Why are my bots not mining?

[Kauldric]

I designate bots as needing to mine resource X, but they won't do it until I physically right click on a resource node. Then after that, they'll continue looking for more resources nodes, sometimes halfway across the map.

Is there a "correct" way to build mining bots with blueprints so that they actually always start mining vs. taking random logistics tasks?

[InfernoSpark]

they mine when:
1. their miner component has task
2. selected ore is close enough

Default behavior is that they mine ore until they "see it". If bot losing ore, and if it has 'logistics' enabled (wifi button on bottom of screen), then bot will go and do logistics, instead of mining.

To manage this, you need to use more advanced ways to handle this, primarily with usage of 'behaviors' or simple signals. (strongly advising you to watch tutorial videos about it, super helpful especially for setup basic mining)

[Kauldric]

I literally move them to a node and they still won’t do it sometimes. There is something else going on here.

Also they definitely move across the map to a new ore patch, so being close to ore isn’t correct.

I think this is just buggy as hell

[Quait]

you mean you set an iron ore in their miner component target?
you literally gave them a picture of an iron ore, but not where it is. They dont know where it is, thats why they dont mine. If you want them to find ore on their own they need a scanner.
They will retarget a new iron batch when they run out on their first target, but thats only really short range. To give them new target and/or the first target get a scanner or do it by hand.

[Kauldric]

I can try that but why do they find ore sometimes without a scanner?

[Draken]

Components probably has its own behaviours - for example, when you put a mining laser on a bot, you can see in the lower left side of game that its 'controlled by component - mining laser'.

This probably means that mining laser comes with a pre-defined behaviour - which we cannot really see/edit, and its just very basic one - basically mine the ore that is in visual indicator whenever its near/whenever you see it.

If you want to write a more elaborate behaviour, you need to plaster the behaviour component and write it using visual nodes.

Now, I think the developers could do two things:
- Add some more behaviour examples in the codex, for intermediete things like remote mining, roaming around picking stuff, retreating when damaged, etc.
- Allow us to view the 'default' behaviours that are run, like logistics or mining ones.

[Nate]

Mining bots should not be on the network, channel 1. If this is on, they will start doing item transport jobs.

Select one of your mining bots that is setup correctly. Add this bot as a new blueprint to your library. Your selected bot's design will be a grayed out line towards the bottom of your library list. Click the save button on that line and change the name to something better.

Then you can go use a manufacturing building, flip to the library tab and build that design.

You'll still need to select the newly built mining bots and tell them where to go mine and dump.

[Katitoff]

Going by my sweeper bot experience, is it possible your miner bots simply do not "see" the ore, because they are not equipped with radar scanning for them?

As for logistics tasks, do not set them as main logistic network and they'll do their own thing, just setup storage/hauler for them.

[Quait]

Turning off their network and setting the store register to a ore-storage (even better, a bot with big storage) is already enough to make them automine until there is no more ore nearby, you simply need to order them once to start mining.
Then have a hauler move the ore from the storage(bot) to the mainbase into a central big storage.

If you save that wifi-disabled miner as a blueprint every bot you craft from it will not move on its own, because it also spawns in with wifi disabled. You then ctrl-rightclick the storage (sets the Store-Register) and rightclick the ore you want to mine. Works with multiple bots selected as well.
When an ore batch runs out of ore you simply move the miningbot swarm with its mobile storage to a new batch and rightclick the ore. The storage bot will stay (it has no miners, it cant do anything with the right click command) and all miners will restart mining.

Later on when you get a bit more experience with behaviours you can upgrade the storage bot to scan for ores and automatically moving to the next batch, with the whole swarm following it.

[Zaflis]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Going by my sweeper bot experience, is it possible your miner bots simply do not "see" the ore, because they are not equipped with radar scanning for them?

They do search for ores in the nearby area even without any internal modules about it.

Set visual slot at the bottom to for example "metal ore", then drag an arrow line from it to the miner modules task slot. That will also let you see the ore icon on top of the miner to remember it was assigned to it. Don't use same miner for different jobs, just build more.

