Do you put speed or prod modules into your mining drills

[Falesz]

Hey all,
Question in the title. Usually I put prod modules wherever possible, but for me the mining drills are an exception. I play with resource path size and richness maxed out, so running dry on a patch anytime soon isn't that much of a concern and when it eventually happens, I can just build a new mining outpost that can keep chugging ores out for another couple hundred hours.
How do you guys do it? Is running out enough of a concern for those who play on completely default settings to use prod modules in their miners?

[Khaylain]

I probably run prod modules in the mining drills, and if I need more speed then beacons with speed modules surrounding the drills.
Though I probably shouldn't need to worry about running out anyway, since it should be easy enough to go out and find a new patch if you're at the point where you can fill every miner with T3 modules.

[Das Trojanische Pferd]

Originally posted by Csöpper:

Hey all,
Question in the title. Usually I put prod modules wherever possible, but for me the mining drills are an exception. I play with resource path size and richness maxed out, so running dry on a patch anytime soon isn't that much of a concern and when it eventually happens, I can just build a new mining outpost that can keep chugging ores out for another couple hundred hours.
How do you guys do it? Is running out enough of a concern for those who play on completely default settings to use prod modules in their miners?

why would you not use prod modules? It's just more ore if you want to speed it up then put some beacons between the big mining drills from vulcanus

[königplatzen]

Better pump mining productivity research, IMO. Also go for quality Vulcanus drills
The resources, you spend on the modules, have a very long time to start paying back.

[Falesz]

Oh ever since I unlocked Big mining drills, Electric mining drills have went out of commission in my factory.

[Moganite]

Neither , I put quality modules in my big and small mining drills. Quality ore smelts to quality plates.

[Falesz]

Originally posted by Moganite:

Neither , I put quality modules in my big and small mining drills. Quality ore smelts to quality plates.

That implies a nightmare of a sorting algorithm at every mining outpost.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Csöpper:

Originally posted by Moganite:

Neither , I put quality modules in my big and small mining drills. Quality ore smelts to quality plates.

That implies a nightmare of a sorting algorithm at every mining outpost.

Still simpler than the set up you use on Fulgora and easy to adapt the set up you used on Fulgora.

For modules which ones I use depend on the stage of the game. Pre-nuclear power my electric mining drills get eff I modules. post nuclear and pre-big miner it depends on patch size. My goal is to saturate each belt between the rows of miners so I'll mix and match productivity and speed modules.

Once I have big mining drills its production modules in the drills and a row of beacons between since the catchment area of the big mining drills is large enough to allow for a row of beacons without leaving strips of ore behind.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3412627106

[Torham]

Originally posted by Moganite:

Neither , I put quality modules in my big and small mining drills. Quality ore smelts to quality plates.

I have been dabbling in quality mechanic myself after beating space age 2x now. You are right, sorting ore is much simpler than sorting all the scrap in all the quality tiers on Fulgora.

One question. How do you load the trains? If set to wait until full, they stall, waiting for that one rare iron space left on the wagon. do you just put a timer on them? or some circuit condition?

[astrosha]

I have not revisited this with Quality modules, so I stick to my old way of thinking :

NEVER put Productivity Modules into Miners/Pumpjacks.

Vanilla (so no Space Age) pre-rocket you top out at Mining Productivity 3. You also have 2 module slots in your Pumpjacks, and 3 in your Electric Miners. Those Productivity 3 modules in those machines give Pumpjacks +20% Productivity, -30% Speed; they give the electric Miners +30% Productivity, -45% Speed.

Electric Miners : (100% base production + 30% module production + 30% tech production) * (100% base speed - 45% speed reduction from modules)
This means (1.00 + 0.3 + 0.3) * (1.00 - 45), which equals 1.6 * 0.55 which equals 0.88 ... or 88% of an unmodified Electric Miner's output.

