How to use it

Three steps to a system name where you can use it.

1 Say where you want to go.

plot a route to Shinrarta Dezhra Ask It puts the name on the clipboard, which is the part that always works. Say it however you say it — the spelling is worked out for you.

2 Let it drive the map, if you want that.

Navigation Let D47 press keys in Elite on Drive the galaxy map on With both on it opens the map, types the name and plots. Without them, you paste.

! The one that stops people.

The map macro is a fixed key sequence. It assumes the default map layout. If yours is different, turn it off and paste the name instead.
Why it works this way

Putting a system name where you can use it, and — if you let it — driving the map itself.

1 The clipboard is the part that always works.

THE CLIPBOARD always first, always works DRIVING THE MAP a convenience on top that can fail Elite’s galaxy map has a search box, and pasting into it works every time — in every language, whatever your controls look like.

2 Seven steps, two of them scar tissue.

open the map up, then select paste, then return wait 4s for the camera brush the camera hold select 1.2 seconds close the map The two picked out exist because of what went wrong without them. Return rather than the UI down key — the search box keeps focus, and a UI key sent to it is a character. The first cut of this typed an S into the box.

The camera brush is right-then-left, for the same 30 milliseconds each. What arms the selector is movement; what knocks it off the star is net displacement. A key is full deflection for as long as it is down, so a single tap is twitchy — two equal taps in opposite directions are a stick excursion and return, done with keys.

3 Three answers, and they mean different things.

COURSE PLOTTED a route to that system really is in the file ASSUME IT DID NOT the file was readable and no such route appeared CANNOT TELL the file never became readable at all None of them is “done” said hopefully. A companion that leaves you flying towards a course you do not have is worse than one that never tries.

4 It takes all five keys, or none of them.

galaxy map UI up UI select camera right camera left All five, on the keyboard or the mouse. A key on a stick is one it cannot press. So the first one it cannot press stops the whole attempt. Opening the map with no “select” to follow leaves it open over the cockpit — worse than nothing.

Elite's own default keyboard preset ships the galaxy map unbound, so out of the box you get the clipboard and an explanation naming the key that was missing.

The details

Puts a system name where you can use it, and tries to plot a course to it.

This page plots a course. It drives the galaxy map. Ask it to set a course and it opens the map, types the name into the search box and checks that a route appeared. Every ordinary way of asking lands here — “set course for my carrier”, “plot a course to my carrier”, “take me to my carrier”, and plain “route to my carrier” as well, because that is what a Commander means by it.

If what you want instead is to hear a neutron route — the jumps, the waypoints, where to supercharge — say neutron: “plot neutron jumps to my carrier” goes to route planning, which works that route out and reads it to you without touching the map.

Ask for it

“plot a course to Shinrarta Dezhra” “copy that system name” “put the route on my clipboard”

What you hear

Asking for a course is an action, and the standing rule for actions is act first, talk least. When the destination has to be found first — “set course for the closest Imperial Shielding” — you hear one sentence as soon as it is found and the map starts moving, and a short answer when it is done:

Closest Imperial Shielding is likely Scorpii Sector BB-O a6-2. Plotting.
Course plotted.

The first line is spoken while the map is being driven, not before. The figures, the material ledger and the trader arithmetic wait until you ask for them.

The clipboard is the part that always works

Asking for a course always puts the name on your clipboard first, before anything else is attempted. Elite’s galaxy map has a search box, and pasting into it works every time, in every language, whatever your controls look like.

Colonia is on your clipboard. Paste it into the galaxy map's search box to plot it.
Automatic plotting is switched off.

That is the whole feature, and it is deliberately the primary one. Everything below is a convenience on top of it that can fail.

The Course page of the window’s Routing tab is this as a control rather than a sentence, in the same order: the name goes on the clipboard, then the map is driven if you asked for that, then d47 says whether it took. Every system name drawn anywhere on that tab — a waypoint on the route you are flying, a stop on a trade plan — copies when you press it.

Letting it drive the map

Turn on Try to plot courses in the galaxy map and Directive 47 will also drive the map for you, with your own keys, in this order:

  1. Say what it is about to do, naming the system: “Plotting the course to Shinrarta Dezhra.” This comes before the map key, and it is there because the seven steps below take several seconds — in a headset you watch the map fly about on its own with nothing to connect it to what you asked for. Naming the system also catches a misheard one five seconds earlier than the verdict would, and the name is the whole payload.
  2. Open the galaxy map, and wait until the game reports it showing.
  3. Up, then select — that is the search box.
  4. Paste the name, and wait a second and a half for the search to fill its list.
  5. Down, then select — the first row of that list, which is the system itself.
  6. Three seconds for the camera to get there.
  7. A brush of sideways camera — right, then left, for the same 30 milliseconds each.
  8. Select, held for 1.2 seconds — a tap opens the system, a hold plots to it.
  9. The galaxy map key again, which closes it.

