[3.30 Beta 1] Changes to mining query

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Since applying 3.30 Beta 1 to my existing game, I've noticed that station-assigned mining ships seem to have slowed down a lot. I noticed one of my station, that admittedly needs a LOT of Ore, was starting to run low. Previously, the assigned mining ships - two Large, six Medium - had been easily supplying what the station needed. I've now added six more M-Class miners and the station is still really struggling with Ore with Refined Metal Modules (20 of them) regularly ALL stalling.

I did wonder if I'd over-mined the area - station is in Argon Prime - but things had been going perfectly well until I updated. Do my own mining ships NEED Resource Probes now or work efficiently? Should I be placing them myself to find good spots? I know previously Probe placement had zero impact on where my ships would mine, perhaps that's changed.

Game is modified, but I thought I'd ask if something is different, as my mining ships are all vanilla - no mods to change mining behaviour.

Scoob.

[Scoob]

It seems that Resource Probes are near essential now for station miners. My ships were gathering Ore, but so very slowly. I got another ship to place several Probes around the resource ring in Argon Prime and my Miners went NUTS flying to these locations. They seemed scattered all over the place previously - the exception being many had flown to Grand Exchange I and were clustered around the Probe I placed there during the HQ Plot. I didn't notice this initially.

So, my Miners were flying several sectors away to the ONE Resource Probe I'd deployed in the game. This is an interesting mechanic and makes sense, though I think it needs to be explained further in the update notes to make it clear that Players need to do this too ideally.

Scoob.

[Imperial Good]

In unmodified games it looks like they now try to use resource probes if available. I would suggest scattering around 9 or 16 of them near where the ships used to mine and close to the station. Hopefully they will select an optimal place to mine based on that information and mining rates will go up.

This is assuming that mining rates were not changed slightly for balancing reasons.

[Scoob]

In unmodified games it looks like they now try to use resource probes if available. I would suggest scattering around 9 or 16 of them near where the ships used to mine and close to the station. Hopefully they will select an optimal place to mine based on that information and mining rates will go up.

This is assuming that mining rates were not changed slightly for balancing reasons.

Yes, that looks to be exactly what's happening. It's a GOOD change, but I was shocked how bad my Mining ships are when there are no Probes present. Popping down some Probes has seen my station become fully fed Ore-wise within about 15-20 minutes. I don't mean it's full, rather that supply out strips demand once more.

Do our Mining ships proactively use Resource Probes if they are given them now? That might be a good was to automate the prospecting aspect...

Scoob.

[alt3rn1ty]

It has been a good change, prior to 3.30 B1 I had quite a few resource probes scattered around Grand Exchange 1 trying to encourage miners to work better. The player HQ needs Ice to produce a lot of water in my setup. I went through purchasing different miners as my bank balance grew, in hopes the bigger they got the more yield they would bring in. Ended up with 4 Alligators after getting friendly with the split, but they still could not keep up with demand and I was considering just collecting the resource probes ..

.. Then 3.3 came along and fortunately I left the probes where they were. My Alligators working for the PHQ Ice mining, are now a heck of a lot better.

I haven't seen them trying to get Probes, but only two of them have got just over 3 star pilots, the other two are 2 and 2 third stars.
I thought about getting them topped up with probes manually to see if they would deploy them, but really I want to see if more experience will make them get their own .. I think I have got a bit of a long wait for that scenario to become a reality.

Anyway I agree, really nice change and makes the miners more effective, so much so I have had to rethink storage a few times since.

[alt3rn1ty]

Forgot to mention:
Personally I'm happy deploying probes myself (and collecting ones which dont find much yield)
Especially if adding to the scripting of miners with such detail as deploying and replenishing stocks (and potentially spamming deployment of probes), could lead to slow down of the game.
I always remember how a mod (OK traders for X3AP) could lead to reducing game performance if you had more than 10 traders using it (depending how yoou had them set up). I guess Egosoft have to be careful on scripting budgets.