[X3AP] Mobile mining in AP: worth the effort?

[Zolt]

So I've been experimenting with mobile mining in AP, as it had worked well for me in TC. I started out using deca.death's excellent guide from TC, but quickly found out there were a few differences.

- Several 25MJ shields are now a MUST. Ships now take hull damage from mining even when you're OOS. After a couple hours, almost half my fleet of 5MJ shielded ships needed urgent repairs.

- If using the collect rocks command, ships will quickly run out of stuff to collect, even if you've spent considerable time blowing asteroids into little chunks.

- Using the "mine minerals" command works better, but for ships that don't have a homebase, they will stop doing anything after a short while (Command still active but action is none). Homebased ships seem to fare better so far but will I need to re-issue the command every so often?

- I'm still experimenting on which ship to use. So far a Caiman with 2x25MJ, ore collector, mineral scan, special commands soft and one IRE seems to work best. I also use some Demeter Miners but they won't equip IREs so you need to find some drilling system for them which can be a pain to equip large numbers.

- Most important of all is the yield. So far my test group of 20 ships (disparate models but mostly caimans and demeters). Minimum cost for a miner ship is about 400k, so that's 8 mil for 20 of them. They are mining in the remains of a lvl 41 Silicon asteroid, blown to tiny pieces by me. They seem to harvest enough silicon to feed 4 Crystal Fab L, so about 750/hr, maybe 800. That's just about the output of a couple good Silicon L mines at 50, or 4 of them at 25, for over twice the cost, not even including the TL and CAGs.

Has anyone obtained better yields? I recall having much better results in TC, but so far in AP I cannot recommend mobile mining unless you're really desperate for Silicon/Ore and are willing to spend the time to setup hundreds of miners.

[bizbag]

Quite honestly, I don't care for it. It's so easy to just buy a mine and supply it with ECells. Nividium, sure, mobile mine it if you need some, buy ore and silicon? Eh.

[Zolt]

Quite honestly, I don't care for it. It's so easy to just buy a mine and supply it with ECells. Nividium, sure, mobile mine it if you need some, buy ore and silicon? Eh.

That's what I'm tempted to conclude, yes. I just wanted to see if anyone had better experience with it in AP.

The advantage of mobile mining in TC was that it scaled up well, you could use it to feed some absurdly massive complexes, of the kind needed to complete the Hub quest. Of course, there's no need for that either in AP.

[DrBullwinkle]

Mobile Mining itself is the same in AP as it is in TC, AFAIK. However, rock consolidation is different: Small rocks do re-assemble back into larger rocks when you turn away from them. This is an automatic feature of the game to improve frame rate. AP is somewhat more aggressive about it than TC.

As you suggest, the solution is to order your miners to "Mine Minerals" rather than to "Collect Rocks". With Mine Minerals, the only work that you will have to do personally is to break the large asteroids (the ones that show on the map). A single Hornet is sufficient for that task. Then you can leave the sector and command your miners OOS.

The only reason to use "Collect Rocks" is to collect Nividium, which the vanilla "Mine Minerals" script will not do.

If you want to mine normal minerals, then any well-shielded ship with any laser will do. The TS+ ships in AP have much heavier shields than normal TS ships, which is helpful for mobile mining.

Homebasing the miners will cause them to offload to a TL. However, you will have to re-start them after they unload.

If you want to mine Nividium, then remain in-sector, preferably flying an M7 or TL. Collect Nividium yourself while commanding your miners to "Collect Rocks". Keep your speed under 10 m/s to reduce damage. It works, but the miners will take some damage from collisions. Stronger miners, such as Falcon Haulers or M6's, work much better for In-Sector use. (or AP's new TS+ ships. )

There is also a "Mine and Trade Minerals" command on the Trade menu. It may have the higher level of automation that you seek.

If you do not mind using scripts, then I fixed the vanilla bugs and shortcomings: Mobile Mining Mk2 allows for easy, hassle-free, mining operations -- among other things. For example, home-based miners resume mining after unloading at homebase. They also pause when their shields are damaged and automatically go for repairs when necessary. Whether OOS or IS, Mobile Mining Mk2 makes the job less frustrating.

[Zolt]

Thanks for the additional info DrBullwinkle. I might use your script to sustain my current mining operation in a more automated way but I don't think I will bother to expand it any further. The stronger TS easily cost around 800k with shields and equipment, and the output they give just doesn't seem to be worth it to me.

Anyway, I'm the kind of player who actually enjoys dragging asteroids into neat grid patterns to integrate them in complexes, so I guess I'll keep doing that.

