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I have been drone mining (using fleets, of course) more and more lately. After extensive fine tuning of my drones, my carryall, and my technique I'm really loving it now. As a family man who works from home and often needs to be AFK unexpectedly while playing SM, I've found that mining drones go a long ways towards making up part of the resource gap between myself and kids with 6-10 hours to play without interruption several days a week.
Under the current build, mining drones actually work reasonably well, and you can use them to your profit!
Like chaindrives and docked reactors, their creation is very much not a 1st Tier affair, but DO NOT be misled by the complaints of those who are unable to make it work. It DOES work. It just requires a lot of persistence, a lot of familiarity with the game, and a willingness to try a few times before you get drones that work.
I strongly recommend downloading vetted mining drones from a good engineer over everyone trying to build their own then melting down over how it isn't working. Drone creation has gotten much easier these days, but I have retained my old set of tips used to get around the super-bugs surrounding the old mining drones:
Drone mining is not a replacement for active mining - it is a supplement. It is only 1/4 as fast as active mining, but it works even when you are AFK, so the best policy I've found is a mothership with its own strong mining array so you can actively mine with some minor assistance from your drones, then when you (inevitably) get distracted by faction chat or a phone call, your drones will steadfastly continue working until you return to active mining or they've cleared the sector.
Drones sometimes 'rest' for a few minutes but typically resume mining on their own. Occasionally they stall completely - usually when something unusual happens like your astronaut boards a core that is not their mothership while they mine (that usually pisses them off bigtime!)
If your drones finish mining a sector, then refuse to move on to a new sector, or otherwise seem confused, take remedial action.
Drone Remedial Action Guide (examples only - not limited to):
Further Drone Mining Tips:
Have more useful tips for drone mining based on actual testing and experience? Please share and I'll attempt to update this post!
Please do not respond with information about how slow they mine or comparing them unfavorably to active mining - they do not compare and are not meant to. This is only about how they do work, not a statement of their relative value and arguments about whether they are worth making will not be productive here.
Under the current build, mining drones actually work reasonably well, and you can use them to your profit!
Like chaindrives and docked reactors, their creation is very much not a 1st Tier affair, but DO NOT be misled by the complaints of those who are unable to make it work. It DOES work. It just requires a lot of persistence, a lot of familiarity with the game, and a willingness to try a few times before you get drones that work.
I strongly recommend downloading vetted mining drones from a good engineer over everyone trying to build their own then melting down over how it isn't working. Drone creation has gotten much easier these days, but I have retained my old set of tips used to get around the super-bugs surrounding the old mining drones:
OLD Drone Creation Guide - now obsolete due to improved fleet AI:
- Do not build a drone then test it. Drop a core, add power, thrust, salvage and storage ONLY then test it before going even one step further. Because some cores seem to just refuse to work for drone mining. Ever. I have no explanation, I know only that once I establish that a new core works for mining, it does - even upon BP respawn, importing and exporting. So don't waste time - first make sure the core is good.
- Build your basic systems first before investing time into appearance. Certain configurations seem to break drones (I suspect not having a central beam within their array does this, and possibly having the mining array all in front of or behind the core, as well as possibly the center of gravity being too far from the core, and other strange things).
- When you have a decent sized drone that works - BLUEPRINT IT BEFORE GOING FARTHER! I think that when something breaks a drone miner, even reversing the change doesn't fix it, but the BP will let you go back to a stage where it worked.
- Stop work frequently to test and then re-blueprint your drone.
- Slaving systems to salvage seems to break drones.
- Putting effects on drones seems to break them.
- More than 2-2.5 thrust ratio seems to break drones.
- KEEP IT SIMPLE UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT WORKS!
- Drones work just fine with multiple groups if you plan those groups to hit nearby rock material as the drone attempts to mine single blocks, but as noted certain configurations seem to break them.
- Drones seem to aim from their center at a single block, often a block on the tip of the edge of the rock rather than even marginally centered, so a wide array has proven most effective in my experience.
- I've heard that drones use mostly horizontal sweeps - sit on top of one at work and see for yourself - they sometimes go vertical or just fire at a fixed point. I find wide, circular mining arrays most effective.
- Sometimes as you move about during creating & testing, Starmade may have errors with sector transitions and bad locations. When you order your drones to mine, they just sit there looking at you like you're stupid because while your GUI tells you that you are in a sector with an asteroid, your drones know that this information is incorrect and there is nothing in-sector for them to mine. This is not the drones being broken, it is normal sector transition problems making you give bad orders. As with many problems in Starmade, relogging can make all the difference.
Drone mining is not a replacement for active mining - it is a supplement. It is only 1/4 as fast as active mining, but it works even when you are AFK, so the best policy I've found is a mothership with its own strong mining array so you can actively mine with some minor assistance from your drones, then when you (inevitably) get distracted by faction chat or a phone call, your drones will steadfastly continue working until you return to active mining or they've cleared the sector.
Drones sometimes 'rest' for a few minutes but typically resume mining on their own. Occasionally they stall completely - usually when something unusual happens like your astronaut boards a core that is not their mothership while they mine (that usually pisses them off bigtime!)
If your drones finish mining a sector, then refuse to move on to a new sector, or otherwise seem confused, take remedial action.
Drone Remedial Action Guide (examples only - not limited to):
- Check fleet status (are you still in mothership?) and order them to mine again.
- Give them a different order (move, recall, etc). If they start to obey, immediately order them to mine.
- Exit to desktop, log back in and order them to mine again.
- Actually carrier recall them, leave the sector so it unloads, return, re-deploy, order them to mine.
- Leave the sector so it unloads, delete the fleet, reform the fleet, then enter the sector and order them to mine.
Further Drone Mining Tips:
- Drone mine using a carrier ship rigged to auto-pull the haul from the drones cargo when they dock
- Set drone docking points so they can execute a carrier recall.
- Make sure you have pickup points and easily accessible rails for recalls - your mothership may LOOK cool, but you will give up quickly if the style is interfering with carrier recall orders. Make sure recalls are clean and easy.
- Recall your drones every few clusters so that if someone shows up and you have to jump away without them, you don't lose your whole haul.
- Ensure your mothership has a lot of cargo space to accommodate both active and passive (drone) mining in a single session.
- Ensure that the drones themselves have large cargo holds in case you end up AFK a while and they go nuts.
- Either parallel a fighter wing as you mine or ensure that your mothership has enough firepower to protect the helpless little drones from standard pirates (or both), because so many systems seem to break them they can't really defend themselves.
Have more useful tips for drone mining based on actual testing and experience? Please share and I'll attempt to update this post!
Please do not respond with information about how slow they mine or comparing them unfavorably to active mining - they do not compare and are not meant to. This is only about how they do work, not a statement of their relative value and arguments about whether they are worth making will not be productive here.
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