chat.log combat/mining/crafting logging improvements

[Sulje]

The problem

The current chat log provides damage values but doesn’t indicate which weapon dealt each hit, which leads to bad tracking data, false returns, false input, and players simply can not rely on this information.

For example:

2026-03-13 14:22:01 [System] You inflicted 43.8 points of damage
2026-03-13 14:22:01 [System] You inflicted 6.1 points of damage
2026-03-13 14:22:02 [System] You inflicted 55.2 points of damage

Due to the fact chat.log does not tell us what weapon was fired, uncertified trackers that are distributed via unsafe channels resort to OCR to detect which weapon is equipped at the moment, and based on that decide what was the input per combat action. Even then, it is not possible to catch every edge case that may happen in the dynamic world, and the result is again - wrong data.

After days of waging and fighting each edge case, the final conclusion is that it is absolutely impossible to make use of current chat logs to track hunting economy or mining economy.

The solution
2026-03-13 14:22:01 [System] You inflicted 43.8 points of damage with Emik Enigma L4, E.L.M Edition (L)
2026-03-13 14:22:01 [System] You inflicted 6.1 points of damage with Arsonistic Chip 1 (L)
2026-03-13 14:22:01 [System] You inflicted 43.8 points of damage with Emik Enigma L4, E.L.M Edition (L)
2026-03-13 13:43:10 [System] You healed yourself 19.1 points with Restoration Chip 14 (L)
2026-03-13 13:43:10 [System] You healed yourself 259.2 points with Omegaton First Aid Pack, Modified
2026-03-13 13:43:10 [System] You healed yourself 19.1 points with Restoration Chip 14 (L)
2026-03-13 13:43:10 [System] You found a claim of (Narcanisum Ingot) size VII at {location}

Benefits of such solution

1. Eliminate the need of OCR entirely. The chat log becomes the single source of truth for all combat/mining data, possibly crafting as well
2. Enable accurate hunting/mining/crafting tracking
3. Lower the barrier for third-party tools - more tools will be able to get released trough verified channels, such as Microsoft Store, instead of trust me bro links
4. Massive community benefit - Accurate economy tracking tools will encourage informed gameplay and deeper engagement with the economy

Conclusion

I am not aware how the server side or client side code looks like, but as a Senior Software Engineer, I strongly believe this information is already available in the pipeline, and that it wouldn’t take massive effort to implement it correctly. The benefits would be great, while investment into this feature would be minimal.

I would be happy to provide any information if needed, and discuss the possible solutions to this problem.

I have also opened a support case #458666 describing the same feature request, but opening a thread here to get feedback from the community as well on this very important topic.

[WhiningSkeptic]

@Sulje

but as a Senior Software Engineer,

Unfortunately you are overqualified.

However I love the suggestion and would like to echo it. As a Former Hobby C# Programmer (need to get to their level, build rapport ;)) I also believe the information is readily available and wouldn’t require too much of an effort, especially considering the upside.

Before someone complains about chat getting messy, the weapon information could easily be passed on to just the actual log much like time stamps.

[Sulje]

Updated the thread to include a poll, thanks all for voting!

[Sulje]

@WhiningSkeptic

Unfortunately you are overqualified.

However I love the suggestion and would like to echo it. As a Former Hobby C# Programmer (need to get to their level, build rapport ;)) I also believe the information is readily available and wouldn’t require too much of an effort, especially considering the upside.

Before someone complains about chat getting messy, the weapon information could easily be passed on to just the actual log much like time stamps.

No such thing as overqualified, I learn every day, and there are more things I don’t know, then I know, if you get me my old bald friend

[Zyzakus]

[B]Missing:

Hunting:[/B]
[System]: You received [Shrapnel] x (288613) Value: 28.86 PED from (Big Bulk Gen 10)
[System]: You took 23.2 points of damage into [Ghost Arm Guards (M)]
[System]: You inflicted 172.8 points of damage (3,2% decay increased) - for attacks above 100* to be able to calculate decay (or any other stuff like that more about it here)
[System]: You inflicted 43.8 points of damage with [Emik Enigma L4, E.L.M Edition (L)]f

Alternative solution for dmg counting (if item name is not possible at dots):
[System]: You inflicted 69.42 points of damage with [Arsonistic Chip 69 (L)] - first hit (decay used)
[System]: You inflicted 69.42 points of damage (Damage Over Time)

In this way even if we will use 2 items with different dmg over time we will be able to still count separate decay from item but dots dmg will be cumulated.

