Station miners don't balance resources

[mtlmaks]

Hi,

I have a self sustained ship technology factory in Nopileos' Furtune VI, which, for solid storage, needs ore and silicon. I have 7 L and 3 M solid miners, and they almost always only mine ore, although there are more or less equal amounts of ore and silicon in the surrounding sectors, even when the storage for ore is almost full. The silicon storage is always empty. This is pretty annoying and I don't see a possibility to change this behaviour, since you can't override the station managers decision. It would be nice if we could e.g. assign station miners to specific resources, like half of them for ore and the other half for silicon. Is there any solution to this, other than mods? Interestingly enough, the 3 needed liquid wares are always balanced by my gas miners...

[Ezarkal]

Yes, there's been multiple post on this exact topic since 4.00 came out.

I recommend using mining outposts until this gets fixed.

-Dock + storage + miners, with a buy order for the desired wares.
-Then you either assign some miners as trade ships, or set up independent miners with a buy/trade repeat queue to supply your stations.
-Mine a single solid and/or liquid per mining outpost, otherwise you'll end up with the same problem as your station complex.

[Panos]

Hi,

I have a self sustained ship technology factory in Nopileos' Furtune VI, which, for solid storage, needs ore and silicon. I have 7 L and 3 M solid miners, and they almost always only mine ore, although there are more or less equal amounts of ore and silicon in the surrounding sectors, even when the storage for ore is almost full. The silicon storage is always empty. This is pretty annoying and I don't see a possibility to change this behaviour, since you can't override the station managers decision. It would be nice if we could e.g. assign station miners to specific resources, like half of them for ore and the other half for silicon. Is there any solution to this, other than mods? Interestingly enough, the 3 needed liquid wares are always balanced by my gas miners...

Until this bug is solved is better to use Sector Automine and split your miners half and half, set the buy price to maximum and restrict it to your ships only.

Otherwise set up a mining outpost and have a miner to haul the goods between the two stations with Repeat Order.

[mtlmaks]

Ok, a mining outpost sounds like the best solution to me for now then, although that's another investment because of that "bug", albeit not a big one. Sector miners have less range and you can't restrict them from selling to other stations as well AFAIK. Anyway, thanks for the confirmation that this a known problem (and sorry for not having searched before posting ), I'll try my luck with mining outpost then.

[Panos]

Ok, a mining outpost sounds like the best solution to me for now then, although that's another investment because of that "bug", albeit not a big one. Sector miners have less range and you can't restrict them from selling to other stations as well AFAIK. Anyway, thanks for the confirmation that this a known problem (and sorry for not having searched before posting ), I'll try my luck with mining outpost then.

If you set the manual price of Silicon to max eg 150+ and AI buys at 125 ofc you will get priority until there is no space. And you do not lose money as they are going from one pocket to the other.

And given the "range" at the start of the game you will use M miners so better keep them together. After 48 hours you will need L miners or big support fleet of combat ships.
Also do not forget due to Sector Automining the miners are leveling to 3 star as normal for full Automining.

That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days.

[aquatica]

Sometimes dumbing the nearby sectors with resource probes helps. Sometimes not.
Sometimes it helps to have enough budged on the station (for whatever the hell of a reason on self-sustaining system) so the full load of Silicon doesn't "cost" too much, and so on.
I have constant issues with double resources even with resource probes, however adding that suggested budged to the station *seems* to alleviate some of this to the point of having some use of my stations storage.

Oh, and on the worst cases I just limit the unwanted resource to have way less storage space allocated (no automatic allocation).

[mtlmaks]

Ok, a mining outpost sounds like the best solution to me for now then, although that's another investment because of that "bug", albeit not a big one. Sector miners have less range and you can't restrict them from selling to other stations as well AFAIK. Anyway, thanks for the confirmation that this a known problem (and sorry for not having searched before posting ), I'll try my luck with mining outpost then.

If you set the manual price of Silicon to max eg 150+ and AI buys at 125 ofc you will get priority until there is no space. And you do not lose money as they are going from one pocket to the other.

And given the "range" at the start of the game you will use M miners so better keep them together. After 48 hours you will need L miners or big support fleet of combat ships.
Also do not forget due to Sector Automining the miners are leveling to 3 star as normal for full Automining.

That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days.

You are right, didn't think about it that way. Just tried it with a sector miner and buy price set to max on the station and player only, and the miner seems smart enough to sell to my station. Just too bad I just built the mining outpost, with sector miners it's much less hassle. Oh well, I'll probably convert it to some other production then. Just, what exactly did you mean by: "That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days."?

[Sassbarman]

Something that worked for me was to unassign a couple of mining ships that you notice are full of silicon that you don’t need, sell the silicon then reassign them back to the manager to mine. My experience is they will start mining what the station needs, a reset if you will. I think what happens here is, and I’m not sure if this true or not, but mining ships assigned to a manger to mine before all modules are built will tend to only mine what the first production module requires particularly if the subsequent module or modules are built well after the first one. Give it a try hope it helps.

