~~ intro ~~
Hi, just looking to revisit this in a new thread as I've looked at the last six months or so of forum activity and haven't seen it discussed much. Most of the posts on this topic are quite old now, and I had some specific questions about mining drones that might have different answers now that the power and weapons updates are have officially been released.
I'm breaking it up into sections after writing for a bit, because it seems this is going to be long. The goal of my wordiness is mainly to be thorough so that hopefully somebody can pinpoint where I'm going wrong. I figure the more info I give, the more likely somebody who knows what they're doing will spot my problem.
I hate when people say something minimal like "it's broken" and then expect anybody else to know how to fix the problem.
If I'm able to sum up all this rambling into concise questions, I'll make a section for them at the bottom. I'll probably have more questions if I'm getting good feedback and/or if I'm able to get past the "please don't just sit there" frustration.
After I get one craft working then maybe I can move on to a group. If I can get a group working then maybe I'll need to worry about cargo ferries or good inventory management on a systemic level.
For now though, I just need to get one drone to point itself at an asteroid and fire its salvage beams.
~~ initial effort and end goal ~~
I tried for the last couple of days unsuccessfully to get any drones to mine. At first I was building more or less "finished product" drones. The plan is to have a stacking dock system on a carrier/freighter that will allow deployment en masse, so the goal design will be craft that are one block thick.
(I am not including this info for carrier or miner craft advice. Maybe in another thread. This paragraph is just to depict the mother ship for drone/fleet functionality purposes. If something about this craft is breaking my fleet control, that's relevant to me now.) The end design for the carrier itself will probably be a square waffle array of mining beams with most interior space spent on cargo - minus a minimal cockpit with a teleporter and enough empty space that I don't get stuck exiting the core. I'll also have what minimal circuitry I need for managing docking rails and also most likely a mining efficiency chamber, plus enough thrust to move reasonably when fully laden and docked. Each of the four sides of this stick-shaped miner will have a stripe of rails along its length that will carry these wafer drones. Basically it's a tube that will have drones stacked along its exterior walls. The drones will be standing on end with their flat dimension parallel to the carrier's long axis, to maximize the number of drones I can carry at one time.
My first drone attempt had an array of 8 mining units spanning the whole length of the craft. Next to that on one side were the ship core and bobby AI in front, with salvage computer, storage, reactor, a mining efficiency chamber, and thrust packed together in the two rows. A docking module took the last slot in the center row. Then on each side of these three core rows I put another stripe of cargo blocks, just to keep it symmetrical in case adding weight via mining might throw off AI behavior for center of mass reasons. So from left to right I had five rows of eight blocks: cargo, salvage beam, core/system/dock, AI/system, cargo.
I have an essentially empty tube ship as a mother ship in a fleet as a placeholder for the freighter I will eventually use. It's just got some rails down the sides with pickup points near the end of each rail and a shoot out block at the end, plus some logic for manually changing rail directions. After setting the drone as a member of the fleet I docked it to a rail.
My deployment consists of pressing a button on the mother ship to flip the rails to point outward. The drone slides forward, its docker passes through the pickup on its way to the last rail, and after the last rail it gets shot out. I figure doing it like this should set the drone's return point so that when it's time to scale this operation up I can just build and dock the drones without needing to manually manage their return points as well.
~~ difficulties and attempted fixes ~~
I deployed my drone as listed above, making sure the fleet was set to idle. I issued the mining order near an asteroid, and nothing happened. The miner kept drifting in space.
I gave move orders, and that worked fine. Return to carrier worked fine, as long as I remembered to flip the rails around first to avoid immediate re-deployment. Mining orders were met with immediate inanimacy. No flight, no navigation, no nothing.
After struggling a bit I came to the forum to read and found that mining drones have some likes and dislikes. I'm basically here now trying to figure out how particular and how flexible those are.
I read that mining drones like when their arrays are lined up with the core, but I also read that they behave funny when a mining array is entirely in line in front of or behind the core.
I tried redesigning my miner with the core at the front of the salvage beam stripe, then again with the salvage beam stacked in front of the core. I tried building an irregularly shaped mining array that still centered around the core but with its "front" block directly adjacent to the core to one side.
I had read that some systems (e.g. linked weapons) can break AI, so I tried building without the reactor chamber, in case that's one of the complexities that drones dislike.
I tried building with storage slaved to the salvage computer or without slaving it. With cargo container blocks and without.
I tried building with bobby AI and without - and I tried different settings of AI thinking that maybe the "choose target" setting might work of I had the asteroid targeted in my mother ship's nav, or maybe there was some difference between the "ship" setting and the "fleet" setting.
