[X3TC] Is this a problem? (Mobile Mining Operation Antics)

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 04:31

I have a Mobile Mining Operation going on in Ore Belt for supplies for the Hub plot.

Right now, there are 20 Caimen Miners set up to "Mine Minerals: Ore" and two CLSs working at unloading them and carrying the ore to a waiting TL where several dedicated freighters pick it up and transport it to the Hub.

It works. The miners holds are filling up, the CLSs dutifully pick up and transfer those loads so the miners never have to stop, the TL is happy to accept them, the CLS freighters pick up the ore and take it to the Hub. But, I have a question:

Question 1: Is this normal behavior? (See pic)

http://i42.tinypic.com/207rz9i.jpg

All 20 miners sit in one big clustered group. There is no asteroid nearby. They Idle and Manuever, and occasionally Move to Position, which I assume means they're mining. But, their holds fill up, albeit slowly, and the CLSs have no trouble, obviously, finding them and going about their jobs. But, all 20 miners huddled together in one big pack? They NEVER leave this one spot in the sector. Even if I order them to move away and then reissue the Mine Minerals command, they will trundle back to that same spot. None of my other miners do this, but none of my other miners are having their holds emptied via transporter beam, either.

Question 2: What is the extraction rate for miners set to mine Ore? How does it compare to an Ore Mine? This is my first X game, so I'm not sure how long one should expect it to take to mine all the necessary ore for this stage in the Hub plot. Should I focus more on Ore Mines? I'm planning on doing that, anyway. But, just want to put another 10 miners online before I start setting up Ore Mine complexes. (200-300 million in player cash and plenty of ships, in case anyone needs that figure to use in making suggestions.)

Edit - Changed "CAGs" to the correct term - "CLSs."

grumman · Post by **grumman** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 04:46

Yes, it's normal. The game cheats a bit with mobile mining when you do it in another sector, and the clumping is a symptom of that.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 04:52

grumman wrote:Yes, it's normal. The game cheats a bit with mobile mining when you do it in another sector, and the clumping is a symptom of that.

Interesting. How does it know to "cheat?"

I assume because the CLS pilots are unloading the freighters, something in the code for that script tells the freighters to be conveniently located or something? That's.. strange. I've always treated the orders sent to individual ships somewhat.. individually. If the game alters the behavior of one ship due to the orders given to another that just happen to involve it, that's very handy to know!

grumman · Post by **grumman** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 05:08

Morkonan wrote:I assume because the CLS pilots are unloading the freighters, something in the code for that script tells the freighters to be conveniently located or something?

No, it's just that they're all chasing the same patch of ore and don't have to worry about things like colliding with other miners or running out of ore.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 05:52

grumman wrote:
Morkonan wrote:I assume because the CLS pilots are unloading the freighters, something in the code for that script tells the freighters to be conveniently located or something?
No, it's just that they're all chasing the same patch of ore and don't have to worry about things like colliding with other miners or running out of ore.

That's what I originally figured. It must be a very nice bit of ore.. There's no "mapped" asteroids nearby. So, I guess they just found the motherload of smaller asteroid bits, there.

Nividium · Post by **Nividium** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 07:08

What happens if you go in and shoot a bunch of larger rocks down into small collectible sizes and do that in a few dif areas. Would the miners break off into separate groups then?

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 09:27

Nividium wrote:What happens if you go in and shoot a bunch of larger rocks down into small collectible sizes and do that in a few dif areas. Would the miners break off into separate groups then?

I'm going to try that when I get a chance.

Virtualaughing · Post by **Virtualaughing** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 10:19

1 Mobile miners won't touch that asteroids which can have mine on it. Accidents may happen'
2 Maybe you can give more commands to the miners in TC but the Reunion version miners is better... the way how they operate... but the time is shorten in TC
3 You can clear entire sectors from mini asteroids. To the size of "rule" 1
4 You can use Advanced Satelite to increase their operation range
5 You can place ADv Sat off the grid if you wanna clear a specific location in a sector.
6 Use OOS for sure if you wanna save time

AL'42 · Post by **AL'42** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 12:09

Morkonan wrote:
grumman wrote:Yes, it's normal. The game cheats a bit with mobile mining when you do it in another sector, and the clumping is a symptom of that.
Interesting. How does it know to "cheat?"

Cheat, as in cheated in. The miners don’t actually pick up anything, so its hardly surprising they all stay in one area. The collecting is ‘simulated’ by the game engine by having ore (or silicon, or nividium) added to the cargo hold which gives the impression that the mineral debris is constantly re-spawning. (Which gave us the TC exploits).

This has been changed in AP. Break up a big roid now and the rocks will disappear as collecting proceeds.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 12:51

I think X3AP has effectively taken us back in X3 gameplay terms.

Before X3TC Patch 2.1 you could clear sectors of rocks and sub-asteroids by collecting/mining both IS and OOS.

After Patch 2.1 an outcrop of rocks that was totally collected IS with no rocks destroyed did indeed respawn just behind the Player ship and where no rocks had been before.

OOS mining/collecting after patch 2.1 was being 'perfectly executed' and so always resulted in a respawn whether real or simulated such that the mining/collecting ships never moved on from where they clustered to start with. Also the remote mining ships did indeed break up larger rocks OOS so cluttering up the sector even more rather than reducing the rocks.

Jumee · Post by **Jumee** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 13:38

Nividium wrote:What happens if you go in and shoot a bunch of larger rocks down into small collectible sizes and do that in a few dif areas. Would the miners break off into separate groups then?

if you place them in one or two groups - usually by dropping satellite in the middle of debris and telling them to fly to it then yes they will stay in two groups

AL'42 · Post by **AL'42** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 15:05

Alan Phipps wrote:I think X3AP has effectively taken us back in X3 gameplay terms

And a welcome change too. Makes far more sense, leading to more innovative ways of collecting and selling your mineral output.

Although with the re-introduction of the hub in AP, I wonder how much more difficult it will become collecting large amounts of silicon. Presumably once you’ve blown a roid (or an entire sector, which is an easy job providing a huge resource), mine minerals will continue working fine as long as you don’t let the miners fill up their cargo holds ?

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[X3TC] Is this a problem? (Mobile Mining Operation Antics)

[X3TC] Is this a problem? (Mobile Mining Operation Antics)