[Bonus Plugin] Mobile Mining / Mineral Collection Software

[jlehtone]

The miner has a wife and kids to feed - he needs to be paid

I know that. IIRC, I rescued them three months ago from a Split Cartel, so kids name is probably Jul'n. Even arranged a protected home for them at my SPP XL. So if they need anything, they have that at home.

My grief is that this miner insists on selling to a place that I want to keep "off-limits". Had I a Forge short on Minerals, I would have vash at that Forge to pay for whomever delivers. And primarily I'd like to see that Miner deliver to the NPC industry. Too bad Three Worlds (+1 jump) has little, and my regular mines probably saturate part of that market already.

But this Complex.
* Trade with other races: No
* Trade Intermediates: None (well, there are no intermediates in the complex)
* Trader Barrier (Commercial Agents)
* Credits in account: 0

Wait, "greatest demand" says the flight procedure. So filling the stock in complex is the only way to keep the Miner out? I have to talk with my Logistics chief about that.

[Pogi]

@jlehtone

So filling the stock in complex is the only way to keep the Miner out?

I'm with you on that...These pilots we hire and pay wages are supposed to have a brain are they not?..They are supposed to take orders and be able to follow them as well..I am really looking forward to the day/patch/X-version that addresses that issue. We need more control over these pilots orders. In the real world if I hired a trucker to deliver a load for me, by gosh he would deliver it where I wanted him to deliver it..period...Or he would not work for me very long.

[jlehtone]

These pilots have brains, and even this detail is perfectly sane default. Ask any Teladi and she will explain why closed loops and complexes lose profitsss.


A configuration flag perhaps? Maybe adding a check for "Trade with other races" of destination, if Miner has Trading Systems Extension? No need for extra command slot.

[Pogi]

Not really focusing on these pilots in this bonus pack, just pilots in general.......................

I really like what BOF did with his "Remote Docked Freight Transfer", giving the player clickable, multiple choices......Question: Can sub-routines for these pilots be ran from that type of interface?.....If so, that would seem to me to be the best way to add additional commands to be able to fine-tune these pilots orders...

Commodity Logistics Software (which in my opinion needs a healthy dose of user friendliness), could even benefit from the BOF approach. People don't want to have to remember or manually input loads of data to get their pilot working for them..It should be multiple choice and click...Just my thoughts.

[jlehtone]

Collection "statistics":

Had a simple plan for in sector mining:
1. Enter Kha'ak sector
2. Break one map asteroid
3. Collect Nividium

* Started with 9 Caiman Miners, fully tuned, with MDS in back turret.
* Orca right above the mined asteroid, unloading should be quick.
* Added two Centaurs, 4 MDS on front: 'Attack Rocks'
* Insufficient defences: Kha'ak seem to target soft targets rather than M2's. Most Navigation Beacons shot out.
* Insufficient defences 2: no Fighter Drones on those Caimans.
=> Four Caimans destroyed near start (last of them had maybe 100 units of Nividium on board).

* Added defence fighters.
* Called in 10 unarmed Falcon Haulers to 'Collect Minerals'.
* Added 100 Fighter Drones to each remaining Caiman.
=> Navigation Beacons get shot like before, Drones have saved Caimans from further losses.

* Caiman Miner can hold a lot of Nividium. Loss of nearly full one would be expensive.
* Falcon Hauler is slower, more agile, smaller, and more shielded than Caiman. Much better chance to avoid collisions (and maybe attacks.) And clears its hold frequently.


After about 8 hours of mining, there are about 10.000 units of Nividium in the ships. That is around 1.200 units per hour, 20 units per minute. Ie one ship collects about one unit in one minute, in sector.

I wonder how much they would gather in "optimal" setup?

Edit: RTFM A guide written by certain Bunny says:
"3 mil per hour". Doesn't that resolve to about 6 units per minute per ship?

[Bunny]

Put lots of satellites in the system to keep the ships spread out. This stops them chasing the same rocks and therefore ups the collection efficiency.

[jlehtone]

Does it matter if I drop satellites after, as collectors are already active? I assume not.

