[CoH] Station miners mining one resource to the virtual exclusion of another - serious bug - Improved in a future build.

[Gregorovitch]

1. In my example here, if what you quote here is indeed the reason for the problem, there is no solution to it because 18 Billion has a methane patch offering a ginormous yield of 2.4 per km^3 whereas the yeilds for helium locally are all in the 0.0xx per km^3 range. There is no helium patch remotely comparable to 2.4 per km^3 yield in order to effect this proposed solution strategy in my case.

It uses averages per zone. A lot of these high yield sectors are unfavourable due to low averages. This is why The Reach is a hot spot for ore mining since it has a very high ore average compared with Asteroid Belt.

That's very interesting and all but it's not telling me a) why exactly my two gas miners are only gathering methane and no helium or b) WTF I'm supposed to do about it

[Imuniser]

From what I have gathered from several threads:

a) why 2 resources are being mined and the third is not? The managers consider the area average and if the area average for a specific resource is below a certain amount (nobody knows the amount, it is a guessing game) they will simply ignore it and concentrate on mining those amounts above the threshold
b) what to do? To get them to mine you have to do the exact opposite of what any good manager would do. Ban the resource not being mined from being purchased from other factions (doh!) and carpet probe the heck out of the sector probably to the point where you won't be able to differentiate between probes and ships in the map view (make sure you turn off display resources in the map filters else it will be a even bigger mess)

All the while none of the developers are saying a single thing about it.

[Archaeosis]

Mining AI as clearly and succinctly explained above was broken in 4.0 - managers now ignore one or more resources because of crummy mistakes in the AI scripts.

Unfortunately a number of vocal people including several moderators in the community are pretending it's not broken, writing essay-length posts about how all the issues are because of laughable user error by ignorant players neglecting to do this or that, not placing enough mining probes which are broken and frankly unpleasant additions to gameplay even if they worked as intended, etc. This is a frustrating distraction and wastes everyone's time.

I worry that Egosoft actually believe their new mining gameplay update is excellent and are ignoring these reports, while people like FenrisWolf are having to do their jobs and go in and fix the silly but really rather simple AI script errors that Egosoft should have fixed halfway through the beta. It doesn't even look particularly difficult so I can only think Egosoft don't bother because they believe it's not broken.

[BigBANGtheory]

Resource probes boost the mining speed of ships mining in the zone they are placed in. They also are used to help better manage regional depletion as low yield probes will be ignored giving the zone time to recover before being remined. So far it seems spamming resource probes in every zone that a lot of miners gather in gives best results.

I agree that is how I would expect it to work and from what I have observed for Gas and Ore it does, but for some reason (in my case at least) for Silicon its just not working like that my miners don't appear to be applying that intelligence. Is it a bug or is it intended I've no way of knowing but I would request please someone takes a look for Silicon it feels like something isn't working right.

[FenrisWolf1981]

Is....

<replace sel="//do_if[@value='$probe.currentyield.{$evalware}.exists and ($locamount ge $bestsector.averagemaxyield.{$evalware}.count)']/@value">$probe.currentyield.{$evalware}.exists and ($locamount gt 0)</replace>

what you changed it to or what is was?

If it's what you changed it to what was it?

I simply removed the "($locamount ge $bestsector.averagemaxyield.{$evalware}.count)" check.

As long as your probes are NOT placed in the best spots (and if you have, this will change, since now the resources will be reduced over time on this spot), the whole sector will be skipped. So what happens after the script evaluates the priorities. One example:

Station needs ice, ore but not silicons. Ice is nearly empty. The script creates a priority list: ice -> ore -> silicon. It will iterate through all sectors where you have probes and check for ice first. If your probes are not in the best positions, the sectors with ice will be skipped, others sectors with not enough ice to mine too. Even though there is ice at your probes, it is not enough for the script to send a miner there. After that iteration, it will continue with ore ... and then silicons.

But thats not what I want. Even though i did not find the best spot to mine and put a probe there (or it WAS the best spot, but has been drained over time), i want them to harvest what i really need. And here comes the patch. $bestsector has been found, so there is your best bet to get what you want. I don't want it to cancel just because there are not hundred of probes (and this could happen in large sectors).

