Large drill feedback.

[ElgarL]

I'm afraid I'm not impressed with the new drills. They take damage far too easily and break way to easily.

The right click for destroying rock is nice, but the normal mining operation should also destroy the same size hole. Currently it's far too tight, even with extra drills behind to enlarge the hole.

[Loues.S.Cat]

They work just fine for me. I havent lost a single large drill. What exactl are you doing to damage them? I managed to drill through an asteroid back and forth 5 times in a row without ever stopping for repair and didnt lose a single block off my ship. and that was using the mine opperation, not the clear rock alternative.

[ElgarL]

I built a test mining rig.

4x4 drills on the front.
4 more drills on each side extending one block out behind to create a slightly larger hole.

behind were large containers and the rest of the ship.

Mined exactly as I would in my small mining ship (pressed up gently against the rock).

Quite often sparks came from the drills as I dug through the asteroid, and after a couple of minutes II lost one drill on the front and the drill behind that one.

No where near as reliable as the small mining drills. With my small rig 3x3 +4 I can mine all day without damaging a single drill.

The advantage the small drills have is they cover a slightly larger mining area. You can space them one block apart and they still mine all the rock.
This also means they mine a slightly larger hole giving a greater tollerance over the large drills.

Using the right click on the large drills you can mine all day and never lose a drill. Not on the mormal operation though.

[MysticMalevolence]

Well, they obviously shouldn't affect a large area with the way they are designed...
However, it balances out for me because a small ship needs to return and be emptied into a refinery; the big drills can just instantly empty into the refinery. Plus, big ships normally hold more cargo.
Plus, a big drill tends to only drill a small space around it... A drill that can take out a full 7.5m diameter would be slightly odd...

[Loues.S.Cat]

So you cant use a large ship drill exactly as you would a small ship drill... I see no problem with this at all XD

[tremerid]

I think the large drills are more for TBM style excavation. pretty much how it works rl. Smaller, faster drills clear area's roughly, but you either need to come back to collect the rough cut ore, or have very little storage. Tunnel bores usually have an internal conveyor, and while slow, chew through a much larger area in a straight(or almost straight...)line.

In those cases the drill head is either the same size as the body, or in most cases, a bit bigger than the rest. Everything passes through the drill head and back into the body, usually down a conveyor or sleuce running through the middle. I've only used one large ship miner so far, but it seems to work under a similar idea. you just need the drill head a bit bigger than the body so there's room for error.

http://projectcamelot.org/tunnel_boring_machine_6.jpg Here's a TBM. Notice how the thing is a bit smaller, almost like a rail car with a large plug-like head in the front?

[Shadowbane]

Problem I have with the large drills is the block they sit on behind them gets damaged while mining and the drills either get damaged or just go floating away when that block gets destroyed. can't tunnel worth a damn even with a large drill head and a narrow body.

[Loues.S.Cat]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=270186423
That is the basic form that worked for me. the only thing that pushes out as far as the egde of the drill front is the landing gear. everything else is one step inward. The landing gear stabalises the entire thing going through the holes.
You can build substancialy larger drill fronts or longer vehicles. As long as you keep everything one step in from the edge of the drill front it works perfectly, and if you keep the entire thing stable inside the hole you suffer next to no damage.

[Rex]

My creation seems to work fine... Laggy but fine. Took awhile too...
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=270670399
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=270670416

[tremerid]

Holy mother of God and all her whacky nephews... Yeah, with the current memory issues in-game that would start bogging me down in about half an hour of use, lol.

[Loues.S.Cat]

Wow... 121 large drills crippled my machine in minutes... I can't even get close to producing smething that big.

[Kikinaak]

And this is what happens when a *slightly* overengineered square peg meets a round hole.

[Fury6]

Originally posted by tremerid:

I think the large drills are more for TBM style excavation.

Really, in all honesty we should just be grateful our drills are so damned effective. In the real world a large rotating percussion drill machine, depending on the size of the well-face, have penetration rate averages of something in the order of 10-15m per HOUR. The larger the well-face, the slower the penetration rate. When I last checked our small drill efficiency (they're even faster now since a couple patches ago) they were averaging something in the order of 5-10m per MINUTE.. The large ship drills should really be very much slower but I'm betting they get at least the same rates as the small ones.

[Loues.S.Cat]

I know in the alt fire you can easily cruis through an asteroid at 10 meters per second so yeah, tiny bit moe effective than true to life drills >.>
The main fire version is a lot less effective but you are still taking about penatration in terms of meters per second. well... half a meter or so give or take. Depending on how hard to push. A gentle gravity driven acceleration tends to be slower than thrusting against the rock face but is less susceptible to tipping when you start to breach into caverns.

[Frosty]

The speed doesn't bother me, tbh i'd be fine with it going slower.

The area around them they mine doesn't bother me

What Does bother me, is that it still makes my ship wobble around like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Eventually causing my ship damage or just destroying the drills themselves.. A way to kill the wobble would be really nice.

Some super expensive flight computer block or something? So it can calculate and predict thrust needed to keep itself from smashing along the walls :/

[Eviscerator]

Originally posted by Kikinaak:

And this is what happens when a *slightly* overengineered square peg meets a round hole.

ROFLMAO! I just literally spit iced tea through my nose laughing at that.
He's got a point there Rex Draco. I myself would never try to build something like that in survival. It's amazing work tho.