Autonomous mining unit

[Charlemagne]

Can someone explain how this unit is meant to be useful? It has to be placed on top of a resource. Why would that be better than just scooping the resource in a couple of minutes with a terrain manipulator?
Also, the AMU doesn't have a beacon or anything, so I have to stay with it or I will never find it later.

[B0RIS]

The amu increases the yield from deposits and is er, autonomous. That's it. Yeah, it's not that
great. If you need to mark it just build a save beacon next to it.

Mineral extractors are way better. Along with supply depots you can gather a big ol stockpile of whatever material. Visiting player bases with them, is a great help on expeditions for getting money fast. In hardcore mode (forgot the real name of it) I suppose they could be helpful too since your storage is so small.

but nah, you dont really need either of them to progress.

[Grimmslayer73]

Land on a planet. Drop 5 on a resource and place a save beacon. Move on to another spot and drop 5 more. Repeat. Explore for a bit then return and collect. That's about the only way they were useful to me. The advantage of using them over just digging out the resource is the AMUs will never deplete the node. This is good if you want to place them near a base and don't want to leave a big hole in the ground. The downside is they are bad about losing their contents if you get too far away from them.

[B0RIS]

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

AMUs will never deplete the node

forgot that part, ty.

And yup, they're definitely bugged. Same with refiners, don't leave anything in them if you're going to be gone for a while.

[Ankua]

I use them to farm expensive materials.
I make a little base with storage and a gate to get back quickly.
I have dozens of these type bases for building materials.

[knighttemplar1960]

The Autonomous Mining Unit has been bugged since it was released. Its gone through several changes and fixes but none have been successful. The issues are:

1. will use up all the fuel and then the resources disappear.
   
2. Require a beacon to find the unit again.
   
3. Takes an hour to use a full tank of fuel.
   
4. An hour's worth of production is too little.
   
5. If refueled switches to another type of material found on the planet.

There are some fixes that you can apply that make the units work successfully 95% of the time.

1. Seems to be caused by being in multiplayer and/or causing a loading screen to appear. The fix is to play off line solo and stay on the planet avoiding things that cause loading screens to occur. (Logging off and back on, leaving the atmosphere, teleporting, entering the anomaly, your freighter, or a space station. Your best bet is to stay on planet and explore there while the AMU(s) mine for you.

2. Is simple to fix. Place a beacon near the AMU(s) so you can find it again.

3 and 4. There are a couple of solutions to this. You can place up to 5 AMUs on one node. You can partially fuel the AMU(s). When you grab a stack of carbon press "C" this cuts the stack in half. Pressing "C" again will cut the stack in half again each time. The mouse wheel will rapidly increase or decrease the amount in your "hand". If you half fuel the AMU it takes 30 minutes to empty the fuel (which is about the time I spend exploring a planet).

5. The solution to this is don't refill the AMU. Dismantle it instead. Make sure that you empty it first. Its not like the portable refiner where if you pick it up unused fuel and finished products go into your inventory. If you pick up the AMU without emptying it first all the materials (except those required for the construction of the AMU) are lost.

The upsides to AMUs are that they don't use any of your terrain edits and don't deplete the resource node. They mine while you explore which saves you a little time. They are early game help if you can stand futzing with the work arounds to make them useful.

Mineral extractors are superior in just about every way except they take blue prints and materials that you don't have early game and it takes a long time to gather those materials, find a hot spot, and set up the equipment for a material that you might not use much of. Unless you are playing on the hardest difficulty its usually best (and easiest) to just buy what you need from space stations and traders and only set up mineral extractors on resources that you will use large quantities of.

[Zak]

Originally posted by B0RIS:

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

AMUs will never deplete the node

forgot that part, ty.

And yup, they're definitely bugged. Same with refiners, don't leave anything in them if you're going to be gone for a while.

Base refiners have been mostly fixed. I've been using them a lot recently in several bases, leaving the base, warping to other galaxies, quitting the game... Stuff is always there, waiting for me. I hear the freighter refiners are still bugged though.

