Adding exterior Lights to a Large Mining ship

[Vryce]

I have tried several methods but since the large mining righs don't "wiggle" as much as they chew through, putting a light in harms way means you just lose it.

I have tried multiple designs including putting lights in where a mining unit would be and linking the missed miner by using tubing but the lights still go poof.

Anyone got a front shot of a large miner that has lighting so I can get an idea of what to do? You don't have to explain much as I am getting fairly familiar with the conveyor system though I still can't manage the ship well enough to connect the ejector to the connector.

I kind of remember a YouTube video showin where they had made a funnel around the connector and the ship simply hovered over it and the ejector dropped rocks. I can do this but I can't get the blasted connector to open. All objects belong to me.

Any help greatly appreciated. For now, I simply plow half the ship in and back out and do it all over again making squarish gopher holes in the asteroids.

Thanks,

Nat

[error1440]

Gonna need a bit of clarification on something here Nat...

By "Large mining vessel" do you mean a Large Ship, or a Small Ship thats just freakin huge?

As far as the Large Ship goes, you are pretty much SOL short of using a modded drill that creates a much larger hole than the drill itself, in order to get forward-facing lights on

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by Natarthos:

I have tried several methods but since the large mining righs don't "wiggle" as much as they chew through, putting a light in harms way means you just lose it.

I have tried multiple designs including putting lights in where a mining unit would be and linking the missed miner by using tubing but the lights still go poof.

Anyone got a front shot of a large miner that has lighting so I can get an idea of what to do? You don't have to explain much as I am getting fairly familiar with the conveyor system though I still can't manage the ship well enough to connect the ejector to the connector.

I kind of remember a YouTube video showin where they had made a funnel around the connector and the ship simply hovered over it and the ejector dropped rocks. I can do this but I can't get the blasted connector to open. All objects belong to me.

Any help greatly appreciated. For now, I simply plow half the ship in and back out and do it all over again making squarish gopher holes in the asteroids.

Thanks,

Nat

It's a problem on Large Ships. On small ships you can place the drills about 3 blocks apart and they will still drill a big enough hole. But on large ships using standard drills they need to be placed right next to another or you'll run the risk of leaving a piece of rock that will damage your drills.

I gave up trying to put forward facing lights on my large ship miner with 5x5 drills.

There are some modded drills out there that have wider drilling radii that I've used on some PvP servers. In those instance I was able to place one large block between them and then put lights in the empty spaces.

[Darkaiser]

A few questions: Why put lights on a mining ship anyway? From experience I can tell you all you will see is a large dust cloud.

If you want the lights somewhere OTHER THAN the front, just extend your drill head 1-2 blocks wider than the widest part of your ship. I would back them with Conveyors so they have something to cling to.

The is an Extreme Interior Light mod aimed at reducing lag by enabling you to use fewer lights for the same area. Best part is that if you put them behind something (like a drill) and turn them up to 50m or so. So put one in the middle of your drill head on the back side of a blocks and turn it up so it shines through to the front.

Good luck

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by Darkaiser:

A few questions: Why put lights on a mining ship anyway? From experience I can tell you all you will see is a large dust cloud.

If you want the lights somewhere OTHER THAN the front, just extend your drill head 1-2 blocks wider than the widest part of your ship. I would back them with Conveyors so they have something to cling to.

The is an Extreme Interior Light mod aimed at reducing lag by enabling you to use fewer lights for the same area. Best part is that if you put them behind something (like a drill) and turn them up to 50m or so. So put one in the middle of your drill head on the back side of a blocks and turn it up so it shines through to the front.

Good luck

You need the lights to see when the ore stops and the stone starts if your trying to avoid a lot of extra stone. And given the masses effect on accelleration it is becoming more important particularly on PvP servers where useless stone is just a waste of time and effort and makes you more vunerable.

Yes you have to stop drilling and let the dust cloud clear, but if you're using DX11 it is so dark that you can't see a thing when trying to manuver inside asteroids to get to that choice ore without some lights.

I've put some facing sideways just to get an idea where the ore and other obstructions are.

[Vryce]

Originally posted by dedendz:

Gonna need a bit of clarification on something here Nat...

By "Large mining vessel" do you mean a Large Ship, or a Small Ship thats just freakin huge?

As far as the Large Ship goes, you are pretty much SOL short of using a modded drill that creates a much larger hole than the drill itself, in order to get forward-facing lights on

It is build with Large Blocks and Large everything.

Thanks!

Nat

[Vryce]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

Originally posted by Darkaiser:

A few questions: Why put lights on a mining ship anyway? From experience I can tell you all you will see is a large dust cloud.

If you want the lights somewhere OTHER THAN the front, just extend your drill head 1-2 blocks wider than the widest part of your ship. I would back them with Conveyors so they have something to cling to.

The is an Extreme Interior Light mod aimed at reducing lag by enabling you to use fewer lights for the same area. Best part is that if you put them behind something (like a drill) and turn them up to 50m or so. So put one in the middle of your drill head on the back side of a blocks and turn it up so it shines through to the front.

