Produce a list of potential colonisation systems for your minor faction in the game Elite Dangerous.

This consists of three command line programs (to be run in order):

1. Colonisation.StarSystems: This produces a list of potential colonisation systems near systems controlled by the specified minor faction. The output is CSV for easy import into Excel or a similar spreadsheet.
2. Colonisation.Bodies: This takes the output of Colonisation.StarSystems and looks up details about the bodies on EDSM. The output is in JSON, since it has a complex structure. It updates the existing output file, if any, to prevent unnecessary lookups, which speeds up the process.
3. Colonisation.Points: This takes the output of both previous commands and produces a list of systems based on an arbitrary point system to determine the most desirable systems for colonisation. The output is in a CSV.

The separation ensures long running but infrequently changing details do not impact the likely frequent fiddling and tweaking of point values.

The programs and files involved are:

flowchart TB
  swc@{ shape: doc, label: "systemsWithCoordinates.json"} --> cs["Colonisation.StarSystems"]
  sp@{ shape: doc, label: "systemsPopulated.json"} --> cs
  st@{ shape: doc, label: "stations.json"} --> cs
  edsm@{ shape: cyl, label: "Elite Dangerous Star Map (EDSM)"} -->|API| cb["Colonisation.Bodies"] 
  edsm -->|Daily Export| swc
  edsm -->|Daily Export| sp
  edsm -->|Daily Export| st
  cs --> ct@{ shape: doc, label: "colonisationTargets.csv"}
  cb <-->|Reads and Writes| sb@{ shape: doc, label: "systemBodies.json"}
  ct --> cb
  ct --> cp["Colonisation.Points"]
  sb --> cp
  cp --> pct@{ shape: doc, label: "prioritisedColonisationTargets.csv"}

1. Download and extract systemsWithCoordinates.json from https://www.edsm.net/dump/systemsWithCoordinates.json.gz into Colonisation.StarSystems. Note that this is a large file (12+ GB) at the time of writing. Such a large but rarely changing file is intentionally excluded from the git repository. The systems, particularly those within or near the bubble, are well known so this file should only need to be downloaded the first time.
2. Download and extract systemsPopulated.json from https://www.edsm.net/dump/systemsPopulated.json.gz into Colonisation.StarSystems. This file is excluded from the git repository. It changes daily and should be redownloaded regularly.
3. Download and extract stations.json from https://www.edsm.net/dump/stations.json.gz into Colonisation.StarSystems. This file is also large (7+ GB) at the time of writing and is also excluded from the git repository. This file's contents are used to detect systems being colonised by looking for a station called "System Colonisation Ship". It changes daily and should be redownloaded regularly.
4. (Optional) Change the minorFactionName setting in Colonisation.StarSystems\applicationSettings.config to the name of your minor faction. It must match exactly. See Configuration below for an explanation.
5. (Optional) Change the minorFactionNativeStarSystemName setting in Colonisation.StarSystems\applicationSettings.config to the name of your minor faction's native system. It must match exactly. See Configuration below for an explanation.
6. Build the solution.
7. Run "run.bat" in the root folder of the solution. This batch file will:
   1. Run Colonisation.StarSystems. It takes several minutes to run. By default, output is written to colonisationTargets.csv.
   2. Copy colonisationTargets.csv from the previous step into Colonisation.Bodies and Colonisation.Points. You can also load this file into any spreadsheet.
   3. Run Colonisation.Bodies to download relevant information about the bodies in these systems. This may take a while, especially if https://edsm.net is busy.
   4. Copy systemBodies.json from the previous step into Colonisation.Points.
   5. Run Colonisation.Points to output prioritisedColonisationTargets.csv.

prioritisedColonisationTargets.csv contains the following columns:

This file is sorted by Points (highest points first) and then by Name (alphabetically). This ensures the most promising star systems are at the top.

Important configuration parameters in Colonisation.StarSystems\applicationSettings.config are:

Other configuration values specify file names, which need not be changed.

The output is a spreadsheet containing a sorted list of colonisable star systems. They are ordered by an arbitrary point score that attempts to measure how valuable they are for colonisation. Specifically:

1. One point for each body in the system, including stars. This is halved if they are over 50,000 Ls away from entry.
2. Each landable planet gets twice its gravity, measured in "g"s, in points. This is doubled again if it has an atmosphere. This approximates the number of surface outposts that can be built.
3. One point for each ring and belt.
4. Twenty points for a terraformable world, mainly because it may give a terraforming state, allowing wing mining missions.

This is a simple tool not intended for broad use. Therefore, not every parameter is stored in configuration or validated. Code is kept in a few files to keep swapping to a minimum. Error handling is minimal.

1. EDSM Nightly Dumps: https://www.edsm.net/en/nightly-dumps (used in the first two steps above)
2. EDSM System APIs: https://www.edsm.net/en/api-system-v1 (called by Colonisation.StarSystems)
3. ED Astro dumps: https://edastro.com/mapcharts/files.html (unused but potentially useful)
4. Inara API: https://inara.cz/elite/inara-api-devguide/ (unused but potentially useful)