Excavating machines unable to gather what they mine

[Kikinaak]

With the new emphasis on rooms for which you need to dig rock, organic detritus, bedrock etc to make construction paste. I previously used the excavators (auto exc, workfloor exc, etc) to clear areas to build in, but are they really worth using in P18? Sure they let you do other stuff while they dig but they dont let you harvest that material for paste.

IMO for the research and mats it takes to set one up and run power to it, they should be able to be attached to a hopper to output what they mine so it can be used.

[The Undead Watcher]

Do you have the dapper Pack? Then you have the Super Construction Paste grinder and that thing does the same thing as the other grinder, excepts the better version converts any trash mat AND COAL into 8 Construcion paste. Problem solved

[Kikinaak]

I do have the dapper pack, and I would never trade my power source for cosmetic items. Paste is supposed to be repurposed from otherwise junk material

[The Undead Watcher]

You will literaly excavate more coal than you will ever need.

Need more coal? Add a motor to your excavator.
Your vein ran out of ore? Just ping coloured and you will find sh*t loads of other Coal veins, you just need to hook them up to your existing network.

But of course if you want to make it harder for yourself just bc you can, than i can not help you.

[Kikinaak]

No one asked for your "help". You may well be right about bringing in enough coal that one could use it as building material, but that certainly does not apply to early game. And its off topic. The super grinder makes coal an alternative source of paste, but my original point was on the primary source, junk material from mining or levelling, and that the automatic excavators waste that material.

[stub]

I think the excavators are still very much worth using. There is an unlimited amount of junk to convert to paste, and you are already standing in it. The paste problem is not about materials but abount time.

Even paving the ground with reinforced blocks for walking speed and resilience is going to take a *lot* of paste, and that means a lot of time holding down the right mouse button. Realisticly, your choices are boredom, repurposing coal or other abuntant ore, buying the Dapper pack or using a mod for a similar effect.

[Riddle]

Not really much you can do it's eather find a coal deposit you don't plan on using, or manually dig up the thousands of trash blocks you need.

[Kikinaak]

Pretty much, and thats the issue here. I get tradeoffs, this game is full of them. But it would be nice to have, possibly higher up the tech tree when you are drilling huge underground shafts, a way to collect that otherwise wasted material and funnel it to paste makers. Meanwhile in the early game trying to collect enough paste to make even a basic room has left me defenseless to overmind sending waves at me. I personally think this is way unbalanced in early game but thats another issue.

My main point stands. With the emphasis on building enclosed rooms which need construction paste, there is no way at any point in the tech tree of automatically gathering their primary resource (coal is secondary and not available to all players, only dapper buyers so it doesnt count for this example). This should be addressed.

[Sceptical]

It isn't unbalanced though. you just completely ignored perfectly reasonable advice to use coal as a source of paste, It is even advised in the paste grinders description that coal is viable. Literally slapping an excavator on a coal vein and adding a grinder seems ALOT easier than collecting manually. Don't get me wrong you will always end up with "waste" material you can turn into paste as you progress naturally. Also adding another means to get paste material "higher" in the tech tree is pointless as you already have a means to do so, COAL.

And as far as I am aware Dapper pack makes NO difference to Grinders. Anyone can use coal in a grinder not just dapper pack owners. The higher "tier" grinder is dapper only as far as I am aware, the regular one still works brilliantly you just use multiple grinders in tandem.

Seriously just give it a try instead of just burying your head in the sand. you wouldn't even need to make a new excavator just smack the paste grinder down next to the coal vein you use to feed the CPH and split some of the coal off to turn into paste?

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Kikinaak:

(coal is secondary and not available to all players, only dapper buyers so it doesnt count for this example). This should be addressed.

What?
First it's not secondary. Dirt and his friends are garbage. Coal is a primary energy source and construction paste source.

Just because YOU qualify it as a secondary resource doesn't make it secondary. It's secondary in YOUR head.

You don't NEED dapper to use coal as construction paste material.

The construction paste maker should be available to everyone.
Only the super construction maker is restricted to dapper.

Also use the BFL as a shaft maker than. It will drop every blocks. The quarry also drop every drop back.

[stub]

Your point relies on coal being a 'secondary' resource, but it isn't. The paste grinder explicitly documents that it processes coal; it is by design and how it has been balanced. It is most certainly automateable and available to all players, immediately after unlocking the aethetics resource if they so wish.

However, I do agree that the work floor excavators could use some love. Leaving blocks would be nice to have, and I don't think that giving the player more garbage would be over powered. There are mods available that give you workfloor excavators with different abilities if you want to try them out and see if they help or not. I personally love the ones that let me adjust the height being excavated, as excavating large areas is a challenge to nothing except my patience (aka. grind).

[Titanium Jesus]

Originally posted by Kikinaak:

No one asked for your "help". You may well be right about bringing in enough coal that one could use it as building material, but that certainly does not apply to early game. And its off topic. The super grinder makes coal an alternative source of paste, but my original point was on the primary source, junk material from mining or levelling, and that the automatic excavators waste that material.

Wrong. That does apply to early game and no, that was not off topic, and it was you whom have asked for help.

[Reaperrazor]

Early gam you can use any non machine block for building rooms (absolutely recommended til you have a paste line set up

[Kikinaak]

I classify coal as a secondary source of paste because it generates power, the other sources of paste do not. Their only use is paste, while coals primary use is power. That is why I consider it wasteful to make paste from coal. You WANT your coal line backing up when the wasps come calling and draining power from your defenses.

From the in game descriptions, the dapper-only grinder processes coal and the basic ones do not. If this is wrong and the basic ones do process coal, then the in game descriptions mislead.

Originally posted by Titanium Jesus:

Wrong. That does apply to early game and no, that was not off topic, and it was you whom have asked for help.

I did no such thing. I expressed an opinion regarding the wastefullness of machines supposedly there to help save time, by eliminating material you needed to turn into paste to build rooms. I still feel they are wasteful and should be able to be tied into a hopper to collect the material they mine. The use of coal to make paste was not part of that. And early game you are turning all your coal into power, so no, it does not apply to the discussion of paste.

Originally posted by Reaperrazor:

Early gam you can use any non machine block for building rooms (absolutely recommended til you have a paste line set up

This, I did not realize. I assumed the trash blocks would not be considered valid for a room. Doesnt really counter my original point, but is very helpful info. Thank you.

[Munda]

The non dapper grinder definitely uses coal for paste. I was using it for that about a year ago.
Although I agree you typically use all coal for power early game, it isn’t hard to just locate a secondary coal vein nearby, plunk down an extra excavator, make a closed power loop so it isn’t drawing from your base, and pipe it into several paste grinders. That way you aren’t pulling from your power coal line.
I used to have about 6-10 paste grinders going off of 1 drill. You could always just run 1 or 2 conveyors from the secondary drill over to your base and then split the lines into the grinders so you never have to walk back to the other drill.

[Redex]

quarry > I/O port masstockage > i/O construction paste. , i have got million paste using that