Same for oxygen and gas collector, they work fine for me. Not sure about AMUs, haven't used these for a while.

[Creative Guy1]

@Zak Is that for medium and large refiners? Assuming portable refiners still bugged?

[Charlemagne]

The description of the item is misleading because it says "until the resource is depleted". If the machine doesn't deplete the source it could be useful especially for gaining some rare minerals. However, for my playstyle and at the moment I am in the game it seems more trouble than it's worth.
Thanks for all the answers.

[B0RIS]

Originally posted by Zak:

Originally posted by B0RIS:

forgot that part, ty.

And yup, they're definitely bugged. Same with refiners, don't leave anything in them if you're going to be gone for a while.

Base refiners have been mostly fixed. I've been using them a lot recently in several bases, leaving the base, warping to other galaxies, quitting the game... Stuff is always there, waiting for me. I hear the freighter refiners are still bugged though.

Same for oxygen and gas collector, they work fine for me. Not sure about AMUs, haven't used these for a while.

that's good news. It's not confirmed but according to the wiki it has to do with multiplayer losing connection sometimes? Any idea if you had it on or off?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by B0RIS:

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

AMUs will never deplete the node

forgot that part, ty.

Also it does not eat into terrain edits budget using them versus scooping them out.

I have also find it is best to stay in the area when you build them, otherwise they can bug out like refiners do if you leave the area.

[Felis_Exploria]

Pure ferrite can be a pain to collect manually and lots are needed if you use prefabs. AMUs are good for that.

[Charlemagne]

When I went to pick it up this morning after saving last night it had the 250 copper in the deposit. But I don't use multiplayer, and I didn't leave the planet so I'm not sure if I don't have the bug. One problem for me is that it costs 100 uranium, when I dismantle it I get 50 uranium back but ATM I don't have much uranium. But I can see ways to make it useful.

[voidCaster]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Can someone explain how this unit is meant to be useful?

It's portable, so once you build one you can pick it up like a save beacon or portable refiner, then drop it someplace else. This usefulness is practically nerfed by the time it takes to fill up each AMU.

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

It has to be placed on top of a resource. Why would that be better than just scooping the resource in a couple of minutes with a terrain manipulator?

It has to be placed on top of a RESOURCE NODE. You can in fact consume the whole resource itself, then place the AMUs where it used to be.

Either way, the AMU regularly fills up without removing additional material from the node.

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Also, the AMU doesn't have a beacon or anything, so I have to stay with it or I will never find it later.

This is super annoying, and the save beacon workaround mentioned by other users is even worse. You have to shoot all the way into space and turn around and shoot back at the planet to get to AMUs on different sides of the planet.

I plant bases on nodes to put out AMUs, then I just tport around. When I get the Survey Device I check for proximity to EM power and Mineral/Gas extraction sites. If it doesn't have what I want and need, I just delete the base first (so a new base replaces it in the list) and then I hunt down a new base site that supports S and A class deposits for EM/minerals/gas.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by tekmunkey:

It's portable, so once you build one you can pick it up like a save beacon or portable refiner, then drop it someplace else. This usefulness is practically nerfed by the time it takes to fill up each AMU.

I don't see any option for picking it up (mousewheel button) so I had to dismantle it.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

When I went to pick it up this morning after saving last night it had the 250 copper in the deposit. But I don't use multiplayer, and I didn't leave the planet so I'm not sure if I don't have the bug. One problem for me is that it costs 100 uranium, when I dismantle it I get 50 uranium back but ATM I don't have much uranium. But I can see ways to make it useful.

The "disappearing resources in a production unit bug" is utterly random. It either happens sometimes or it does not. No real rhyme or reason what causes it.

However the best way to prevent it is to simply not leave the area. For automated mining units I usually stick within about 3km harvesting other stuff with a mining laser. Sometimes I just sit in my ship afk, or an underground cave on severe weather planets.