After i removed the check in my save, over time my stations recovered and the income was stable again. Sure i had to get more miner, since the universe is a little low on minerals now, but it works like before. Only problem was, that many miners where simply in idle mode with cargo's full of resources i did not need, waiting for the station to reduce the cargo and deliver it. After i discarded some miners cargo manually, they instantly started to get what i need.

So in my opinion, you have three options.
1 - Drop a probe simply everywhere, it won't work otherwise. It's how the script works, code does not lie .
2 - wait for an official patch for this.
2 - Use the mod / patch.

[Gregorovitch]

1 - Drop a probe simply everywhere, it won't work otherwise. It's how the script works, code does not lie .

The problem is, if I am understanding what's being said here correctly, this won't work either because there is no source of helium anywhere near this station that can remotely match the 2.4 per km^3 patch of methane in 18 Billion.

[FenrisWolf1981]

1 - Drop a probe simply everywhere, it won't work otherwise. It's how the script works, code does not lie .

The problem is, if I am understanding what's being said here correctly, this won't work either because there is no source of helium anywhere near this station that can remotely match the 2.4 per km^3 patch of methane in 18 Billion.

Range does not matter in this calculation if it is inside the sector range of the station manager (at least in this part, when the best sector has been found). You just need to match / top the average yield of the sector. I was debugging the logs in 18 billion. As far as i remember, some spots in the south east corner of the sector matched that. Away from the center, travel a bit. After those spots are drained (which happens quiet fast somehow), you have the same problem again though until they recover.

Yea i was searching for a solution as well, since my save was always unmodified. I could not find one though, and after reading the script, i was pretty sure that my stations would not run without the modification :/. I still hope it will be patched or changed. I thought about rewriting the script but doing that, it would not be as compatible as it is now to other mods and later patches. It was the most simple way for me

[grytulv]

I have been struggeling with this mining for a week now. I would really wish this feature could be made more transparent and understandable. I have 400 hours in X4 this far, and i feel like 300 of them are troubleshooting station/mining logic, crew skills and in general game logic through all the playthroughs i've had. I've been playing X series since the beginning and love the series so this is no rant. Its a simple cry for help. Trancparency, understandable game logic and some official Egosoft statements on how we should expect it to work is what i would love to set my eyes on.

Reading forums for hours, seeing all oppionions on how its supposed to work, how they think it work, how it should work and how its not working, how it shouldnt work, workarounds, compromises, fake news, assumptions and what not, is really giving me a headache and doesnt help my Computronic factory miners getting the silicon I need at all.

Give me random impossible Kha'ak encounters, crash to desktop and glitchy graphics any time, please let my logistic mind rest for a while.

[VincentTH]

I believe I found the problem, but I would like to verify with those of us that have this Solid storage problem:

<b> Do you guys/gals use TER Solid L container?</b>

The encyclopedia listed TER L Solid container as having the same size (1,000,000 m3) as the TEL version, and I have built 6 L-size TER Solid storage (or 6,000,000m3 of Solid storage) but most of my miners can't deliver the minerals when the storage is listed only about 200K m3.
I even use Repeat order but a full L-size miner on Repeat order with 2,000m3 of Silicon in the cargo hold can't sell the Silicon to my station!!!!

I am now swapping out TER Solid storage for the TEL version. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[EDIT] Yes, the bug is that TER Solid storage is only 1/10th of the volume listed in the Encyclopedia. As my first TEL Solid L-sizze storage comes online, my miners start registering to deliver Silicon to my Station.

[Imuniser]

The 1kk m3 storage is split by the manager into allocated space per type of solid ore (ore, silicon, nividium). How many types of solid ore do you have? What is the total m3 of storage of all the types of ore?

