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A companion app for Elite Dangerous explorers: exobiology and mapping with a clean, glanceable interface for a second monitor. It reads the game journal on your PC and shows everything in your browser.
- System: bodies ranked by value, bio signals, predicted species, whether a body is worth mapping.
- Surface: a sampling radar showing where to take the next sample and how far you still have to go.
- Route: systems worth visiting for high-value mapping (Road to Riches) and biology, around a point or along a line (Spansh data). Shown as a list or a 3D map, and stops tick off by themselves as you fly. Also covers the route you plotted in the galaxy map: fuel and where to scoop, neutron stars and white dwarfs ahead, and the chance a system is still undiscovered. Neutron routes come from Spansh.
- Session: how much unsold data you are carrying right now.
- History: every system you visited: what you scanned, found and sold, how long you stayed and what it brought per hour.
- Shop: the nearest shipyards and outfitting as soon as you open it, where to buy a ship, a module or a commodity, and where to get a material (the nearest material traders of its kind, which of your materials a trader would take for it and how many it gives, the ones your engineering goals need marked, landable planets rich in a raw element, for the grade 5 materials of High Grade Emissions the nearest systems where they likely give them (faction states on Spansh, and where you saw such signals), where else it comes from): by name or from the lists, with prices, how much a market had in stock, the navy rank a ship needs and how old the station's data is (Spansh data). Flip through every ship and module, ships by type (combat, exploration, freight...) and price: a ship's blueprint sketch, base price, performance, slots and whether a fighter hangar fits; a module's figures for each class and rating (EDSY data). Engineering goals (a module, a blueprint, the grade to reach; several at once) add up the materials they take against your stock from the journal; what is still short is highlighted on planets (System and Surface tabs).
- Mining: for Platinum, Painite, Low Temperature Diamonds, Void Opal and ten more: the nearest rings with their hotspots (how many, ring type, reserves), the markets paying the most for them (price, demand, landing pads, fleet carriers on request), filters (reserves, demand down to your hold, fresh prices, distance from the star) and the shortest trip from you to a ring and on to a buyer (Spansh data). From the journal: the run you are on (tonnes, tonnes per hour, minutes until the hold is full), your past runs by ring, what you earned selling what you mined, and the game's own mining counters.
- Galaxy: all your journeys on a 3D galaxy map: path, earnings, first discoveries, deaths, and the codex regions you have been to, the engineers with your progress. On request, other players right now (from EDDN, no names).
- Stats: all-time numbers and records, shared as one picture (with or without your commander name).
The same page on your phone, over Wi-Fi:
The interface is in English, Ukrainian or Russian; switch it in Settings.
- Download EDExplorerKit.exe from the latest release.
- Run it. Your browser opens http://127.0.0.1:8765 by itself.
- Play. The page updates live while the game runs.
Close the black console window to stop the app. Running the exe again while it is already running just opens the page.
On your phone or tablet: on the PC, open Settings → On your phone (or the button on the welcome card) and scan the QR code with the phone, which has to be on the same Wi-Fi. On the first start Windows asks about the firewall: allow private networks.
Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" because the exe is not code-signed. Click More info → Run anyway. If you would rather not trust a downloaded exe, use Docker or run from source (below): both build from this repository's code.
If your journal is not in the standard place (Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous),
the page says so: choose the folder in Settings → Journal folder.
On first start the app reads your whole journal history, which takes from a few seconds to a minute.
Requires Docker Desktop. In the repository folder:
docker compose up -d --buildOpen http://127.0.0.1:8765. Stop it with docker compose down.
The journal folder %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous
is mounted read-only. If yours is elsewhere (for example, Saved Games moved to OneDrive),
set ED_JOURNAL_DIR first:
$env:ED_JOURNAL_DIR = "D:\OneDrive\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous"
docker compose up -d --buildThe database is kept in the data Docker volume between restarts. To open the page from
other devices on your network, change the port line in docker-compose.yml to
"8765:8765". In a container the app can't see the game process, so "game running"
in the header is judged from the journal.
