Automated Beam Drill

Summary

Phoenix Manufacturing has done it yet again!

In collaboration with Shaostoul and Megaddd, we present a fully automated beam mining drill.

Designs from an alternate universe were found, and used for inspiring and designing this drill.

Quick Start

• Place the base Beam Drill block
• Place the Beam Drill Turret (if desired), on top of the base placed above
• Place ore detector if using automatic mining mode
• Activate with the Beam Drill base block only, not the turret
• Control from turret if desired

Performance Notes

I've worked to improve performance, but this mod is still CPU heavy. It will use several cores if available. Modded ore detectors that increase range will significantly increase CPU and RAM usage.

Programmable Block Support

Now the Ore Detectors support fetching ore deposit information via the PB with the new property: Phoenix.Ore.DetectedOre See sample program here: http://pastebin.com/K7V1GeUf It returns a list in GPS format, with a trailing value indicating the deposit size (see screenshot). To parse this as regular GPS, just trim off everything after the last colon (:).

Details

This mod has two blocks, and three modes of operation:

• Static mode
• User aimable with add-on turret
• Fully automated with add-on turret and ore detector

The primary, and base required block, is the Beam Drill.

• Static, immobile beam for mining.
• Wider bore width and faster mining than the turret

There is also an add-on, the Beam Drill Turret. This must be placed directly over the static Beam Drill, over the black lens. This acts as a focusing module for the beam.

This adds two additional modes of operation:

• User controlled mining The player can control it like a turret and drill where they want to, regardless of ship position. This also allows multiple players to collaborate and mine together.
• Fully automated mining. In this mode, the turret will automatically mine rare ore in the asteroid, leaving the stone behind (unless it's in the way). This mode requires an active ore detector on the ship (it will not work over antennas).

What does this mean? You can park a ship near an asteroid, leave it for a few hours, and when you come back it will be hollowed out of all rare ores.

Things to note:

• Stone will still be collected if using the static or user controlled drill, and in automatic mode if it is blocking rare ore
• Iron will be mined only after all other rare ore in range is mined.
• Maximum range: 1000m (automatic requires ore detector of that range, not over antennas)
• Power: MW = distance ^ 1.27 (350MW for a 100m beam, 6.46GW at max range of 1000m)
• Bore width: Static, 10m; Turret, 3.6m
• For performance, ore scanning only happens when the ship is stationary.

Planned

• Ore priorities - Done 21 May 2016
• Antenna support
• Damage to grids
• Integrated stone destroyer - Done 19 May 2016

Known Issues

• Does not affect ships or players, only voxels
• Automated mining doesn't start instantly. There is a delay due to ore scanning. Make sure to wait at least 5-10s before mining after activating an ore detector, or motion stops. This may be longer depending on system performance (up to 30s or more).
• Inventory may not appear for clients on a DS. This is a game bug. Rejoining the server will make the inventory appear.
• Drilling can be processor intensive. To keep it down, only have one ore detector per grid. Turn off any extras.
• Mining may extend outside the selected radius.
• Automated mining may miss, or incompletely mine, sparse ore deposits. This is due to using a higher LOD level for ore scanning to save on performance. Help wanted.

FAQ

Q: Are there small ship versions? A: Small ships drills are planned, no ETA. Power requirements will remain high, but values are TBD.

Q: Power usage seems a bit high, can you lower it? A: Keep in mind is is designed to be an expensive end-game part. High power usage is to counter how powerful this drill is. Balance may be adjusted depending on feedback. I'd rather start with high requirements and lower them, then start low and increase them.

Q: Does it work on planets? A: Yes! Due to performance reasons, stone and ice are not detected by the ore detector, on purpose. Note however, that there must either be a character nearby (unseated), or a dynamic grid (e.g., rover, ship) to use the drill. Using it from a static grid (station) is no longer supported, as the game will unload physics if there's no dynamic objects nearby.

Q: It asks for ammo, but I can't find any, where is it? A: The turret does not need ammo. If it asks for ammo, the mod is broken. If no one else has reported it, and the game hasn't updated recently, you either have a corrupt mod, or a conflict with another. Try a new world with no other mods installed. If you still have problems, make sure you delete your mod cache (or unsub and resub), and then try again.

Q: There's no On/Off button A: The turret does not have a power button. This is intentional as the power is controlled from the base. If the power is missing from the base drill, then that's either a mod confict, or more likely, a game bug. I can't reproduce it.

Q: XBOX Support A: This will not work on XBox. It cannot work, don't ask. Do not upload to Mod.IO yourself to 'test' it.

Recent Changes

See the Change Log

Bugs?