Pumpjacks : (100% base production + 20% module production + 30% tech production) * (100% base speed - 30% speed reduction from modules)
This means (1.00 + 0.2 + 0.3) * (1.00 - 0.3), which equals 1.5 * 0.7 which equals 1.05 ... or 105% of an unmodified Pumpjack's output.

Note that "unmodified ____ output" means *at zero Mining Productivity technology* ... that tech alone means the "with tech, no module" output of both is at 130% already in this scenario! The Productivity Modules reduce the per minute or per second output of the machines down!

For me, the question is really "Do I use Speed Modules in these Miners/Pumpjacks, or do I use Efficiency Modules in these Miners/Pumpjacks?"

That answer depends. Early on, before getting Nuclear Power up and running, or massive Solar Fields set up (whichever I'm going for in that particular game; I tend to go nuclear) I'm likely to use Efficiency Modules, for two reasons. First, less power consumed means less strain on my Boilers and Steam Engines. Second, I probably dont want the Pollution those Miners/Pumpjacks are generating to spread too much, so reducing the amount they generate is a defensive plus.

Later on, Speed Modules all the way. At the same conditions as above (Mining Prod tech level at 3) three SM3's in an Electric Miner bring it to (100% base productivity + 30% tech productivity) * (100% base speed + 150% module speed) .... which means 130% * 250%, which equals 1.3 * 2.5 or 3.25 or 325% of an unmodified Miner's output, more than three times what the miner you put down at the start of the game produced per minute.

Now, at max Quality, PM3's are +25% Productivity, -15% Speed. SM3's are +125% Speed.
Electric Miners :
PM3's at MP3 : (100% + 30% tech + 75% modules) * (100% - 45%) ..... 2.05 * 0.55 = 1.1275
SM3's at MP3 : (100% + 30%) * (100% + 375%) ...... 1.3 * 4.75 = 6.175
6.175 - 1.1275 = 5.0475 ... with the base output of a miner at 0.5 ore/second, that is 2.5 ore per second difference between the two.

Pumpjacks :
PM3's at MP3 : (100% + 30% tech + 50% modules) * (100% - 30%) ...... 1.8 * 0.7 = 1.26
SM3's at MP3 : (100% + 30%) * (100% + 250%) ..... 1.3 * 3.5 = 4.55
4.55 - 1.26 = 3.29 ... a smaller but still significant difference in output between the two.

I chose Mining Prod 3 because I had to pick something. One would probably expect a higher Mining Productivity tech by the time one gets Legendary modules into widespread use. The general trend, that Speed Modules increase the machine's output more, will remain the same.

Originally posted by Torham:

Originally posted by Moganite:

Neither , I put quality modules in my big and small mining drills. Quality ore smelts to quality plates.

I have been dabbling in quality mechanic myself after beating space age 2x now. You are right, sorting ore is much simpler than sorting all the scrap in all the quality tiers on Fulgora.

One question. How do you load the trains? If set to wait until full, they stall, waiting for that one rare iron space left on the wagon. do you just put a timer on them? or some circuit condition?

I would use an Inactivity wait condition on the trains in this case. Or, separate the ores between the miners and loading the trains, so you have multiple train stations for loading ores. But, those are merely ideas, as I have not put Quality modules into my miners and likely will not.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Torham:

Originally posted by Moganite:

Neither , I put quality modules in my big and small mining drills. Quality ore smelts to quality plates.

I have been dabbling in quality mechanic myself after beating space age 2x now. You are right, sorting ore is much simpler than sorting all the scrap in all the quality tiers on Fulgora.

One question. How do you load the trains? If set to wait until full, they stall, waiting for that one rare iron space left on the wagon. do you just put a timer on them? or some circuit condition?

Any way you want. You can also just mine the ore and then upcycle it all on site until you have an entire wagon of legendary ore.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by Torham:

One question. How do you load the trains? If set to wait until full, they stall, waiting for that one rare iron space left on the wagon. do you just put a timer on them? or some circuit condition?

