Current Version: 1.6.6 - August 12th 2009 for Firefox 3.5
SK Round 32 Compatible
The Star Kingdoms Kit is the first browser integrated calculator for Starkingdoms.com, a popular online ticker game. Thousands of people compete daily against each other in multi-month rounds. In the process of doing so, there are many things the game requires you to calculate. Whether it's how many military units you need to use to make a successful land grab on a competing kingdom, or how many troop barracks you need to have for your military.
From this need comes many web-based applications, and a few Windows based ones too, but Firefox presents a unique opportunity for integration between the calculator and the game.
The StarKingdoms Kit was developed to help fill this need—with an Attack Calculator, Research Calculator, and Barracks Calculator—in a convenient and easy to use way. It took five months and much knowledge about Firefox Extension development, but I like to think that it was worth it. In the future I'd like to expand it even further, maybe even going back to its original intent with some spreadsheet features.
If you find any bugs, or have a suggestion, drop me a line:
You must have Mozilla Firefox Ver. 1.5-3.5 or higher.
It may be necessary to allow this website to install extensions. Firefox will prompt for such an action.
Note: I tested and used it successfully for several months, but you download and use this at your own risk. I can take no responsibility for harm to your browser installation, PC, or for failed attacks.
Unlike web-based calculators, the Star Kingdoms Kit Firefox Extension has two different methods of procuring attacking data.
Like the traditional style, probe results can be pasted into the Paste Data text box, and it will be parsed into the appropriate fields with the click of 'Use'. This is mostly useful for results from Alliance Forums, or out of an IM. It can parse a SoM, SoK, SoS, Kingdom line (including coords), or a Kingdom profile.
More uniquely however, it also has the ability to collect results directly from the probe window. If there are several results open, perhaps in your effort to find something better than the last, it will first look at which tab is currently focused in the Firefox window, and then, starting with the most recently opened, iterate through all the other tabs looking for something to use. Once found, it then looks for other information from the same Kingdom (Spy on Shields, Spy on Research, a Kingdom's sector, or their Kingdom Profile). Note that this extension doesn't request any page from the Star Kingdoms server on its own; you must manually open any page you wish to procure data from.
Last of all it will check for an open Probe History window, and get whatever information that might have that it hasn't already gathered.
Disclaimer: If you do not use tabs, and have several probe results open in windows, it will not necessarily get the one you have focused underneath the extension, but rather the last one you opened. To make it ignore such a result, try opening a blank tab in the offending window.
The Star Kingdoms Kit Attack Calculator also delivers you the DPA of yourself and of your target, if enough information is supplied. This is a far better way of determining relative vulnerability of targets. However, there are two ways you can have it do this: By default it will use the raw defensive scores of you and the target. Meaning Military research, Military Shields, Sector Leader bonus, Powerless penalties, and Planet Type bonuses do not factor in. This number is the easiest to compare informally, since many of those are either taken for granted, or are temporary. Although if you have the information, the option of a Bonus Adjusted DPA will give you a much more accurate comparison between kingdoms.
Overall, the Research Calculator is much like any other. You can include and exclude various researches from calculation by ticking and unticking the boxes next to a points entry box. You can also select a one-time research by selecting one from the "Other Research" drop down list at the very bottom.
Upon calculation, you will find the evenly distributed scientist values in the first column of the results box, after name of the respective research. Next, in parentheses, are the number of scientists necessary to max out the category by the number of hours selected. Following that is the estimated total number of points the category needs to be at maximum. Finally is the amount of land that you have exceeded the number of points you have researched (x land over), or the amount of land that you can aquire and still be at maximum for that category (x land leeway).
Below the perpetual researches it will have a one-time research, if you've selected one, and display the scientist information in the same format, plus the number of hours before it will finish, based on the evenly distributed number. Below this is the number of scientists it would need to get all of the selected research categories to maximum if the number of hours you've selected.
In the variables box, you can set the number of hours it calculates for, or compensates for. You can also set the Daily Growth of your kingdom. This can either be in percentages, or just the total land you plan on gaining. With that it can estimate how many scientists the categories will need to stay at maximum.
Like the Attack Calculator, the information the Research Calculator needs can be gathered from an open Research page, or be entered manually. It will also get the points from a fixed value research project, if one is selected.
The only button needing an explanation is "Put Data". If you have a Research Page open, and have calculated the scientist values, it will fill in the boxes with the evenly distributed scientist values (or optionally, the max values, if they're smaller).
Everything written above regarding data gathering behavior also applies to the Barracks Calculator. Everything should be self-explanatory. The top text entry box for a unit is what you currently have, and the bottom one is what is currently in training.
There are two options located in General Options: 1) You can toggle whether or not it shrinks the Excess Barrack Spaces to a divisible of the troop training time. Useful if you follow the 12/16/24 rule. 2) It can add the next tick's barracks to the total, if gotten from a Buildings page with the construction status.
First of all, SK Kit now has separate preferences for Star Kingdoms Server 1 and 2. These are selectable on the kit's status bar, and is additionally indicated in the title bar. On data gathering it will check the focused window for its server status and if necessary switch to the other server. Note that options with a * in the options panel are shared between servers.
Another new feature is Probe History Cut-off, which, if turned on, will ignore probe history results if older than the selected age in hours. Time is rounded down, so if you have it set at 1 hour, the current time is 3:01PM, and a probing in the history page was gotten at 1:55PM, it won't fetch that probing, since it's been more than 1 tick since it was gotten.
(2009.8.12) Version 1.6.6
(2008.5.17) Version 1.6.5
(2007.9.1) Version 1.6.4
(2007.8.29) Version 1.6.3
(2007.1.2) Version 1.6.2
(2006.11.9) Version 1.6.1
(2006.10.4) Version 1.6
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