Entering a sector with Niv Mining

[Bill Huntington]

This came up for me a number of times in this game. I did Niv mining in KE to fund the HUB plot and a number of other things. I had 30 Dolphins from the KE Shipyard (SY) gather for me, and an Orca to deliver to the SY. The set up worked fine. No ships even needed a Jumpdrive. An Ore Collector shuttle ran between KE and Three Worlds Eq Dk.

But a number of times, perhaps 5, I had to enter KE in my personal ship for the different plots. How to enter and keep the Niv field live?

I did it a few different ways. I filled 3 to 5 gathering Dolphins all the way up, so they were full of Niv. They were still listed as Active, even though they were full. This kept the field live, by having an active gathering ship in the field. Some of these full and Active ships drifted from the usual area, so I was worried. But it all worked out. Then I used the Property menu to give a Stop command to all the other gathering Dolphins, one by one. Then I entered the sector in my personal ship, did my business, and left. I didn’t jump or transport within the sector. After I left, I immediately used the Orca to empty the Active and full Dolphins. Then I used the Property Menu to start all the other Dolphins to Gather Rocks, one by one. This worked, but it was cumbersome.

I tried another way the next time. I had a security Nemesis move to the Satellite, start to Gather Rocks with his Ore Collector. When he had gathered some Niv, I filled him up and left him to gather. I had a Dolphin Broadcast the command to Follow the Satellite to all TS ships in the sector. This worked, and kept the field live with a minimum of data entry. After I left the sector, I still had to enter the Gather Rocks command to each Dolphin. But I had saved half of the data entry.

One pilot here at this Forum had a nice suggestion which saved doing this at least one time. When you drop off a passenger, send the passenger into the sector on a ship that is not your personal ship. This worked at least once for me. (Thanks, pilot.)

QUESTION ??

With the later versions of TC, this still works. But I want to ask if pilots have found other ways to keep the Niv field live, when you have to re-enter the sector ?? Thank you!

[kurush]

Prior to entering KE for the plot reason I just stopped all my NV collectors. After leaving the sector I was ordering them to go to the two satellites I have near the NV fields and ordered them to start collecting again. Nothing fancy and it worked 2 or 3 times ...

[Alan Phipps]

Bill, have you found it necessary to have an 'active' collector near the outcrop to avoid reamalgamations? To date I have found just having any Player ship nearby to be enough when I go IS.

Like Kurush, I find just stopping the collectors before re-entry (for mining ship safety mainly) to be sufficient. Working or even stopped or full ships will be moved if necessary by the object proximity detection on your sector re-entry and the more ships and rocks, the further away some will end up. However, as I do not break down more than two original outcrops before going OOS and starting collection, there is little chance of any fully broken outcrop being too far away from at least one ship at re-entry. It worked well throughout for me.

[Bill Huntington]

Thanks, kurush! And Alan has it thorough and right as usual!

It seems I was doing too much. But for that much $, I don't feel too bad.

Thanks again!