[paraskous]

I had problems in Asteroid belt with Terran production. At first station miners ran fine. I littered a couple probes in the sector. Then the manager levelled and started sending ships to my PHQ far away. Which is over 5 jumps I believe.
Then I removed the miners from manager control, organised mining fleets. This worked OK.
After I discovered how to blacklist and restrict tades I put the miners under manager again. I restricted mining to Asteroid belt. All the mining is done in Asteroid belt now. I have no idea about averages but realise the Belt might not be optimal place and that's why I need to field ludicrous amount of miners.
Also I set the basic resources to own trades except ice.. All miners only trade with own faction. And I made sure auto pricing is enabled. Since then the miners don't end up with mixed inventories anymore. They dont seem idling much on the mineral side I just add more when the bars decline.

[VincentTH]

The 1kk m3 storage is split by the manager into allocated space per type of solid ore (ore, silicon, nividium). How many types of solid ore do you have? What is the total m3 of storage of all the types of ore?

I built 6x L Solid storage (TER version), and have problem mining Silicon, the 3rd entry in the Logistic graph. Then I notice that all L-size miners assigned to the station only mines Ice or Ore, the first 2 entries in the logical map. I then create a Repeat-Order for an L-size miner, and notice that it mines fine but cannot deliver the Silicon to the station (it skips the delivery/Sell step), even though the station says there are storage for Silicon (only 200 filled out of 250K). That's when I experiment with adding an L-size Solid storage but use the TEL version. Boom!!! As soon as the TEL storage is built, several miners registered their load at the Logical screen. That's when I am certain that the bug is that the TER L size storage does NOT have its advertized volume of 1,000,000m3 compared to the TEL version.

[Shepp]

Is....

<replace sel="//do_if[@value='$probe.currentyield.{$evalware}.exists and ($locamount ge $bestsector.averagemaxyield.{$evalware}.count)']/@value">$probe.currentyield.{$evalware}.exists and ($locamount gt 0)</replace>

what you changed it to or what is was?

If it's what you changed it to what was it?

I simply removed the "($locamount ge $bestsector.averagemaxyield.{$evalware}.count)" check.

As long as your probes are NOT placed in the best spots (and if you have, this will change, since now the resources will be reduced over time on this spot), the whole sector will be skipped. So what happens after the script evaluates the priorities. One example:

Station needs ice, ore but not silicons. Ice is nearly empty. The script creates a priority list: ice -> ore -> silicon. It will iterate through all sectors where you have probes and check for ice first. If your probes are not in the best positions, the sectors with ice will be skipped, others sectors with not enough ice to mine too. Even though there is ice at your probes, it is not enough for the script to send a miner there. After that iteration, it will continue with ore ... and then silicons.

But thats not what I want. Even though i did not find the best spot to mine and put a probe there (or it WAS the best spot, but has been drained over time), i want them to harvest what i really need. And here comes the patch. $bestsector has been found, so there is your best bet to get what you want. I don't want it to cancel just because there are not hundred of probes (and this could happen in large sectors).

After i removed the check in my save, over time my stations recovered and the income was stable again. Sure i had to get more miner, since the universe is a little low on minerals now, but it works like before. Only problem was, that many miners where simply in idle mode with cargo's full of resources i did not need, waiting for the station to reduce the cargo and deliver it. After i discarded some miners cargo manually, they instantly started to get what i need.

So in my opinion, you have three options.
1 - Drop a probe simply everywhere, it won't work otherwise. It's how the script works, code does not lie .
2 - wait for an official patch for this.
2 - Use the mod / patch.

Doesn't removing that check just force the miner to mine in whatever sector it is currently assigned? It looks to me that it calculates a value based on max probe/sector yield and current probe/sector then compares that to whatever is currently selected. Dropping a bunch of probes could boost the number so that it selected over a sector that doesn't have them but I'm not sure that it is necessary.

[j.harshaw]

Thanks for the report and the save.

I couldn't reproduce the issue with your saves, but have managed to get a save that did exhibit the issue. Should be improved in a future update.

That said, since it didn't happen with your save, i can't rule out a different case being in play.

[VincentTH]

Can someone verify my claim above that the root cause of the Mineral problem is due to the wrong size of the TER L-size Solid storage?

Just replace 1 TER L size Solid storage with the TEL version (same capacity of 1 million cubic meter according to the Encyclopedia), and note that miners now mine correctly. We need Ego to fix this ASAP, as this would impact other players with large mining op.

