Quick introduction on how to use mines and miners because I needed way too long to figure it out.
Guide to Use the Mine and Miners
Unlocking the Technologies
One would be led to believe you only need the Advanced mining technology (top right), but you also need the Robotics technology (bottom left) in order to be able to place the building that produces the miners
Building the Correct Buildings
You need multiple buildings in order to work.
- A robots assembler
This building is required so you can build the robots, it doesn’t matter if it is placed on the planet or the ship, you can move the robots later.
- A Mine
This building has to be placed on the planet, a mine on the ship will never be able to work on a planet.
- A Docking station on the ship and on the planet
It is important to note: You definitely need a docking station, not a harpoon connector, your bots can only cross using the same docking station astronauts use to get on your ship.
- Enough power
The Mine on the planet needs to be powered in order for the miners to work.
Obstacles
I had the case that I wanted to mine coal, and even tho there was an open coal field available, the miners decided they wanted to take on the one that was in the middle of the planet.
That had the issue that they couldn’t find a path towards it, so when that happens you need to remove dirt until a path is available, once an initial path is found they will automatically remove more dirt if necessary.
i’ve got the robot assembler and plenty of robots in there but when I click on the miner in the assembler they disappear and nothing happens. what am i doing wrong?
Your machines have requester slots (just like you in your inventory), where when you set the request the bots will bring stuff
IDK if they move it over planets but I myself usually just use a conveyor going through the docking station into a general storage
IN the assembler? They shouldnt be an item they should spawn in the world like an astronaut
ah interesting, they don’t spawn at all. Like they get created in the assembler and just sit in the assembler like an item. I created like 100 bots and they just collect like you were creating ores or anything else. They just sit in there. Maybe I am doing something wrong. I have the thing connected to power…
How do you get the transporters to haul stuff from a planet back onto the ship?
Your machines have requester slots (just like you in your inventory), where when you set the request the bots will bring stuff
IDK if they move it over planets but I myself usually just use a conveyor going through the docking station into a general storage
Which docking station do you use as I have put in all three and when I try to run a belt or tube through them, the belt stops building 1 block from the planetoid?
Thanks. Nowhere, anywhere, does the game communicate well about the docking station over the harpoon launcher. Whew.
Solar panels are quite good for single miner. Just place them in location that allows miner to be moved later. And dont forget to empty miner before moving it to mine rest of the vein. If using carbon generator, three or four miners to spend all the energy it produces. If vein is good sized, one can put two miners facing each other and dig whole vein it sometimes in one placement.
I tried these hoping they would be faster than the initial mining device you get. Unfortunately they are not, you really need to build a bunch of these on each planetoid to make them efficient enough / justify they’re use as they only bring back 1 piece of ore per trip.
I personally only use them for the late game items such as aluminium, titanium, or uranium. I dont like going back and re-setting the drill every time its done, so I prefer ploppoing down a few mines and just letting them run. For early game items (everything that can be obtained by using asteroid materials – iron, copper, gold, coal – ) Ive built a m,all using logic circuits and asteroid catchers having everything delivered at a minimum of 500 items configurable to any number I need it