Let me save you the wasted time on Miners

[Jaskan]

Been away from X4 a while, I have seen a lot of posts about all the latest bugs related to Mining, but i saved my opnion till when i tried it for myself.

And this post is to help those been away like me, to avoid wasting time trying to use miners like we used to, cause everything seems normal at first, so you dont notice.

To keep it short

1) Never give miners to station anymore, its broken. You have to use Auto mine, Repeat , direct orders etc.

2) And even when you give the order, they seem to mine for while, but the Cargo tank of miner stops increasing in value. Never had a game before where for multiple sessions where i play there is miner with the same value in Cargo, despite mining for like 10 hours.

3) In short you cannot play this game without that most useful addon CheatMenu

4) With Bugs like this, Egosoft really needs to show some appreciation of thier customers and work om ROLL BACK SYTSEM , to go with the Buggy Update System.
So that you can always roll back if latest version is broken as in this case, otherwise you dont actually have the same product you purchased given bugs like this.

In my personal onion , the worst thing that ever happened to software was being updatable.
Companies tend to focus on quality for initial release , and that quality falls off the cliff for updates.
So that you have games like BF4, and Call TO Arms that worked better on release.

And lets just not mention Windows, its update has priority over anything you have to do with your PC.
So can we talk about the ELEPHANT in the room, Dont update if you cant work on quality, Every update system should legally come with roll back system, else its a violation of customer rights.

Egosoft clearly dont want to put enough effort into testing, but its not right to make you customers pay for that.

Trying to play X4 without CheatMenu is a waste of time. Stop adding features and focus on quality

Now you have Cradle of Humanity with broken mining.

[al_dude]

?
Miners work fine for me as is. Just need twice number.

[Raptor34]

I just play according to the Think portion of the game and use dedicated mining stations.
Come to think of it that's kinda like X3.

[GCU Grey Area]

I just play according to the Think portion of the game and use dedicated mining stations.
Come to think of it that's kinda like X3.

Doing the same. No problems with my miners whatsoever.

[SwizzleStick86]

Same here. The only issues I've ever had is very large self-sufficient shipyards...which is easily solved by using mining bases.

[Midnitewolf]

I am probably going to get some hater hating on me again but I honestly never have had an issue assigning miners to stations and all my resources are kept full. Vanilla, modded, whatever they have just always worked for me. I can't say the same for traders or even transferring wares between stations which is always a nightmare, Vanilla or modded but miners have never been an issue. it kind of makes me think there is a bug that gets triggered in some way that I haven't triggered yet (crosses fingers and knocks on wood).

[Kpla Keltak]

I've had loads of issues with L Miners in my latest game.
It appears that if you have a certain number of miners collecting multiply resources then they just wont work until the manager has 4 or 5 stars.

you can test this by assigning you best manager 4 or 5 star to a problem station station...suddenly within 5-10 min, all the miners work 1 , 2 1nd 3 star captains all work fine.

so the current mining woes are actually a game mechanic to ensure you use the correct managers.
only problem is that without a training facility your managers freeze at 2.9 stars for an eternity but seam to do a lot better after 3.

[sh1pman]

There seem to be 2 groups of players currently:
Group 1: Mining is completely broken, nothing works, devs please undo the changes;
Group 2: Everything works flawlessly with no issues whatsoever, no need to fix anything.
I’m somewhere between these groups, everything works fine in MY save, but that’s because I went out of my way to set up intermediate mining stations with single mineral each. I don’t like the fact that simply assigning miners to a megafactory is guaranteed to cause problems, but there are workarounds, and they work very well. Does it bother me? Not really, but it’d be nice if station miners were addressed at some point.

[Midnitewolf]

There seem to be 2 groups of players currently:
Group 1: Mining is completely broken, nothing works, devs please undo the changes;
Group 2: Everything works flawlessly with no issues whatsoever, no need to fix anithing.
I’m somewhere between these groups, everything works fine in MY save, but that’s because I went out of my way to set up intermediate mining stations with single mineral each. I don’t like the fact that simply assigning miners to a megafactory is guaranteed to cause problems, but there are workarounds, and they work very well. Does it bother me? Not really, but it’d be nice if station miners were addressed at some point.

Well I don't think the Devs need to undo any changes despite not having issues myself. One thing your wrong about it that the players not having issues are just not having issues. They aren't using a work around to get things to work, rather they just work. I mean if they had to use a work around, then they too would be experiencing the same problems too.

I guess my point here is that one of two things is going on. There is some sort of bug in the code that triggers for some people while not triggering for another or the people having the issues aren't doing the same things the people not having the issues are. If it is the latter then nothing the devs do is going to fix anything because it just comes down to one group doing things the right way and one doing it the wrong way and there is no bug causing the issue. The challenge is figuring out why it works for some but not others.

So several things come to mind.

1) As I mention earlier, how far the resources you need are located from you station compared to the other resources your miners won't stop mining?
2) Number of miners assigned to the station. Are you just assigning two miners or ten or maybe twenty because maybe you just need a few more miners?
3) Have they tried removing the miners and reassigning them after they have the resource imbalance and do they start mining the resource in low supply after?
4) Are they running any mods and if so could they be having anything to do with the problem?
5) Has anyone had the problem and then downloaded a mod that fixed the issue?

In any case when we figure out what everyone has in common be it those having issue and not having issues, we can then narrow down the issue.

[al_dude]

Here is info on mine.

My playtime is around 1,500 hours and I tend to use only one mod: Cheat menu. This is in order to save Xenon from early onslaught by popping 10s of Ks/Is in their sectors. I also use the mod inject myself 10m at the start in order to skip crystal mining phase.

I've had over tens of playthroughs but have only settled down in 3 sectors.