I take it back, it does not work. It just delay the inevitable. Awaiting the fix from Egosoft.

[Kayser99]

Mining AI as clearly and succinctly explained above was broken in 4.0 - managers now ignore one or more resources because of crummy mistakes in the AI scripts.

Unfortunately a number of vocal people including several moderators in the community are pretending it's not broken, writing essay-length posts about how all the issues are because of laughable user error by ignorant players neglecting to do this or that, not placing enough mining probes which are broken and frankly unpleasant additions to gameplay even if they worked as intended, etc. This is a frustrating distraction and wastes everyone's time.

I worry that Egosoft actually believe their new mining gameplay update is excellent and are ignoring these reports, while people like FenrisWolf are having to do their jobs and go in and fix the silly but really rather simple AI script errors that Egosoft should have fixed halfway through the beta. It doesn't even look particularly difficult so I can only think Egosoft don't bother because they believe it's not broken.

Same issue here just searched this topic thought i was the only one..., future wharf complex is gathering Ore, Silicon, Hydrogen just fine...but all 13xM and 2xL miners (gas/solid mix) are ignoring Methane(2nd on list of mineable items for station miners).

New start 2d 22hrs(im sure 60% of this time is Alt+Tabbed trying to websearch why something isnt working on my new start). Since ive been gone for about 2 years with only 4.0 as im holding out on Split and CoH DLC until core game bugs/ QoL issues are sorted, at this rate i suppose im just waiting for Star Citizen 3.13 to drop and ill go back there...i can't deal with the tedium and web searches to get info coz in game sources are non-existent to play a game. Ive tried...if there was some kind of a warning or tip pop up to tell me in game why AI is not working for mining would be great...we can only dream.

Modded save:
1) Removed manager - Re-hired
2) i have slapped on 3xPAR L Container Storage, 2xArgon L Solid Storage, 4xArgon M Solid Storage, 3xTEL M Liquid Storage, 3xArgon L Liquid Storage, 2xArgon L Container storage (to see if its a faction storage issue?!)
3) all product lines are close to 2hr or 5hrs of resources left of production and improving
4) Modules present: 4xSmart chip, 2xMedical Supplies, 2xAntimatter cells, 2xFood production, 2xGraphene, 2xRefined Metals, 3xEnergy Cells
5) 3xArgon L Habitat, 3xEDock capital dock and 12xM ship docks, my ships and capitals dock easy with no apparent access issues
6) Station requires 10mil credits i have given it 15mil credits to cover "costs"
7) 24 sectors explored so far with 120+ resource probes, probably the same if not more satelites in majority of sectors
8 ) trade rule limiting any purchasing of raw material just my own ship deliveries are allowed, and auto amount purchases/ pricing or cheap doesnt matter. ( i am a bit confused on how this works though, ill just go web/ Forum search some moar yay)

Still no Methane mining happening just Hydrogen...so Graphene production is dead...ill try building modules for graphene demand (budget is tight), but then there is no antimatter cells demand so why is it getting hydrogen...

Edit 1: I have added more Argon L Solid/ Container/ Liquid storage 2 modules each, i have added demand for graphene(methane) with hull parts...still no methane mining...i have tried to manually increase storage allocation, and i have also added a new Gas Helium (3rd on the list of mineables for my station ships to mine) this is for superfluid coolant, and helium mining is working fine...they still ignore Methane in my case. Weird they skip Methane to rather mine a newly added gas to the production line-up.

I have also added about 10 more resources probes in adjacent sectors, they refuse to mine whats number 2 on the mineable orders list.

Edit 2: Instead of trying a miner mod, i have resorted to buying 4 new gas miners that use repeat orders to mine "ignored raw material" in my case methane, at this point repeat orders is working, however i will monitor as i have sent them to a 6.5 KM3 zone in The Void, so unless the averages start impacting them and they start mining depleted zones, it seems to be a work around for the bug.

Edit 3: They are now ignoring the newly added helium gas too, and solely focused on mining hydrogen only, so both helium and Methane being ignored. I suppose ill create repeat orders for some of the miners to get helium only now.