Mining:
[System]: You received Claim Deed - Lysterium stone - Value: XX.XX PED Depth: XXX.X - {location}

This part will help with mining + hunting at same time because we have already information “from” at hunting, we do not need to do additional change at claim extraction (we can do simple compare what we found vs what we extracted and skip all “from” X - what apply only to hunt)

Healing (ofc item name would be best solution but if somehow it’s impossible - static description from where heal incoming):
[System]: You healed yourself 200 point B -[/B] (first heal from it if it’s overtime heal fap)
[System]: You healed yourself 20 point (Resto) - (first heal from it)

on dots, we need only information that’s dot to be able to skip them from decay counting (but we still can count bulk heal amount)
[System]: You healed yourself 2.2 point (Life Steal)
[System]: You healed yourself 20 point (Heal-Over Time)
[System]: You healed yourself 100 point B - /B

Remove from chat channels from chat.log, and create:

1. societychat.log
2. #channelname.log (splited channels for privacy reasons)
3. combat.log (simplified version)
4. combatadv.log (advanced version)

So we can just enabled or disable advanced logging in options if somebody do not use tracker and like less info in chat log or we can have possibility to log advanced and see simplified in chat window.

• If i will get more things i will just edit message that’s something from head only.
  04.04.2026 - Small update about values.

[Ferial]

@Zyzakus

Hunting:
[System]: You received [Shrapnel] x (288613) Value: 28.86 PED from (Big Bulk Gen 10)
[System]: You took 23.2 points of damage into [Ghost Arm Guards (M)]

This is nice. Ideally, the cost associated with the log line would be included as well. Defensive decay is difficult.

Ideally a summary on kill would be nice;

[System]: You killed a creature (Big Bulk Gen 10) with a value of 28.8613 PED with a total cost of 32.6154 PED

The total cost would be all TT input (e.g. the value sent as “cost”).

This would make basic tracking extremely trivial.

The above aside, I am in favor of anything that improves my ability to track my inputs, which realistically should even be readily available in the game interface (given that every action is a transaction).

[endermigne]

@Sulje

as a Senior Software Engineer

Well, as such you should know to be more specific with the need:

Long:
A new chat line should be written for each action that changed anything in the player’s inventory (basically a transaction history on your account). The line must include
[ul]
[li]the item name[/li][li]the item id in the inventory (because of maybe two scopes on a gun)[/li][li]the change in the TT-value[/li][li]the profession it was used for (hunting, mining, healing, …)[/li][li]the reason (use, repair and maybe others for completeness like trade, purchase, sell, auction fee, …)[/li][/ul]
Why? Because all the things equipped decay. E.g. for a gun you have the gun itself, amp, 2 sights, scope, extender, enhancer, implant and the ammo used, not just the gun itself.

If you really need the decay per item and you don’t get the decay in the chat line, you’d need a complete list of all items in the game with their individual decay in your app. That means that you’d have to update that list every time MindArk adds or renames items or modifies existing ones (rare, but that happened, IIRC).

Short:
Assuming that you just want to calculate the loot value over the costs, it’d make more sense to just write the total change of the TT and the reason (see above) without actually mentioning the item(s), e.g. [ICODE]You inflicted 43.8 points of damage with costs of 0.1234 PED.[/ICODE]. Same for getting hit and armour costs, healing, dealing with pets and for all other costs in other professions.

If you want to simplify it even more you can ask for that total line like Ferial posted, but you wouldn’t be able to separate actual hunting costs from healing costs, which can make a difference depending on what you actually want to track.

[Zyzakus]

@Ferial

This is nice. Ideally, the cost associated with the log line would be included as well. Defensive decay is difficult.

Defensive decay is not difficult when u know formula In loot 2.0 it’s: Decay = damage * 0.05 (1 - durability/100000)
Assuming that ur armor was repaired at full at start + u know what armor you are using on each slot u can ez assign it for calc for each hit)… but there is problem with it.. because we do not know how many times each part got a hit, that why u need only armor part related with it.

@Ferial

Ideally a summary on kill would be nice;
The total cost would be all TT input (e.g. the value sent as “cost”).

Let’s not ask about things what we will not get jokes aside… getting data from many points and sum them up seems trival but in reality it’s in different places for MA in system so it would complicate stuff and maybe even show something what we do not should see
With armor calculations + fap usage on each hit we are able to calculate input into mob that’s enough to count total in proper way because it would be per line.
This was more for loot composition to be able to monitor our drops without OCR (because security reasons we do not want any OCR).

[Zyzakus]

@endermigne

Well, as such you should know to be more specific with the need:

Long:
A new chat line should be written for each action that changed anything in the player’s inventory (basically a transaction history on your account). The line must include
[ul]
[li]the item name[/li][li]the item id in the inventory (because of maybe two scopes on a gun)[/li][li]the change in the TT-value[/li][li]the profession it was used for (hunting, mining, healing, …)[/li][li]the reason (use, repair and maybe others for completeness like trade, purchase, sell, auction fee, …)[/li][/ul]
Why? Because all the things equipped decay. E.g. for a gun you have the gun itself, amp, 2 sights, scope, extender, enhancer, implant and the ammo used, not just the gun itself.