[Panos]

Ok, a mining outpost sounds like the best solution to me for now then, although that's another investment because of that "bug", albeit not a big one. Sector miners have less range and you can't restrict them from selling to other stations as well AFAIK. Anyway, thanks for the confirmation that this a known problem (and sorry for not having searched before posting ), I'll try my luck with mining outpost then.

If you set the manual price of Silicon to max eg 150+ and AI buys at 125 ofc you will get priority until there is no space. And you do not lose money as they are going from one pocket to the other.

And given the "range" at the start of the game you will use M miners so better keep them together. After 48 hours you will need L miners or big support fleet of combat ships.
Also do not forget due to Sector Automining the miners are leveling to 3 star as normal for full Automining.

That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days.

You are right, didn't think about it that way. Just tried it with a sector miner and buy price set to max on the station and player only, and the miner seems smart enough to sell to my station. Just too bad I just built the mining outpost, with sector miners it's much less hassle. Oh well, I'll probably convert it to some other production then. Just, what exactly did you mean by: "That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days."?

If you use subordinate miners, because a resource is 2 jumps away for example, do not put together more than one refining type when you assign miners to a station.

For example don't put Silicon Wafers and Refined Metals (or Water) in same station, as the Manager will fill 1 of the minerals with the subordinate miners and they (miners) will get stuck with the order to mine Silicon and won't change to Ore. Same applies to gases.

But you can have Refined Metals (Ore) & Graphene (Methane) in same station.
So if you want to produce all 6, Scanning Arrays, Hull Parts, Advanced Composites, Quantum Tubes, Engine Parts, Plasma Conductors ,you set up
1 station with Graphene (Methane) & Refined Metals (Ore)
1 station with Superfluid Coolant (Helium), Silicon Wafers (Silicon)
1 station with Antimmater Cells (Hydrogen).


After that you decide where to put the intermediary production modules and move the refined products.

[mtlmaks]

If you set the manual price of Silicon to max eg 150+ and AI buys at 125 ofc you will get priority until there is no space. And you do not lose money as they are going from one pocket to the other.

And given the "range" at the start of the game you will use M miners so better keep them together. After 48 hours you will need L miners or big support fleet of combat ships.
Also do not forget due to Sector Automining the miners are leveling to 3 star as normal for full Automining.

That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days.

You are right, didn't think about it that way. Just tried it with a sector miner and buy price set to max on the station and player only, and the miner seems smart enough to sell to my station. Just too bad I just built the mining outpost, with sector miners it's much less hassle. Oh well, I'll probably convert it to some other production then. Just, what exactly did you mean by: "That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days."?

If you use subordinate miners, because a resource is 2 jumps away for example, do not put together more than one refining type when you assign miners to a station.

For example don't put Silicon Wafers and Refined Metals (or Water) in same station, as the Manager will fill 1 of the minerals with the subordinate miners and they (miners) will get stuck with the order to mine Silicon and won't change to Ore. Same applies to gases.

But you can have Refined Metals (Ore) & Graphene (Methane) in same station.
So if you want to produce all 6, Scanning Arrays, Hull Parts, Advanced Composites, Quantum Tubes, Engine Parts, Plasma Conductors ,you set up
1 station with Graphene (Methane) & Refined Metals (Ore)
1 station with Superfluid Coolant (Helium), Silicon Wafers (Silicon)
1 station with Antimmater Cells (Hydrogen).


After that you decide where to put the intermediary production modules and move the refined products.

Hmm, ok, but that's not what would be a self sustained production station. I built such a station, as many others do, to not to have to set up a whole trader network (which in X4 is less straight forward as in X3 with CAG and CLS AFAIK, unless you want to use mods like station mule). On my station, with Hull Parts and Claytronics as end products and every in between product, I need Helium, Methane, Hydrogen, Ore and Silicon as resources. As I said in my original post, the subordinate gas miners seem to have absolutely no issue balancing 3 resources, whereas the solid miners can't seem to balance 2 resources. But hey, I'll try different routes to see which is the most efficient one, which is also part of the fun, at least for me.

[Panos]

You are right, didn't think about it that way. Just tried it with a sector miner and buy price set to max on the station and player only, and the miner seems smart enough to sell to my station. Just too bad I just built the mining outpost, with sector miners it's much less hassle. Oh well, I'll probably convert it to some other production then. Just, what exactly did you mean by: "That is why also we advice everyone to have 1 gas and 1 mineral per station these days."?

If you use subordinate miners, because a resource is 2 jumps away for example, do not put together more than one refining type when you assign miners to a station.

For example don't put Silicon Wafers and Refined Metals (or Water) in same station, as the Manager will fill 1 of the minerals with the subordinate miners and they (miners) will get stuck with the order to mine Silicon and won't change to Ore. Same applies to gases.

