I've been trying to modify the Minos heavy lift CV (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2411523350) to be my water generator/autominer maintenance ship. The hangar bay seems perfect for the task but I cannot seem to get a 4x4 hole (using 1x5 blast doors) to accept the autominer. Has anyone modified a ship for this purpose or know of one on the workshop? It needs plenty of thrust since most of my autominers are on a 4g planet. I really thought 4x4 would be the magic size since the AMs are 3x3
Let me see if I understand your question properly ... You want to land a CV on a planet or moon then open a shutter door to place an Autominer instead of going outside and placing it directly on the surface?? First response is WHY?? Seems like more work than tens seconds to pop outside and plant it. I sorta get the idea if the outside environment is harsh (hail, etc) Second is - I'm pretty sure you can't. The area the CV 'occupies' is handled by the game as "the CV is HERE". You can't place a Autominer on a CV, and I rather suspect the game is treating the space occupied by the CV as "CV Space", so putting a hole in the ship doesn't stop it from still being where the CV is located, as far as the game is concerned. At least that's my take on it, perhaps someone who understands the code better might comment ... A couple other thoughts ... I've transitioned away from using Autominers (AM), and I used to use them a lot. But by the time you get to having a CV you should have enough resources to put a Wood & Ore Controller and a Mining turret on the CV and get everything you need from asteroids. It's a matter of less than 3 mins to completely mine an asteroid. To get that level of ore with an AM or even 3 (VERY expensive) you'd have to plant them and wait a long time, emptying them several times. Otherwise planting them and having to travel back to pick them up, even MORE time and sometimes dangerous. Learn to mine asteroids, the AM is pretty useless at this point. You can sell AM Cores for big $$, or if you have a Base, throw a Deconstructer on it and break them down for their parts (also deconstruct forcefields, Pulse and Laser rifles; they give lots of great loot, quite handy in early - mid gameplay). Don't recall if you can use them in the Factory towards a ship but I don't think so. Early game CV I'll place a Tool Turret on the front and jump out to remove it and change it between Retrieve/Salvage for derelict ships I want to loot and Ore / Wood mode for Asteroids. Yes, it's a pain but it also only take 2 minutes and you can remove it and store it to reduce CPU / Generator load if you're tight on those. Just swap in and out. You can do the same with an Advanced Constructor, keep it in storage and add when needed then store and use the drill turret. Much less expensive than CPU / Generator upgrades, and Early game you may not be able to afford them.
Hi @skshroyer, I can't speak to the specific ship you're working on but @Thor'sHammer is mistaken about not being able to place an autominer over a resource from inside a CV. Here's a picture of one of jrandall's ships (The Wayfarer) with a 3x3 hole in the bottom directly over a copper deposit. No problem placing it, fueling it, or unloading it without going outside. Maybe the issue is the blast doors? You might want to try doing it with something else to see if the problem goes away- start with no door at all to verify and then try shutter doors.
Glad to hear you can! Far be it from me to try and put myself as the Empyrion Bible guy ... Pretty sure jrandall has a leg up on my ship building skills, just sayin'. Thanks for the correction. I will stand by my opinion of mining asteroids as being the faster / easier way over Autominers. {Throws down his gauntlet ...} LOL! But everyone plays their own way. That's the beauty of this complex game, you can decided to build monster bases or CV's or quietly mine ore by hand, trading plants with the natives, and live in idyllic tiny base with a view of a ringed moon. AFTER you eliminated all those damn Zirax scum on your lovely planet, of course. BTW - Nice screenshot! ------------------- @skshroyer - Now that we know it CAN be done, I wonder if maybe a hole like above with a Forcefield across it to keep it airtight might work?
You can also use your personal drone (F5) to place the autominer itself. You just cannot maintain it so the hole in the ship only needs to be big enough to enable you to maintain the autominer. And i found having a normal door and a long ramp on the lowest possible level of your ship works best for this task.
Echo @Thor'sHammer on everybody finding their own favorite way to maximize fun. The Zirax aren't so bad if you use a lawn mower HV to collect trees for early game fuel (50XP/tree) and a cheap SV to shoot the pangolins & triceratops (XP & meat for days) on their land. It makes double crossing them later (how far can honored friends get into the drone base) more fun. That said ripping an asteroid apart with a bunch of laser drills is pretty fun.
Thanks, all. I'll try with no door but for a temp fix, I just extended the elevator past the bottom of the ship, added a flat block below and one in front of that where I placed a pilot seat. Surrounded everything in forcefields. This makes aligning it very easy and there's no danger (anymore) from Zirax. Yes, the planets are usually lava worlds so the heat and fire rain was what I was trying to avoid. Playing solo, I found I can keep up with my needs if I just service the autominers and water generators every time I return to base now that I've gotten a good start. I do have a mining CV (Plutus-M2 also by Jrandall) and occasionally go on a mining expedition but it's nice to not have to do so.
