Haul and Tug Drones

[Y.T.]

I use both of them right now and they are behaving strange sometimes. It would be nice if the tug drones would prioritize the fastest moving loot and an option for the haul drones to individually prioritize stuff.

[desrtfox071]

You can individually prioritize haul drones (or tug drones). There's a recon drone (now called reconaissance craft) that lets you right click on chunks to set them as a priority. It's the USV-GOT

As for the high speed prioritization, I don't think you can do that, but my technique for using haul+tug drones is to set the tug drones up with a minimum that is at about the outer edge of the haul drones. this way, your tugs are just stopping any chunks in that outer ring that are moving away from your ship, and the hauler drones can grab the nearby stuff for ingestion.

[ImHelping]

Cash slider does not do anything until your "expert is still an idiot" geologist gets off their ass and identifies things. And the lack of prioritization PER ore can be awkward if you are trying to collect a lower value metal for a station too.

Until then, you are gambling with turning on unmarked targeting and hoping it goes for an obvious piece of valuable metal instead of unidentified iron.

Cash slider is better than no cash slider. But trusting your crew or automation to act with half a braincell is fairly doomed. Expect idiocy and you can plan around it better to profit faster than blaming yourself for dong something wrong.

Closest thing I have kludged is leaving "Unmarked" on for tugs at all times, so it will catch "Gosh I have no idea that Be is Be yet" Then start ignoring identified low value trash once it is identified.

And adjusting tug minimum range as far as you are comfortable gambling with them losing stuff entirely. Plenty of times where it slows things down an inch outside of drone range when I try to be "Efficient" with 350-400 range instead of a wider range.

This is the only way they catch Berelium before it flies away for me, while the geologist is busy identifying a hunk of ore I have set everything to ignore an inch away from the ship.

Also, trying to get cute with haul drone ranges just means stuff stopped by tug drones, and then never collected. I got a lot better results with haul allowing full range on haul drones and only limiting tugs.

There is a drone intended autopilot, but that feels like a scam because... well... What good is being able to assign a queu if you were going to be collecting everything in the area before moving on anyways? At that point you might as well raise the cash sliders on haul drones so it temporarily ignores lower values, then adjust it down after the stuff worth more is collected and you are down to "That piece of Be worth 3,027 you still want"

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Cash slider does not do anything until your "expert is still an idiot" geologist gets off their ass and identifies things. And the lack of prioritization PER ore can be awkward if you are trying to collect a lower value metal for a station too.

Incorrect. At least incorrect depending on what you mean. If you have "unmarked" turned off and a minimum value set, your drones will not interact with any chunk not identified, or identified but has less value than the threshold.

Until then, you are gambling with turning on unmarked targeting and hoping it goes for an obvious piece of valuable metal instead of unidentified iron.

Cash slider is better than no cash slider. But trusting your crew or automation to act with half a braincell is fairly doomed. Expect idiocy and you can plan around it better to profit faster than blaming yourself for dong something wrong.

Closest thing I have kludged is leaving "Unmarked" on for tugs and adjusting their minimum range as far as you are comfortable gambling with them losing stuff entirely. This is the only way they catch Berelium before it flies away for me, while the geologist is busy identifying a hunk of ore I have set everything to ignore an inch away from the ship.

Also, trying to get cute with haul drone ranges just means stuff stopped by tug drones, and then never collected. I got a lot better results allowing full range on haul drones and only limiting tugs.

My above methodology assumes that you fly around close enough to the stopped chunks (tugs) in order to activate the haul drones.

As for the cash slider, it works just fine. It won't pick up any chunk with less value than what you have designated as the minimum. I'm not sure what "idiocy" you mean. There's no "smartness" going on, it's just a cutoff threshold. Why would you expect anything else?

There is a drone intended autopilot, but that feels like a scam because... well... What good is being able to assign a queu if you were going to be collecting everything in the area before moving on anyways? At that point you might as well raise the cash sliders on haul drones, then adjust it down after the stuff worth more is collected and you are down to "That piece of Be worth 3,027 you still want"

What you do, is turn off all of the automatic drone collection, and then designate only what you want manually. In this way, you can have precise control over exactly what is picked up, and somewhat less precise control over the order the chunks are picked up. If you're just going to pick up everything, obviously you wouldn't be designating chunks at all.

[Soylent]

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Cash slider does not do anything until your "expert is still an idiot" geologist gets off their ass and identifies things. And the lack of prioritization PER ore can be awkward if you are trying to collect a lower value metal for a station too.

Incorrect. At least incorrect depending on what you mean. If you have "unmarked" turned off and a minimum value set, your drones will not interact with any chunk not identified, or identified but has less value than the threshold.

I believe they are referring to the long delay before ore gets marked/identified, regardless of geologist skill level. I've also seen bunches of ore floating near my ship that takes far longer to identify than the all rest of the ore.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by Soylent:

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Incorrect. At least incorrect depending on what you mean. If you have "unmarked" turned off and a minimum value set, your drones will not interact with any chunk not identified, or identified but has less value than the threshold.

I believe they are referring to the long delay before ore gets marked/identified, regardless of geologist skill level. I've also seen bunches of ore floating near my ship that takes far longer to identify than the all rest of the ore.

Ah, so yeah. I don't know any way around that other than cracking the roids a little slower to prevent there being tons of unmarked chunks around. Alternatively, cracking the roids in high density areas helps to keep the unmarked chunks from flying around a lot, as does using dedicated mining lasers.