Hativash's choice 3 has all resources and it was my first choice sector to have settled in. However, I have not settled in that sector post 4.0. Due to a good chance of Xenon blocking the gateways, I no longer favor that sector.



Trinity Sanctum 7 is my favorite sector to settle in. I've done plays after 4.0. All ore/silicon/ice miners will stay in the sector while gas miners may venture as far as Hewa's twin.



Savage Spur 2 is probably the best sector. All miners, bar ice miners, will stay in the sector. All resources are brought in really fast. You can have some fun with occasional Xenons as well. The zone is also perfect for hermit style play where you don't have to pay any attention to other factions.

[steph_m37]

hi !

Miners work yes, miners operate as an automatic merchant and live their lives it's ok.

But for the rest nothing works!!
My Q.G. needs Ice and methane, I tested with economic rules, tested the function loop mining instructions it's ok but the function sell does not work the cargo leaves without emptying the cargo and return to mining.
Pilots absolutely do not want to sell their ice at HQ let alone exchange their cargoes the option does not appear in loop mode
I test the auto mining sector is the same with commercial restrictions limiting only to my faction, the pilot continues to sell his ice on other stations and not for QG.
And for the option assigning a pilot to the station commander for mining, I also saw on the forum that this function and bugged because I have several wares (ice, ore, silicon, methane) and it did not work from what I saw.
The Q.G manager have five stars, miner 3 stars minimum...

Being French I have a lot of trouble following the forum and explanations, I do not understand the principle "mining station" and how it works, I will have to resolve myself used this means if the rest does not work, but it means stations in addition ....

It's still a shame to have mining management options by the station commander and not be able to use them properly (view on the forum of explanations about it but it's in English....)

I'll try to search the forum for posts regarding the technique of "mining station".

steph.

[waynetarlton]

Miners have all been working fine for me. Whether it be gas or mineral, which ever type of mining ship, and however long it's been mining, all seems to work great.

[Nort The Fragrent]

No longer have any miners, abandoned any hope they will do as requested.
So until the game gets a big boot up the the mine shaft.
I shall not use them.

[NightmareNight91]

My miners refuse to get 1 out of 3 resources for my stations...its like the game cant handle more than 2 anymore.

[Baddieus]

I have no major complaints on mining at this time, it does seem to be working for me, however here are a couple of observations ...

I am mining both Methane & Helium for a Quantum Tube fab, then noticed I forgot to set the max amount of stored Methane lower than the default setting. After lowering the setting I setup a sell order to help get rid of the excess, and make a little profit. Once it sold, the sell order/option did not go away, it sat there at the previous price with a 1 in the sell amount, and my miners went to mine Helium even though it's storage space was already full. Once I cancelled the sell order entirely, dropped the excess Helium from their individual cargo bays & removed all standing orders, they then went for the Methane. (This is with a 5 star manager the whole time).

Had another observation, where my Teladianium ore miners started mining in-sector with a 3 star manager, needing only 1 large & 3 medium miners to keep the station full. Once the manager hit 4 stars, they were sent 4 sectors away and due to the travel lag delivering the mined ore, I then needed 3 more large miners to keep pace with the station. Now that manager is 5 stars and they group mine in different sectors, sometimes in 18B, other times up to 5-away depending on resource probe yields, however always seem to go somewhere via freeway availability. The station is in 18billion, and they have never once mined just the 1 sector South in Grand Exchange, despite all the resource probes & satellites I have there.

I once tried the repeat orders for mining, and they would sometimes go to the station to sell with less then 1/3 load, but the station was barely 1/2 full, so it's not like they were meeting a quota or anything.

[aquatica]

I had huge issues on miners.

But after one forum moderator here explained how resource probes boost yields... No issues whatsoever anymore.

So:
1) Spam resources probes every 40 or so km's apart
2) Also have decent amount of money on the station (don't ask me why. Drying up the cash flow really breaks the miners, even if the station is completely self sufficient. So I have to have suggested budget on the station for whatever the hell of a reason).
3) Profit

It's stupid and it's annoying, but not broken per se. Nowhere near as broken as Xenon are...

EDIT:
Clarified message about mod, as I meant a forum moderator rather than a game mod.

[Dreez]

There's an update coming soon and i really hope one of the priorities has been to sort out station miners,
because i've seen a lot of post with people being aggravated over their station-miners mining the wrong wares.
I've personally grown a few more grey hairs watching my miners mining ICE despite the station being full on ice
and almost empty on Ore and Silicon, causing the station to slow it's production.

This needs to stop .

[aquatica]

There's an update coming soon and i really hope one of the priorities has been to sort out station miners,
because i've seen a lot of post with people being aggravated over their station-miners mining the wrong wares.
I've personally grown a few more grey hairs watching my miners mining ICE despite the station being full on ice
and almost empty on Ore and Silicon, causing the station to slow it's production.

This needs to stop .

I get your point. It needs to be explained and somehow visualized if no changes are made. Also the requirement to spam resource probes is stupid and shouldn't be a thing. I mean, fine - have some reasonable amount per sector sure. But hundreds? Even more so as the tooltip is not hideable (at least in vanilla)...

[grapedog]

Weird, out of 50 stations in my current save, only 2 have resource issues, and that is easily solved by buying a little from NPCs...

No wastee time with my station assigned miners... though i understand others are somehow someway running into galaxy wide prpblems...

[Waltz99]

Mining really isn't what it should be. Yes you can add more miners to keep station supplied but this will deplete the universe just a lot faster.
The problem in mining is easily to be noticed on Xenon.
they live from the mining economy and because of the lack of resources you barely see them.

I'm using a mod to increase astroid density and there are xenon everywhere in my game.
I'm afraid if i play vanilla again I will end up having this boring game again. Mining really asks for many more adjustments at this very moment.