If you really need the decay per item and you don’t get the decay in the chat line, you’d need a complete list of all items in the game with their individual decay in your app. That means that you’d have to update that list every time MindArk adds or renames items or modifies existing ones (rare, but that happened, IIRC).

Short:
Assuming that you just want to calculate the loot value over the costs, it’d make more sense to just write the total change of the TT and the reason (see above) without actually mentioning the item(s), e.g. [ICODE]You inflicted 43.8 points of damage with costs of 0.1234 PED.[/ICODE]. Same for getting hit and armour costs, healing, dealing with pets and for all other costs in other professions.

If you want to simplify it even more you can ask for that total line like Ferial posted, but you wouldn’t be able to separate actual hunting costs from healing costs, which can make a difference depending on what you actually want to track.

Yeah, that statment would be correct if we would talk about microtansactions log what u are talking about here.
We are talking about changes for actual log to make our life eaiser that’s kinda two different things here ^^

[Sulje]

@endermigne

Well, as such you should know to be more specific with the need:

Long:
A new chat line should be written for each action that changed anything in the player’s inventory (basically a transaction history on your account). The line must include
[ul]
[li]the item name[/li][li]the item id in the inventory (because of maybe two scopes on a gun)[/li][li]the change in the TT-value[/li][li]the profession it was used for (hunting, mining, healing, …)[/li][li]the reason (use, repair and maybe others for completeness like trade, purchase, sell, auction fee, …)[/li][/ul]
Why? Because all the things equipped decay. E.g. for a gun you have the gun itself, amp, 2 sights, scope, extender, enhancer, implant and the ammo used, not just the gun itself.

If you really need the decay per item and you don’t get the decay in the chat line, you’d need a complete list of all items in the game with their individual decay in your app. That means that you’d have to update that list every time MindArk adds or renames items or modifies existing ones (rare, but that happened, IIRC).

Short:
Assuming that you just want to calculate the loot value over the costs, it’d make more sense to just write the total change of the TT and the reason (see above) without actually mentioning the item(s), e.g. [ICODE]You inflicted 43.8 points of damage with costs of 0.1234 PED.[/ICODE]. Same for getting hit and armour costs, healing, dealing with pets and for all other costs in other professions.

If you want to simplify it even more you can ask for that total line like Ferial posted, but you wouldn’t be able to separate actual hunting costs from healing costs, which can make a difference depending on what you actually want to track.

My goal is not to make Mindark work on this 6 months, it MUST be something intern can do in a day or two.

We do not need everything, just enough to identify what tool was used to heal, to damage, etc. Rest can be calculated by us, which is the point of this request.

[Franki_Fenix]

A long, long time ago…

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/improved-chat-log.266261/

[Zyzakus]

@Sulje

The problem

The current chat log provides damage values but doesn’t indicate which weapon dealt each hit, which leads to bad tracking data, false returns, false input, and players simply can not rely on this information.

Additionaly I can add one thing to this. Many players are not even trying to use anything with DoTS on targets (arso for example) or they do not want to use many weapons because they are using tracker… and it’s not possible to track this. In reality we use less stuff because this limitation

[endermigne]

@Sulje

My goal is not to make Mindark work on this 6 months, it MUST be something intern can do in a day or two.

We do not need everything, just enough to identify what tool was used to heal, to damage, etc. Rest can be calculated by us, which is the point of this request.

Well, MindArk must calculate the changes one by one anyway, so all they’d need to do is simply log them one by one. And of course they can limit the logs to just the decay and whatnot, I was just simplifying things as any sort of specifics would require additional code. Therefore, the simplest modification is to add a log line where the calculations happen with the info I listed.

Everything else like calculating totals would require them to add more logic (including messing up things), which would take additional time.

And as I stated, app coders would have to do repetitive maintenance in their code to keep the decays of all items in the game in sync.

@Zyzakus

Yeah, that statment would be correct if we would talk about microtansactions log what u are talking about here.
We are talking about changes for actual log to make our life eaiser that’s kinda two different things here ^^

I think you only read a small part of my post.

[Sulje]

@endermigne

Well, MindArk must calculate the changes one by one anyway, so all they’d need to do is simply log them one by one. And of course they can limit the logs to just the decay and whatnot, I was just simplifying things as any sort of specifics would require additional code. Therefore, the simplest modification is to add a log line where the calculations happen with the info I listed.

Everything else like calculating totals would require them to add more logic (including messing up things), which would take additional time.

