How do I keep ore from flying away?

[Osamaru]

Even with a manipulator arm and a Microwave emitter I'm only able to get 1-2 pieces of ore at a time.
Is there even any point of breaking larger roids?

[Certari]

Ships with the nanodrones tug or haul. tug will stop them in place, and haul will bring them to you.

[Huntracony]

After you get some money, haul or tug drones. Before you get some money, (especially before you get a mineral processing unit) I'd recommend ignoring chunks worth less than ~5k. If you aren't seeing price estimates, hire a geologist. You can also tune the microwave emitter on the station to separrate chunks more gently, which will help with collecting.

[TickTockBent]

You can use mining equipment that imparts less energy to the rocks as well. The more energy you smack an iceteroid with, the faster the minerals fly away. Using something like microwave should have them gently floating but it can take longer to break the ice.

[dark-breed]

samples how houl drones work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0q7uevT03A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZb8HJKnn44

[MoonDragon [GWJ]]

Another solution is maximum overload. "Kill them all, let God sort them out" strategy.

Get into an asteroid rich area, then just blow up everything. Have hundred(s) of ores flying around and just pick up a few you like (or those that pass the geologist filtering). I found it frustrating at first when I tried to get all the rocks I mined. If you let go of the need to get every rock mined, and just blow up everything all at once, then even getting 3-5 rocks (out of 100) will be worth your time.

[ImHelping]

While I am still early game"Just got my first MPU", Even low power tuned microwaves with 90% water mining mode "So gentle it takes an eternity to melt anything bigger than a basketball so I 180 engine crack bigger chunks first" will sent beryllium flying away at 9,000 miles an hour due to videogame "make the valuable one annoying" logic people will try and trick you into thinking is realistic.

Also, if you try to speed things up by disabling the arm ability to grab ice hunks (disabling the 'unknown' toggle) to cook it open while you are floating well within arm range, my arm ignores everything until it has flown away just out of reach, even slow moving normal ore, just to annoy me.

For a bit, I lied to myself "Oh well realistically the arm and geologist wouldn't know that was ore yet, right?" but... ah, no. videogame logic is what matters.

Because when I take the awkward time to grab the ice, and wiggle my ship back and forth so the side mounted microwave can hit the chunk in the grip? Then it will instantly snap out to grab the ore before the particle effects even fade from the steam.

Beryllium will still launch at a million miles an hour sideways half the time, but you have decent odds of "oh no you don't" auto grab it when it pops out from smallest possible ice you already held in the manipulator. Unless more than one bit of ore pops out from a microwaves spam moment also hitting something nearby, then it will always reach for the one worth less like the worst psychic in the world.

Then if it is worth less than what I set my slider bar as my geologist + "Tell me what the damn ore in the ice is" preview grade recon drone get off their ass and tell me "yes, that obvious chunk of ore is in fact, that ore." The arm will throw it away if it is worth less than what I set. which is less time wasted than waiting to see if it was worth what I like then chasing after it. (there is still a lot of chasing)

"Aw, this was worth 3,999 insead of 4,000? off into space it goes... Okay I grabbed the next ore automatically... I can clearly see it is beryllium, you can update the UI to say so any day now to confirm that is what I am holding. why am I taking you to the bar so you have a green happy face, jesus."

Funny enough, the value slider felt more important BEFORE the MPU so far.
No MPU, "Oh right I only came home with 40k instead of 100k because I was grabbing literally any piece of Be or W I saw instead of ignoring things worth less than 5k"

With MPU "hey wait a minute, if I am processing everything down why am I throwing away good non iron ore because it is stuck in an anvil worth of H20?"

[MoonDragon [GWJ]]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

will sent beryllium flying away at 9,000 miles an hour...

If you can afford it, I would suggest hauling drones set to only get beryllium. They have decent reach and can arrest about half of the beryllium chunks "flying away at 9,000 miles an hour". Drones are expensive as all F and I find them to be a waste for most other ores (mostly because they get depleted real fast).

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by GWJ MoonDragon:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

will sent beryllium flying away at 9,000 miles an hour...

If you can afford it, I would suggest hauling drones set to only get beryllium. They have decent reach and can arrest about half of the beryllium chunks "flying away at 9,000 miles an hour". Drones are expensive as all F and I find them to be a waste for most other ores (mostly because they get depleted real fast).

Honestly I'm going to be burning cash on the second MPU first once trading in the initial one won't leave me with too little insurance+bankroll for "oops I dented my side boosters again".

Chasing stuff may be annoying, but non ♥♥♥♥ processing will be a lot more overt in overall time saving, and won't keep costing me drone refills even if I set it to Be only.

