[4.10] No way to prevent player mining ships mine outside of "normal" sector hexagon

[Old Drullo321]

4.10 changed the following (quote from changelog):
* Fixed player-owned mining ships finding resources in undiscovered areas of known sectors.

My issue may not be exactly related to this, but maybe it is.

If you set up any kind of mining ship (station, automine, etc.) in a sector where you never expanded and discovered areas outside the normal displayed boundary of a sector, they only operate in this area. That works fine so far.

However, if you explored the sector further away outside of the usual boundary, for example following the mineral "trails"/lines in Pious Mist XI or IV and then the visible hexagon went to normal, the area seems to count as discovered for your miners. They start to take absurd long distances to take mining opportunities in this area. It can take very long to reach there, and sometimes they try to went from one side of this outside area to another.

The mining behaviour could be improved the following way to prevent this issue:
* Disallow mining activities outside of the currently visible sector boundaries
* If the player wants to enforce miners to mine outside of the normal boundaries he can easily do this by placing objects (probes, satellites, etc.) there to force the visibile hexagon stay larger then usual.

Combined skill level was at least 3, most often 4

=> I will provide a screenshot and savegame the next time I encounter the issue, just forget to take one the last time.

Edit: Albeit while not perfect and one of the less extreme cases the following screenshot should illustrate the issue:
https://abload.de/img/screenshot524gjkfm.png

Edit2: Another one https://abload.de/img/screenshot5275zkdz.png

[Old Drullo321]

Screenshot: https://abload.de/img/screenshot5947ujyt.png

Here another example. They simply go there where the player doesn't want them to go for certain reasons:

* Mining ships benefit from ressource probes. So they don't benefit from them far outside the usual region.
* Maybe it is too dangerous out there. For example, this is Pious Mist IV, a designated Khaak Base Spawnpoint. The player can set patrols, local area defense, etc. but not for regions outside the usual displayed sector area
* Simply way too long travel distance. For example I carefully set up a (for me) perfect loadout for my miner. If I expect them to travel those distances I would have equipped them differently

If the player never explores outside of the initial hexagon, those ships never behave this way. It only occurs when the player expanded those borders. That would be fine if the player forces the sector hexagon to stay large, he is able to if he places satellites, preventing the hexagon to switch back. But he isn't able to control this behaviour if they do it on their own.
I simply don't want them to go there. It would be really nice if you can consider this and maybe improve the algorithm a little bit.

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Screenshot2: https://abload.de/img/screenshot596aaj6x.png

ANd here is another example where initial exploration backfired and actually punishes the player.

[Old Drullo321]

Screenshot: https://abload.de/img/screenshot6140qjsw.png as another example (Pious Mist XI)
Savegame: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hE7R0G ... sp=sharing (Same time as screenshot taken)

Is it possible to upload savegames packed as 7zip 7z instead zip for you? It is miles faster to pack/unpack.

[Imperial Good]

The screenshots show miners working well within the visible hexagon area and traveling not that far given miners are among the fastest ships. I am not even sure most resource fields are extended beyond the visible hexagon, with the only one I know of being Nopelios's Fortune.

I am assuming by visible hexagon you mean the huge unrevealed hexagon that is visible if you fly out 100,000 kms, past which the map just shows void (no hexagon grid). Usually seen if for some reason an object is ejected a huge distance.

Screenshot2: https://abload.de/img/screenshot596aaj6x.png

This is expected. That is where the good yield resources are in Eighteen Billion.

[Old Drullo321]

I think you missed my point and/or i didn't explain it well:

A) Miners can mine in the area explored by the player => This for itself works. I explain the twist below
B) Each sector has an initial hexagon, be it explored or undiscovered. This hexagon extensible in both directions, growing and shrinking. This can be done by moving ships to the borders and back to the middle. It can stay extended when you place static or nearly static objects at the extended area (stations, satellites, ressources probes) => This for itself works too

And now comes the twist. Assume you extended and completely explored a sector. Then you shrinked the area back to normal. Now:
C) Miners behave like A with the exception that they travel for themselves outside of the visible hexagon into regions formerly explored by the player.