Status: 13.000 units of Nividium after 10 hours.
(Bloody Kha'ak eat my satellites almost quicker than I drop them. Ie this is even more fun than anticipated. )

[Bunny]

No problem, they find the new ones.

So how do you keep the khaak at bay?

[jlehtone]

So how do you keep the khaak at bay?

I'd say there are three groups of Kha'ak:
1. BigShips and their escorts.
2. Single KM5, KM4, KM3
3. What spawns around personal ship frequently (from 3 KM5 to couple broken medium-sized clusters).

1 and 2 respawn near center if killed. Group 3 is always around you.

Killing group 1 would cause obvious havoc. Killing group 2 is unavoidable.

Group 1 chases the first target that gets close to them (KM2 "see" at least 35 km, KM1 about 9 km). Their fighters stay in formation, unless you get to within 3 km or kill the BigShip. The obvious stunt is to make all BigShips see you and chase you. Then you can draw them where-ever you like. But the "rabbit" has to be you, for AI is not so clever.

Ahh, you say that those KM1 and KM2 are fast? True, they were fast before PPC fire punched holes into their hulls, slowing them down. Took a while and couple died accidentally, but now their "top dog" is down to 27 m/s. And they are all somewhere out there, chasing my ship (which is now 800 km from the centre).

The group 3: I fly Oddy. Its shields recover quickly enough.


That leaves group 2. They are the real problem. Some of them spawn right in the middle of collector-fleet. Even a KM5 can kill a Satellite or Beacon before my defences reach it.

I started by placing a ring of FAA-ships around the asteroid. They have no command, but their turrets are on "Attack all", and they have Mosquito Missile Defence. Too bad some group 2 ignores them.

Group Management System groups of five ship. Three escorts attack the target of leader, fourth protects. The leader runs "Defend Position", but they tend to cluster to points where the last intruder was killed.

Currently I have there (IIRC) 5 Medusa groups, 2 Chimera, 2 Mamba-R (inteded to buy Chims, but were careless), 3 L, 2 M, 2 Nova-V. So about 80 fighters. The M (APBE) are good against those KM5. And Caimans had 100 Drones each.

This is in sector. One Mamba has been killed by Asteroid. One Medusa group decided to attack Kha'ak Station, but luckily none of them died (they are now in PHQ for repairs), and I had to remove the Station with Zeus (using the remote piloting via Monitor).


Had I chosen a different Asteroid, far in the west, the group 2 would probably not spawn so close. Besides, the one I'm on has other Asteroids very near to it, so there is plenty to collide to.


Does that answer the question?

[jlehtone]

Addition of satellites does help a bit, although some clustering is still observed.

Kha'ak find Lasertowers attractive. Reduces beacon casualties a tiny bit.

There was one Falcon collector that messaged "Bay over 90% full, waiting". Its bay was 100% full, mother-TL had plenty of room, and this Falcon was about 30 km away from everybody else. No rocks out there.


Status: over 30.000 units of Nividium after 23 hours.

[Incubi]

This is a minor bug, but worth mentioning. Pilots being made in argon space are getting teladi names, and pilots being made in teladi space are getting Argon names. So far this only happens with this command and attack asteroid command. Other than that I am loving how much easier my nvidium operations are now
I am using busters for attack asteroid commands. for one simple reason. names are
Nvidium Buster, Ore Buster, and Silicon Buster

unrelated spoiler

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consider letting a mineral gatheror loose in Home of Light. a couple type 0 silicon rock clusters there and lots of local places buying it.

[jlehtone]

In both cases he should get paid per unit delivered

Minor exploit? I do watch my in sector mining operation, and since those TS take a long time to fill up, I have manually cleared their hold to prevent excessive losses to the enemy actions. Does this mean that they do not get paid, as they hardly ever deliver to TL?

[Bunny]

Hmm, yeap that is an exploit. But the hassle of having to keep micromanaging the miners probably is balanced by the savings made .

[LV]

I must admit here that i've not had goog results here, in one test with a mining caimen (poss DDRS) it naffed off way off position to where no roids where when using break up

then collect rocks seemed to not collect anything, this must be on my part but i don't know why

[jlehtone]

"no roids" as in "no small rock fragments that do not show on the map anyway"? If the "Break asteroids" does not see anything to break in (sat) scanner range, it does "wander off" to look for some more.