But you can have Refined Metals (Ore) & Graphene (Methane) in same station.
So if you want to produce all 6, Scanning Arrays, Hull Parts, Advanced Composites, Quantum Tubes, Engine Parts, Plasma Conductors ,you set up
1 station with Graphene (Methane) & Refined Metals (Ore)
1 station with Superfluid Coolant (Helium), Silicon Wafers (Silicon)
1 station with Antimmater Cells (Hydrogen).


After that you decide where to put the intermediary production modules and move the refined products.

Hmm, ok, but that's not what would be a self sustained production station. I built such a station, as many others do, to not to have to set up a whole trader network (which in X4 is less straight forward as in X3 with CAG and CLS AFAIK, unless you want to use mods like station mule). On my station, with Hull Parts and Claytronics as end products and every in between product, I need Helium, Methane, Hydrogen, Ore and Silicon as resources. As I said in my original post, the subordinate gas miners seem to have absolutely no issue balancing 3 resources, whereas the solid miners can't seem to balance 2 resources. But hey, I'll try different routes to see which is the most efficient one, which is also part of the fun, at least for me.

Considering how the economy works, how the habitats work, is preferable and much easier to use multi station complex than one big station.
X4 is not X3 where things magically appeared nor needs SETA.

[steph_m37]

Until this bug is solved is better to use Sector Automine and split your miners half and half, set the buy price to maximum and restrict it to your ships only.

Otherwise set up a mining outpost and have a miner to haul the goods between the two stations with Repeat Order.

Tested but it's not working too !!
1 - I settle a trade rule only for my faction
2 - Set the maximum price on the station with this commercial rule (my faction)
3 - I went into the individual instructions of the ship (and I can't select the commercial restriction, I only have global parameter or off)

And is it possible to publish more than a trade restriction?
The pilot have 3 stars..., Despite the overall restriction it will still sell on other stations..

EDIT
I'm just stupid, my restriction rule was for station, for ship The restriction is made in the blacklist
Now the pilot have restriction only my faction, but it's stay in the next sector ..... may be it's take time before before he chooses my station

steph

[Shepp]

Another thing you can try is to manually set your storage limits. If you have large storage modules and let the game manage your build storage. It can let resources/wares stack up to 100,000 units or more. Since the station managers fill up the resources one at a time. It can take hours for the first resource to fill that much. When you consider the how many miners you have working and that your base may also be consuming. It may never fill up.

If you calculate how many resources you need to run for an hour. Then manually set each resource for that amount. It takes a shorter amount of time for storage to fill and the manager to move on to the next ware. If it takes longer than an hour for all of the resources to fill. You will need to add more miners.

If you manually manage your resources to be as low as possible. You'll also see the station account requirements are lower. This is because that value is calculated based on how much it would cost to buy all the resources/ wares to fill up the storage limit. If the auto manage set that value to 100,000. That will mean the station will want a lot of money in its account.

Honestly, I don't think this is a bug. I think the game has always worked this way. Its just when they nerfed mining so the miners took longer to fill up and had to travel travel further. It really highlighted the flaws in the simplistic station manager logic.

[Panos]

Imho they could easily solve this by assiging different subordinate groups to different minerals etc
eg
Group A Methane
Group B Ore
Group C Silicon
Group D trade Graphene
Group E trade Hull parts.

We already have half dozen groups per station doubt anyone uses more than 2.

[mtlmaks]

Imho they could easily solve this by assiging different subordinate groups to different minerals etc
eg
Group A Methane
Group B Ore
Group C Silicon
Group D trade Graphene
Group E trade Hull parts.

We already have half dozen groups per station doubt anyone uses more than 2.

Agreed. or at least having the ability to chose what subordinate station miners mine. Right now the wares are greyed out in the miners default behaviour property. On e.g. ore and silicon miners it would definitely help if we could restrict them to one or the other. You can change the resource in its order queue once it started mining, but that's not really an option since you don't want to have to baby sit those miners all the time. As for what Shepp said, I indeed have pretty large storage (went a bit over the top when building that station ) and I was already thinking about trying to reduce the storage amount. Will do that later today and report back.

[Midnitewolf]

Here is a question. Is your station anywhere near a system with an abundance of silicon? I ask because the only time I have ever had an issue with just assigning a few miners into the station and letting them look after themselves is when the resources I needed were quite a distance away.

I think what the problem might be is that everything ware transfer related be it mining or just taking goods from point A to point B, is tied into the trading system. That being the case, the AI tends looks at what it profitable, not necessarily what is needed. if ore is available in abundance very near you but silicon is only available 4-5 jumps away, the AI is likely going to calculate that ore is the more profitable substance to mine. At least that is what seems to be the case because I really don't have the issues your describing and the only time I seem to recall anything remotely like what is being reported, was very early on in my first playthrough when I didn't even think about resource availability when building.