Suggestion, repeat orders for miners

[thomasbkdk]

Scenario for how it works now

Mine place 1
Mine place 2
Mine place 3
Sell items

It would be nice if the ai would know to skip mining step 2 and 3 if the cargo storage is already full after step 1.

The reason for having steps 1-3 in the first place is that the order to mine can't be set for the entire sector. So multiple steps are given.
So another nice thing would be to ask the ship to mine a whole sector as an alternative to a small area.

But my first comment about the ai knowing to skip steps that are not able to be accomplished would be 1. priority.

[TheDeliveryMan]

Yes, please!

This would also improve consistency with the "Salvage at Position" command for repeat orders, they are skipped if the tug is already towing a wreck.

[Blackbirdx61]

The reason for having steps 1-3 in the first place is that the order to mine can't be set for the entire sector. So multiple steps are given.
So another nice thing would be to ask the ship to mine a whole sector as an alternative to a small area.

I agree totally, there is no good reason I can think of my mining has to be limited to a tiny plot. Now very early in the game I do like this because I will say set a miner in the Reach to mine very near a defense station to help ward off the KHK, but once your running Megastars, its limiting. I know you can local Automine, but you still need to micro rules for the station or ship to make sure get those goods.

Been reading a long thread on this, I dont want to stir that pot too much. But if a Miner is working for my Station,
I think its totally reasonable he should always prefer that station if it has space for his load. Hope we see something like this in 7.X

[blackphoenixx]

It would make M miners a lot more viable than they currently are, that's for sure. They are kind of dependant on staying near a friendly station if you don't want to lose them like flies.
So automine doesn't work out terribly well for them in non-safe sectors and current repeat order behavior limits them to a tiny area which often gets depleted which only serves to widen the already existing gap between them and L miners.

It would also be nice if repeated "attack nearby target" orders didn't require the ship to fly to the center of the order area first every time. If there's no enemies in the area just skip to the next order (assuming you have sight/radar to the area).
Or just a simple "fly between these waypoints and attack any hostile you encounter" command. It would make setting up custom patrol routes a lot easier.
As it is you're currently pretty much limited to 2-3 orders right beside each other to keep the distances reasonable or use the patrol behavior which covers the entire sector instead of just the parts you care about.

Been reading a long thread on this, I dont want to stir that pot too much. But if a Miner is working for my Station,
I think its totally reasonable he should always prefer that station if it has space for his load. Hope we see something like this in 7.X

A miner assigned to mine for a station currently mines only for that station. It never sells to anyone else, even if the stations storage is full.
I don't see what that has to do with repeat orders though, unless you want the ship assigned to a station and still limited to a smaller mining area. Though in that case it'd be easier if we were allowed to customize our managers behavior more (telling him to only send miners to specific areas for example).

[j.harshaw]

It would be nice if the ai would know to skip mining step 2 and 3 if the cargo storage is already full after step 1.

Don't they? Not sure I understand what you're asking for.

[thomasbkdk]

No they move to the next mining assignment instead of realising that the cargo hull is already full and will only waste time.

[j.harshaw]

Right, thought that might be it. Moved the cargo check to before the movement so they should throw a failure and exit rather than moving to their starting position first. Should be in a future update.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[thomasbkdk]

[TheDeliveryMan]

Right, thought that might be it. Moved the cargo check to before the movement so they should throw a failure and exit rather than moving to their starting position first. Should be in a future update.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Thanks, that makes repeat order mining viable!

[thomasbkdk]

Has this been fixed?