Sit and Spin Mining Drone?

[Hidden Porpoise]

I notice that drone has lots of outputs. This is really quite redundant, I've found. The AI aims fast enough to keep up with a single, big beam doing all the mining, rapidly swtiching from block to block to block in the split-second it takes to mine. It's really quite beautiful to watch.

The bigger issue with multi-output setups is it's only aiming one beam at a time.

 

[splatthecat]

So my drones have 5 barrels. All 5 show that they are firing visually, but does this mean that only 1 is actually working?

Would it be better in this case to have them grouped together as a single barrel or have 5 individual salvage computers to the 5 individual barrels?

My combat drones can use multiple weapon computers so logically the AI should do but then the salvage computer isn't technically a weapon. The AI obviously cannot currently use effect computers, jump drives and so on.

Will have to experiment tonight with some setups but maybe someone has tried this already.

 

[Jananton]

Well, yes, I hadn't tested mining until now, so I build a drone with 8 salvage beams with cannon support for continues firing and all aim to the asteroid. Even when the drone starts turning and spinning, what it does from time to time, the beams seem to be aimed at the target most of the time. This is the same as when you fire your salvage beams by logic and move or re-aim your ship during firing.

What seems to be a real flaw at the moment for mining drones is the path finding. When asteroids in a field are close together and an asteroid is in the path of a drone that has picked another to mine it keeps bumping in the obstructing asteroid instead of flying around it to its target.

Greets,

Jan

 

[splatthecat]

My original drones were based upon the hornet drones made by Lenscap (YouTube) where the missile pod was replaced with storage and cargo space. The cannons were replaced with 6 salvage beams.

I will admit, I like my new drones better. I have ditched the shields for more power and despite having only 25 salvage modules in 5 beams rather than 30 in 6 work better.

Pathfinding is a little glitchy at time like you say but the smaller size does allow them to sort themselves out easier. Hopefully as the fleet system is developed and optimised it will improve.

Definitely going to check out a number of versions before settling down on a standard model. May switch off the auto pull and check each drone and see which gathers the most resources. Run a few missions and take an average.

 

[kiraen]

Definitely going to check out a number of versions before settling down on a standard model. May switch off the auto pull and check each drone and see which gathers the most resources. Run a few missions and take an average.

I would be interested in hearing hearing those results.

 

[splatthecat]

I would be interested in hearing hearing those results.

I will do some more intensive testing and make a separate thread but I have already noticed one thing.

I have three different drones.

1 Salvage computer with 5x5 beams.

1 salvage computer with 1x25 beams (grouped together with a single output)

5 salvage computers with 1x5 salvage beams each.

Watching the initial test I noticed the one with the single beam sat still above the asteroid and fired the beam in a methodical right to left horizontal sweep. The other two with multiple beams "danced" about a lot between sweeps.

In the same 5 minute period (the server was about to reset) they gathered 3631, 3354 and 3522 blocks respectively.

I will do some more testing and analysis of the results later but it would appear that initially, the way to stop the "dancing" is to group the beams together into a single output.

 

[StarWars1981]

Interesting results. I have found for a human miner, the best one I could build has a large array of multiple powerful lasers, allowing me to cut down asteroids completely in about 5 minutes, and this using just two players' basic spawn setup of salvage modules. The grouping allows for my slowness in correcting for eaten blocks and the unloaded ones behind that. This way, it keeps mining. I think I'll try a few different auto-miners myself, actually.

 

[KHM]

after some experimentation i think i figured it out. the ai is trying to point the ship at the block it wants to mine from the prospective of the ship's core, but when it turns the ship, it pivots around the ship's center of mass. so when it tries to aim the ship at it target, the ships core not only moves angularly, but also spatially. as a result it then has to turn again to try and aim at the target block. further more the ship doesn't seem to be able to turn on a dime and instead continuously moves forward while it's turning but because it also wants to remain x distance from it's target at all times after a few failed turnings it has to back off a little bit and try again. this causes it to enter into an infinite loop that makes it look like it's chasing it's tail.

i came to this conclusion during my testing i noticed that the further away from the center of mass the ship's core got, the more prone to this beaver the ship got. i then built a ship that had the center of mass and the ship's core about 20 blocks from each other and found that started to exhibit this behavior almost immediately, but then when i went into the server config and changed WEIGHTED_CENTER_OF_MASS from true to false, the problem was instantly solved.

the solution i then propose is to build your mining drones with their center of mass as close to the ship's core as possible. this should still allow for the construction of large mining drones while eliminating the problems of the ship derping out.

 

[kiddan]

after some experimentation i think i figured it out. the ai is trying to point the ship at the block it wants to mine from the prospective of the ship's core, but when it turns the ship, it pivots around the ship's center of mass. so when it tries to aim the ship at it target, the ships core not only moves angularly, but also spatially. as a result it then has to turn again to try and aim at the target block. further more the ship doesn't seem to be able to turn on a dime and instead continuously moves forward while it's turning but because it also wants to remain x distance from it's target at all times after a few failed turnings it has to back off a little bit and try again. this causes it to enter into an infinite loop that makes it look like it's chasing it's tail.

i came to this conclusion during my testing i noticed that the further away from the center of mass the ship's core got, the more prone to this beaver the ship got. i then built a ship that had the center of mass and the ship's core about 20 blocks from each other and found that started to exhibit this behavior almost immediately, but then when i went into the server config and changed WEIGHTED_CENTER_OF_MASS from true to false, the problem was instantly solved.

the solution i then propose is to build your mining drones with their center of mass as close to the ship's core as possible. this should still allow for the construction of large mining drones while eliminating the problems of the ship derping out.

Hey, welcome to the forum!
Thanks for trying that out, I guess using center of mass finder is going to be all the more useful now. Most of my ships have the core in the front area, so I guess I have some copy/pasting to do! :D