Unofficial Release: v4.0.0preview

CATS v4.0.0preview - Unofficial Fork Release

This is an unofficial preview release of my fork of CATS (Carrier Administration and Traversal System). This version has NOT been reviewed or approved by the original maintainer (mck-9061). Use at your own discretion.

What I Changed and Why

I picked up this project because CATS is genuinely useful for fleet carrier operations, but it had some pain points that were driving me crazy. Here is what I addressed:

Multi-Monitor Support

The original only worked if Elite was on your primary monitor. If you run Elite on a secondary display (like many of us do), the mouse clicks would land on the wrong screen entirely. I rewrote the coordinate system to detect which monitor Elite is actually running on and apply the correct offsets. It now properly enumerates all displays and tracks where the game window lives.

2560x1440 Resolution Support

Added native coordinate mappings for 2K monitors. This was a common resolution that was missing from the original res.csv and caused the scaling fallback to be less accurate than it needed to be.

Automatic Window Focus

Before each action sequence, the system now verifies Elite Dangerous is the foreground window. If it is not, it attempts to bring it forward automatically. This prevents clicks from going to random windows if you alt-tabbed or something stole focus.

Focus Watchdog

New monitoring system that pauses navigation if Elite loses focus mid-operation. You get a system tray notification telling you CATS is waiting. When you bring Elite back, it resumes automatically. No more coming back to find the autopilot clicked through your browser for 20 minutes.

Pre-Jump Alerts

Optional fullscreen overlay that pops up 15 seconds before a jump is scheduled, with a countdown and sound. Useful if you are AFK and want a heads up that your carrier is about to move. Click anywhere or press any key to dismiss it.

Dark Mode

Added a proper dark theme toggle in the options. The original light theme was pretty harsh at night. The dark theme follows a consistent color palette and properly handles all the WinForms controls including the tricky button text rendering.

Live Status Indicator

Replaced the static Run button with an animated status panel that shows what the system is currently doing: plotting, waiting for cooldown, refueling, etc. Makes it much easier to see the current state at a glance.

Build System Fixes

The original had an aggressive BeforeBuild clean target that caused file locking issues. Switched the post-build copy to robocopy which handles transient failures better.

Why Use This Fork?

If you run Elite on a non-primary monitor or use a 2K display, this fork should just work where the original does not. The focus management also makes the whole system more reliable for AFK operation. The dark mode and status indicator are quality of life improvements that make the tool more pleasant to use.

Important Notes

• This is preview software. I have tested it on my setup but cannot guarantee it works perfectly for everyone.
• The original maintainer has not reviewed these changes yet. I will be submitting a PR.
• Same disclaimer as the original: this is technically against Frontier ToS, use at your own risk.
• Requires the same dependencies as the original plus pywin32 for the window management features.

Feedback welcome. If you find bugs, let me know.