Also the arm clearly heard me talking about it. Now instead of always snatching the ore that pops out it goes "Noooo I want to grab another ice chunk at a 90 degree angle instead of the ore right in front of me!".

Maybe some day up my reactor again for a mining laser instead of the microwave, but I can't think of what the mining laser has over microwave except "Better at holes in ships instead of stunlock" (reputedly, I have been running like a baby) and "won't need to resort to your engines to crack big chunks without wanting to kill yourself using low power high water microwave".

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

Originally posted by Osamaru:

Even with a manipulator arm and a Microwave emitter I'm only able to get 1-2 pieces of ore at a time.
Is there even any point of breaking larger roids?

To be the most efficient, you only want to pick up the most expensive pieces anyways. Usually 1-2 chunks per asteroid is all you will even WANT to pick up. Geologist crew member is a must have to determine this.

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by GWJ MoonDragon:

If you can afford it, I would suggest hauling drones set to only get beryllium. They have decent reach and can arrest about half of the beryllium chunks "flying away at 9,000 miles an hour". Drones are expensive as all F and I find them to be a waste for most other ores (mostly because they get depleted real fast).

Honestly I'm going to be burning cash on the second MPU first once trading in the initial one won't leave me with too little insurance+bankroll for "oops I dented my side boosters again".

Chasing stuff may be annoying, but non ♥♥♥♥ processing will be a lot more overt in overall time saving, and won't keep costing me drone refills even if I set it to Be only.

Also the arm clearly heard me talking about it. Now instead of always snatching the ore that pops out it goes "Noooo I want to grab another ice chunk at a 90 degree angle instead of the ore right in front of me!".

Maybe some day up my reactor again for a mining laser instead of the microwave, but I can't think of what the mining laser has over microwave except "Better at holes in ships instead of stunlock" (reputedly, I have been running like a baby) and "won't need to resort to your engines to crack big chunks without wanting to kill yourself using low power high water microwave".

You can tell the Arm what to grab/not grab by going into the ships menu with 'J' key then go to the prospectus menu. (forget the name exactly)

In the list on the top, there are filters. For the 1500 arm I suggest toggling OFF the very first option and also turning OFF Fe (cus Iron SUCKS donkey) and increasing the minimum value to whatever you see fit. Anything above 5k makes it far less likely to be grabby at junk. I have mine set to 5-10k depending on how deep into the rings I am.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by xXBulletJusticeXx:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Honestly I'm going to be burning cash on the second MPU first once trading in the initial one won't leave me with too little insurance+bankroll for "oops I dented my side boosters again".

Chasing stuff may be annoying, but non ♥♥♥♥ processing will be a lot more overt in overall time saving, and won't keep costing me drone refills even if I set it to Be only.

Also the arm clearly heard me talking about it. Now instead of always snatching the ore that pops out it goes "Noooo I want to grab another ice chunk at a 90 degree angle instead of the ore right in front of me!".

Maybe some day up my reactor again for a mining laser instead of the microwave, but I can't think of what the mining laser has over microwave except "Better at holes in ships instead of stunlock" (reputedly, I have been running like a baby) and "won't need to resort to your engines to crack big chunks without wanting to kill yourself using low power high water microwave".

You can tell the Arm what to grab/not grab by going into the ships menu with 'J' key then go to the prospectus menu. (forget the name exactly)

In the list on the top, there are filters. For the 1500 arm I suggest toggling OFF the very first option and also turning OFF Fe (cus Iron SUCKS donkey) and increasing the minimum value to whatever you see fit. Anything above 5k makes it far less likely to be grabby at junk. I have mine set to 5-10k depending on how deep into the rings I am.

Yeah I already mentioned the problems where if you disable "unknown" which lets it grab ice, it refuses to quick grab ore that pops out of ice at all. Gotta leave on the ability to grab ice hunks, period, if i want the arm to ever bother trying to instant grab ore popping out of ice even if it is close enough to be bumping my nose.

This isn't user error. it is prioritization errors. Iron is already off, iron isn't the problem. It is "wow a 10k chunk quickly floating away on the whitelist? I better try and reach for the not yet full identified one worth 4-7k, or a chunk of ice that turns out to be entirely empty past it/at a 90 degree angle from it." even if I have the high value bit specifically hard targeted.

Though right now my main issues is a mildly dented reactor from one of my crew screaming "Why won't you find my friend!?", my arm reaching bodies no-clipping through my first station I've seen, "okay must be a background object otherwise the bodies would not be shamelessly no-clipping for my arm to grab *WHAM* "...Chole, maybe do more than scream 'why u no find my friend?' and this would not be happening."

