Space Engineers

Space Engineers

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[SCAM] Simple Concurrent Adaptive Min3r
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Aug 11, 2021 @ 7:37am
Apr 28 @ 8:51am
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[SCAM] Simple Concurrent Adaptive Min3r

Description
The idea
I designed this autominig solution to suit my approach to mining automation in vanilla game. The main goal was to make a system that would allow extremely early mining automation in survival with great scalability later on. At this moment it's tuned to mine spherical/saucer vanilla ore deposits in space and on planets.
Check out the sample to see if it's your thing before diving further.
Distinctive features:
  • Send to new mining spot with exactly one command (by positioning drone or doing camera raycast)
  • Scale number of drones easily with no added set up actions
  • All drones mine the single spot (called mining task) together with exclusive blocking shared path segments to avoid collisions (HOPEFULLY), hence the Concurrent word
  • Drones are recalled with a single command and dock to moving carrier automatically
  • Drones try to ignore stone layer, adjust max mining depth based on ore gain analysis, so it's kinda Adaptive
Current limitations:
  • Current mining pattern and concurrency approach requires all acting drones to have the same size
  • Drones have to be vertical miners (drills facing down, going downwards)
  • Base docking area has to be top open, docking drones descend vertically
  • Probably have quite an amount of bugs and hikkups - while I used them A LOT during my survival playthrough, I might've missed lots of test cases because of my playstyle, also recently the code undergone a huge rework
Usage
  1. Watch the quickstart video guide or read this guide
  2. Get the min3r of choice or build your own
  3. Copy the code to drones' blueprint, make sure Dispatcher and all Agents run the same version

Advanced features
Adaptive mining is a feature that allows dynamic change of mining plan based on ore income. If enabled on agent, it would constantly check what content gets into drills and do several adjustments:
- change skip-depth (distance from the mining area surface where drills block incoming ore, to eliminate stone input)
- change depth-limit
- send direction-banning messages to Dispatcher.

direction-banning would cancel out planned shafts in a small cone (going from the mining plans' center). This represents areas that are considered not worth expanding to.

Adaptive mining should be toggled on Agents (toggle:adaptive-mining in CustomData or run arg). If it is enabled on Dispatcher, it would enforce this setting on all drones in active group during task creation.

It is disabled by default to avoid confusion

Any ore input except Stone is considered valuable.

Tested workhorses

Moved here.

Custom Data boot commands for base and drones
Those commands are executed immediately on start/recompile. During runtime they can be fed to PB via run argument.
Base or Carrier (Dispatcher role)
command:set-role:Dispatcher command:add-logger:scam-log-panel command:add-panel:scam-gui-panel // for GUI mode on the 'scam-gui-panel' tagged screen command:add-gui-controller:scam-controller toggle:log-message command:set-value:max-generations:8 command:set-value:getAbove-altitude:5 command:set-value:skip-depth:0 command:set-value:depth-limit:50
Small drone - all Min3r 69R line (Agent role)
command:set-role:Agent command:set-value:circular-pattern-shaft-radius:3.6 command:set-value:preferred-container:Large Cargo Container x command:add-panel:feed-panel // uncomment below to enable adaptive mode //toggle:adaptive-mining
Large drone - gravity driven variants (Agent role)
command:set-role:Agent command:set-value:circular-pattern-shaft-radius:7.9 command:set-value:preferred-container:Large Cargo Container x command:add-panel:feed-panel // uncomment below to enable adaptive mode //toggle:adaptive-mining

Script argument reference

Too big to be included here, see script arguments reference discussion.

Troubleshooting and advice on how to avoid shooting yourself in a leg
  • Do not copy-paste drones in creative during their activity. If you have to, use clear-storage-state command and then copy
  • The orientation of connectors matters, both on base and on drone. While autopillock should handle any cases, drone pathing currently optimized for stock drones - vertical mining, vertical landing.
  • If you add/remove any blocks during operation, you need to recompile everything
  • When drone docks, it switches all batteries in recharge mode. After recent update, this might block a drone forever until you switch batteries manually. If you experience this, toggle base connectors' Power Transfer Override ON.
  • Use command:clear-storage-state on every PB to reset all internal state, if you see some weird behavior. You can use command:global:command:clear-storage-state on Dispatcher to broadcast it to every linked drone
  • Getting exception "Not enough thrust to compensate for gravity" - you drone struggled to overcome gravity. Can happen to weak ion min3r when in G environment and fully loaded.
  • If you have issues with drones not docking, make sure nothing is messing up with connector Custom Data. The script uses it to claim connectors for drones.
  • In case of deadlocks when drones seem to wait for each other and do nothing, try Purge Locks command as a last resort.
  • Don't use on asteroids in planetary gravity field. This would be considered planetary mining and won't go as you expected.

