Space Engineers

Space Engineers

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[SCAM] Simple Concurrent Adaptive Min3r
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11 Aug, 2021 @ 7:37am
28 Apr @ 8:51am
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[SCAM] Simple Concurrent Adaptive Min3r

Description
The idea
I designed this autominig solution to suit my approach to mining automation in vanilla game. The main goal was to make a system that would allow extremely early mining automation in survival with great scalability later on. At this moment it's tuned to mine spherical/saucer vanilla ore deposits in space and on planets.
Check out the sample to see if it's your thing before diving further.
Distinctive features:
  • Send to new mining spot with exactly one command (by positioning drone or doing camera raycast)
  • Scale number of drones easily with no added set up actions
  • All drones mine the single spot (called mining task) together with exclusive blocking shared path segments to avoid collisions (HOPEFULLY), hence the Concurrent word
  • Drones are recalled with a single command and dock to moving carrier automatically
  • Drones try to ignore stone layer, adjust max mining depth based on ore gain analysis, so it's kinda Adaptive
Current limitations:
  • Current mining pattern and concurrency approach requires all acting drones to have the same size
  • Drones have to be vertical miners (drills facing down, going downwards)
  • Base docking area has to be top open, docking drones descend vertically
  • Probably have quite an amount of bugs and hikkups - while I used them A LOT during my survival playthrough, I might've missed lots of test cases because of my playstyle, also recently the code undergone a huge rework
Usage
  1. Watch the quickstart video guide or read this guide
  2. Get the min3r of choice or build your own
  3. Copy the code to drones' blueprint, make sure Dispatcher and all Agents run the same version

Advanced features
Adaptive mining is a feature that allows dynamic change of mining plan based on ore income. If enabled on agent, it would constantly check what content gets into drills and do several adjustments:
- change skip-depth (distance from the mining area surface where drills block incoming ore, to eliminate stone input)
- change depth-limit
- send direction-banning messages to Dispatcher.

direction-banning would cancel out planned shafts in a small cone (going from the mining plans' center). This represents areas that are considered not worth expanding to.

Adaptive mining should be toggled on Agents (toggle:adaptive-mining in CustomData or run arg). If it is enabled on Dispatcher, it would enforce this setting on all drones in active group during task creation.

It is disabled by default to avoid confusion

Any ore input except Stone is considered valuable.

Tested workhorses

Moved here.

Custom Data boot commands for base and drones
Those commands are executed immediately on start/recompile. During runtime they can be fed to PB via run argument.
Base or Carrier (Dispatcher role)
command:set-role:Dispatcher command:add-logger:scam-log-panel command:add-panel:scam-gui-panel // for GUI mode on the 'scam-gui-panel' tagged screen command:add-gui-controller:scam-controller toggle:log-message command:set-value:max-generations:8 command:set-value:getAbove-altitude:5 command:set-value:skip-depth:0 command:set-value:depth-limit:50
Small drone - all Min3r 69R line (Agent role)
command:set-role:Agent command:set-value:circular-pattern-shaft-radius:3.6 command:set-value:preferred-container:Large Cargo Container x command:add-panel:feed-panel // uncomment below to enable adaptive mode //toggle:adaptive-mining
Large drone - gravity driven variants (Agent role)
command:set-role:Agent command:set-value:circular-pattern-shaft-radius:7.9 command:set-value:preferred-container:Large Cargo Container x command:add-panel:feed-panel // uncomment below to enable adaptive mode //toggle:adaptive-mining

Script argument reference

Too big to be included here, see script arguments reference discussion.

Troubleshooting and advice on how to avoid shooting yourself in a leg
  • Do not copy-paste drones in creative during their activity. If you have to, use clear-storage-state command and then copy
  • The orientation of connectors matters, both on base and on drone. While autopillock should handle any cases, drone pathing currently optimized for stock drones - vertical mining, vertical landing.
  • If you add/remove any blocks during operation, you need to recompile everything
  • When drone docks, it switches all batteries in recharge mode. After recent update, this might block a drone forever until you switch batteries manually. If you experience this, toggle base connectors' Power Transfer Override ON.
  • Use command:clear-storage-state on every PB to reset all internal state, if you see some weird behavior. You can use command:global:command:clear-storage-state on Dispatcher to broadcast it to every linked drone
  • Getting exception "Not enough thrust to compensate for gravity" - you drone struggled to overcome gravity. Can happen to weak ion min3r when in G environment and fully loaded.
  • If you have issues with drones not docking, make sure nothing is messing up with connector Custom Data. The script uses it to claim connectors for drones.
  • In case of deadlocks when drones seem to wait for each other and do nothing, try Purge Locks command as a last resort.
  • Don't use on asteroids in planetary gravity field. This would be considered planetary mining and won't go as you expected.

