[SCR] [X3AP] Drone Mining and Trading System v1.2.2 [UPDATED 11/08/2014]

[zanzal]

I must say I am loving this script, it's cheaper, less tedious, and less taxing on the CPU, and much more efficient than setting up a massive mining fleet of Falcon Haulers. Thank you for this.

Glad you like it.

May I make a few suggestions?

Always.

1. Since this is supposed to be used in lieu of a mining station, I suggest it use energy cells while operating. I'd say 1-3 energy cells per deployed drone. I see drones bringing in at least 3 units of ore per trip and they can hold a maximum of 100 (Particularly after breaking large asteroids) so this is more than a fair trade.

The balance against factories is the limited vs unlimited so I don't think its as much of a need to balance limited rocks against unlimited mines. But, I understand what you are getting at I also concur. The drone miner scales far too efficiently. Originally I thought there would be drone losses and missile usage far in excess of what I am seeing in my latest game. Since the script was originally supposed to be balanced against losses taken while operating if it fails to take any losses then it ends up being much more efficient than I intended.

I am definitely wanting more feedback in this regard as to what others are experiencing. I'll consider your suggestion to use ECells though I am not sure if this is the best way to address the zero losses problem.

2. The ability to deploy satellites and lasertowers for use as a screen. Both can be held by freight drones so they can be used to set them up and take them down for extended mining operations.

That is a good idea having drones deploy them, I like the way you think. See my response below.

3. The ability to store and use items in docked fighters. M7Cs were made for this type of activity, but lack the cargo space to do so. So the ability to store excess ECs and Mk2 drones (and minerals in the case of Falcon Haulers) will help alleviate the cargo issue.

I'm definitely open to the idea of having some function for companion ships. I don't think expanding the script itself to make it more complex is a good idea for a lot of different reasons. One problem you might not have considered is that the more intelligent the script is the harder it is to keep stable with improvements. I think given the way X3 works with different scripts running on different ships it might be nice to look at these issues from a more general viewpoint.

For example it might be better to implement a script that works well with the drone miner but is more general purpose. Let's call it a "secure sector" or deploy lasertowers command that buys lasertowers and lays out automated defenses for a given sector. And a collect lasertowers command to retrieve those defenses when your ready to move on. This I might be willing to do, but I have a few other scripts I'd need to finish before looking at it.

So maybe rather than have the drone miner use a falcon hauler or in XRM's case a TS to store overflow, maybe we have the Falcon Hauler running a command that tries to keep the drone miner from becoming full. Done right such a script might be useful for carriers/missiles/ecells/ore/etc. Are there any scripts that currently can do this that you know of? It seems like such a basic problem that such a script might already exist.

[zanzal]

One of the changes coming down soon is that I am removing the 'use missile' setting and separating it out into a distinct command 'Defend with Missiles' that will be more configurable, but will need to be ran as a second or third command for the drone miner (usable on any ship.)

The drone miner will still handle the automatic resupply for the missiles, but the resupply numbers will be based on the missile quotas set for the ship by the player under the standard X3 weapons menu and not on some silly values that I hardcoded into the script.

[destroll]

This mod sounds pretty awesome.
Quick question though, do you know at all if it is compatible (or would conflict) with DCS2??

[DevilishMoney]

Hello Zanzal

I am using Lucikes Prospector script and would like to know if your script is faster and more efficient with collecting minerals or is your script made just to be quicker and easier to set up.

Thanks

[zanzal]

This mod sounds pretty awesome.
Quick question though, do you know at all if it is compatible (or would conflict) with DCS2??

If you ran DCS2 on the Drone Miner I would expect it to slow down docking of freight drones a little bit while in sector as a result of having less free docking ports. By default DCS2 should leave 1 free docking port which the freight drones would all have to cycle through in order for the TL to relocate.

Assuming there is any slow down in docking, the trade off would be that you would gain much better defenses for your TL. Also when under attack the DCS2 attack drones would be undocked so the freight drones should dock normally while the enemies are engaged.

[destroll]

Ah, thanks for that bit of insight.
Still very new to using mods on X3 and not entirely sure which ones are capable of running in tandem.
Guess I'll just keep a (separate) drone escort fleet in the sectors I send the mining droids to to be on the safe side.

