A live, fully customisable Elite Dangerous HUD for OBS. It runs as an EDMC plugin, reads your game journal and shows session statistics as an OBS Browser Source (or as plain text files). It is built for every kind of commander: explorers, exobiologists, traders, miners and combat pilots.
- Requirements
- Installation
- Adding the HUD to OBS
- Profiles and automatic mode
- Field reference
- Settings reference
- Output files
- How the counters work
- Known limitations
- Troubleshooting
- Privacy and security
- Licence
- Elite Dangerous (Horizons or Odyssey) and OBS Studio.
- EDMC (tested with 6.1.2) running while you play. The plugin only reads journal events that EDMC passes to it.
- Python is bundled with EDMC; nothing extra needs to be installed.
- Download
EDMC-StreamHUD.zipand extract it. You should have a folder namedEDMC-StreamHUDcontainingload.py. - In EDMC choose File > Settings > Plugins > Open (this opens the
pluginsfolder), copy theEDMC-StreamHUDfolder into it and restart EDMC. - Open File > Settings > EDMC-StreamHUD. You should see three tabs: Data & Mode, Appearance & Style and OBS & Output.
To update, replace load.py inside the plugin folder and restart EDMC. Your settings and session totals are kept.
Recommended: Browser Source
- In OBS press
+under Sources and choose Browser. - Paste the URL from OBS & Output > Browser Source URL (default
http://127.0.0.1:8765/). The Copy URL button copies it for you. - Set Width and Height to suit your layout (for example 1920 x 1080 for a vertical HUD). The background of the page is transparent.
- There is no need to refresh: the HUD checks for new data every second.
Alternative: Local file. Tick Local file in the Browser Source and use Documents\EDMC-StreamHUD\HUD.html (the Copy local file path button copies it). The local web server is more reliable, so use this only if you turned the server off.
Alternative: Text sources. Enable Also write one .txt file per field, then add an OBS Text (GDI+) source with Read from file pointing at the field's file in Documents\EDMC-StreamHUD\txt\.
A profile is a ready-made selection of fields. Choosing a profile in Data & Mode ticks its recommended fields, and you can then tick or untick anything you like.
| Profile | Fields ticked by default |
|---|---|
| exploration | CMDR, Time, System, Body, Station, Distance to Sol, Ship, Jumps, Next Jump, Unsold Discoveries, Unsold Bio, Exploration Earnings, Exobiology Earnings, Bodies Scanned, First Discoveries, Bodies Mapped, Merits |
| trade | CMDR, Time, System, Station, Ship, Jumps, Trade Session Profit, Cargo Space, Merits |
| mining | CMDR, Time, System, Body, Ship, Cargo Space, Refined Minerals, Mining Earnings, Merits |
| combat | CMDR, Time, System, Ship, Bounty / Bond Claim, Targets Destroyed, Deaths, Merits |
auto follows what you are doing and shows only the fields of the matching profile:
- jumping or scanning: exploration
- buying or selling cargo and commodities: trade
- refining, prospecting or launching limpets/drones: mining (selling your mined haul keeps you in mining)
- bounties, bonds, PvP kills or being attacked: combat
The account balance is never switched on by a profile or by auto mode (see Privacy).
A field is hidden while it has nothing to show (for example Deaths stays hidden at 0).
| Field | What it shows |
|---|---|
| CMDR | Your commander name. |
| Time | Time since your last dock or since the last session reset. |
| System | Current system. |
| Body | Current body or nearest body. |
| Station | Current station, or Deep Space. |
| Ship | Current ship name. |
| Distance to Sol | Distance from Sol in light years. |
| Balance | Account balance (off by default). |
| Jumps | Session jump count with total distance, for example 12 (310.4 Ly). |
| Next Jump | Next system in your plotted route with jumps remaining. |
| Unsold Discoveries | Unsold high-value worlds found this session (ELW, WW, AW). |
| Unsold Bio | Unsold exobiology species scanned this session. |
| Exploration Earnings | Exploration data sold this session. |
| Exobiology Earnings | Exobiology data sold this session. |
| Bodies Scanned | Bodies scanned this session. |
| First Discoveries | Bodies you were first to discover. |
| Bodies Mapped | Bodies mapped with the surface scanner (DSS). |
| Trade Session Profit | Profit from commodity trading this session (mined minerals excluded). |
| Cargo Space | Cargo carried against capacity, for example 15 / 752 t. |
| Refined Minerals | Refined minerals currently in the hold, by type. Drops when you sell, jettison or die. |
| Mining Earnings | Credits earned from selling mined minerals this session. |
| Bounty / Bond Claim | Combat bounty and bond rewards earned this session. |
| Targets Destroyed | Ships destroyed (Bounty, faction/capital-ship bonds, PvP kills, rival-Power ships). |
| Deaths | Times your ship was destroyed. |
| Merits | Powerplay merits earned this session. |
Changes made in EDMC's settings window apply when you press OK. The Live Preview at the bottom of the window shows your layout, theme and commander name.
