ED Engineering Companion (EDEC) is a free, open-source companion tool for Elite Dangerous. It combines blueprint planning, material tracking, Engineer unlock guidance, Journal processing, and optional INARA/EDDN connectivity in one desktop application.
Download the latest release · User manual: English / Deutsch · Report a bug · Support EDEC on Ko-fi
- Blueprint, engineering, and wishlist planning
- Live raw, manufactured, and encoded material inventory
- Material farming guidance and trader-route support
- Engineer Unlock Guide and Technology Broker tracking
- CMDR overview with ranks, reputation, finances, ship, and squadron
- Journal-driven Powerplay overview with leader portraits, lore profiles, live pledge duration, rank, merits, local system state, salary, and recent cargo activity
- Multiple persistent dark design skins with immediate in-app switching
- Logbook, session history, and personal notes
- Automatic, rate-limited INARA synchronization
- EDDN contributions for market, outfitting, shipyard, exploration, and exobiology data
- Offline-aware handling for INARA, EDDN, and Spansh
- Customizable navigation and CMDR card ordering
The Powerplay page is derived entirely from local Journal events. It automatically selects the pledged leader, displays a local portrait and English background profile, tracks pledge duration live, and hides unavailable sections instead of inventing values.
All screenshots use synthetic demo data and do not contain a real Commander profile or API credentials.
- Windows 10 or Windows 11
- Elite Dangerous Journal files for live Commander data
- Open the latest EDEC release.
- Under Assets, download the
EDEC-<version>-Windows.zipfile. - Extract the entire ZIP to a writable folder.
- Start
EDEC.exe. Keep the_internalfolder next to the executable.
The portable package includes Python and all required dependencies. Windows SmartScreen may show a warning because the executable is not code-signed yet.
To run the source version instead, install Python 3, download Source code (zip), extract it, run INSTALL_REQUIREMENTS.bat once, and then start EDEC with START_APP.bat.
Personal settings, Journal cursors, caches, and service credentials are stored outside the program folder and are not part of the GitHub download.
The illustrated EDEC 21.164 manual explains installation, navigation, Engineering, the Unlock Guide, local data storage, and the complete INARA, EDDN, and Spansh data flows. It is available in English and German. Both editions use synthetic demo screenshots throughout.
INARA synchronization is optional. EDEC batches supported Commander events, applies deduplication, respects rate limits, and stores local receipts. An INARA API key and Commander configuration are required before uploads can be enabled.
EDDN contribution is optional. EDEC validates supported messages locally and removes private or unsupported fields before sending public market, station, exploration, and exobiology data.
Spansh is used as an optional read-only catalog source for navigation and material-farming assistance. EDEC includes offline fallback behavior when the service is unavailable.
- Honest, state-based smoke testing with QML runtime errors connected to the exit code
- Persistent queues, receipts, and retry backoff for external services
- Atomic local persistence and multi-process protection
- Journal processing that tracks recently active files without replaying known lines
Install dependencies with:
INSTALL_REQUIREMENTS.bat
Start the application with:
START_APP.bat
See requirements.txt for the Python dependencies.
EDEC is under active development. Contributions, bug reports, and feature suggestions are welcome through GitHub Issues.
EDEC is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.
EDEC remains free to use. If you would like to support its development, visit ko-fi.com/cmdrforcer.
ED Engineering Companion (EDEC) is an independent third-party project and is not affiliated with Frontier Developments. Elite Dangerous is a trademark of Frontier Developments plc.