[DrBullwinkle]

You *pay* for TS's?!

What output would be "worthwhile"? I have heard mixed feedback on this... some players think that mobile mining is very cost-effective, while others think that OOS yield efficiency should be greater. I could fix it... but need more feedback on what would be an appropriate balance.

Please reply on the MM Mk2 thread.

Thanks.

[Aragosnat]

Well the great thing about mobile mining is that one roid can supply a whole complex if you have enough mines with CLS. Wish I was playing AP so I could give you some better results. But, in TC, I have 20 Miners, using default split TS miners, with 2 Maxed Mistral SF are supplying my 70 chip plex to make it self supporting.

From what you have experianced, it seems you will need CLS's with transporters to off load the minerals from the miners that are set to 'mine minerals';this should allow them to keep on mining. 1 misntral SF with all the bells and whistles should be able to support 10 caimen miners that have max speed and turning and shields (heck you could leave out the speed and turnings) and will be able to do at least around a 80 km round trip with no problems, (less travel time is generally better). Again wish I had AP experiance. But, I'm hoping to see similar resaults for those of use that don't want to go modded for what ever reason.

I do agree with DrBulltinkle in that mod might be the way to go if you don't like trying to set up CLSs.

[DrBullwinkle]

Can you estimate how many units of minerals your miners mine per hour?

[Zolt]

20 OOS miners set on mine minerals seem to work out to about 800 silicon/hour, so even accounting for logistic kinks that's less than 50/miner. That feels really low considering that a miner ship with proper shielding would cost no less than 7-800k.

The miners do seem to spend a lot of time "moving to position" and of course blasting rocks. They also move around on the map a lot more than they did in TC. When they finally switch to "collecting", silicon stock increases by 1 unit only every 15-20 seconds or so.

I've made sure they have a LOT of silicon chunks to collect from, they started mining right in the middle of the deposit (It was a grade 41 asteroid so not too bad, if that counts). They have a couple CAG ships with transporter devices feeding the goods to a TL, also with transporter, which is sitting right on top of them anyway.

[Zolt]

From what you have experianced, it seems you will need CLS's with transporters to off load the minerals from the miners that are set to 'mine minerals';this should allow them to keep on mining. 1 misntral SF with all the bells and whistles should be able to support 10 caimen miners that have max speed and turning and shields (heck you could leave out the speed and turnings) and will be able to do at least around a 80 km round trip with no problems, (less travel time is generally better). Again wish I had AP experiance. But, I'm hoping to see similar resaults for those of use that don't want to go modded for what ever reason.

I do have the CLS set up, it's just that the yield seems really low compared to the effort and expense involved.

[DrBullwinkle]

@Zolt: I was trying to ask Aragosnat (and others) to estimate their number of units of minerals mined per hour, but thank you for the detail.

If you are still trying to use "Collect Rocks" while OOS, then re-read my first post in this thread -- you should use "Mine Minerals" instead. Collect Rocks will not work well (in most sectors) when OOS due to automatic rock consolidation.

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. It might be that low. Again can only speak from TC and currently trying to get the Evil Steam DiD achievments so I will have to wait till that is done before going on to do AP. Also don't bother with TL sitting on them. Just use the CLS to deliever to your plex or sell them. The only thing I have sitting on them is an M6 Skiron set to defend 10 km from nav point for those random pirate attacks, again that is not even needed at times. Figure your CLS can go about 40 to 60 KM one way before the miners ever needing to be emptied.

But, the point of mobile mining at least for myself despite the cost is I would only need 1 roid of one type per sector when possable and don't have to supply e-cells or try and tow the roid closer to our plex to make them self supporting as well as keep them out of sight for the FPS issues. True I will still have to avoid entering those sectors. Also never having to worry about losing a factory mine to pirates or race I pissed off as the roids will respawn one day.

@ DrBullwinkle: In TC I'm getting easily over 4000 per hour from 20 miners roughly. Again this is TC with the smallest roid bits never going away OOS.

Thinking of trying this combo out when I get into AP have 15 (10 then to 5) set mine minerals and 5 (10 to then 15) set to collect minerals for all one spot. Reason for thinking of this is. The ones brake up the rocks for the ones collecting. Wonder if that will increase the collection rate?

@Zolt:
Since you are in AP and already have it set up. Would you be willing to try it out and let us know? I'll be trying it out when I get into AP anyways. So don't worry about trying if you don't want to.

[DrBullwinkle]

200 units of Silicon per hour is worth at least $50,000 credits. That is good; about the same as a fully-trained UT.

