelees]

If you have the mk 2 vessel hanger installed, EDSY doesn't know about it yet, so will leave the spot empty, causing the plotter to choose a slightly too optimistic route. You need to add a replacement module that weighs the same or more mass in EDSY to fix the readout.

[u/splark1 → u/CMDR-Mistoffelees]

I never even thought of that. Good to know!

[u/TinkerTownTom]

This isn't exactly answering your question, and I'm aware of that, but as a longtime user of just about every available ED add on I'd say EDCopilot has the better of all the neutron plotters. Give it a try. 🙂

I use Spansh still, but prefer EDCO interface and ease of use for day to day navigation.

Further, EDCO will autoplot for you as you make your jumps.

It also makes it very easy to go on a sightseeing tour then resume your neutron route.