If you do that, you only need to place the miner (bot) somewhere near the ore and they will automatically move to them and mine.

[Kauldric]

Originally posted by Draken:

Components probably has its own behaviours - for example, when you put a mining laser on a bot, you can see in the lower left side of game that its 'controlled by component - mining laser'.

This probably means that mining laser comes with a pre-defined behaviour - which we cannot really see/edit, and its just very basic one - basically mine the ore that is in visual indicator whenever its near/whenever you see it.

If you want to write a more elaborate behaviour, you need to plaster the behaviour component and write it using visual nodes.

Now, I think the developers could do two things:
- Add some more behaviour examples in the codex, for intermediete things like remote mining, roaming around picking stuff, retreating when damaged, etc.
- Allow us to view the 'default' behaviours that are run, like logistics or mining ones.

Interesting. So the behavior doesn’t start until you activate the laser?

But I have seen drones come out of the hub and directly start mining.

[Kauldric]

Originally posted by Quait:

Turning off their network and setting the store register to a ore-storage (even better, a bot with big storage) is already enough to make them automine until there is no more ore nearby, you simply need to order them once to start mining.
Then have a hauler move the ore from the storage(bot) to the mainbase into a central big storage.

If you save that wifi-disabled miner as a blueprint every bot you craft from it will not move on its own, because it also spawns in with wifi disabled. You then ctrl-rightclick the storage (sets the Store-Register) and rightclick the ore you want to mine. Works with multiple bots selected as well.
When an ore batch runs out of ore you simply move the miningbot swarm with its mobile storage to a new batch and rightclick the ore. The storage bot will stay (it has no miners, it cant do anything with the right click command) and all miners will restart mining.

Later on when you get a bit more experience with behaviours you can upgrade the storage bot to scan for ores and automatically moving to the next batch, with the whole swarm following it.

I was thinking something similar to this as well. I guess it would need to be one of the scouts as larger inventory bots aren’t available for quite a while.

[Kauldric]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Going by my sweeper bot experience, is it possible your miner bots simply do not "see" the ore, because they are not equipped with radar scanning for them?

As for logistics tasks, do not set them as main logistic network and they'll do their own thing, just setup storage/hauler for them.

I literally told the miner to go right next to a huge ore patch. It promptly left to fulfill logistics requests. This one’s definitely seems like a bug.

[Quait]

Originally posted by Kauldric:

Interesting. So the behavior doesn’t start until you activate the laser?

But I have seen drones come out of the hub and directly start mining.

did you create their template from them while they mined? if yes, they probably got the mining target saved in the template. Once that specific ore is gone they wont have that target anymore, so that will stop working.

The template saves pretty much everything, you could save it with a target to follow preset and it will move there right away.
With a behaviour (maybe a signal reader is enough?) that gives it an ore as a target you could make an autostart mining drone.

[Quait]

Interesting. So the behavior doesn’t start until you activate the laser?

But I have seen drones come out of the hub and directly start mining.

did you create their template from them while they mined? if yes, they probably got the mining target saved in the template. Once that specific ore is gone they wont have that target anymore, so that will stop working.

The template saves pretty much everything, you could save it with a target to follow preset and it will move there right away.
With a behaviour (maybe a signal reader is enough?) that gives it an ore as a target you could make an autostart mining drone, from other miners and/ore the storage bot.

The storage on the storagebot doesnt need to be large if you have enough haulers emptying it. Twinbots have 4 storage slots by default, the miners will take a while to fill their own slots.
Then later you can add storage expansions on the haulers and the storagebot, total 14 slots possible, 4 default, 2x4 from S slots, plus 2 from internal slot storage expansions.
You could also daisychain the ore into multiple twinbots that are on standby to expand storage before that.

[Kauldric]

Thought about it more. Here is one idea for a more complex set of behaviors.

1. Create storage and set its signal to metal ore (or whatever)
2. Bots look for that signal and go to it
3. Then after that they look for ore and mine it
4. They dump ore into the storage
5. When they can’t find more ore in range they go back to they storage

Unsure how to make bots emit a Lb alert that they ran out of ore….