Two of those steps exist because of what went wrong without them. Return rather than the UI down key, because the search box keeps focus after the paste and an interface key sent to it is a character — the first cut of this macro typed an S into the box. And the camera brush, because after the search the selector over the star is a plain circle and select does nothing, and the search box still has the keyboard; the smallest camera movement takes focus out of the box and draws the arrows around the selector, and with the arrows showing and the selector still on the star, the held select plots. It is right-then-left because what arms the selector is movement and what knocks it off the star is net displacement — a key is full deflection for as long as it is down, so a single tap is twitchy, while two equal taps in opposite directions are a stick excursion and return done with keys.

This is still best-effort. Directive 47 cannot see the map, so it cannot check that the search matched the system you meant rather than another that starts the same way, and it cannot see where the camera landed. What it can see, it checks.

Elite writes your whole route to a file the moment one is plotted, which means “did that work” has a real answer:

I tried to plot Colonia and no route appeared, so assume it did not work. Colonia is on your
clipboard. I cannot tell why.

Three answers, and they mean different things. Course plotted means a route to that system really is in the file. Assume it did not work means the file was readable and no such route appeared. Cannot tell means the file never became readable at all — which usually means Elite is not running.

None of the three offers a reason, because nothing on this path has one. A failed plot says so out loud rather than suggesting a culprit: a guessed cause reads as a finding, and the guess Directive 47 once made was to blame the spelling of a name you had just given it.

None of them is “done” said hopefully. A companion that leaves you flying towards a course you do not have is worse than one that never tries.

Two more things it watches for. If the map key is pressed and the game never reports the map open, nothing else is sent — the remaining keys are a W and a space bar, and typed into the cockpit instead of the map they would fly the ship. And if the closing press leaves the map showing, it says so: the galaxy map is still open.

It needs five keys: the galaxy map, UI up, UI select, and both sideways camera translates, right and left. All on the keyboard or mouse — a key on a stick is one Directive 47 cannot press, and the camera’s stick axis is exactly that. It takes all five or none: a macro that opens the map and then has no “select” leaves it open over the cockpit, which is worse than the clipboard alone. So the first key it cannot press stops the whole attempt before anything is sent, and you hear which one:

Colonia is on your clipboard. I could not drive the galaxy map myself — You have no binding for
select, so there is no key for me to press. Paste it into the map's search box to plot it.

Elite’s own default keyboard preset ships the galaxy map unbound, so out of the box you will get the clipboard and that explanation.

Pasting is an ordinary paste

Directive 47 sends Ctrl+V, not one of your bindings, because Elite does not bind paste — the search box is a normal text field and the clipboard is the operating system’s.

The tool surface, for contributors

copy_to_clipboard

Put text on the Commander’s clipboard so they can paste it into the game or a browser. Use for system names, routes and values they asked for.

{"type":"object","properties":{"text":{"type":"string","description":"What to put on the clipboard."}},"required":["text"],"additionalProperties":false}

plot_course

Put a system name on the clipboard and, if the Commander has allowed it, try to plot a course to it in the galaxy map. The plotting attempt is best-effort and is verified afterwards; the clipboard always works.

{"type":"object","properties":{"system":{"type":"string","description":"The star system to plot to, spelled as the game spells it."}},"required":["system"],"additionalProperties":false}

The confirmation lives in the app rather than in Core, because it waits and no Core component reads the clock. RoutePlotWatch is opened before the first key is sent and remembers when NavRoute.json was last written; afterwards it polls for up to six seconds and says yes only to a route that ends at the system and was written later than that. A route that was already in the file is not evidence the keys did anything — that is how “course plotted” was once said for a route the Commander had plotted by hand a minute earlier. It still distinguishes “no route appeared” from “the file was never readable”, since the two answers send the Commander to different places. The same split holds for the map itself: the app waits up to three seconds on Status.json’s GuiFocus for the map to open before the interface keys go, and again for it to close afterwards. Both checks log what they saw — the focus value, the file’s before-and-after write times and where the route ends — so a report of “nothing happened” starts from evidence.

Return and Ctrl+V are sent as plain virtual keys rather than resolved from the bindings file, because Elite binds neither. Every wait in the sequence is the Commander’s own figure (2026-08-21), not a measurement.