I expect AP to work exactly the same as TC, but would like confirmation.

The only reason to command miners to "Collect Rocks" is if you hope to find Nividium rocks, which miners with the "Mine Minerals" command will not break. So I see no reason to mix their orders.

Use "Collect Rocks" when you are In-Sector and specifically hunting Nividium. Otherwise, you should set the miners to "Mine Minerals".

[Aragosnat]

200 units of Silicon per hour is worth at least $50,000 credits. That is good; about the same as a fully-trained UT.

I expect AP to work exactly the same as TC, but would like confirmation.

The only reason to command miners to "Collect Rocks" is if you hope to find Nividium rocks, which miners with the "Mine Minerals" command will not break. So I see no reason to mix their orders.

Use "Collect Rocks" when you are In-Sector and specifically hunting Nividium. Otherwise, you should set the miners to "Mine Minerals".

Well my reason was that it may help speed up the problem Zolt was having.

Alan Phipps post made it sound like what I was suggesting might work well in this case. Still will be testing it when I get done with Steam DiD game. Also it is closer to 240 units per hour per miner, will find out as soon as I play, just need to stop typing. But, was using what I know my plex is needing for the base as right now I'm worried about running out of room for my silicon.

[DrBullwinkle]

Mixing orders will *work*, but there is no *advantage* in doing it. Better to set all miners to "Mine Minerals", unless you are intentionally mining Nividium while In-Sector.

Thanks for your report.

[Vim Razz]

- Several 25MJ shields are now a MUST. Ships now take hull damage from mining even when you're OOS. After a couple hours, almost half my fleet of 5MJ shielded ships needed urgent repairs.

Specifically, you need 80MJ of shielding or better to guarantee your ships wont lose hull from random OOS mining damage. (Someone posted the script code that controls this function a while back, and that's just where the break-off is.)

Under 80MJ, the more shielding you have will still reduce the likelihood of your ships taking hull damage as well as the total damage taken per hit.

[Zolt]

OK, I've now streamlined my fleet to 26 Caiman Miners with 75MJ of shielding, and a mix of front mounted IRE and PACs. Speed and turning radius upgraded.

They are all homebased to my TL (Non homebased miners would randomly stop working) and doing "Mine minerals" in the remains of a lvl 41 Silicon asteroid.

They are feeding a complex with 7 crystal fabs L and keeping the silicon stock stable. That works out to: 7*188/26 = 50.6 wafers/ miner / hour. Doesn't look like I can get it much higher with this setup.

[DrBullwinkle]

Yeah, that all sounds right, Zolt. I cannot explain why the TC reports appear to be 4x greater in productivity.

It does not look like an intentional change in balance, because mining was balanced better in TC (similar to UT's in profits per hour).

Thanks for the report.

[Aragosnat]

Yeah, that all sounds right, Zolt. I cannot explain why the TC reports appear to be 4x greater in productivity.

It does not look like an intentional change in balance, because mining was balanced better in TC (similar to UT's in profits per hour).

Thanks for the report.

Actually. I can think of one reason why there is such a diffrence. The roid recombining effect when OOS to when we look away might be the reason for such slow down. In TC it does happen. But, not as fast as it does in AP.

Now if there was an option to turn it off so we can see if that was indeed the problem. I'm still going to be trying a mix. Just for the fun of it for OOS. (Also Alan said to stay OOS so they work in harmony not for you to be IS).

[DrBullwinkle]

Yes, asteroids do recombine much faster in AP. Also, rock clusters respawn in TC, and do not in AP. Neither should affect miners running the "Mine Minerals" command because they break their own rocks. And rock consolidation should not matter at all when the miners are OOS.

I think you are reading too much into Alan's post. I do not mean to speak for Alan, but he was replying to a guy who had, mistakenly, purchased 10 Demeter Miners which *cannot* mount normal lasers. So Alan suggested running "Collect Minerals" on the Demeters to compensate, which is good advice. But he never recommended mixing commands as a general strategy.

The only advantage to Collect Rocks (other than mining Nividium) is that it never stops. Early in the thread that you linked, MarvinTheMartian suggested using "Collect Rocks" rather than "Mine Minerals" because ships running "Collect Rocks" never stop. If they fill up, then they just wait for the CLS2 ship to come and empty them, then they resume. Vanilla "Mine Minerals" causes full miners to empty at homebase, then quit. The "Collect Rocks" technique works in TC, but will not work well in AP (because rock clusters do not respawn in AP).

However, actual usage reports are always good, so give it a try if you want to.