Requires uv and Node.js 22 or newer. Clone or download this repository, then in its folder (PowerShell):
.\start.ps1 # builds the UI, then serves http://127.0.0.1:8765, and to your phone on the same Wi-Fi
.\start.ps1 -Local # this PC only
.\start.ps1 -SkipBuild # start without rebuilding the UIIf PowerShell says running scripts is disabled, start it as
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\start.ps1.
Or step by step:
cd frontend; npm install; npm run build; cd ..
cd backend; uv run python -m app.mainPass them to the exe (EDExplorerKit.exe --offline, or in a shortcut's target) or to
uv run python -m app.main.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
--local |
This PC only: no access from your phone or other devices on the network |
--offline |
No requests to Spansh/EDSM and no EDDN (route planning and live players are then off) |
--port 8765 |
Use another port |
--journal-dir PATH |
Journal folder, if not in the standard place (or choose it in Settings; set here, Settings cannot change it) |
--data-dir PATH |
Where data.db is stored (or move it in Settings; set here, Settings cannot change it) |
--rebuild |
Rebuild the database from the stored journal events |
--no-browser |
Don't open the browser on start (the exe opens it by default) |
- The app reads the game journal (
Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous) and never writes to it. - Devices on your network (your phone) can open the page; the journal folder can only be changed on the PC itself.
--localkeeps the page to this PC. - The database lives in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\EDExplorerKit\data.dbunless you move it (Settings → Data folder; it moves the next time the app starts). It takes a little more room than your journals. Before it reads a long journal history the app checks the drive: when the database would not fit, or would grow past 500 MB, the read waits until you choose where to keep it. Deleting it is safe while the journals are there: it is rebuilt from them on the next start. It also stores the journal events themselves, so after losing the journals (reinstall, new PC) your history survives only in this file. Keep a copy. - Only these requests go online: community data for the current system, route search, neutron routes, checks of the plotted route's systems, stations near you (where to sell, the Shop, the Mining tab's rings and markets) (Spansh and EDSM), and other players' finds on the planet the Surface globe shows (Canonn). While the "players now" layer of the galaxy map is on, the app also listens to the EDDN relay: it only receives (about 20 KiB/s at busy times, the whole feed) and sends nothing; it hangs up a couple of minutes after the layer is closed.
--offlineturns them all off.
cd backend; uv run python -m app.main # API on :8765
cd frontend; npm run dev # UI on :5173, proxies /api to the backend
cd frontend; npm run dev -- --open "/?mock=1" # UI on mock data, no backend needed
cd backend; uv run pytest -q
cd frontend; npm testArchitecture: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md. Roadmap: docs/ROADMAP.md.
- Bump the version in
backend/app/__init__.pyandbackend/pyproject.toml. - Tag and push:
git tag v0.1.0; git push origin v0.1.0. - The Release workflow tests the code, builds
EDExplorerKit.exeand publishes it as a GitHub release.
To build the exe locally: .\packaging\build-exe.ps1 produces dist\EDExplorerKit.exe.
Community data: Spansh and EDSM. Exobiology rules are derived from Canonn research data (details in backend/app/exobio/SOURCES.md). Other players: EDDN, the Elite Dangerous Data Network. Ship and module names: EDCD FDevIDs. Ship and module prices and figures: EDSY by taleden (CC BY-NC 4.0). Ship outlines: traced from the blueprint sheets by elite-dangerous-blog.co.uk on the Elite Dangerous Wiki (35 ships); the others are fan art drawn for this app, not Frontier's art. Codex region map: EliteDangerousRegionMap by Ben Peddell (MIT, backend/app/data/regionmap-LICENSE).
ED Explorer Kit is a fan-made tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier Developments. Elite Dangerous is a trademark of Frontier Developments plc.
ED Explorer Kit is free. If it helps you on your journeys, you can support its development on Patreon.
Questions, ideas or bug reports: mlinzo.dev@gmail.com.