Pirate Commodity Trader with Bleach

Pirate Commodity Trader... with Bleach! (PCTB) is a third party tool for collecting, sharing, and analyzing data on commodity prices around the oceans. It can be used to find profitable trading voyages, help set dockside buy and sell prices for a shoppe or stall, and plan gem runs. It is maintained by Barlennan and Yuhu, having taken over for Gorondo after version 4. It is hosted by KingOfZeal.

The tool consists of two separate components:


 * The PPAOCR (Puzzle Pirates Automated OCR) tool, which requires Windows, is responsible for collecting and uploading data.
 * The PCTB website, which requires a recent browser, dynamically analyzes and displays the data.

The uploader for YARRG, which runs on both Windows and Linux, also uploads data to PCTB.

Current status
As of February 2009 PCTB was being actively developed by Barlennan and Yuhu, and a new version of both the OCR client and the server have been released to include all of the new commodities released in the past 2 years.

Using PCTB
To upload data into PCTB, use the OCR/Upload client. Instructions and download link are available on the PCTB website.

To view and analyze the data, surf the PCTB website. The website currently has the following pages:


 * Summary : A summary of all possible trade routes.
 * Route : Detailed information on a selected trade route.
 * Commodities : Buy and sell prices of a selected commodity.
 * Bid : Market harvest bid prices.
 * Data Age : The time since someone last uploaded market and bid data.

Similarities

 * PCTB has an upload client which uploads data to a shared database. As such, it is prone to tampering by a malevolent user. Traders have a strong incentive to upload new data, since trading requires up to the minute market information.
 * The pages on the PCTB website are based on Commodity Trader tabs, and the usage pattern is similar.

Differences

 * PCTB is not implemented in Java, rather the various components are in C#, PHP and Javascript.
 * The downloadable client is only responsible for data collection, data is viewed on a website.
 * The summary tabs are combined into one page, which gives more options for selecting routes.
 * The summary page doesn't display mass/volume as fractions of a ship.
 * The island tab, now the route page, contains boxes for selecting trades. Statistics (profit, capital, mass, volume) of the selected trades are shown. Optionally, PCTB will keep track of the capital and storage space available, and warn you when selected trades exceed available resources. This can be used to select the most profitable trades, or those that will fit on your ship.
 * The harvest bid price query mechanism is completely different. The bid page does not show where to sell a given commodity; this can be found with the Commodity page.
 * Gem Run and Shop Tool tabs have no equivalent in PCTB.
 * Islands and oceans are added automatically in PCTB. The server scans YPPedia to verify uploaded data.
 * The code for PCTB is freely available.
 * PCTB is undergoing active development.

Finding a profitable route
To find a profitable route
 * Go the Summary page and select the Ocean on which you are sailing from the top left drop down.

You can achieve different goals by selecting different combinations from the four drop downs, below are some examples.
 * Select Whole Ocean for all four drop downs. This will show you all the profitable routes for that Ocean
 * Select the same Archipelago in both the From and the To, this will show you all the profitable routes for that Archipelago
 * Select the island in the From at which your ship is currently at.
 * Select an island in the To which you are planning to sail to.

Once you have selected your desired combination click Search and it will bring up a list of profitable routes. Sort by return on investment descending by clicking on ROI. Usually you will want to ignore any that have a low Profit. Click on one of the lines that has a high profit and ROI, this will then take you to the Route page.

Working out the right cargo for a route
On the Route page. Then you will have the perfect cargo for your ship and budget.
 * Click on the plus next to Selected Trades.
 * Select your ship type from the radio box Ship.
 * Enter the amount of PoE that is going to be invested on this cargo run into Available Capital
 * Enter the Total mass: from Inspect the Hold into Stock Mass
 * Enter the Total volume: from Inspect the Hold into Stock Vol
 * I sort by ROI (return on Investment) in descending order and click Find profitable trades.
 * Then uncheck or adjust the amounts (usually by removing the lowest ROI or if you have limited space, those with a low Profit/Mass, Profit Volume) until you have no pink highlighted lines or amounts.

Known issues



 * The upload utility does not function at all on any Unix derived system, including Mac OS X. (But the uploader from Yarrg, available at the Yarrg website, will upload to PCTB from Linux systems.)