Why is this an issue? I will point out several:

1. You can blacklist/whitelist sectors and subsectors perfectly for ships to travel or do activities. However you can't do the same for in-sector behavior. This is normally not neccessary. However this may be an issue in sectors with enemy activities like Pious Mist IV where a player workarround could be to set up patrols all arround the visible area. But oh wait, you don't know how far and where those miners go....

2. The player specifies loadout for (mining) ships with certain critiera. For example mining speed is affected by normal ship speed. Layout out ressource probes and following the normal visible range, players take decisions, for example using Split Engines, assuming the mining speed boost is greater then the in sector travel time lost in comparison to for example Terran engines (if only mine in-sector via Hub or Auto-Mine behaviour). Behaving totally random as to where to mine in-sector (like 5km in front of station or goging way beyong the initial visible hexagon) makes behaviour completely random and takes the "Think" (equip ships properly for their job) part out of X4.

3. Exploration should be a neutral or positive activity, actively encouraging the player to do so, for example by finding abandoned ships and loot boxes. But because of this random and uncontrollable behaviour the player is punished for exploring. This doesn't feel right

4. You have no choice to stop this behaviour. However if the reverse was true (miners mine only in the explored and actively visible area of the hexagon), players would be able to control this feature by either leaving the area without vision or actively expand the visible hexagon by actions I described above

[Imperial Good]

B) Each sector has an initial hexagon, be it explored or undiscovered. This hexagon extensible in both directions, growing and shrinking. This can be done by moving ships to the borders and back to the middle. It can stay extended when you place static or nearly static objects at the extended area (stations, satellites, ressources probes) => This for itself works too

This is just a view of the map. It shrinks to the smallest subset of objects that are know. I do not think it is practical to tie mechanics to it.

C) Miners behave like A with the exception that they travel for themselves outside of the visible hexagon into regions formerly explored by the player.

This does not matter as long as cost analysis would result in it being good that they do so. For example Eighteen Billion they have to travel that far because the yield is near 0 before that distance. They could spend hours trying to mine unless they travel to the location shown in the screenshot, where the mineables are mostly located in Eighteen Billion.

Pious Mists is exactly the same. The mineable field is as good as empty near the middle of the sector. The high yield, and so fast to mine, resources are located far out which is where the miners are going to mine. They are not even going that far, probably mining around where high yield starts.

I do agree that in the Pious Mists example the miners deciding to swap sides of the field is not ideal.

2. The player specifies loadout for (mining) ships with certain critiera. For example mining speed is affected by normal ship speed. Layout out ressource probes and following the normal visible range, players take decisions, for example using Split Engines, assuming the mining speed boost is greater then the in sector travel time lost in comparison to for example Terran engines (if only mine in-sector via Hub or Auto-Mine behaviour). Behaving totally random as to where to mine in-sector (like 5km in front of station or goging way beyong the initial visible hexagon) makes behaviour completely random and takes the "Think" (equip ships properly for their job) part out of X4.

In this case you need to select mining sites appropriately then. Eighteen Billion and Pious Mists favour high travel speed as the high yield parts are far away from the centre. On the other hand The Reach, Family Zhin and Saturn 2 favour flight speed as the high yield resource fields are right at the centre.

3. Exploration should be a neutral or positive activity, actively encouraging the player to do so, for example by finding abandoned ships and loot boxes. But because of this random and uncontrollable behaviour the player is punished for exploring. This doesn't feel right

Abandoned ships are in fixed, known locations. Lock boxes randomly spawn around the player, even in areas they have already uncovered.

4. You have no choice to stop this behaviour. However if the reverse was true (miners mine only in the explored and actively visible area of the hexagon), players would be able to control this feature by either leaving the area without vision or actively expand the visible hexagon by actions I described above

I do agree that ideally you should be able to define mining zones similar to plots to help limit where miners go, possibly to areas that are well defended or practical to mine. However arbitrarily deciding that should be the current zoom level of the map I do not think makes sense as it might result in more impractical mining behaviour rather than less.