Feature Request: "Finish current run" and more (DONE)
Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:44 pm
There are a few ideas that came to my mind over the course of a few weeks of using the program which i'd like to discuss here:
a) An ability to finish the current run and exit the program afterwards
This would be fairly useful for the lazy miner if the need for program termination should arise before the forceful disconnect due to downtime. It would help keeping those drones and being able to start the program without having to navigate back "home" manually if using the Gate Mining option. From a programmers point of view, setting the value for the maximum amount of runs to the value of the current run should basically do that. This would also help with crystal swapping once those t2 crystals are mined out (what happens to me every 10h basically).
It would also be great if this option was timeable, so 15ish minutes before downtime, the "last" run could commence and the ships would be safely parked inside the station when the servers go down. A button next to the "pause" button would be a great addition.
b) Crystal Swapping - Detection
I'm quite aware of how hard it is to "read" anything from the client, since even the cargo hold volume is extremely hard to detect (correctly). Still i wonder if there is a chance to find out if (and by extension, how much) the crystals have deteriorated so far. It's impossible for the program to change them i'd assume, but some sort of warning label would be a nice feature... Still, by no means essential to the program.
c) A fallback option for asteroids that are out of range
Very often, i see three asteroids targeted of which one or two are out of range. The program activates the laser on the first, successfully, then targets the second, tries to activate the second laser, fails, targets the third, fails at activating laser number three and consequentially only mines with one of three possible lasers.
The program is already able to check if any of the lasers is active, would it also be able to check for each? And if so, would it be possible to add a fallback option to set the inactive lasers on the first roid (which is usually the closest)? This would increase the yield (for regular non-ice mining) significantly.
These are the ideas that make most sense to me regarding the possibility of implementation, i won't even talk about using scanners to determine the best asteroids or similar painfully complex procedures.
I am quite happy with the program as-is, so i hope my ideas will add to the already extremely reliable program.
Also, from a technical perspective, i'd like to know how reliable OCR is within the client. Is it even doable?
a) An ability to finish the current run and exit the program afterwards
This would be fairly useful for the lazy miner if the need for program termination should arise before the forceful disconnect due to downtime. It would help keeping those drones and being able to start the program without having to navigate back "home" manually if using the Gate Mining option. From a programmers point of view, setting the value for the maximum amount of runs to the value of the current run should basically do that. This would also help with crystal swapping once those t2 crystals are mined out (what happens to me every 10h basically).
It would also be great if this option was timeable, so 15ish minutes before downtime, the "last" run could commence and the ships would be safely parked inside the station when the servers go down. A button next to the "pause" button would be a great addition.
b) Crystal Swapping - Detection
I'm quite aware of how hard it is to "read" anything from the client, since even the cargo hold volume is extremely hard to detect (correctly). Still i wonder if there is a chance to find out if (and by extension, how much) the crystals have deteriorated so far. It's impossible for the program to change them i'd assume, but some sort of warning label would be a nice feature... Still, by no means essential to the program.
c) A fallback option for asteroids that are out of range
Very often, i see three asteroids targeted of which one or two are out of range. The program activates the laser on the first, successfully, then targets the second, tries to activate the second laser, fails, targets the third, fails at activating laser number three and consequentially only mines with one of three possible lasers.
The program is already able to check if any of the lasers is active, would it also be able to check for each? And if so, would it be possible to add a fallback option to set the inactive lasers on the first roid (which is usually the closest)? This would increase the yield (for regular non-ice mining) significantly.
These are the ideas that make most sense to me regarding the possibility of implementation, i won't even talk about using scanners to determine the best asteroids or similar painfully complex procedures.
I am quite happy with the program as-is, so i hope my ideas will add to the already extremely reliable program.
Also, from a technical perspective, i'd like to know how reliable OCR is within the client. Is it even doable?