[zanzal]

Hello Zanzal

I am using Lucikes Prospector script and would like to know if your script is faster and more efficient with collecting minerals or is your script made just to be quicker and easier to set up.

Thanks

The Drone Miner uses freight drones for collection of minerals. So lets say if you have 20xTS running Prospector, you could also just have 1 Drone Miner TL configured to use 20 freight drones and the mining rate should be fairly close. The 20xTSs will have a trade advantage selling the minerals probably netting you higher than average prices. Of course you could always make your TL use 100 freight drones and then you are much more efficient overall even with inefficient trading. However, keep in mind the more hostile your Universe the more likely it is you will suffer loses.

To make an example, in my last Universe I was running Improved Races 2.0 and pirates were really aggressive against my TLs, especially in one sector (Dark Space Cluster). In that case that particular Drone Miner made no profit at all because it constantly lost drones to Pirate M3s. Even though it easily killed pirates, it was often not before losing a drone or two. So keep in mind that a mining fleet of 20 TSs has a much higher survivability than a single Drone Miner with 100 freight drones and you'll need to factor that into your efficiency if your in a particularly hostile Universe.

Assuming few losses, Drone Miners will always be more efficient than using a mobile mining fleet of M3s or TSs.

[gastovski]

Well, for some sectors i can mine Nvidium (northeast-east side of the map). But for many other sectors (mostly southwest-west) i can't even mine simple Ore minerals.

[ManticoreMig]

Hello Zanzal,

I haven't had much time to test de script lately, but from the shorts tests I made with v1.1, I can say that it is working flawlessly, especially the auto-equip component.

If i may do a few suggestions:

1. Since this is supposed to be used in lieu of a mining station, I suggest it use energy cells while operating. I'd say 1-3 energy cells per deployed drone. I see drones bringing in at least 3 units of ore per trip and they can hold a maximum of 100 (Particularly after breaking large asteroids) so this is more than a fair trade.

Well, since vanilla X3R you can remote mobile mine with TSs, with no penalties. The only drawback is that the setup and maintenance was very time consuming. This function was improved in X3TC to the point that, after enormous setup work, it was possible to have huge mobile mining fleets, roving sectors, producing huge loads of minerals, autonomously, all of this vanilla with bonus pack. X3AP "balanced" this aspect by making the rocks non-respawning. What zanzal made was basically automate the setup and operation process even further. So I believe that an energy pay-off is not needed.

2. The ability to deploy satellites and lasertowers for use as a screen. Both can be held by freight drones so they can be used to set them up and take them down for extended mining operations.

It would be an interesting idea, though maybe in a different script/comand? Like a dedicated ship that sets up and maintains fields of satellites/lasertowers/mines?

So maybe rather than have the drone miner use a falcon hauler or in XRM's case a TS to store overflow, maybe we have the Falcon Hauler running a command that tries to keep the drone miner from becoming full. Done right such a script might be useful for carriers/missiles/ecells/ore/etc. Are there any scripts that currently can do this that you know of? It seems like such a basic problem that such a script might already exist.

CLS2 can do this, and it is part of the bonus pack, it might be difficult to setup, but its extremely versatile, I use it all the time for tasks like these (like supplying fuel/missiles to my capital ships, or shift goods around between complexes). Though I think there are other scripts out there that can do this too.

[zanzal]

Well, for some sectors i can mine Nvidium (northeast-east side of the map). But for many other sectors (mostly southwest-west) i can't even mine simple Ore minerals.

Greetings gastovski,

I was not able to recreate your issue with the asteroids you reported. I broke the roid you mentioned in Atreus Delta with a mobile drilling system and the Drone Miner cleaned up the rocks just fine.

[zanzal]

3. The ability to store and use items in docked fighters. M7Cs were made for this type of activity, but lack the cargo space to do so.

I've thought about this some more and it doesn't really make much sense. A non upgraded TL for about 20-28 mil with 30-50k base cargo or an M7C for 16 mil carrying 100 mil in fighters just to extend its cargo bay... The M7C option doesn't make any sense if your mining silicon and ore..

I think testing the script on Nividium for gastovski had momentarily warped my perspective. I did some more testing over the weekend and my gut feeling is that the Drone Miner is balanced well against Ore/Silicon mines given the high initial cost of setting one up (25-28 mil) no extra energy consumption is needed. I still need to sit down and create spreadsheet with mine baselines and dozens of test runs to make sure, but I am comfortable with the operating costs of mobile mining being replacement drones and missiles. It will be a lot more variable than the energy costs, but in general everything about the Drone Miner is going to variable so it will not be easy to compare it to a mine.

