Storage pull between docked entities through rail rotation block

[pyrosniperfreak]

Currently, you can pull storage between docked entities where the ship doing the docking has its storage connected to its rail docker, and the ship being docked to has its storage connected to its basic rail. However, only the basic rail can be connected to a storage container. Rail rotation blocks cannot be connected to storage for pulling between entities, and that's something I'd like to see.

In my case, I'm trying to make a mining ship that has a continuously spinning docked entity equipped with auto-firing salvage beams. Essentially its a ship with a spinning mining drill. There's currently no way (that I know of) to transfer cargo between the spinning drill and the main ship. If they were connected via a basic rail this would work, but then it wouldn't spin.

If anybody knows of a way to overcome this problem I'd love to hear about it. If not, then I hope they add the ability to transfer cargo through rail rotators and not just basic rails for docked entities.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I just thought of a way.
Maybe use logic swapping of the rotator and basic.
Perhaps build the initial connection with a basic so you can slave the storage appropriately. Then try using logic to swap the basic for a rotator to initiate spin and then back to see if the storage connection remains. It's not ideal and possibly prone to bugs, but it might work.

You would need to monitor your storage on the docked entity to then trigger a rotor/basic swap.
Maybe wireless link back to the host entity or use rail pulses to trigger when rotational movement is blocked and use a plex door to jam the docked entity.

Hope this makes sense.

This gives me something to tinker with tonight.

 

[pyrosniperfreak]

I tried figuring out a way to do that and got nowhere, and I can't find anything on the internet of people trying that. The only thing I could think of is having two docking locations (one basic and one rotate) for the drill to dock to and somehow get it to automatically undock from one and dock to the other. But even if I could get that working reliably, I would have to not be moving at all if I don't want the drill flying away mid-swap. Do you know of a way of swapping where the drill wouldn't be floating on its own during the swap? Is that what you were talking about with the plex door, keeping it from flying away during the swap?

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Yep.
Same idea as I mentioned above, but instead of only swapping the rotator/basic in place. Have an additional basic to the side to direct the docked entity to.

Using the same logic control, you would need to switch the direction of the basic on the side to direct the entity back to where the basic turns back into a rotator. Some playing around with timing and changing the basic to the side will need to happen to prevent the docked entity from attempting to travel back down the side mounted basic. Unless the entity ignores it naturally with the rotator pointing away from the basic.

I should be able to build something later tonight after work.
[doublepost=1490309356,1490309323][/doublepost]Oh, I forgot. The basic to the side would be connected to storage for transfer.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Here, try this. I put it together tonight. You can transfer while the rotator is operational. Test by turning off the storage pull on the host ship, then place stuff in the storage on the rotator and start the rotation. The access the host storage and turn on storage pull to see it in operation.
LP Rotator Miner 01

 

[Lone_Puppy]

- UPDATE -
2017-03-26
I loaded up my single player decided to tinker with this ship some more and found it had lost it's connection between the rail and storage. I ran more tests and found a few things;

• I see that this happens intermittently, Can't see a definitive pattern yet.
• You can reconnect as long as you reset the rail back to a basic. Sometimes this doesn't work straight away.
• Once reconnected it works continuously for the time you are using the ship.

Ideally this functionality would be better added to the rotator natively.
As a work around you could create access ports to these rails and the storage transfer blocks. Keep them close so you're not space walking or whatever long distances.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I've posted an update to my rotator harvester experiment.
LP Rotator Miner 01
I've also added ship remote so you can start/stop at your leisure while piloting.