Off the cuff, since I've not gotten into quality yet at all, Prior to having the recycler to upcycle with, just take all the non-normal and route it to one chest, Depending on how you load, you could put it on the second side, or use on of the 12 if you do full-on speed loading. If you use more than one cargo wagon per train, as most do, only apply the odd chest to one wagon, first or last.

All the cargo wagons get the slots filtered to normal ore (or plates if doing onsite smelting). For the one wagon, and maybe even for only that in half the trains, filter one slot each for the other qualities. There's only uncommon and rare to worry about at first anyway. The ratio of quality to normal is going to be so small that it won't matter. Then set the wait condition to normal ore = what the train can hold. The quality ore will be so small that it's going to be done loading long before the normal ore is anyway. If it's not done loading, by some miracle of luck, it's going to be just fine to wait for the next train, just keep the real production rolling.

If you get a massive mine with all tier-3 rare quality modules you can adjust the number of filtered slots for quality if it shows as an issue.

The receiving station will need filtered inserters for off loading. They really should always be filtered anyway. The quality stuff can, again, go into one chest - you won't run out of slots. Then you can do belt sorting and routing to use the 'good' stuff however works for the area.

[cswiger]

At the start, I put a pair of Eff 1 modules into each miner to reduce pollution and power use.

Once I've built secure borders, improved tech, and gotten nuclear power going to support heavy use of laser turrets, pollution and power use no longer matters so I'll mostly switch over to prod modules and maybe a few miners with quality to build some higher tier gear.

[CasualGamer]

I started with mining quality ore early on. When I transitioned to foundrys, that stopped for copper, iron and steel products. .

[Premu]

Always speed for miners. The last thing I want is to need to build more miners just to get my necessary ore production. And once you hit the infinite mining productivity research, the +30% or +40% productivity bonus from those modules is dwarfed by the massive bonus from research. And those ore patches further away are typcially so dense that it takes a very long time to completely exhaust them even with conventional miners with three speed modules.

My goal is to reduce the number of overall mines I have to maintain, and for that speed is the key.

[Vyndicu]

Originally posted by Csöpper:

Hey all,
Question in the title. Usually I put prod modules wherever possible, but for me the mining drills are an exception. I play with resource path size and richness maxed out, so running dry on a patch anytime soon isn't that much of a concern and when it eventually happens, I can just build a new mining outpost that can keep chugging ores out for another couple hundred hours.
How do you guys do it? Is running out enough of a concern for those who play on completely default settings to use prod modules in their miners?

Default Map Setting.

Short version: Productivity modules in miners early on. Two efficient modules Q0 T2 for miners in the late-game.


When I start to have high productivity modifiers from technologies in late-game, the productivity modules in miners become more of a burden, with a higher flat increased energy demand for less ore.

With 22% from productivity modules, Big Miner will see an appreciable increase in raw material. Big Miner, with 220% productivity from research and 22% from productivity modules, will only realize a 10% increase in total raw yield for a flat 240% increase in energy demand.

Due to the high research productivity in the late game, I will replace the productivity modules with a few efficient modules (4 productivity modules -> 2 efficient modules). The surplus of productivity modules can be recraft or uprecycle or whatever to something else.

I don't see the need for speed modules in miners. That resource patch will eventually deplete, and I have ample buildable space without any ore patches in the Default setting.


Quality modules are a complicated mess. Where applicable, they can be placed in miners, furnaces, foundries, assemblers, recyclers, asteroid crushers, etc. Therefore, it is not required to put them solely in miners to gain the full benefits of quality mechanics.


While I recognize the benefits of using speed modules extensively to clear ore fields, especially those set at higher richness and larger sizes when generating a new map, I don't play that way.

Your preference for playing with rich resources and larger resource sizes is entirely valid.


Remember that not all engineers will play on the same map setting, and the differences in map settings indirectly influence which modules engineers prefer from one map to another.