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by xXBulletJusticeXx:

You can tell the Arm what to grab/not grab by going into the ships menu with 'J' key then go to the prospectus menu. (forget the name exactly)

In the list on the top, there are filters. For the 1500 arm I suggest toggling OFF the very first option and also turning OFF Fe (cus Iron SUCKS donkey) and increasing the minimum value to whatever you see fit. Anything above 5k makes it far less likely to be grabby at junk. I have mine set to 5-10k depending on how deep into the rings I am.

Yeah I already mentioned the problems where if you disable "unknown" which lets it grab ice, it refuses to quick grab ore that pops out of ice at all.

This isn't user error. it is prioritization errors.

I don't think you actually understand the settings. Unknown means anything that has not been identified by the geologist. This means ALL chunks including rock that has not been broken up and ALL chunks of ore that have not been fully scanned.

If you have the Unknown turned off, and the minimum value turned up above $0 , the arm will not grab anything until it has been scanned and valued.

Ice is a secondary to just about every chunk you bring in. Which is why the toggle option for it is greyed out. The arm isn't prioritizig ICE. It's prioritizing the fact that there is something there to grab, that you have not filtered out properly.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by xXBulletJusticeXx:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Yeah I already mentioned the problems where if you disable "unknown" which lets it grab ice, it refuses to quick grab ore that pops out of ice at all.

This isn't user error. it is prioritization errors.

I don't think you actually understand the settings. Unknown means anything that has not been identified by the geologist. This means ALL chunks including rock that has not been broken up and ALL chunks of ore that have not been fully scanned.

If you have the Unknown turned off, and the minimum value turned up above $0 , the arm will not grab anything until it has been scanned and valued.

Ice is a secondary to just about every chunk you bring in. Which is why the toggle option for it is greyed out. The arm isn't prioritizig ICE. It's prioritizing the fact that there is something there to grab, that you have not filtered out properly.

It reaches for things below my cash threshold until it identifies it as below (even clean collection, lots of dead air "I have ore in my hand. tell me how much it weighs and how much it is worth... any day now... any day now... 7k value thank you was that so hard? Did I buy you the super miner recon drone for nothing? ). once identified as below the value, THEN it throws it away.

also EMPTY ice when I swivel to zap it then go back after what I wanted in the first place, so... yeah, can't feel like I am the one making a mistake on prioritization.

Plus for the third time, if I disable the ability to grab ice entirely, then the arm will not attempt to grab ore within an inch of my cockpit when I melt the ice to reveal the ore. Making it even more disruptive than leaving it on.

"Will not attempt to grab ore until it floats out of range of the arm, ever" unmarked option off, vs "Will sometimes be an idiot and keep reaching for more ice instead of the ore I just freed, but usually grab the ore" with it on.

A real catch 22 unless I stop to back away from any possible ice in range before cracking it open for the ore. Maybe people who have been playing the game since before launch are just complacent with automated machines handling collection they are better at bumrushing? Because this feels like it should be obvious to a veteran.

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by xXBulletJusticeXx:

I don't think you actually understand the settings. Unknown means anything that has not been identified by the geologist. This means ALL chunks including rock that has not been broken up and ALL chunks of ore that have not been fully scanned.

If you have the Unknown turned off, and the minimum value turned up above $0 , the arm will not grab anything until it has been scanned and valued.

Ice is a secondary to just about every chunk you bring in. Which is why the toggle option for it is greyed out. The arm isn't prioritizig ICE. It's prioritizing the fact that there is something there to grab, that you have not filtered out properly.

It reaches for things below my cash threshold, and also EMPTY ice, so... yeah, can't feel like I am making a mistake on prioritization.

Plus for the third time, if I disable the ability to grab ice entirely, then the arm will not attempt to grab ore within an inch of my cockpit when I melt the ice to reveal the ore. Making it even more disruptive than leaving it on.

A real catch 22 unless I stop to back away from any possible ice in range before cracking it open for the ore.

So.. you are complaining about it grabbing too much ice, but you want it to grab the ice.

What are you exactly trying to say here? Just turn off the ICE grabbing or increase the minimum value.

If it's reaching for things UNDER your minimum value its most likely because you have "Unmarked" enabled.

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

Hang on.. you said "if I disable the ability to grab ice entirely, then the arm will not attempt to grab ore within an inch of my cockpit when I melt the ice to reveal the ore. "

THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS THAT IS ROCK NOT ICE

the Ice is H20, it's inside the rocks.