This guide walks through every visible setting in ANDROMEDA MT5, in the order you'll see them in the Inputs tab, with practical recommendations for each. It also explains the adaptive grid engine that runs underneath — the part of the EA that decides how and when an open basket is allowed to grow, which isn't a toggle you configure directly, but which everything else in this guide feeds into.
Before You Start
Two things have to be true before ANDROMEDA will behave correctly, on either a live account or in the Strategy Tester:
- Account type: Hedging. ANDROMEDA can hold multiple independent position baskets on Gold at the same time. On a Netting account, MetaTrader 5 merges every position on a symbol into one- which breaks basket tracking entirely. Check this on your live account, your demo account, and your Strategy Tester profile.
- Symbol: XAUUSD only. Every threshold in the EA - spacing, timeframes, filters - is tuned specifically for Gold's volatility and point value. It is not designed to be dropped onto another symbol.
A broker offering genuine ECN/Raw/Zero-spread conditions and market execution is strongly recommended — execution quality affects every strategy's results regardless of how the logic behind it works.
General Settings
| Setting | What it does | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Show UI Dashboard | Turns the on-chart HUD panel on/off. | Leave on for live/demo use; off gives a small backtest-speed gain. |
| Enable Journal output | Turns on diagnostic messages in the Experts log (init status, order results, errors). | Turn on for your first sessions on any new account, so you can confirm everything initialised correctly. |
| Lot sizing mode | Automatic scales position size to your account balance under a Risk Level. Fixed uses an exact lot size for every trade. | Automatic is easier to reason about as your balance changes; Fixed gives you precise control if you're running a specific money-management plan. |
| Automatic lot (Risk Level) | Only used when Lot sizing mode is Automatic. Choose Conservative, Balanced, High, or Extreme — each maps to a different account-balance-per-0.01-lot ratio, from most to least conservative. | Start with Conservative or Balanced until you're familiar with how the EA behaves on your account. Extreme is for experienced users only, after thorough testing. |
| Fixed | Only used when Lot sizing mode is Fixed. The lot size applied to every position and every basket addition. | Size this to your account and broker's margin requirements — remember it applies to every recovery addition too, not just the first entry. |
| Drawdown control mode | Off, or one of four automatic-protection modes that close every open basket once a drawdown threshold is reached (in $ or %), either continuing to trade afterward or shutting the EA down. | Don't leave this Off on a live account — it's your account-level safety net independent of any single basket's own exit logic. |
| Drawdown threshold | The $ or % value that triggers the mode above. | Set relative to your account size and personal risk tolerance; ignored when the mode is Off. |
| Magic number | The identifier ANDROMEDA uses to recognise its own positions. | Leave on default unless you're running more than one instance, or need to avoid conflicting with another EA on the same account. |
| Maximum spread | The maximum spread, in points, ANDROMEDA will accept before entering. Entries are skipped entirely above this. | Keep this realistic for your broker's typical Gold spread, with headroom for brief widening — too tight and you'll skip valid setups during normal conditions. |
| Trading direction type | Buy only / Sell only restrict the whole EA to strategies capable of trading in that direction. Both directions runs everything in its natural direction(s) without restriction. | Leave on Both directions unless you have a specific market view you want to trade around. |
Portfolio Settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Profile Selection | Choose a preset tuned for a specific broker group (GlobalPrime / IC / VTM / Fusion, Vantage, XM / RoboForex), or Custom to control things yourself. |
| ORION / ATLAS / LYRA / COSMOS | Four on/off switches (used in Custom mode) controlling which internal strategy groups are active. |
There's nothing more complicated to configure here than that. Under Custom mode, all four are enabled by default, leave them that way unless you have a specific reason to run a lighter footprint. The meaningful configuration work for risk and behaviour happens in the General settings above and the grid engine described below, not in which of these four switches are flipped.
Trading Days Settings
| Setting | What it does | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| No entries on NFP Friday | Blocks new baskets on the first Friday of each month (Non-Farm Payrolls release), when Gold volatility and spreads typically spike. | Leave enabled unless you specifically want exposure through NFP. |
| Close trading Friday night | Stops all trading activity at a set hour on Friday, ahead of the weekend close. | Leave enabled to avoid weekend gap risk on open baskets. |
| Friday night close hour | The server-time hour the above setting triggers at. | Adjust to your broker's server time offset (shown in Market Watch). |
| Trade on Monday – Friday | Individual on/off switches per weekday. | Leave all enabled unless you have a specific reason to exclude a day. |
All times here use your broker's server time, not your local time zone.
Understanding the Adaptive Grid Engine
This isn't a setting you toggle, it's the logic that governs every basket once it's open, regardless of which strategy opened it or which Portfolio Profile it belongs to. Understanding it will change how you read your results, so it's worth walking through.
Most grid or averaging systems add to a losing position on distance alone: price moved X points, so add more, sometimes with that distance fixed, sometimes scaled by ATR, but either way triggered purely by how far price has moved, with no regard for what the market is actually doing. ANDROMEDA's grid works differently once a basket moves past its initial spacing phase:
- Directional confirmation. The EA tracks the slope of a moving average on a higher timeframe than the entries themselves. A further addition is only permitted while that slope already points the same direction as the basket. If it's flat, or against the basket, the grid simply does not add , there's no fallback path to "yes."
- Noise filtering. A single bar's slope isn't trusted alone; the direction has to hold for several consecutive bars before it counts, so one wick-driven tick can't flip the decision mid-trend.
- Anti-clustering spacing. Once the trend condition is met, a minimum time gap and a minimum price gap since the last addition are still enforced, so recovery entries spread out rather than bunching together the moment conditions turn favourable.
The practical effect on your results: baskets don't keep growing indefinitely into a strong move against them just because price kept moving , the grid goes quiet until the higher-timeframe trend genuinely agrees, then resumes in a controlled, spaced-out way. Every basket still works toward a clearly defined exit target throughout; this gate only controls how it's allowed to grow while getting there.
When you're reviewing your own results or a backtest, this is why you'll sometimes see a basket sit at the same size for an extended period even while price continues moving — that's the trend gate withholding an addition it judges isn't confirmed yet, not the EA failing to react.
Risk & Money Management Recap
- Higher Risk Levels don't just mean a larger first trade, they scale every recovery addition in a basket too, which compounds both potential return and potential drawdown.
- Always run with a Drawdown control mode set; it's independent of, and a backstop for, the grid engine's own logic.
- Watch the on-chart dashboard's exposure and drawdown figures regularly, not just account balance.
- Never allocate capital you can't afford to lose,see the disclaimer below.
Backtesting Settings
| Setting | Recommended Value |
|---|---|
| Symbol | XAUUSD |
| Account type | Hedging (mandatory) |
| Modelling / tick generation | Every tick based on real ticks |
| Chart timeframe | H1 (most internal logic runs on its own fixed timeframe regardless) |
| Spread | Current, or a realistic fixed value matching your intended live broker |
A Netting-mode backtest will not reflect real behaviour, MetaTrader 5 merges every position into one, producing distorted results that have nothing to do with how the EA actually runs. Always double-check this setting before drawing conclusions from a test. When reviewing results, weigh Balance Drawdown and Equity Drawdown as heavily as net profit, a basket-based system can post an attractive profit figure while carrying more drawdown than suits your risk tolerance.
Disclaimer
As with any automated trading system, past performance, live, demo, or backtested, is not a guarantee of future results. Trading Gold and other leveraged instruments carries real risk that no confirmation logic removes entirely. Start on a demo account, size your settings to your account, and only trade with capital you can afford to lose.
Questions about a specific setting? Drop them in the comments below.