And as I stated, app coders would have to do repetitive maintenance in their code to keep the decays of all items in the game in sync.

I think you only read a small part of my post.

My goal is not to make Mindark work on this 6 months, it MUST be something intern can do in a day or two.

We do not need everything, just enough to identify what tool was used to heal, to damage, etc. Rest can be calculated by us, which is the point of this request.

[endermigne]

@Sulje

My goal is not to make Mindark work on this 6 months, it MUST be something intern can do in a day or two.

We do not need everything, just enough to identify what tool was used to heal, to damage, etc. Rest can be calculated by us, which is the point of this request.

And I tried to explain why logging everything can be done a lot quicker by anyone at MindArk with a lower chance of errors.

However, I see that you want it your way to solve your use-case, which in the end is fine with me, the truth is in the inventory page on the website anyway. So, let’s see if there’ll ever be any such line in the log. Afterwards we can come back to this topic and have another discussion why some numbers are “wrong”.

[Zyzakus]

@endermigne

Well, MindArk must calculate the changes one by one anyway, so all they’d need to do is simply log them one by one. And of course they can limit the logs to just the decay and whatnot, I was just simplifying things as any sort of specifics would require additional code. Therefore, the simplest modification is to add a log line where the calculations happen with the info I listed.

Everything else like calculating totals would require them to add more logic (including messing up things), which would take additional time.

And as I stated, app coders would have to do repetitive maintenance in their code to keep the decays of all items in the game in sync.

I think you only read a small part of my post.

No i read all and for me it’s really simple what you are saying, seems like you totally missing point of basic logic concepts so let me explain it you you in another simplified version:

Mindark logic → Give players item → Give “some” info on item → let players calculate decay somehow for this item with hidden decimals and stuff (make it a bit challenging bla, bla, bla ) → then let them calculate all in bulk when they gather data for results meanwhile getting info about dpp → so it’s mechanic too…

While you ur logic is → give me decay per item on usage → done! Totally skiping this logic/mechanic above and suggesting trival thing… so you literally you asking for multitransaction log! Because cost per usage is called multitransaction log → it do not matter if cost will be per shoot or per mob it’s still same (healing here is detail if we count it in bulk or nope depending how we want to have it.)

Meanwhile you do not see other type of implications related with ur approach how it’s related with loot system and why Mindark using logic like that to hide some stuff from us - ur approach can simply show other things what player should not see so this would require system redesign (at least half year is like minimum to many years depending stuff related with it) and implementation costs and time for it (i will skip explanation why and how it’s related on this one exactly - if you know u know if not then sorry) but no worries, u can suggest ur approach in new thread, maybe they will do it! Who knows

Well, MindArk must calculate the changes one by one anyway, so all they’d need to do is simply log them one by one.

If u do not understand another implications related with ur request for company and how critical decision it can be for them because design then i do not blame you why u are suggesting it, but this topic is for something different and for me its offtopic because it’s literally two different solutions

Well, as such you should know to be more specific with the need:

Because you started with this words after “quote” in first post i tried to ignore it and explain u difference in short words.
Sorry for my assumption that you understand it while you pointing out that somebody should be more specific on two different logic concepts witch do not have any sense for me, good luck ^^

[Sulje]

Bump for those who haven’t voted, this is obviously that would benefit everyone, small change for massive community benefit!

[Sub-Zero]

They should also show accurate decay per shot when your item goes above 100 attacks per min (when you hover over ammo amount in UI), trackers will be inaccurate otherwise.
Personally I think they should implement in-game tracking, they already have the data. Show transparency, session based.
Total cycle:
Total loot:
TT Return
TT Return %.
That’s it.
All you need.
Overall stats would be a dream though.
We do have the inventory changes feature on website but it’s not without its faults, doesn’t take into account many stuff which it should if you want to use it as a tracker of return.

[Sulje]

@Sub-Zero

They should also show accurate decay per shot when your item goes above 100 attacks per min (when you hover over ammo amount in UI), trackers will be inaccurate otherwise.
Personally I think they should implement in-game tracking, they already have the data. Show transparency, session based.
Total cycle:
Total loot:
TT Return
TT Return %.
That’s it.
All you need.
Overall stats would be a dream though.
We do have the inventory changes feature on website but it’s not without its faults, doesn’t take into account many stuff which it should if you want to use it as a tracker of return.

We’ll see, I don’t think they want to make that information available like that, chat.log improvements are very low on their priorities as I am not the first one asking for this.

I hope they create their own tool, they obviously have resources to do so right now.

[Sub-Zero]

@Sulje

I hope they create their own tool, they obviously have resources to do so right now.

For sure, what better way for them to restore some faith by showing transparency for people’s return.