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[Bonus Plugin] Mobile Mining / Mineral Collection Software

Posted: Fri, 5. Oct 07, 04:21
by moggy2
Name: Mobile Mining / Mineral Collection Software
Version: 3.21
Date: 5.8.2007
Scripter: Bunny, Lucike and SymTec ltd.

Overview:
  • This gets a ship to mine/collect rocks and deliver to a home base or trade them locally
Quickstart:
  1. Give the mobile mining ship the required equipment.
  2. Select "Collect Minerals..." in the special commands menu.
  3. Select the worked sector to mobile mine


Equipment:
  • Required:
  • Ore collector
  • Mineral scanner
  • Special commands software

    Optional:
  • A weapon (the ship will mobile mine rather than just collect)
  • Transporter Device (if home base is a TL)
  • Jump Drive
  • Triplex Scanner (Improves search capability)
  • Satellites (Improves search capability)
  • 25 MJ shields (In sector mining can be risky)


Modes:
  • The script has two modes of operation - supply or trade. The mode is determined by which home base is given to the ship
  • Supply Mode:
    This is selected by setting the homebase to a station that uses minerals as a product or resource. The ship will supply that station only. A TL can be used as a home base but has to remain stationary with the miner is working. Also the mining ship will require a transporter device to deliver the minerals to the ship.
  • Trader Mode:
    This is chosen by either not setting a homebase or selecting one that does not use minerals i.e SPP or cattle ranch etc. The ship will deliver to any factory in a 1 jump range of the worked sector. A check will also be made to see which mineral is in greatest local demand and the ship will concentrate on collect that type.


General Features:
  • Works both in and out of sector
  • Satellite deployment: The ship will check if the rocks it finds are outside of satellite coverage. If they are then it will deploy an on-board satellite. The ship will not purchase or load satellites itself, the player has to stock the ship.
  • The ship checks satellites (nav & adv) in the worked sector to locate collectible rocks within their sensor range. This is in addition to a search made with the ship scanner.
  • During mining the ship will also deploy and collect navigational beacons. The name of the beacon shows the ship ID and the type of mineral it is collecting. This makes looking easy to see what the ships are doing when looking at the sector map.
  • The script contains code to prevent multiple mobile mining ships from bunching up/forming convoys which would otherwise reduce collection efficiency.
  • The ship ignores yield zero rocks
  • If the ship is fitted with a weapon it will break up rocks for collection (unarmed ships will just collect available fragments)
  • The weapon turret with the most fire power is selected for breaking rocks (front or back)
  • The ship will stop and wait for its shield to fully recharge after a rock collision
  • Uses a jump drive if one is fitted. Energy will be taken from the home base for a round trip (this feature is only useful in supply mode)
  • A ship can be forced to collect only one mineral type by placing "Ore" or "Silicon" in the ship/homebase name. Ships with a TL homebase and free trader miners with no homebase can also use "Nividium" to collect this mineral.
  • A standard charge for each unit of minerals delivered to player owned factories is
    • 1 unit ore = 13 credits
      1 unit silicon = 50 credits
      1 unit nividium = 1610 credits
      The charge for deliveries to NPC stations is 10% of the money made. This charge covers pilot wages and costs.
  • If the ship has a problem then a message is sent to the player log.
Supply mode Features:
  • Mines/Collects only the minerals carried by the home base (product or resource)
  • Delivers collected minerals to home base and resumes collecting in the worked sector
  • If the factory cannot pay then the ship will undock and wait in sector for 10-20 minutes before attempting to unload the cargo again.
  • If a delivery to the home base fails to empty the cargo bay to less than 90% full the ship will wait in the home sector for 10-20 mins before attempting to deliver to the home base again. This prevents camping in docking slots and allows the station to use up minerals. The ship will resume collection after a successful delivery.
  • Balanced collection of all minerals that a station uses (ore/silicon/nividium). This means if the station has more than 90% full stock of one mineral then ships will concentrate on collecting the other types that are required. If a station has all mineral stocks levels above 90% then the ship will wait in the home sector till they fall below this limit.
  • Ships with a TL homebase will collect silicon and ore in balanced amounts. This behaviour can be overridden by placing "Ore", "Silicon" or "Nividium" in the mining ship name.


