Feature Request - lasers staying locked on roids (DONE)

[gumby1]

We chatted at one point about your logic in "unlocking roids" to check if they've popped. But in watching the program mine in my systems 0.6 - 0.7, I've already increased the "cycle" time to 150 seconds, and still most of the roids are NOT popped when the lasers are turned off. I'm thinking (as we discussed) it depends on the "average roid size" which is dependent on the system security. Those 1.0 - 0.9 systems having "smaller rocks" whereas the lower sec systems have larger rocks, at the far extreme I can definitalely say I've mined an hour or more with three Modulated Strip Miners on the same Crokite rock in 0.0 without it popping.

I would love to be able to have an option to keep mining through the cycles and let the built in 3 minute cycle tell TinyMiner when it needed to lock a new roid. I realize that this is a big change but in some sense I'd think checking locked roids every 3 minutes would be easier than the whole turn off/unlock/relock/turn on routine that it currently goes through.

This is essentially how I mine when I'm at the keyboard anyway,

What is happening now is causing some inefficiencies in addition to the relock time, As most of the rocks will last more than one cycle and the next cycle almost never relocks on the same roids (due to the orbit a new roid(s) is closer every few seconds). Thus roids are often "leftover" eventually I run through my set number of cycles and with enough now "small roids" my ship returns only 60% full.

It seems you already have a "check for lock" script and a "check for laser activation" script, I was hoping you could just have those run every 30-60 seconds and relock and reactivate if they notice that only two targets are locked and/or only two lasers are running?

Let me know what you think...

[VanGoghGaming]

I have already thought about this at first. Unfortunatelly, due to the way the game works, an asteroid is only popped at the end of a laser cycle. So, basically, you don't know if an asteroid is popped or not, it will stay locked until 180 seconds have passed.
So changing your cycle time to 150 seconds isn't necessarily an improvement. As you mentioned yourself, on the second run most of the leftover asteroids are popped long before the 150 seconds have passed thus wasting valuable mining time. Of course you can minimize this effect by spreading your mining activity among several belts and on each belt bookmark both the beginning and the end of it (every time having as many asteroids as possible within mining range). After testing with several cycle values I tend to believe that 90 seconds is one of the best compromises.
Also your idea of checking the locked asteroids every 3 minutes is not as easy as it sounds. Suppose after 3 minutes one asteroid is popped and 2 remain locked. It is rather hard and unreliable to check in the overview window "which" are the 2 asteroids that are still locked in order to find a third one that is unlocked. The current implementation doesn't care about that because after unlocking them all, the first 3 asteroids from the overview will definitely be unlocked and ready to target. All in all I think it currently produces a great mining yield.

[gumby1]

No not the second run but the 3rd or fourth run...I may have to pull out my "scanner" which I rarely use, but some of these roids last for 3-6 (or more 180 second cycles). As I stated some of the roids in 0.0 are really "mammoth"....

As to the optimal cycle time I was trying to suggest that it varies with the system security....be we may need to agree to disagree, and since you are the boss - you win

Also about "checking" you're right usually only one had popped, I thought the application could ctrl click on perhaps the three closest roids until it "got a new lock" if I hear / understand you your app reads the locked roids from the top middle (targets area) and not the overview....a few seconds to ctrl click the first three or four objects wouldn't seem to take that long....

"All in all" I agree with you the yield is great, your app is "bug free" and I'd hate for you to introduce complications that create bugs....so I'll go back to my room and count my ISKies

Keep up the great work and let me know what we can do to help you out!!!

[gumby1]

OK I busted out my stopwatch and ran some math.....

the "reset cycle" takes about 40 seconds from second laser off to second laser on (a midpoint if you will)

Using the "defaults" 10 cycles at 90 sec / cycle = 900 sec mining time + 360 seconds "resetting time" = 1260 seconds...

Using a 180 second cycle time and 40 second relock time I get 900 seconds mining time and only 160 seconds resetting time.

In the second scenario I save about 200 seconds (3:20) per trip...

If my roids can typically last that 180 second cycle I'm way ahead, if they usually pop well short of that time I'm way behind.....

Given that I've seen less than 1/3 of these "new" untouched roids pop inside that 180 seconds in a "fresh belt" in 0.6, I'm inclined to stick with the 175 - 180 second cycle......until you decide to come to my rescue with a way to detect popped roids. No offense, I really love your app...but FWIW I don't talk to many miners who reset their lasers while they mine, I've heard of it but I think it's rare.

[gumby1]

psst: the new v1.3 the relock script is much faster...that and I've moved to a higher sec system and the smaller rocks.....things are running well!!

[Gdemon]

i'm just mining ice so i just set the laser cycle to complete when my cargohold is full so its 1 cycle then dock as the ice never runs out the main problem ive found is finding a spot to keep the ice in range when im orbiting.

[VanGoghGaming]

Version 1.40 is out with a couple of options regarding ICE mining (no orbiting and all lasers on the same asteroid).