About the "Mine minerals..." command

[Godzii]

Hi,

I've been toying / trying to understand this command today, mainly because I intended to remotely mine Nividium for some mission.

Well I couldn't get that command to work with Nividium because there's no Nividium option under the control panel, so much for that.

But now with Ice, it seems very strange to me. I ordered a TS to "Mine minerals..." Ice near an asteroid that yields Ice (yeah). Moved it to position of said asteroid, launched the command and... nothing. The TS would beep me that he has finished his job, with 0 Ice in the cargo.

So I tried again and again, checked that he had Mobile Drilling System equipped - he had, on the back turret (doesn't matter, just funny to note), and yet he kept beeping me "job's done" after 10 seconds..

I tried manually and this is indeed an Ice roid that he could have mine.

So I took control of it, mined some to show him how it goes, and initiated the command again... nothing.

Untill just 10 min ago, when I tried a last time just before posting this, and it actually worked.

So two questions :

1°) can the "Mine minerals..." command be used with Nividium? (not collect, mine)
2°) is the command broken with Ice or wth was that?

In advance, thanks

[Ebonyfly]

- Nope, you can't use the 'Mine Minerals' command for Nvidium. You have to use 'Collect rocks' instead.

- I don't know of any specific problems with Ice mining but i've never tried it myself. Make sure your ship has a mineral scanner and ore collector. It might also help to break up the Ice asteroid first and order your ship to mine minerals on the resulting Ice rocks.

[Threesixtyci]

If that Ice Asteroid was the normal huge size (the size that you place a factory mine, on). AI will not shoot at those Asteroids on their own. You have to break it up manually, then they will mine the pieces. (which also means they don't need the mining gun.... In that you're better off staying away from the specialty miner TS ships and just get a regular TS and equip normal guns onto it, the special software, and a mining scoop.

Also, Ego patched TC where the rocks never vanish. They respawn after the last rock is absorbed (I don't really like that change they made, personally. Created the Nividium mining exploit and made it impossible to clear a sector of those tiny rocks while earning cash.)

[Morkonan]

As I understand it, AI ships will not try to break up asteroids that are listed on the Sector List. But, others are fair game.

So, if it's an Ice Asteroid that's on the Sector List (And, that means you can plant a station on it.) then you have to break it up manually, as detailed above.

I like the idea that asteroids respawn, after a time. This is much more realistic, believe it or not. An actual "Asteroid Field" could have millions of asteroids within it, small and large. (Well, hundreds of thousands, realistically.) But, that can't be represented in the game in any way other than respawning them after a long period of time.

Otherwise, you could mine all the asteroids, everywhere, and there would never again be an asteroid in the entire game.. ever.. forever.. That's not realistic. Given that some people have played the same game for years, I think they'd appreciate having asteroids respawn.

[Godzii]

Maybe they could respawn after a while, not instantly.

Thanks for all that guys, didn't know mobile miners wouldn't break the 'stationable' roids, and that explains a lot. I guess the "Survey Debry..." command is superior to the "Scan Asteroids..." command for automated mining, then.

Also, i followed one of my miner IS and yes, it didn't use the Mobile Drilling System at all, it just shot at roids with his front turrets. That was cute to see, too.

Which somewhat contradict what is said above, since the 'miner' version of the ships (e.g. caiman miner) do not come with the Mobile Drilling System (only ore collector and mineral scanner are stock). And they come with regular guns, too, so they're still a viable option.

Cheers!


Btw, am curious to see how an automated miner would behave IS if I install a single regular gun.... in the back turret dance much?

[Alan Phipps]

@ Godzii: For mining debris fields or a full asteroid that you have broken once with a high-yield missile or the MDS, a light weapon (PAC. PRG or even IRE) in the back turret of ships without forward guns (eg miners) is far superior to the MDS for remote 'mine minerals' and 'mine and trade minerals' as the turret turns and fires much more quickly. Except for personal or directly commanded breaking of full asteroids, the expensive and bulky MDS is only useful for selling as a ware. Rock collectors do not use lasers or break rocks so it does not matter for them.

Also yes, miners do have to dance IS to get the rear turret to bear and they also meanwhile try (and often fail) to avoid collisions with bigger rocks and other ships and so scatter which makes IS mining generally ill-advised. TMs with front turrets fitted with light weapons make better IS miners.