I read that some cores just won't cooperate as miners, so I tried deleting drones and starting over with a new core. By the end of today's attempts I was making drones with one each of: core, salvage beam, salvage computer, storage, thruster, reactor.
I tried deleting and reforming the fleet. I tried relocating to a new star system, new sector, and new asteroid.
I tried different orderings of: relocate (sector), issue fleet mining orders, physically deploy craft.
This was done over a few days of trying so to some extent I've tried relogging as well, though not in a methodical manner.
~~ questions ~~
I really like the idea of this 8 x 5 x 1 drone swarm. Is this a realistic working shape, strictly from a fleet control (not from an optimal design) perspective?
Does it matter where the core is? Do drones like for their cores to be able to "see" from the front of the craft, or can it be buried within other blocks?
How important is it for the core to be near center of mass? Will this cause failures or other bad-but-minor behaviors?
What about the core in relation to the the line of fire? By this I mean when the craft points itself to shoot, does it matter if the core is in the middle of this cross-sectional front view? Or will the craft instead just aim from the core, and beams should be placed from the start with that in mind?
Is it feasible to have just one mining array, or is perhaps the asymmetrical arrangement (one stripe of blocks off-center) causing trouble?
What's proper master/slave setup? I previously assumed a good arrangement was:
salvage cpu <- salvage modules
salvage cpu <- storage block
storage block <- cargo blocks
What's the proper deployment order? Does it matter if orders are issued before decoupling?
Is bobby AI necessary for a mining craft, or does that module only exist to control targeting behavior for turrets/fighters?
At what point do I blueprint? Obviously if I get a working base model, then maybe again after any major changes that don't break everything? Do I keep the base blueprints and have version numbered blueprints as I go along, or is it fine to just make sure I've always got one working blueprint?
If the "some cores won't salvage" rule applies still, will that count with blueprints as well? Will a working blueprint always give a working craft, or will I need to delete and recreate from prints until I get a craft with a "good" core?
Does it matter that I'm trying this using creative mode inventory rather than actual, finite building blocks?
I've seen talk in threads of people needing to reinstall or re-update to fix broken AI. Is something that drastic really necessary? Seems like anything broken ingame should be fixable ingame, or at most by "turning it off and back on again" via relogging or moving far enough to unload/load chunk data.
Does it matter that I'm on Linux?
Are some worlds "broken" in this regard / will spinning up a new galaxy potentially fix it?
Are there other out-of-game factors that could impact whether mining AI will work?
Hi, just looking to revisit this in a new thread as I've looked at the last six months or so of forum activity and haven't seen it discussed much. Most of the posts on this topic are quite old now, and I had some specific questions about mining drones that might have different answers now that the power and weapons updates are have officially been released.
I'm breaking it up into sections after writing for a bit, because it seems this is going to be long. The goal of my wordiness is mainly to be thorough so that hopefully somebody can pinpoint where I'm going wrong. I figure the more info I give, the more likely somebody who knows what they're doing will spot my problem.
I hate when people say something minimal like "it's broken" and then expect anybody else to know how to fix the problem.
If I'm able to sum up all this rambling into concise questions, I'll make a section for them at the bottom. I'll probably have more questions if I'm getting good feedback and/or if I'm able to get past the "please don't just sit there" frustration.
After I get one craft working then maybe I can move on to a group. If I can get a group working then maybe I'll need to worry about cargo ferries or good inventory management on a systemic level.
For now though, I just need to get one drone to point itself at an asteroid and fire its salvage beams.
~~ initial effort and end goal ~~
I tried for the last couple of days unsuccessfully to get any drones to mine. At first I was building more or less "finished product" drones. The plan is to have a stacking dock system on a carrier/freighter that will allow deployment en masse, so the goal design will be craft that are one block thick.
(I am not including this info for carrier or miner craft advice. Maybe in another thread. This paragraph is just to depict the mother ship for drone/fleet functionality purposes. If something about this craft is breaking my fleet control, that's relevant to me now.) The end design for the carrier itself will probably be a square waffle array of mining beams with most interior space spent on cargo - minus a minimal cockpit with a teleporter and enough empty space that I don't get stuck exiting the core. I'll also have what minimal circuitry I need for managing docking rails and also most likely a mining efficiency chamber, plus enough thrust to move reasonably when fully laden and docked. Each of the four sides of this stick-shaped miner will have a stripe of rails along its length that will carry these wafer drones. Basically it's a tube that will have drones stacked along its exterior walls. The drones will be standing on end with their flat dimension parallel to the carrier's long axis, to maximize the number of drones I can carry at one time.
