I will tell you the short story of my conversion process with the new AA control console and changes.

TLDR; I have now set up our small tribes main PVE base fully automated with all the new AA stuff and have fixed a major lag issue I had when sorting.

We are a small tribe playing on our own on PVE, but we have a ton of bases and a ton of resources. I had around 200k items in various storage and crafting mediums (around 50). We generally used S+ Crafting stations as storage because of the 300 limit.

We previously used AA for the non vault related stuff like for eggs, feeding troughs, fridges, snail collector and whatnot.

When the new version of AA came out it broke a few of the really nice utility aspects we were using it for and to be honest we were pretty annoyed that some stuff was now not working.

I know there is a lot of drama regarding new advertising but that really didnt effect us, the low level changes to AA is what effected us.

So basically I decided to give the new control console a go because from reading the discussions here I saw that things like the snail collector now are replaced by the controle console and various push and pull mechanics.

This is where it all went wrong the first time I tried this conversion and it nearly put me off from trying again. I just plonked down the control console in my base, turned it on and WHAM everything within range was now in the control console including all my personal bird items, previously sorted into folders.

This was not what I was expecting and after clearing up the mess the control console had made of some of my base I vowed never to use it again.

Thankfully I had some time this weekend and tried it again. This time I made sure to read all of the discussions and documentation.

Here are the steps I took to get it all running smoothly without any major pulling mistakes.

1) Rename ALL of your storage, crafting stations and whatever else you can to have a ~ in the name (including AA stuff). The ~ does not need to be at the beginning so things like "~ My Terry ~" would be fine, or just simply "Fridge ~". Remember to rename everything you can including the dinos you use and you keep stuff on. For things that cant be renamed, and there are quite a few on our server, just use the "AA: Building Helper", point at something and simply press "C".

2) Place a few "AA: Vacuum" within your base and in range of the console and snails, landing sites etc. This is specifally to ensure that paste from the snails is picked up and we are a bunch of lazy arses and like just chucking our inventories on the floor when arriving back at base.

3) Go around all of your current resource storage and take 1 of every resource you have. Place a bunch of "AA: OCD Vaults", and place the resources you require into each vault. For example place the vault, rename to Wood, place 1 wood in it and hit the "Add resources to list" button. This vault is now set up to pull wood from the console, do the same with the rest of the vaults.

We also use a ton of "AA: Veggie Crates" so you have to go through the same process for fruit and veg as above but using the crates instead of the vaults. The same applies for fridge and freezers so for storage of meat, honey, blood etc you should set each one up as per the vaults above.

4) Place the "AA: Control Console" central to your base, be wary the pulling range seems slightly beyond what is shown in game.

5) Make sure the console is set to "Enable Autosorting" and access its inventory. Now run a manual sort, wait a few seconds and be amazed at how much stuff you have not renamed as it now appears in the console. Some stuff you will not see as it will be whisked away into your vaults. Whatever is left in the console you will need to find a home for, either a new vault setup to pull or storage which contains a ~ in the name.

BUG (Notice to developer) - You dont seem to be able to run a manual sort unless "Enable Autosorting" is turned on. I have to toggle this "Enable Autosorting" every time I want to do a manual sort which seems to be an unintended bug. I think the manual sort button should run regardless of if autosorting is on or not.

6) Time to move from your storage to AA: Vaults. Go around and rename bits of your storage at a time to not include the ~ any more in the name. I tended to just hit enter when renaming to remove it, the storage doesnt need to be named at this point. As soon as your control console autosorts, all of the resources within your storage should whisk its way into the vaults. You may want to check and vaults, the console and your storage to ensure this is happening.

HINTS - If this didnt work there are a few things you need to check. I had mine fail a few times so will explain so you are not as frustrated as me.

Console has to be in range of both storage and vault.
Storage should not have a ~ in the name if you want it emptied
Vault but be set up to pull the resource it requires. You can choose the option "Show OCD list" on the vault to make sure you have set it up correctly. If you see duplicate entries, see the BUG report below.
Vault must not be full, or it cannot pull.

BUG - Sometimes the OCD list gets bugged and contains either duplicate items or items from previous lists if you have wiped. The only consistent way I could make sure the list is 100% correct was to hold down E and choose "Clear OCD List" on the wheel, then "Show OCD List", and then finally "Add resources to list". The "Show OCD List" after the clear should not be needed but in my testing it didnt clear the list properly without choosing to show it before adding the resources to the list.

7) You are 90% of the way there now and just have to keep renaming, keep going back to the console and finding homes for all the stuff it has misssed. I found the following fairly easy to set up to get rid of junk.

Meat, Honey etc - Just set up a fridge or 5 to deal with the stuff that is taken off dinos/items. See BUG/FEATURES below too.
Crap - Set up the grinder (like a vault) as a hole for all the stuff you dont want and can grind/store easily.
Weapons, Armors and Building materials - Set up vaults for these with extensive OCD lists to collect all the stuff that makes its way into the console (pulled of dinos, in non ~ storage or dropped on floor). BE CAREFUL, there is no quality sorting in the console so dont put metal picks into the grinder or your ascendant pick could get ground up into little bits.