Trader mode Features:
  • The ship checks which mineral is in greatest demand in a 1 jump radius and will mine the required type.
  • The ship finds and delivers to the factory that requires the most units of mineral (Player and NPC factories covered).
  • The ship will continue to deliver to factories until it is empty before resuming mining.
  • Ore and silicon is collected and sold, nividium is not (market is too small for effective trading - use supply mode to collect nividium).


Additional Notes:
  • This script does not create or destroy rocks directly. All of that is done by the game with weapons fire alone, both IS and OOS.
  • This script can improve frame rate in rocky sector after several game hours. Entire sectors can be cleared with enough ships and time
  • Map asteroids will not be mined, only rocks. Break the asteroid to mine it.

    Recommended mining ship - Caiman Miner
    1. It has multiple weapon slots that give it plenty of fire power (breaks rocks more quickly both IS and OOS).
    2. In sector mobile mining performance is better compared to other TS ships.
  • Weapon comments
    IREs - Weak but accurate - IS and OOS rock breaking is slow
    PACs - Reasonable power and accurate - Recommended
    HEPTs - Very Good, if you can get them to fit in the ship
    PSGs - Not recommended - Overkill and has a high risk of friendly fire and collateral damage
    Mass Drivers - Powerful but needs ammo
    Ion Disruptors - No effect on rocks

    Mobile Drilling System - Great OOS/IS rock breaking performance. The rocks that get accidentally destroyed in sector will re-spawn later.

    The Attack Rocks script can also be used on fighters to help mobile mining ships concentrate on collecting rather than mining. Fighters break rocks faster than freighters.

Posted: Thu, 18. Oct 07, 01:54
by Storm666
A couple of questions about the charges:

1. If a ship is collecting ore/silicon to top-up one of your mines… does he still get paid the credit per wafer?

2. Again if a ship is supplying a TL… does he also get paid the same rate?


Btw: really good script, i think I'm going to make a lot of pilots very rich!

Posted: Thu, 18. Oct 07, 10:19
by Bunny
In both cases he should get paid per unit delivered:
1 unit ore = 13 credits
1 unit silicon = 50 credits
1 unit nividium = 1610 credits

If he doesn't get paid then he will send you an message and go on strike for 10 to 20 minutes.

Re: [Bonus Plugin] Mobile Mining / Mineral Collection Software

Posted: Thu, 18. Oct 07, 14:21
by jlehtone
A TL can be used as a home base but has to remain stationary with the miner is working.
"stationary"

Was that any of these?

Code: Select all

speed == 0
command == none
command == standby
(I would feel much safer OOS, if 'Standby' qualifies for 'stationary'.)

Posted: Thu, 18. Oct 07, 14:41
by Bunny
They should all be stationary :P

Posted: Thu, 18. Oct 07, 16:14
by jlehtone
Good. I found the hard way how strict requirements CLS had about "stationary" so I had to check.


Btw, what would be the appropriate abbreviation for this script, as the full name is a bit longish? The initials make MM/MCS, but files contain "BMS". Since "the other" script has "BAR" in it, that makes a nice pair, doesn't it? :roll:


I had Caiman Haulers at disposal (at Goner Temple for JD). Equipped two with MDS+Ore Collector+Scanner. Three Worlds and CBSW, free Trade mode, SPP as home. (Would be nice to get the money into HQ, but for some odd reason the HQ stocks all minerals, and that would be untrading.) No complaints, but then again I hide in Kha'ak sector so I would not hear anything anyway. ;)

Front 4xBIRE, turret 1xMDS. Turret is used?


NB. the unsigned history of this script is in that thread.

Posted: Thu, 18. Oct 07, 16:35
by Bunny
The turret with the most firepower is used (this is also true for attack rocks command).

BMS and BAR are easier to type :)

Posted: Tue, 23. Oct 07, 11:40
by ZingFreelancer
I got this sorta problem in savage spurve... I build a weapon complex. They had good asteroids with good ore and silicon yeld... But after time I desidet to make a new high way to a gate... Since trafic got greatly enchanted when you think of MASS production of all kind of weapons and no resourses is needet.


The problem I run into is that when I broke to much of rocks into small collectabel pieces, I got a HUGE FPS drop. Yes, I started lagging on a C2D 2.8 and x1900GT with 2g ram... After some time I found out that PSG are very good at finishing the job of destroying the smallest rocks. But it is still to much time taking.