[Echofinder]

Yeah, on second thought the addition of fighter cargo capability was just a shot at making M7Cs useful somehow. I'll just edit the cargo stats for that.

How about the ability to convert fighter drones into more freight drones using resources? Fighter drones are easy to acquire and can be produced, but freight drones are only obtainable via NPC stations, and only a few at that.

[gastovski]

Ok i got it working. I did go to those sectors and manually broke nvidium asteriods just for one time and got no error whatsoever. The mod works fine and awesome!.

[zanzal]

How about the ability to convert fighter drones into more freight drones using resources? Fighter drones are easy to acquire and can be produced, but freight drones are only obtainable via NPC stations, and only a few at that.

Yeah, I don't much like the idea that Boron pretty much exclusively sell all the freight drones in my galaxy. I like the freedom to go to war with all the races at any given time. Capped TLs rarely have freight drones on them. I'll investigate making a script that lets one produce freight drones at the PHQ this weekend. I assume that it is not possible to dock a freight drone to the PHQ and reverse engineer it. I'll try that first and see though. If that doesn't work I'll add a Freight Drone blueprint by script and see if the PHQ is able to manufacture it, and if so then we'll just need to decide on a proper way to acquire the blueprint without cheating it in. Will let you know.

[Echofinder]

I can tell you that you can't RE a drone. You can dock it but it won't appear on the menu.

If you script in a BP, PHQs can produce the drone like any other ship, but the clock starts the moment it's finished. There's a bit of micromanaging as well.

[zanzal]

Sounds interesting. Then that's what I'll do. And since the drones don't auto-dock that provides an opportunity for the mechanism for purchasing the blue print as as well.

I'll make a separate script, 'Freight Drone Production':

1. You can run the command on your PHQ as an active command.
2. If you don't have the blueprint then the script will prompt you to license the blueprint for 1mil credits before running.
3. When a drone gets created, and it has no active command, homebase, movement, and cargo and is within 30 km of the station, the station will direct it to dock and then repackage it as a Freight Drone ware.

So then you can build them from your PHQ whenever you want, it won't be a mandatory feature so if someone doesn't want it they don't have to use it.

[zanzal]

For those that might be interested in some numbers for Drone based mining, I present the mining log:

Drone Miner Mining Log 1

It compares Drone Mining and Trading solo (with 100 drones) Ore only and Silicon only against Drone Mining and Trading with a dedicated OK Trader. Each data set uses the first 9 hours of mining in Seizwell and after each run the game was reloaded so the ore field remained the same for each test.

In both Silicon and Ore tests using the OK Traders the TL eventually hauled in more ore than the OK Trader was able to sell forcing the TL to do some trading itself. This happened much more quickly with Silicon which I think is to be expected given how much less it is used compared to ore.

The end result is that Drone Mining and Trading is significantly more efficient with a dedicated trader, but the amount of difference is what was most impressive. Using a dedicated trader was 2-3x more efficient than trading with the TL. That really isn't a bad thing since the main value of trading with the TL is that the TL can automatically dispose of any overflow that your factory can't handle, however, it also means that future versions need to focus on optimizing the trade portion of the script.

[Sinnerman49]

If I wanted to change the command slot that this script runs on, what else would I have to do aside from changing the 4 codes in the t file?

(It's conflicting with another mod I have installed)

[zanzal]

The file you would also need to change is scripts/setup.zanzal.droneminer.xml. You would have to change the line $key = COMMAND_X to the new command value.

BTW, which mod does it conflict with so I can add it to the compatibility report?

[Sinnerman49]

Zanzal -

I'm play testing Litcube's Universe, and his mod puts in a Marine Training command into 421, so I'm attempting to use 430.

I'm able to change the T-file in X-Studio, but when I try to change the setup script to reference "COMMAND_DRONEMINER_TRADER" it gives me a syntax error like it cannot find that command (I troubleshot this by trying to do it on a fresh install, and it worked fine, as soon as I dropped LU into the game, it no longer saw COMMAND_DRONEMINER_TRADER)