- Active Activity Profile: exploration, trade, mining, combat or auto.
- HUD Fields: a checkbox for each field.
- Reset All Session Stats & Timer: sets every session counter, merits and the timer back to zero.
- Theme Preset: Cyber Cyan (default), Elite Orange, Terminal Green, Hologram Blue, Minimal (no box), Light Card.
- HUD Language: en, tr, de, fr, es, ru (field labels on the HUD).
- Layout Direction: vertical (one field per line) or horizontal (left to right; fields wrap onto the next line at the edge of the frame, so nothing is cut off in OBS).
- Show Field Labels, Enable Background Box, Background Colour, Background Opacity (0-100), Corner Radius (0-40), Enable Text Shadow, Flash value when it changes.
- Font Family, Value Font Size, Label Font Size, Bold Values, Bold Labels, Value Colour, Label Colour. Colours are
#RRGGBB; the Choose button opens a colour picker.
- Run local web server (recommended): serves the HUD on
127.0.0.1. - Port: default 8765 (allowed range 1024-65535). If you change it, update the URL in OBS.
- Browser Source URL, Copy URL, Copy local file path, Open output folder.
- Also write one .txt file per field: for OBS text sources.
Everything is written to Documents\EDMC-StreamHUD\:
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
HUD.html |
The page OBS displays. |
HUD.json |
Current value of every field, or "HIDE" for hidden fields. Useful for your own overlays or bots. |
settings.json |
Your settings. |
totals_and_state.json |
Session totals, so an EDMC restart does not lose them. |
txt\<field>.txt |
One file per field, if enabled. |
Files are written atomically, so OBS never reads a half-written file.
- Persistence: totals survive an EDMC restart. If the same journal lines are replayed, they are not counted twice.
- Unsold discoveries and bio count each body or species once, even if you scan it again.
- Mining: Refined Minerals shows what is in the hold. When you sell a mined commodity, its income goes to Mining Earnings and does not inflate Trade Session Profit.
- Merits follow the game's own
TotalMeritsfigure. Straight after a mission payout the game briefly reports inflated or repeated totals. For 20 seconds after a mission completes, one award is counted per completed mission and repeated lines are ignored; the real total corrects itself at the next merit event. - Rival-Power ship kills leave no bounty in the journal. A kill is counted when your target lock is lost and merits follow within 3 seconds. It is never double-counted with a Bounty or bond line.
- Kills that produce no bounty, bond or merit line cannot be seen in the journal, so no plugin can count them.
- Merit rules after mission payouts were fitted to real journal samples. In unusual cases the figure can be briefly off until the next merit event.
- The plugin only knows what EDMC passes it, so events that happen while EDMC is closed are not counted.
- The HUD is empty in OBS: check that EDMC is running and the plugin tab appears in settings; that the URL matches the port in OBS & Output; and that at least one field has a value to show.
- Port already in use: choose another port (for example 8766), press OK, and update the OBS URL.
- A field is missing: it is hidden while empty, hidden by auto mode (it belongs to another profile), or unticked in Data & Mode.
- Fields run out of the frame: enlarge the Browser Source, reduce the font sizes, or switch Layout Direction to horizontal.
- Changes do not appear: press OK in EDMC's settings; the HUD then updates within a second.
- Start fresh: use Reset All Session Stats & Timer, or close EDMC and delete
totals_and_state.json. - Plugin does not load: the folder must be named
EDMC-StreamHUDand containload.pydirectly (not an extra nested folder). Check EDMC's log for errors.
- The account balance (
credits) is never enabled automatically by any profile. - The web server listens on
127.0.0.1only (your own computer) and serves onlyHUD.htmlandHUD.json. Other files, includingsettings.json, return 404. - Nothing is sent over the internet. "Just Reading, Not Sending! <3"
GPL-3.0-or-later.