8) So this is where I left the base last night, all set up and pretty well doing as I wanted. I still have a bunch of stuff with ~ in the name including my mounts, stuff we dont want sorted, like blueprints and personal storage and of course most of the crafting stations. Everything was done and there was one fairly large issue which had been getting worse as I was setting up the base.

Whenever the sort ran, which is every 5 minutes or when its done manually, there would be a period of very severe severe lag. I could be running around or trying to access a dino and The game would be unresponsive, not being able to access stuff, or id just loop back to where I was previously standing. I tested this extensively and can say that running the manual sort would give this period of lag (up to 5 seconds) 100% of the time. I tried various things to get this lag to stop including restarting our self hosted server and optimisng the base to have less storage. I ensured my 100 dinos were not in range and that the majority of the crop plots were removed (there were over 150). Nothing I did however worked and the lag still happened each time the sort ran.

However I found a solution and it seems a little strange but makes sense to me (I am a programmer). Basically I renamed ALL of my vaults to have a ~ in the name so they were unable to be pulled from. This instantly solved the problem and all of the lag was completely gone. I tested it extensively and nothing I could do would bring back the lag apart removing the ~ from the name. I must add at this point that with the new storage, the tribe had been busy and filled many of them up so we had around 30 vaults full of stuff so probably half a million "resources". I think what was happening is that each time the sorting logic runs it re-sorts and redstributes everything, even stuff that is already in the vault. So with 30 vaults of stuff flowing through each time the logic ran I think this was the cause of the lag. Removing the vaults from the "pull" from the console seemed to fix all of the issues. The only downside is if you manually put stuff into the vaults, it will not get sorted into the console. A small price to pay I think.

There, now 100% done and I am now using the control console to check what items I dont have homes for and its actually pretty interesting each time. I hope this has helped you set up the base of your dreams too :D

SUGGESTIONS (Notice to developer)

Before I begin my suggestions I would like to say thanks for this mod and sorry for the hassle I know its been to be the developer of this. Also, I realise I have used the terms push and pull incorrectly above, I know the new system ONLY pushes and does it once to save on server resources (see above), the only pulling is done by the vacuum, console and troughs. Its just when reading these forums it seems people just like to think that the vaults are pulling which is easier to say and feels more comfortable I guess.

Push to feeding trough (add resources to OCD list) and add inclusions (or range adjust). I would like the feeding trough to also be part of the console system. I think it still needs to pick up around it but it would be nice for it to be able to get stuff from out of the vacuum and off the dinos themselves. I cant use these for snails at the moment and I use the inclusion list on the S+ Feeding Trough to ensure only the snails get their food. I would love to use the AA Troughs but they would need either an inclusion list or have an adjustable feeding range (or a new smaller trough).

Blueprints! Need a solution for what to do with them, they are currently left where they are unless they are dropped but then they just sit around in the vacuum. This may be intentional but it would be really great for us PVE players if we could sort our blueprints, especially the bad ones.

Destroying items. As far as I can tell this is fairly impossible to do with AA at the moment and currently I have to fly away from the base to drop stuff I never want to see again. I understand I can turn off vacuums and all of that but they are 1) not so easy to see and 2) I have a fair number dotted around. A bin with a pull list and manual destroy would be perfect :D

Snail Collector. I cant see a use for this at all now, I am putting paste into a vault and I am pushing the organic polymer into the freezer. I do understand from the forums this is now just a glorified fridge, but im sure a lowever lever basic fridge would be better and remove the collector. It was neat before when it collected pasted but that is now done by the console and vacuum.

Spoling bin, enable push, would be nice to add spoiled meat and use it to collect.

Auto Grill vs Feeding Trough. I am not sure how these interact at the moment with dropped items I have not tested but if both were in the console system it would be good for them to share equally to with raw meat and things of that nature. Actually I am not sure how the console system works with regards to how it shares items between competing vaults etc, would be good to know.

Metal. Would be great to somehow get this into the AA Forge for auto smelting. Sounds OP, probably is but wondered if it is posible.

Steam documentation. I feel you need to include and make a bigger deal of the ability to exclude things. I dont think its in the pinned discussions and I feel its pivitol tribes understand how to use ~ and * and how it can save them headaches and start to get along with your mod again.

Spoil timers. I am not sure how it really happens but there is definately a bug somewhere along the line that makes my honey have a -14:0-8 spoilt time in the freezer, which then stays when placed in my inventory. It seems a little inconsistent and sometimes goes back to normal timer if you pull more honey from the hive etc. I cant really see whats happening clearly but if I had to guess there is some sort of spoil time multiplication bug when moving from freezer to console and being resorted back again.

Sorting (manually and automatically). This does not always seem to work. I can come to the console and and see that the pumps have not been touched for a while. Metal pump is fairly slow so should not be able to get to 1000 if I am stood in the base and auto pull is on. Yet in my testing this does seem to happen fairly often. I can go to the pump, run a manual sort and nothing happens but then retrying 10 seconds later and all the metal is pulled off the pump (it is not sorted). To me it seems like the sort could be failing sometimes so some sort of acklowledgement message of success or failure would be great. I am sorry I cant give any more info that this and is probably not enough to bug find but it seems like a bug to me.

Thanks for the great mod!