Stone Ejection issue, Drills pick it up again

[Scoob]

Hey all,

So, I decided to add a Sorter and small Connector to my small grid Miner to eject Stone. It does this just fine, however there's a problem...

Because I'm on a planet and gravity is a thing, the ejected stone often falls down the hole, only to be collected by the Drills again! How can I work around this? I mean, the ship drills a ship-sized hole in the ground so it can squeeze in to get those deeper deposits - they're all 30 plus metres down it seems - so how the ejected stone would not end up in said hole is the problem.

I thought that Drills did NOT pick up loose stones, but it seems they do. In space of course this really isn't an issue...but I ain't in space lol.

[Jeff]

Best I can suggest is to either design the ejector to be far enough away that it won't drop in the hole or turn off the ejector while you are in the hole and only turn it on outside of the hole.

[Scoob]

Thanks, that latter suggestion is exactly what I did. Had to eject some in the hole as got too heavy, but the stuff in the hole despawns quickly when you're dropping dozens of rocks outside.

[Katitoff]

Well, that's a thing you get with plunge miners that can dig straight down.

Can't do much about ejected stone other then aforementioned post.

Other then that, either embrace the plunge fully and fly away to drop the stone out if you do not use tunneling mode to go down, or change design to one that works horizontally and ejects stone below itself(or to the sides/back).

[Scoob]

Need a turret mod so the stone gets ejected, and promptly blown up by the turret :)

[Spaceman Spiff]

My vertical miners deal with the same issue. It's usually not a problem because the cargo containers and drills eventually fill with ore regardless of re-collecting the waste stone.

[Jack Schitt]

It's what I do too so I assume turning off the ejectors while we're in the hole, exiting and throwing the stone out away from the hole when we fill up, is probably how everyone does it.

[Scoob]

Yeah, that seems the best method for this particular design of mining craft.

What I've been doing is basically mining until I'm stuck - too heavy - start stuff ejecting via THREE connectors from three Sorters - once I'm light enough, I back out, still spewing rocks. I'll then hover, with many rocks now going elsewhere, causing any left in the hole to despawn due to item limits.

This works well enough for me as Mining is generally a slow activity...so I don't crash lol.

[Mojo]

Turn max floating objects down to a small number like 20, the most you should have at any one time in the hole would be 20.

Or place a sorter right after your ejectors, whitelist ores so only ores pass through to your cargo and stone would then just be "recycled".

Or follow the advice mentioned a few times above, move out of hole and dump, Re enter the hole.... that didnt sound so good did it? :)

[Jack Schitt]

Automatic LCDs 2 allows us to set up and display Cargo and inventory info on any LCD screen including the screens in cockpits and control seats:
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=822950976
Read the guide linked in the description.

There's another one like it, too, that's a bit fancier:
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2353784231
Read the guide linked in the description.
We can run both scripts at the same time if we want (not on the same screen).

Does your ship actually have ejectors on it or are you using connectors with 'throw out' enabled? Until a fairly recent update there were actual Ejectors in the game. If you actually have Ejectors (not small connectors) on the ship [PAM] makes use of them. [PAM] is a script that turns our mining ships into programmable and remote controllable drones:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1507646929
Read the guide linked in the description. We can also set this up to remotely control our drones from a "Control Room" if we enable and use its broadcasting feature.

If you have and enable Ejectors the ship will fill up to its set capacity limit, exit the hole, eject what the ejectors are set up to eject, and continue mining only returning to the station with a load when it's full of ore. There's options in the script of where it turns the ejectors on: in place or outside the hole.

[PAM] allows us to do other things while our drones are mining. We can also set up remote mining rigs away from our station and use [PAM] to shuttle cargo from the mining site to the station.

I actually use LCD remote Mirroring to set up Control Rooms and Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers or rooms:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1713856644
[PAM]'s broadcasting works but the reaction time between when we press a button and when the screen reacts has a delay that feels like lag. This script above mirrors any screen on any grid to another screen we've set up somewhere else. Response time is faster.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Originally posted by Mojo:

Turn max floating objects down to a small number like 20, the most you should have at any one time in the hole would be 20.

Or place a sorter right after your ejectors, whitelist ores so only ores pass through to your cargo and stone would then just be "recycled".

Or follow the advice mentioned a few times above, move out of hole and dump, Re enter the hole.... that didnt sound so good did it? :)

And I should have mentioned this, too. My miners use sorters and ejectors (now called small connectors), so waste stone is never collected, just dumped. So I don't really care if I pick up some that was ejected; it just gets ejected again.

[Scoob]

I did dabble with PAM ages ago. I had space-based small grids going off and mining asteroids for me before returning. My understanding was that Automatons had basically replaced such mods now, is that not true then? Perhaps PAM can do a lot more now than it once did.

[Ronin Planetary Industries]

To add to Spiff's comment: add more ejectors. The trick is to be able to throw out more stone at a rate faster than you're mining... or at least get close to it.It's not overkill to have four small grid "ejectors" (small connectors set to collect all and throw out all) per every drill on your ship.

You can have one conveyor sorter serve an entire bank ejectors. The ejectors will pull stone through the sorter even if the sort isn't pulling anything itself.

For thick veins of ore like most iron, you can get away with fewer ejectors. For thin veins like gold, you're going to need more ejectors or take breaks so that the ejectors can catch up.

[Scoob]

Ah, so the sorter is fast, it's purely the Connector (Ejector) that's slow? Ok, I'll adapt my design accordingly. It currently has three Sorters and Connectors for spitting stuff out.

[xx]

If you are willing to use mods, look at stone dusters. they destroy stone and gravel passed to them, they also use the ejector model (and I think the same resources to build) , so you can do a straight swap with your stone ejectors.

[Scoob]

Thanks, I'll check that out.