If you have issues
Please tell about them in the bug reports discussion .
Before that, make sure dispatcher and drones run the same script version (shown in the PB run printout).
Check script logs from dispatcher and drone - if you did not add specific LCD for logging, log can be found inside PB screen. Often you can get what went wrong right from the log.

If you have issues with drone docking process
Please prepare to answer these questions before asking or posting bug report:

1. Does the dispatcher PB show those drones as "ID awaits docking" in PB info printout (where runtime info, version, etc shows up)?

2. Do those free connectors you expect drones to dock to have something in their Custom Data (should be empty or having THAT drone ID)?

3. What lock ownership does the GUI show for those stuck drones ("general", "force-finish", etc)

4. Does the "Purge Locks" GUI button solve the issue?
Popular Discussions View All (5)
349
Apr 25 @ 12:30pm
PINNED: Bug reports, feature suggestions
cheerkin
32
2
Jan 20 @ 7:43am
PINNED: Set-up guide
cheerkin
21
Aug 26, 2024 @ 3:13am
PINNED: Script argument reference
cheerkin
476 Comments
Mortus Eclipse Apr 29 @ 4:13pm 
Looking forward to the announcement of the fix. Good work so far.
cheerkin  [author] Apr 29 @ 10:37am 
Thanks, that's cool! I'd wait for the pending hotfix though, it addresses this issue. Should go live soon. After that the 0.9.251 (as well as previous versions) would work as intended (I've checked it already on the last dev build).
Elledess Apr 29 @ 5:28am 
Hey I fixed the error, now have some warning but the compilation is fixed

change :
public VRage.Scripting.MemorySafeTypes.MemorySafeList<byte> ShaftStates = new VRage.Scripting.MemorySafeTypes.MemorySafeList<byte>();

and

ShaftStates = ParseValue<VRage.Scripting.MemorySafeTypes.MemorySafeList<byte>>(values, "ShaftStates") ?? new VRage.Scripting.MemorySafeTypes.MemorySafeList<byte>();

Hoppe will help you
Klein Apr 28 @ 6:35pm 
I'm also having the same issue, i throw the new code into the PB and it gives the error. the old BP's dont seem to talk to each other either. i'm can't wait to finally use this though! good luck on figuring it out.
cheerkin  [author] Apr 28 @ 2:45pm 
Hmm, interesting, it may be caused by certain PB system changes (that error can't be related to 0.9.251 additions). What is confusing is that I had tested it on my dev206 local build and it worked fine.
Certain scripts may be broken by 206 by the way, I expect some amount of reports from script authors.
tkachev.daniil Apr 28 @ 2:23pm 
It ddoes not work unfortunately. The error is Cannot implicitly convert systen List<byte> to VRage MemorySafeList<byte>. Seems like it is something wrong with ShaftStates field
Mortus Eclipse Apr 28 @ 1:15pm 
@cheerkin Nice! Looking forward to updating the script and see how it performs.
cheerkin  [author] Apr 28 @ 8:56am 
0.9.251 is out. It takes advantage of the new drills TerrainClearingMode to remove stone even faster, and new HexSpiral task layout (enabled by default) for better coverage.

This version is intended for SE 206 update (Fieldworks) which would be shipped today evening.

Special thanks to @lizelive (discord) for providing the hex spiral algorithm.
Mortus Eclipse Mar 10 @ 2:27pm 
Thanks, looks like it works. Must have been too far from the targeted asteroid. Lost a drone or two so far. But otherwise working.
cheerkin  [author] Mar 9 @ 4:07am 
Yes, no