Your first planet drill rigs

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

So iv started to work on mining planets, not tried it up untill last night and thought was about time. So i knocked up these two little things....

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=664664322

Niether works very well, the wheeled one can catch on the floor and only digs a little pit. But if you drag the drills along can do nice trenches with it. The flying ones nose catches on the pit it digs so not great for going strait down, but can dig a good sized hole to get to ore. Its a lot of fun making mining ships and im going to do new designs tonight with what i learned on thse two. I now know i need a lot of pistons for a wheeled one, and flying needs drills towards the edges with no overhangs to catch on the hole.

Id love to see some other peoples first attempts, and hear stuff like what worked, what didnt, what did you learn from it for your next one ect :)

[suppa]

I've built many variations of this to no avail. Pistons are wobbly pieces of crap that eventually tear the vehicle in half:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=570043594

My recommendation is not to use pistons at all. Your vehicle seems to have the right idea. Maybe build something that drags trenches and keep going. The problem is in planets I found ore all the way down to 50m. You'd need dozens of large pistons to get that far or a lot of time dragging trenches to dig that far.

I'm starting to believe that vehicles are no the way to go. You need to build a structure with pistons and rotors over a large area that allows drills to move around and drill down.

Good luck.

[jandraelune]

I got a few for space/moon. None for planets yet. Planets are still a little too buggy really.

Space/moon is far far more forgiving of things and can be made slimmer with Ion thrusters.

[VladK02]

A mining platform is the only way to go I think - like a deep sea oil rig in real life. Either to extract ore, or to dig a large straight tunnel for your other mining vehicles.

I am a noob still, but i tried for 2 days to mine using ground vehicles, and gave up. Even heaviest 10-wheeled crawlers that supposedly weigh a few tons flip over on flat ground for no reason.

I eneded up building a nice fat hydrogen flyier - nothing fancy, just a hydrogen tank, cockpit, drill on front, and some thrusters. Looks fat, but can carry 40k ore in the drill and cockpit. great for mining ice, not great for getting ore from 50m underground!

So yeah, i am trying an oil rig platform next. Pillar legs, and a matrix of drills on a piston and a rotor. i am going to try to use a rotor for digging at an angle - i want a nice slanted shaft, so my flyier can get in without hitting the walls. Platform is limited in that it will only gather a small bit of ore, as a deposit is like a snake, you have to follow it underground to really get ore.

EDIT - now that i am thinking of it, it may be better to instead of mining deposits with oil rigs, to convert my main base into a mobile floating ship that will act as a large mobile drillling platform. have a set of permanent drills on the bottom, so when you land, you can press a button, and they will drill you a large vertical shaft to ore - or harvest ice. And move from deposit to deposit.

[suppa]

I wouldn't bother taking a flyer in. Even if you drill the walls out, the flyter will still need to dig into the ground and you end up with the same problem.

Let us know how the pistons and rotors work out on a platform that's digging.

[VladK02]

Originally posted by suppa:

I wouldn't bother taking a flyer in. Even if you drill the walls out, the flyter will still need to dig into the ground and you end up with the same problem.

Let us know how the pistons and rotors work out on a platform that's digging.

Well, the ore veins are not distributed vertically, they are mostly on a horisontal plane - so once you get into the proper depth, you can start digging horisontally.. i think it will work, its all about having that initial opening large enough so you can maneuver your miner without hitting stuff.

I started on asteroids a few days ago to check them out, and the principle is the same there - asteroids also have these hollow caverns full or ore, once you get in, you can mine all over.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Originally posted by suppa:

I

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=570043594

Thats the same idea i was going for on the wheeled one, tried to keep it small so could still take it through my hanger doors onto ship....but nah wont dig far enough down. Maybe i could make it foldable....but thats gonna be tricky.

Originally posted by VladK02:

Snip

I like the idea of platforms, but i like mobility aswell. You made me think of maybe small drilling platforms, that sit on static wheels or even landing gears. Then a small ship with a merge block underneath used to heli lift them around. Think il try that later :)

[jandraelune]

You would have to use the same drilling rig to lower and extract your miner.. And set up an conveyor system to move ore out that way with out needing to always extract the miner.

[jandraelune]

Landing Gear + Pistons/Rotors on the same grid = BOOM.

[SpetS]

Originally posted by jandraelune:

Landing Gear + Pistons/Rotors on the same grid = BOOM.

no, you just need to know, how to use them, very very carefully

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRDvbvB08GQ