Working with Eve Static Data

More Power to the People

The propose of this short guide is to empower a person that has limited or no experience working with the Eve dataset to perform queries and extract useful information.

Eve has two main data sets. The first is the static data that is published by CCP and updated with each expansion. This set contains information that doesn’t change such as stargate coordinates, number of Moons in VFK-IV, type of research agents in the Forge, or the minerals requirements for a Drake.

The other set is the dynamic data, which is exposed through the API. This data contains the types of assets you own, wallet transactions, or kill statics for a particular system — things that change and things that go boom.

In this post I won’t be covering the dymanic data, as the Eve Development Network as an excellent introduction guide and full list of everything exposed.

More Data, More Problems

With every new release, CCP publishes a Microsoft SQL database backup file of their static data. You can find the most up to date file on the Community Toolkit website.

Along with the database backup, you will find other useful downloads such as images for every item in Eve — very important when trying to create something presentable out of boring database tables if you are designing a 3rd Party application.

Some people do not use Microsoft SQL and opt to run their database with MySQL, the most popular opensource database package. This format is not released by CCP and thus enterprising players routinely convert the data from Microsoft SQL to MySQL format. Nothing is lost, just converted.

Usually a few hours after a new file has been posted on the Community Toolkit site, people have conversions up for download. If you hang out in the Eve Technology Lab sub-forum, people will usually post links once available. I have been getting my releases from this site: http://zofu.no-ip.de/.

Install Procedure

Noise. has written an excellent guide on how to install the free version of Microsoft SQL Server and work with CCP’s database backup file in order to get to a point where you can run a database query.

Table Prefix Nomenclature

The naming format of the tables is very intuitive and can be picked up fairly quickly.

Example Tables

Tips and Tricks

An item’s typeID is a very important thing to know. This is a unique number that identifies a type of object in Eve.

Keep in mind that referring to a Drake (typeID 24698 in the static dataset) will be different than referring to your Drake (unique itemID 1002615059065 in the API feed). The itemID value is a unique number that identifies every object in Eve (1).

Eve Queries 101

Drake Details

SELECT *
FROM [dbo].[invTypes]
WHERE typeID = 24698
GO

List all Battlecruisers

SELECT *
FROM [dbo].[invTypes]
WHERE groupID = 419
GO

Eve Queries 201

PI Schematics are contained in the planetSchematicsTypeMap self referencing table. This means that the build requirements for P0, P1, P2, and P3 are all contained in one table. The isInput column is used to list build requirements when set to 1.

1. Listing all P0 items using the isInput value set to 0.

SELECT planetSchematicsTypeMap.*, invTypes.typeName FROM planetSchematicsTypeMap
JOIN invTypes ON (planetSchematicsTypeMap.typeID = invTypes.typeID)
WHERE planetSchematicsTypeMap.isInput = 0
AND invTypes.marketGroupID = 1335
ORDER BY invTypes.typeName

2. Listing items that go into Construction Blocks, a P1 with typeID 3828 and schematicID 74.

SELECT planetSchematicsTypeMap.*, invTypes.typeName
FROM planetSchematicsTypeMap, invTypes
WHERE planetSchematicsTypeMap.typeID = invTypes.typeID
AND schematicID = 74
AND isInput = 1

Eve Queries 301

CCP’s dataset does not contain a table with Tech2 build requirements. We have to create a new table that combines information from a number of tables and then work off the new table.

1. Run this pastebin query once to create your new typeBuildReqs table. If successful, you will get a message like this:

(15791 row(s) affected).

2. Find the build requirements for a Cap Recharge II with input typeID of 2033 (Cap Recharge II Blueprint). The NOT IN statement excludes the skills required to build the item.

SELECT typeBuildReqs.*, invTypes.typeID, invTypes.typeName FROM typeBuildReqs
 JOIN invTypes ON (invTypes.typeID = typeBuildReqs.requiredTypeID)
 WHERE typeBuildReqs.typeID = 2033
 AND invTypes.groupID NOT IN (268,269,270)
 AND activityID = 1

Moar!

If you want some more example queries, comment or find me on twitter.

(1) If you remember that old Devblog post about Drake missile lag, one major component to the lag was that every missile fired had to have a unique itemID created and destroyed after it exploded. This database operation ate up a lot of time, which is critical to a simulation trying to play through a battle.