Nice script in theory but it does one revolution, extends once (in midair, no voxels) then immediately complains about a stuck drill head and resets to zero extension. I might fork it and see if I can resolve the issue.

@KristofRaver, Is there a way to use this script with a group of pistons that extend downward and a group that extends upward in order to drill deeper?

I just removed the "stop" check and now it's working fine thank you for this awesome script

ok after watching it for serveral hours I realize it's even worse the "stuck" keeps saying it's stuck when it isn't the drill was free moving and it just says it's stuck tries to rip it out of the ground and blows the whole thing up :(

Hey love this script I have 1 issue and wanted to know if there is anything I can do, I need it to stop auto extracting when there is an issue, I have 10 pistons on the kraken and everytime it thinks it's stuck it rips them out of the ground and piston head releases which drops the entire thing down the hole and I can't blueprint the setup because of the stupid projector past piston crap, but I rebuilt it 3 times yesterday and it gained less than 1 large cargo for all my trouble the pistons where all extracting at once which was entirely too fast for the weight.

so, if i have a drill rig with several piston groups, some start out extended, some start out retracted. would this script be able to Extend/retract them in order to drill? meaning meaning a way to set stage one and two piston groups to be known as starting extended, stage three thru six start retracted. being able to know when each stage completes to start the next based upon the piston position?

I was trying to avoid timers, just not learned enough coding yet to understand how to check if a piston is in X position, and if not wait until it is before continuing.

Version 1.5 changes ( see change notes)
Bug fix : removed command that would restart drilling on opening a save game
Drill inventory explosion protection : pause drilling if your drills get full
Cargo container option : use a group and percentage to pause drilling if the max is reached.
Several small improvements

Version 1.4 changes (see change notes for details):
Support modded pistons > 10m range,
recovery mode (auto recover when drill gets stuck or hits obstacle)
kickstart command ; auto position drill head to ground level at start

@Babbayega : thanks, I will have to check it out. Have a look at the new script version. It could support your modded pistons I hope. Also the kickstart and recovery features I think are great. It helps to get ore in fast. Let me know if it works for you.

ok, uploaded the rig. no, its not pretty. I am a function over form kind of player. but it works, and works well.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885258379

its in one of these, i think one of the first two.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1280218808&searchtext=piston

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1719832915&searchtext=piston

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344557207&searchtext=piston

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=566142426&searchtext=piston

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=566697769&searchtext=piston

can you tell i like using pistons? lol

i will check, i think there are two types. i will link the ones i was trying this evening. i think they go to 25m. well, there is a flippin huge modded one, but i don't use it since 100M is crazy, and the skins are not complete.. but the 25M long one i use a lot.

The "long pistons" are modded ones ? Longer then 10 meters ? I indeed was lazy and hardcoded the max to be 10m, but that could be adapted to check the max of a piston possible. I think that is a property.

but its a decent demo, and it runs well. of course not many people will be online for the length of time to run a complete cycle.. but the script recovers well from a reload, just starts over. that is what lead me down the road for basic limited movement. so i could hop over to a new near location when the game reloads.

i will try the updated version of the script out tonight.

sure, let me clean up the blueprint a bit, i can upload it. its mainly a extra amount of standard length pistons for outward and downward. I did try to use the long pistons first, but i was not having luck with them extending beyond the standard piston length. i meant to ask you if the length was hard coded or pulled from the piston info. since the long pistons were not behaving, i went with the pack of pistons instead.

put some basic engines and a landing gear, made it a ship. to allow some basic manuvering. not really intended for sustained flight. intended to paste in close to where needed, final adjustments, then lock the gear.

since i was operating on gravity, the ground terrain was more or less flat. so the pistons stayed at the slow speed. i have not tried to swing that much mass at the higher speed when the drills are not drilling. that might be problematic.

I also uses a 4x drill to allow for less weight on the drill arm.

@Babbayega Nice idea on cargo teleported Mod. Feel free to send a blueprint link if it works with the new script version. I will add a link robot script page to it as another demo if you approve that ?

i made a bigger version of the example with more pistons. Still works very well. just been using a cargo teleporter mod to move ore/stone, so i can set it and let it run.

I will update and check out the changes.

Version 1.3 was posted. See change log for details. I fixed a bug in t he rotor speed and when a negative rotor min was used. Also much better LCD info. Upgrade recommended. Settings as of version 1.2 in custom data will be kept.

that rig works very well also. only thing i had to do with the blueprint to use it was increase the power on the outward pistons. those would not move the first time i tried it.

But since the rig and script has a stable rest option, i was able to stop, reset, increase the power. then just let it go.

@BuzzedBear : Of course. That is the demo drill rig in the link above in the description. If this is not what you are looking for, let me know. That workshop item has the drill with the script installed.

Would you be kind enough to upload that drill rig in the picture?

Version 1.2 : I am very pleased to announce the usage of CUSTOM DATA to set your variables and group names. Check the change log for details. Now updates of my script will not overwrite your custom settings in your builds any more !!

Version 1.1 uploaded. See change notes.

I posted a few comments on the demo page. mainly that i was not seeing the outward group move. the down and rotor speed all seem to be working.

Any suggestions on what to check about the outward group? it seems the min/max distance on those pistons are not being set. so they don;t move.