Sounds good! Yeah, I hear that! Last time I went to a Lava planet I popped out to manually gets some Zascosium while wearing heavy armor with no jetpack boosters, promptly fell in a crevasse and literally couldn't jump out, too steep! (Idiot!) [Died] So I totally get your plan and thought it was pretty clever! @jrandall is a beast. Most of my vessels are his, although I have been know to mod them to my Solo game style. One day I'll have to post some of them, I've gotten pretty good at duplicating his block shapes and textures in my mods, even if shipbuilding isn't in my "high skillset" . I've taken 10 minutes to place a single block ... just sayin'. Later!
I use the drone to place the miner then reverse my cv with the hanger open until I can reach the miner avoiding the Gravity and nasty weather.
I've done that in the past, but the hangar on this is so small that it would be unusable if I added a pilot seat back there (and I'm definitely not going from top front to bottom rear of the ship every stop). The workaround that I used might actually be better than the hole in the floor of the hangar. I can now easily position the ship since I'm below it just by pulling right up till the AM touches my seat. It won't work well if you haven't cleared the enemy presence off the planet, but I do that anyway
You could just put a ramp in the floor 3x1. I never clear the enemies they don't attack the miners or never attacked one so far.
Why don't I do this? I am going to do a new Vanilla + Eden playthrough tomorrow and I will give this a go.
I do this, although I've found the Harvester is a PITA to control to kill things, so I usually lift my HV as high as it will go and pot shot them from there, it's faster. On the mow trees for fuel thing - totally agree. I will make 4 Portable Constructors in my Survival suit (early game) then 8 (as I get more ore) and set then to munching into twigs then Fuel. Use multiples of two for ease in dividing the logs between them. It's boring mowing down the trees, but if you do it a couple times you'll have fuel for the whole game. The portable constructors only take 3 Iron Ore and are self powered. I'll stick 'em outside my base, fill them up and go do other things. Also - Feed BioFuel into any fuel tank then remove it and you have an instant source of small promethium fuel packs for Explosives. Faster than the Constructor and doesn't burn fuel to make fuel ...
Revised FYI- they nerfed lawn mower love, at least in Eden. No more rep points for killing trees with an HV harvester. Avoid the Zirax base attack by avoiding building a base; an HV without thrusters and only a mobile constructor, standard container, and fridge can be used to create a container controller and extensions to expand it. The only base thing you need a base for on a lawn mower HV is the harvester cutter head which you can make in a small constructor only base- blow the core in after building or just wait until you're neutral with them before building that out. I found this SV (@BigSnoopy refactoring of his original "Prefab 1C" design) to be really easy to bring in early game. I have my own version but his works great and is published. If you're on a starter like Haven you can have this in game with a full load of ammo within an hour and fueled up the way @Thor'sHammer describes above. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1935119516 After you locate the Z's you need to confront one of their POIs or roaming patrols long enough for them to be added to know factions before you can establish any love but once that's done your Gatling gun will make you a pal in relatively short order as they hate anything breathing in their territory. Finding a dirty forest early lets you get not only the promethium you need for the multitool (repairs and potential to move your "base" by transferring the cockpit and hover thrusters) but also has the potential of locating the helix which is good for a level+ worth of experience and a lot of loot as well- all while you sit in spit proof comfort of the cockpit or stand out on top of it while emptying the barrel.
Thanks a lot. And I've made a reforged eden version, bit more power and storage - and still cheap Just have a look at the shop (Wahnfriedenator ingame) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2529365344
I so rarely use autominers any more... It may be have not happened upon the right sacrifices to appease RNGesus, but I don't even recall the last time I found an autominer core, and by the time I have credits enough to buy them from NPC's, I really don't need them any longer. I can gather more materials faster with the survival tool, so really the only time I find autominers all that useful is when I'm working on depleting a planet to trigger meteroites. That said, it is also worth mentioning I don't use any mods or custom scenarios, as I'd rather wait for a "final release" version of the game, to ensure something I begin investing time into isn't going to be invalided by changes.
I hear that a lot about AMs and it's always confused me. The purpose of them (at least in my head) is not to mine ore while you sit and watch, it's to mine ore while you're doing other things. I usually get a few before going to my local moon and will place them there (assuming there's something worth placing them on). I place them on the first planet I find med. or larger zascosium and erestrum deposits. In general I get quite a few around my starting system and the system where I place my first space base...generally around those zasc and eres deposits. Then I just perform the maintenance runs every time I come back to base and I've rarely run out of anything that I have one or more AMs for. Typically I still mine when I first put them down since that is the stage of the game when I am building up my fleet and outfitting those first few ships I will use for the rest of the game (well maybe, haven't made it to progenitor space yet)
@IndigoWyrd ... I *know* you've been here long enough to understand why there is something inherently humorous in a face value read of this statement! We have to throw everything away and start all over at least three or four times a year.
