[BUG] Feldhelm miner assigned to URV Forge doesnt unload its ore

xandicar · Post by **xandicar** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 10:14

I assigned a fully equipped miner to the manager on the URV Forge. I tested if the miner and its drones work well by doing some ice mining. The miner worked fine in squad and was able to collect and unload ice as ordered.

After transfer of control the manager send it off a far region very close to the PMC guarded gate. This seems odd since there is ore available much closer. The miner did start mining and got close to getting its cargo full. Then it started to move to an other area it seems. This is odd since I expected to go to the URV Forge. It had a mining assignment locked on the captain. Then it hoped to several sectors and finally went to the URV Forge.
It parked in front of the dock, waited a short moment, did nothing and moved off again. Made hops to several sectors and moved back to the URV Forge. Now the same procedure happens again and still no unloading of ore. Again it goes around.....

Seems to me it is stuck in some kind of loop. This is very annoying since I am waiting for ore to start production. Also to equip a miner is a pain in the @ss and so much needed to get things running.

Rath · Post by **Rath** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 11:35

Its the same with any mining ship assigned to any manager. I find that they are quite good at getting a full cargo hold. But the will never sell it by themselves so at that point you have to micromanage every miner you own.

This is one reason why not only should you be able to assign a ship to a manager, but you should still have control over what it buys and sells for that manager.

It probably never gets to the sell stage because a full load of ore doesn't fill the entire hold

pilakin · Post by **pilakin** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 11:45

Yeah, I found out why it's happening looking at the responsible script yesterday. It's an issue with handling the case if the station has zero amount of the ware in question in stock. to work around it manually trade at least one ore/silicon/ice or whatever the miner is supposed to unload to the station. from there on, if this resource is not completely depleted again, the unloading will work.

xandicar · Post by **xandicar** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 17:45

pilakin wrote:Yeah, I found out why it's happening looking at the responsible script yesterday. It's an issue with handling the case if the station has zero amount of the ware in question in stock. to work around it manually trade at least one ore/silicon/ice or whatever the miner is supposed to unload to the station. from there on, if this resource is not completely depleted again, the unloading will work.

Thx, for this workaround I will do that.

But it still needs to work as expected, otherwise all the trouble with getting miners isn't worth it. lol

xandicar · Post by **xandicar** » Wed, 4. Dec 13, 17:49

Rath wrote:Its the same with any mining ship assigned to any manager. I find that they are quite good at getting a full cargo hold. But the will never sell it by themselves so at that point you have to micromanage every miner you own.

This is one reason why not only should you be able to assign a ship to a manager, but you should still have control over what it buys and sells for that manager.

It probably never gets to the sell stage because a full load of ore doesn't fill the entire hold

Sounds as a logical option to me. The manager needs parameters to work with, not only money. The parameters need to be set so he/she can work within that set.

Frosty273 · Post by **Frosty273** » Sat, 7. Dec 13, 04:40

pilakin wrote:Yeah, I found out why it's happening looking at the responsible script yesterday. It's an issue with handling the case if the station has zero amount of the ware in question in stock. to work around it manually trade at least one ore/silicon/ice or whatever the miner is supposed to unload to the station. from there on, if this resource is not completely depleted again, the unloading will work.

Insane that this happens, thanks for the heads up I'll go check it out now in game!

pilakin · Post by **pilakin** » Sat, 7. Dec 13, 10:38

nah, it's just a lazy implementation. the ship is supposed to unload every ware (not only one specific like ore) it has on board to the homestation, if it's of any use to this station. before unloading, to determine, if it's of use to the station, the ship checks if the station already has at least one item of the ware in question. because if it does, you can assume the station needs this ware, why else would it be in station's cargo. now the problem is, if the station has zero stock of a specific ware, you can't tell if it's a needed resource that just happens be empty currently or if it's an unwanted ware and and hence empty. the devs are aware of that issue, there's a comment about it in the script. they will fix it some day, but until then:

I actually made a mod that improves this logic. the ship doesn't look for wares in stock on the station any more, but rather if the station wants to buy this specific ware to determine if the ware is of use to the station or not. this fixes the problem with zero stock amount, and the ship will unload like it should. the mod also improves some other things.
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=357311

xandicar · Post by **xandicar** » Sat, 7. Dec 13, 11:58

@palakin

Thanks for the information and the time you put into that mod. Especially since this is something basic imho.