@ Morkonan: I agree that the full asteroids respawning after time is fine (unless you built a mine on it) and to my mind was enough since you had to go and break it again. It is the immediate respawn of small rock clusters immediately after all rocks from the cluster are collected (since patch 2.1 both OOS and IS - although there is a chance of breaking the respawn by accidentally destroying rocks IS) that has made remote mining and collecting an unrealistic cashcow exploit.

[Morkonan]

,,,
Btw, am curious to see how an automated miner would behave IS if I install a single regular gun.... in the back turret dance much?

When I first started playing, I captured a Demeter and outfitted it for mining. I put him in Terran Space, in the Asteroid Belt, and let him go to work. I checked to be sure he was doing OK and then left him alone.. At least, I thought he was doing OK.

Well, he was. But, when traveling through one day, I noticed his shields going down. Thinking he was caught up in a collision detection loop, I ordered him to Stop, Move to Position away from any rocks, and then reset him back to mining. That didn't work, but his shields never went below 70% or so, anyway. So, I got up close to him to get a good look at what he was having problems with.

There wasn't a problem... He was ramming asteroids with his shields. It seems he didn't care what weapon he had, he preferred getting a running start and then ramming asteroids until they broke up into little pieces. I watched him for a few minutes, happily banging his head against rocks, and then let him be. I figured there was nothing I could do for him and, to be honest, it looked like he was enjoying it too much for me to bother him.

Tinypic - Here he is, about to ram another one. Notice the shield strength. (jpg-fullscreen)

Way to go, miner dude! Rock on!

[Alan Phipps]

Yes IS you will get collisions (whether deliberate or auto-pillock) but even OOS there is apparently a very small chance of a very little hull damage on collecting a rock as coded into the mine minerals scripts - whether that changed with patches I am unsure.

[Morkonan]

..
@ Morkonan: I agree that the full asteroids respawning after time is fine (unless you built a mine on it) and to my mind was enough since you had to go and break it again. It is the immediate respawn of small rock clusters immediately after all rocks from the cluster are collected (since patch 2.1 both OOS and IS - although there is a chance of breaking the respawn by accidentally destroying rocks IS) that has made remote mining and collecting an unrealistic cashcow exploit.

I read something, somewhere, that read like a dev blog concerning asteroids and accumulation. There's a part of the engine that actually takes into account bits and pieces of asteroids "accumulating" like chaff. I've seen in in several sectors, where there will be vast swaths of small collectable rocks, with no indication that anyone has been in there creating them. There was some talk about the accumulation of rocks getting out of hand, but, IIRC, it was to be "fixed." Not sure if that applies here.

IMO, there's no problem here with "exploiting" mining with ore and silicon, perhaps even ice for Terrans. But, when applying it to nividium, it might be a bit much. (But, since I am not capping ships for cash (or anything else) in this game, unless very necessary, I think I'll be mining some nividium using this "exploit" to help get a boost for the Hub plot.)

[Alan Phipps]

IS rock accumulation or reaggregation actually works the other way. If the Player has prepared an asteroid or debris field for collection by breaking loads of rocks down to the smallest size and then moves all Player ships away from the area for some reason, there is a chance that the game will reaggregate all the small rocks in that cluster into a bigger (low-yield) rock. This was allegedly a precaution to improve fps in a sector with too many small rocks.

It does not happen when a Player ship is near the rocks. This is why I advise breaking only a few medium sized rocks down to smallest size (respawning means that is enough to keep collection going forever) and then keep the collection ships close by while you go OOS before starting them off collecting.

[AgamemnonArgon]

As long as one does not return to the Sector being mined,the Nividium can respawn.
For the sake of one Sector and so many Credits, I'm always happy to leave my Mistral Superfreighters to carry on mining....

[deca.death]

Hi,

I've been toying / trying to understand this command today, mainly because I intended to remotely mine Nividium for some mission.

Read guide linked below my sig, if you haven't already.

[Morkonan]

IS rock accumulation or reaggregation actually works the other way. ...This was allegedly a precaution to improve fps in a sector with too many small rocks. ..

Ah! Thanks for that clarification!