"collect rocks" or "collect minerals"? Former is a stock command (ie not smart), the latter from Bunny.

[kotekzot]

it would be great if ships without a homebase could use trader mode. otherwise, great script, thanks a lot.

[jlehtone]

it would be great if ships without a homebase could use trader mode. otherwise, great script, thanks a lot.

Ships without homebase are in Trader mode, AFAIK.

[kotekzot]

it would be great if ships without a homebase could use trader mode. otherwise, great script, thanks a lot.

:? Ships without homebase are in Trader mode, AFAIK.

oh lol. thanks, for some reason i thought you needed to assign a homebase for that command to work.

[jlehtone]

If the homebase is set, then they are either in supply mode or in trade mode, depending ...
1. Home has stock for mineral, then supply
2. Home is a TL, then supply
3. else trade

[jlehtone]

Some collection rate observations.

First, a strictly in sector operation, no SETA at all. Some notes about it are in my previous comments and more extensive tale here. 53,776 units of Nividium in 36.5 hours. At no point there were more than 15 collecting ships, so the overall collection rate was at least 98 units per ship per hour. The asteroids in are do not have particularly high yields.

Twice during that time one (unarmed) Falcon Hauler BMS collector had full hold and was far away from others, and did sent "Hold nearly full, waiting" message, even though the mothership TL had plenty of room.


The rest of observations are from OOS collection and SETA has been used for travel, ie in short bursts.

BAR-Buster: Buster (L), ie 4 PAC, full tunings, on Attack Rocks.
BMS-Cai-M: Caiman Miner (L), ie 4 BIRE, full tunings, MDS added to turret, Collect Minerals.

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Kingdom End

* Start BAR-Buster-Nividium, BAR-Buster-Ore, and BAR-Buster-Silicon on the sector.
* A bit later start three similarly dedicated BMS-Cai-M, homed to TL.
* Count collected units every hour.
* BMS-Cai-M-Nividium collected total of 1012 units, 74.7 units per hour.
* BMS-Cai-M-Ore collected 77 units per hour.
* BMS-Cai-M-Silicon collected 95 units per hour.

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Queen's Space

* Start two BAR-Buster-Nividium on the sector.
* A bit later start two BMS-Cai-M-Nividium, homed to TL.
* Total collected units: 1113 units in 7:16, ie 75.7 units per hour per ship.

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Seizewell

* Start one BAR-Buster-Nividium on the sector.
* A bit later start one BMS-Cai-M-Nividium, homed to TL.
* Total collected units: 499 units in 5:18, ie 94 units per hour per ship.
Note: The sector already had a BMS-Cai-M on trade mode (ought not to touch Nividium), and the BAR-Buster moved first to the position of Beacon-Ore.

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Scale Plate Green

* Personally observed yield 25 cluster.
* Distributed 9 AdvSat on and around the site (all within 10 km from center).
* Start two BAR-Centaur (equipped with 4 MDS, one in each turret including front, and yes I know they are not all used).
* A bit later start one BMS-Cai-M-Nividium, homed to TL.
* After 11 hours, Cai-M had 986 units, ie 89.5 units per hour.
* Removed Cai-M

* Started 6 unarmed Falcon Haulers on BMS.
* After 6 hours, the 6 Haulers had collected 3,573 units, ie 100 units per hour per ship.

* Added three more BMS-F.Haulers, and three BAR-Falcons and two BAR-Busters.
* The 9 Falcon Haulers collected 10,712 units in 12:16. That makes average of 98.7 units per ship per hour. But for the first 9 hours the rate was 100 units per ship per hour, and declined in the end.

That makes total of 15,271 units from one Nividium cluster, and 9 ships can collect simultaneously without slowing each other.


But I'm still more impressed about the collection rate in sector, as one would expect all that collision avoidance to show somewhere.


Standard scale S Forge consumes 150 units of Ore per hour. It seems that two BMS ships can keep it supplied.
Standard scale M Silicon consumer station needs 2*900/24 = 75 units per hour. One BMS ship may be just enough.