My question is that, do this scrip breake all rocks until they are gone or only into small pieces so they can get collected. I do wish thous stupid rocks gone.


Please only post one problem in one topic at a time. Answer here - SymTec ltd.

Posted: Wed, 24. Oct 07, 19:07
by plw
Hi I tried out the mobile mining add on with a caiman miner equipped as recommended 2 x 25mJ etc. It first released a nav beacon and then shortly afterwards lost some of the shield and waited to recover. The next minute it was destroyed leaving only the cargo... any clues as to what might be wrong?

Mobile Mining?

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 00:24
by Daedalus04
Just a thought, has mobile mining been enabled yet? or will i have to get a script or something?

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 00:44
by Bunny
It is in the bonus pack
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=191863

All you need to do is install it.

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 00:51
by Bunny
Some possibilities

1. It might have got in the line of fire of a ship breaking rocks
2. Hit a dense cluster of rocks while trying to slow down after the initial collision
3. Got caught inside a large rock (aggregate) when the ship was viewed.

Two things can be done to avoid these problems
1. Stay out of the worked sector
2. When in sector, do not view the mining ship with F3 mode or target it so it is viewed on the mini monitor. Rock collisions do not occur in sector if the mining ship is not close/being viewed by the player

Cheers

Bunny

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 13:57
by brain13homepage
So observing has its effects then? [ external image ]
I thought IS would be enough to trigger the rocks to heap ...

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 16:05
by jlehtone
Level of detail and performance. There is no point drawing what you cannot possibly see. And since drawn objects probably are involved in "Does this triangle intersect that triangle?", looking away does have a meaning.


Thanks for head-ups though, about to start in sector mining. 400 km of thick fog between me and the rock, and increasing. Too bad, I'd like to open the sector map and its Advanced Satellite video feed to check how the boys are doing. Sounds dangerous.

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 17:52
by Bunny
The Target rock clusters script is good at catching out the graphics on the mini monitor.

When a group is targeted the image will show a couple rocks for a second before the graphic code shows the other rocks in that area.

It is possible to get a similar effect when opening and closing a menu with rocks in the distance background.

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 18:43
by plw
Many thanks for the reply, things seem to have settled down now that they are mining a few sectors away, and I might add they are doing a good job of selling the ore as well. Thanks for the add on.
Bunny wrote:Some possibilities

1. It might have got in the line of fire of a ship breaking rocks
2. Hit a dense cluster of rocks while trying to slow down after the initial collision
3. Got caught inside a large rock (aggregate) when the ship was viewed.

Two things can be done to avoid these problems
1. Stay out of the worked sector
2. When in sector, do not view the mining ship with F3 mode or target it so it is viewed on the mini monitor. Rock collisions do not occur in sector if the mining ship is not close/being viewed by the player

Cheers

Bunny

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 19:37
by jlehtone
Question about designed semantics. A Miner without homebase and thus in trade mode. A player complex of Silicon Mine and Ore Mine (for CLS convenience) with no money (part of closed loop). Now the miner complains that the complex has no money to pay for minerals. Of course it has none, as it needs no money. Needs no minerals either, for it produces them.

I like closed loops. But I prefer them truly closed. No trader of mine is allowed into them without my explicit permission. Poor Miner apparently does know this company policy ... yet.

What is Bun Nyak Software Corporation's recommended amount of lashes for insubordination? :twisted:

Posted: Fri, 26. Oct 07, 23:49
by Bunny
The miner has a wife and kids to feed - he needs to be paid :P

Posted: Sat, 27. Oct 07, 01:24
by seethestar
Question - im probably missing something obvious... but cant work it out..

I equipped a paranid freighter with a Mobile drilling system in its turret - along with the ore collector and the mineral scanner - sent it off to mine some asteroids for me in paranid space...

"message - no place i could wsell so im stopping" - ok so i sent it somewhere else - this time no message - just it flys around in circles and never gets anywhere close to destroying a roid - let alone mining for me...

anyone else experienced the "drunken bumblebee" effect from this command?

(note this is all OOS - not tried it in secotr yet)

Posted: Sat, 27. Oct 07, 08:28
by Pogi
Sounds to me like you sent him to a sector where there is no debri to mine...If there is no debri "only" astroids, you need to break them yourselves in order to collect them...Zero debri loads will be ignored by these miners, there is plenty of zero debri out there too.