[VincentTH]

We just need Egosoft to acknowlege that there is a problem with mining, and I would be happy!!! As I see it, miners only mine up to 2 minerals (Water and Ore, ignoring Silicon for my case).

I have tried having a separate station that mines silicon only & increase the storage amount, but it __kind_of_works, except that for the life of me, I can't make the repeat order (buy from Silicon Mine station, sell to HQ) to work. I have tried various price and amount to no avail. The trade ship just buy from the Silicon mine, but can't sell to the HQ. The HQ have plenty of credit and (container) space for Silicon Wafers, but the ship just quickly loop around buy and sell order without actually doing any trading (after the initial buy from the Silicon mine).

Also, just out of curiosity, everywhere buying and selling from and to the player's stations never involve price and payment, but the Loop command insists on having the correct price for it to work? I wish there is a button (or better yet, the script recognize it automatically) that says this is intra trading, and as such requires no money involved.

[EDIT]
I thought that someone has provided a save game for the devs to look at this problem, but here is my saved game, just in case.

[Kayser99]

We just need Egosoft to acknowlege that there is a problem with mining, and I would be happy!!! As I see it, miners only mine up to 2 minerals (Water and Ore, ignoring Silicon for my case).

I have tried having a separate station that mines silicon only & increase the storage amount, but it __kind_of_works, except that for the life of me, I can't make the repeat order (buy from Silicon Mine station, sell to HQ) to work. I have tried various price and amount to no avail. The trade ship just buy from the Silicon mine, but can't sell to the HQ. The HQ have plenty of credit and (container) space for Silicon Wafers, but the ship just quickly loop around buy and sell order without actually doing any trading (after the initial buy from the Silicon mine).

Also, just out of curiosity, everywhere buying and selling from and to the player's stations never involve price and payment, but the Loop command insists on having the correct price for it to work? I wish there is a button (or better yet, the script recognize it automatically) that says this is intra trading, and as such requires no money involved.

Is Silicon your number 2 mineable ware on the commander mine order instrution, my number 2 ware is methane which they are ignoring? nvm i read you saying its number 3.
Repeat orders of 4 dedicated miners for methane and "selling" to my player owned station has worked, i agree with you, that having cash to "buy" from your own staff or workers is confusing, must be a reason for it. As i have a trade rule exclusion that nobody can sell raw material to my station except my own miners, this would not be necessary if we did not have to buy raw material from our own miners needing a cash float for those "buy" orders. My station needs a cash float of 20mil credits to buy Silicon, Ore, Hydrogen, Helium and Methane (cheapest buy prices)...would love to use that cash on something else.

[Imuniser]

The trade ship just buy from the Silicon mine, but can't sell to the HQ. The HQ have plenty of credit and (container) space for Silicon Wafers, but the ship just quickly loop around buy and sell order without actually doing any trading (after the initial buy from the Silicon mine).

Trade ships do not have a solid cargohold; just container (for finite goods).

[VincentTH]

The trade ship just buy from the Silicon mine, but can't sell to the HQ. The HQ have plenty of credit and (container) space for Silicon Wafers, but the ship just quickly loop around buy and sell order without actually doing any trading (after the initial buy from the Silicon mine).

Trade ships do not have a solid cargohold; just container (for finite goods).

I think I miswrote what I meant.


There are 2 problems:
(1) Mining appears to only mine the first 2 items on the Solid list. This is the main topic of this thread.
(2) People like me, work around the problem by splitting the Silicon mining into a Separate Silicon mine (whose SOLE product is the Silicon Wafer and it is NOT a Solid type product). Then I use Repeat Order to send the Silicon WAFER to the HQ. This does not work either, as the ship -- after the initial buy - keeps looping between Buy and Sell order without doing anything. I have tried various prices, add more fund to the HQ, etc... to no avail either. Manual buy and Sell of Silicon Wafer between the Silicon mine and the HQ works, but tedious, and that proves that it is neither a storage nor a price problem. (See my save game posted above).

If either of the 2 problems is solved, I would be happy

[EDIT] Problem #2 is solved by having some 20M CR in the receiving station.