Good luck

You need the lights to see when the ore stops and the stone starts if your trying to avoid a lot of extra stone. And given the masses effect on accelleration it is becoming more important particularly on PvP servers where useless stone is just a waste of time and effort and makes you more vunerable.

Yes you have to stop drilling and let the dust cloud clear, but if you're using DX11 it is so dark that you can't see a thing when trying to manuver inside asteroids to get to that choice ore without some lights.

I've put some facing sideways just to get an idea where the ore and other obstructions are.

Now I had not thought of that!!!!

At least I might get some reflected light that might help.

I wanted to create a monster worm that would just chew through and get my materials.

I really think I might go back to my small ship but the mass change really altered their ability to carry any kind of a load. Considering a mothership to park out there amongtst some rocks and use the small ship to go back and forth. Just an idea.

Nat

PS Lights work just fine with the small miners due to the wiggle. You will lose a couple but I bring along replacements.

[Vryce]

Originally posted by Darkaiser:

A few questions: Why put lights on a mining ship anyway? From experience I can tell you all you will see is a large dust cloud.

If you want the lights somewhere OTHER THAN the front, just extend your drill head 1-2 blocks wider than the widest part of your ship. I would back them with Conveyors so they have something to cling to.

The is an Extreme Interior Light mod aimed at reducing lag by enabling you to use fewer lights for the same area. Best part is that if you put them behind something (like a drill) and turn them up to 50m or so. So put one in the middle of your drill head on the back side of a blocks and turn it up so it shines through to the front.

Good luck

Another great idea! Thanks!

Nat

[Fury6]

Originally posted by Natarthos:

I have tried several methods but since the large mining righs don't "wiggle" as much as they chew through, putting a light in harms way means you just lose it.

Not so much to do with 'wiggle'.

Small grid drills excavate a wellface that is one block (0.5m) wider than the drillface. The drillface is 3 blocks (1.5m) wide, the resulting wellface is 5 blocks (2.5m) wide in total, ie a full large grid block.

OTOH, the large grid drills excavate a wellface that is only *just* wider than the drillface itself, my guess/assumption is that it is one small grid block (ie 0.5m) wider so the resulting wellface may be only 3.5m wide for a 2.5m wide drillface. Which leaves very little clearance for anything at all any wider than the drillface itself.

'Wiggle' may well be a factor but the bigger issue is definitely the inherrent clearances. If forgoing the use of mods as suggested above then rather than attempt to put lights around the outside of the ship, instead think about designing the machine so that you can place spotlights 'inside' the ship's total drillface width (ie, inset into the sides of the ship somewhere just behind the drills) pointing outwards. For large grid miners, nothing hanging outside the total drillface width will survive, neither will anything that points forward by replacing a drill.

The entire frontal area *must* be drillface, otherwise asteroid *will* poke through and parts will separate.
--

With the small grid miners, because of the large clearance, you can place drills far enough apart to get spotlights in between there to throw light directly forward, which is what I do for those. You only really need one, two at most.

PersonalIy, I place the drills with one block separation at the base, two is possible but less reliable as sometimes asteroid does manage to poke through right at the grid junction between the two-block clearance gap. Asteroid poking through between drills is almost always, indirectly at the least, a catastrophic event :).

[Maddo]

If you have a spinning drill head (or spin the whole ship) you'd have room for lights. Aka, just a vertical line of drills that you spin to cut out a circle, like a drill bit.

IMO that's not worth the extra effort.

[Ruges]

The large ship drill mines 1.5 blocks.

xxxxx
xooox
xxxxx
xooox
xxxxx

X's being drill heads and O's being lights will work.

[ScruffyBamboo]

I find what works well is to have lights pointing to the sides, but close to the drillheads (right behind them really). You can change their settings to have them illuminate a wider area, and if you place some all around (left, right, top, bottom), you'll find you'll get a good view of what's going on, and you can keep those lights tucked away safely.

[Legas]

Large grid drills suck.

You're really better off with a Small grid mining ship (which might be pretty large anyway).
After playing around with mining ships I found absolutely no advantages to the Large grid variant.

Small mining ships are cheaper, drills faster, consume less energy, fly faster, are more maneuverable. There is little to no reason to build mining ships out of Large grid blocks.

Edit: you can also easily fit small ships with spotlights, mounted anywhere without they randomly breaking up.

[ScruffyBamboo]

Originally posted by Artorias (Legas):

Large grid drills suck.

You're really better off with a Small grid mining ship (which might be pretty large anyway).
After playing around with mining ships I found absolutely no advantages to the Large grid variant.

Small mining ships are cheaper, drills faster, consume less energy, fly faster, are more maneuverable. There is little to no reason to build mining ships out of Large grid blocks.

Edit: you can also easily fit small ships with spotlights, mounted anywhere without they randomly breaking up.

Efficient? Maybe not. Bucketloads of fun? Oh yeah... lol:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=335368880

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=335369327

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=335368107