If you have issues
Please tell about them in the bug reports discussion .
Before that, make sure dispatcher and drones run the same script version (shown in the PB run printout).
Check script logs from dispatcher and drone - if you did not add specific LCD for logging, log can be found inside PB screen. Often you can get what went wrong right from the log.

If you have issues with drone docking process
Please prepare to answer these questions before asking or posting bug report:

1. Does the dispatcher PB show those drones as "ID awaits docking" in PB info printout (where runtime info, version, etc shows up)?

2. Do those free connectors you expect drones to dock to have something in their Custom Data (should be empty or having THAT drone ID)?

3. What lock ownership does the GUI show for those stuck drones ("general", "force-finish", etc)

4. Does the "Purge Locks" GUI button solve the issue?
Popular Discussions View All (5)
366
11 hours ago
PINNED: Bug reports, feature suggestions
cheerkin
35
2
24 Jul @ 6:44pm
PINNED: Set-up guide
cheerkin
27
31 Aug @ 3:47pm
PINNED: Script argument reference
cheerkin
535 Comments
cheerkin  [author] 31 Aug @ 12:59pm 
No worries, just copy there your original message (with more details if there any) so it won't get buried here. Also people there might've had similar issues. For now I have no idea where to start, that never happened to me before and sounds like general issue with the game - if that is the case, would be good to post it on the Keen support forum if you would be able to find repro steps.
UnassumingNobody 31 Aug @ 12:28pm 
omg, I just caught the comment about the pinned bug report section!
I'll delete the comments when this is all resolved except for one to be used for context, and of course a thank you and or an apology from myself!
UnassumingNobody 31 Aug @ 12:27pm 
and yes I did check power, even adding new batteries which in creative recharge automatically.
UnassumingNobody 31 Aug @ 12:26pm 
"causes all cargo transfer to cease":
Im not sure about sorters, but automatic push / pull wasn't working, and vessels with power and connected pipes which were never connected to a programmable block were not allowing me to manually transfer between containers as well, they were all blacked out when you picked up an item. I could only ever add resources to the block I was directly accessing.

It was a global issue, which is very strange indeed.
it's fairly reproducible, but for the sake of bug testing, I will create a new world with no extra mods installed, just to see what might have happened.
cheerkin  [author] 31 Aug @ 5:30am 
By "causes all cargo transfer to cease" you mean even in-game features do not work, like sorters or manual drag-n-drop? Or that script ceases to push ore to the designated container?
If you happen to experience this bug again would be helpful if you posted a video showing what's going on (also, please move this in the pinned bug reports discussion).
UnassumingNobody 30 Aug @ 7:49pm 
for more context, one way this occurs is when docking. it will transfer some items and then get stuck. if I do something like force it to undock or delete the connector, it will go offline, and require that I place a new battery to fix this. if it matters, I am playing in creative mode. The rest of the script seems to work fine, it's just that when this happens everything stops working correctly, the script seems to be affected by whatever is happening as well and locks up despite being recompiled. Drones don't move, things like that.
UnassumingNobody 30 Aug @ 7:21pm 
I would like to report a bug. some form of strangeness is occuring where something in the script causes all cargo transfer to cease. I have to close to desktop to fix this. it has affected ships without programmable blocks on it. When I reload the world I find the cargo container I was looking at which was broken fixed again.
cheerkin  [author] 30 Aug @ 5:31am 
Hi! Thanks! I think it is possible, but not recommended as collisions may happen due to drone rotation. If you are using just 1 drone, should be fine.
Solaire 30 Aug @ 3:19am 
Hi, is it possible to use this script with a connector on the back of the drone too?
Thank you in advance, and nice work by the way.
cheerkin  [author] 22 Aug @ 4:49am 
Does it bother you? Regarding your question, there is a Change Notes link in the upper top on every WS script page.