My first drone attempt had an array of 8 mining units spanning the whole length of the craft. Next to that on one side were the ship core and bobby AI in front, with salvage computer, storage, reactor, a mining efficiency chamber, and thrust packed together in the two rows. A docking module took the last slot in the center row. Then on each side of these three core rows I put another stripe of cargo blocks, just to keep it symmetrical in case adding weight via mining might throw off AI behavior for center of mass reasons. So from left to right I had five rows of eight blocks: cargo, salvage beam, core/system/dock, AI/system, cargo.
I have an essentially empty tube ship as a mother ship in a fleet as a placeholder for the freighter I will eventually use. It's just got some rails down the sides with pickup points near the end of each rail and a shoot out block at the end, plus some logic for manually changing rail directions. After setting the drone as a member of the fleet I docked it to a rail.
My deployment consists of pressing a button on the mother ship to flip the rails to point outward. The drone slides forward, its docker passes through the pickup on its way to the last rail, and after the last rail it gets shot out. I figure doing it like this should set the drone's return point so that when it's time to scale this operation up I can just build and dock the drones without needing to manually manage their return points as well.
~~ difficulties and attempted fixes ~~
I deployed my drone as listed above, making sure the fleet was set to idle. I issued the mining order near an asteroid, and nothing happened. The miner kept drifting in space.
I gave move orders, and that worked fine. Return to carrier worked fine, as long as I remembered to flip the rails around first to avoid immediate re-deployment. Mining orders were met with immediate inanimacy. No flight, no navigation, no nothing.
After struggling a bit I came to the forum to read and found that mining drones have some likes and dislikes. I'm basically here now trying to figure out how particular and how flexible those are.
I read that mining drones like when their arrays are lined up with the core, but I also read that they behave funny when a mining array is entirely in line in front of or behind the core.
I tried redesigning my miner with the core at the front of the salvage beam stripe, then again with the salvage beam stacked in front of the core. I tried building an irregularly shaped mining array that still centered around the core but with its "front" block directly adjacent to the core to one side.
I had read that some systems (e.g. linked weapons) can break AI, so I tried building without the reactor chamber, in case that's one of the complexities that drones dislike.
I tried building with storage slaved to the salvage computer or without slaving it. With cargo container blocks and without.
I tried building with bobby AI and without - and I tried different settings of AI thinking that maybe the "choose target" setting might work of I had the asteroid targeted in my mother ship's nav, or maybe there was some difference between the "ship" setting and the "fleet" setting.
I read that some cores just won't cooperate as miners, so I tried deleting drones and starting over with a new core. By the end of today's attempts I was making drones with one each of: core, salvage beam, salvage computer, storage, thruster, reactor.
I tried deleting and reforming the fleet. I tried relocating to a new star system, new sector, and new asteroid.
I tried different orderings of: relocate (sector), issue fleet mining orders, physically deploy craft.
This was done over a few days of trying so to some extent I've tried relogging as well, though not in a methodical manner.
~~ questions ~~
I really like the idea of this 8 x 5 x 1 drone swarm. Is this a realistic working shape, strictly from a fleet control (not from an optimal design) perspective?
Does it matter where the core is? Do drones like for their cores to be able to "see" from the front of the craft, or can it be buried within other blocks?
How important is it for the core to be near center of mass? Will this cause failures or other bad-but-minor behaviors?
What about the core in relation to the the line of fire? By this I mean when the craft points itself to shoot, does it matter if the core is in the middle of this cross-sectional front view? Or will the craft instead just aim from the core, and beams should be placed from the start with that in mind?
Is it feasible to have just one mining array, or is perhaps the asymmetrical arrangement (one stripe of blocks off-center) causing trouble?
What's proper master/slave setup? I previously assumed a good arrangement was:
salvage cpu <- salvage modules
salvage cpu <- storage block
storage block <- cargo blocks
What's the proper deployment order? Does it matter if orders are issued before decoupling?
Is bobby AI necessary for a mining craft, or does that module only exist to control targeting behavior for turrets/fighters?
At what point do I blueprint? Obviously if I get a working base model, then maybe again after any major changes that don't break everything? Do I keep the base blueprints and have version numbered blueprints as I go along, or is it fine to just make sure I've always got one working blueprint?
If the "some cores won't salvage" rule applies still, will that count with blueprints as well? Will a working blueprint always give a working craft, or will I need to delete and recreate from prints until I get a craft with a "good" core?
Does it matter that I'm trying this using creative mode inventory rather than actual, finite building blocks?
I've seen talk in threads of people needing to reinstall or re-update to fix broken AI. Is something that drastic really necessary? Seems like anything broken ingame should be fixable ingame, or at most by "turning it off and back on again" via relogging or moving far enough to unload/load chunk data.
Does it matter that I'm on Linux?
Are some worlds "broken" in this regard / will spinning up a new galaxy potentially fix it?
Are there other out-of-game factors that could impact whether mining AI will work?
