Large Mining Ships : Do they make sense?

So I built myself a large mining ship in creative, and it seems to be more of a pita than its worth. Do large drills mine faster than small? Seems that building a larger small-ship design would give better results for time invested.

 

they do work faster/more efficiently. but yes, the large ships are so expensive to make, and miners usually catch a lot of abuse during use. It is very common for people to use small ships for mining because of this, really they do quite well. especially with these asteroids in explore where there's usually a tunnel to fly into and scrape what you need off the inside.

What I find with the large drill ships is 1 run gives you a lifetime supply of whatever ore is in front of it. Kind of overkill unless you make something massive.

 

There are a few benefits to larger mining ships.

1. Bigger ship means more drills means less time drilling.
2. Depending on the size of the ship you can also put refineries on it. So while you are drilling to your hearts content, the ore is already being processed. No need to get tons of it just to then have to wait for it to be processed back home.
3. If playing MP you can give yourself some defenses.

But it really depends on your goals. Myself, for instance, I am working my way up to a huge modile base. If I do that with even just a large small mining ship it would take a very long time to get the ore needed. So I am progressively making my ships bigger as my base gets bigger.

Gadget

 

The large drills themselves are kinda lame. They mine more or less the same area as small drills, even though they have a bigger profile. As a consequence, the hole your ship digs is so small that you don't have any room to maneuver.

The advantage of large mining ships is simply that they are large ships. They can use large ore detectors with >100m range. They can have much more storage than a small ship, as well as refineries and/or arc furnaces to cook the ore on-site. With the exploration update, being able to get the most out of a trip is important since not all the asteroids are right next door.

 

What I've found works well is to put a couple of large drills on the end of a 2 or 3 piston drill arm attached to your mobile base. I've found this to be adequate enough in mining large amounts of ore. Just pull up beside the asteroid, extend the arm a few times, and viola you're done.

 

Should also mention that small drills destroy floating ore while big drills mine/collect it.

 

I find it easy to just make a 7x7 drill square in a pyramid, and then build the rest of the parts in a long 5x5 area behind it. Rig up a sensor and some forward thrust override, sit in the chair and go eat dinner. Come back to more ore than you'll ever need and presto.

 

Yeah that would work. I built the ship with two refineries and four arc furnaces, but it would up being too bulky. Have to be ok with making a really long, streamlined ship instead of winding up making a huge cube lol.

 

The biggest problem I found with large scale miners is that they tend to be so big you can't move around easily in some of those caverns. That means mining your way into the ore and then dealing with the gigatons of stone you need to get rid of.

I find a small miner with 10 drill heads of less is more than adequate for someone that doesn't mind mining (like me). At least with a small ship you are able to move around inside those asteroid caverns without too much difficulty.

 

I think it depends on how you play the game.

If you mainly endeavor to build for combat you probably just want to get resources to build your ships and load them up with ammo and fuel.

If you prefer the merchant route, that big drill rig will probably be your centerpiece.

 

its called strip mining and it works Very well.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/iwml873mynityx3/AACTdUn6N2Uhnnp5LadKMus1a?dl=0

 

Large Mining Ship is THE way to go once ya have the Resources to build it. Refining as ya Mine, Collectors + Gravity Generator to catch all that loose Ore that would otherwise float away & get completely wasted, (& believe me, the total waste that happens from this WILL add up over time.) & the superior Mining Drill (Though I REALLY wish it could dig a wider radius then it does...) Make Small Mining Ships flat out inferior by comparison. You ARE playing this game to Engineer stuff, right? Beware of underestimating how much Resources ya will need, & I too hope for more use for Stone/Gravel in the future.

 

Side question: Carrion, how do you have SO many asteroids around you there. What game settings do you use? In all my worlds, even on DS, I never seen that many asteroids that close together.

Gadget

 

Another person has fallen prey to the skybox of old!

 

Ah, I afraid of that. Doesn't it get annoying see all those asteroids that aren't really there?

Gadget

 

I don't know I never fell into that trap myself. I don't know if I actually knew or if I just knew. I just never realised that anyone could think they were real. Then I saw people posting about it then I realised maybe you can.

 

as skeloton said, its the old skybox. and tbh i never had an issue with it myself.

 

My very first survival game I got lost thinking one of them was real and flew too far from home for the beacon to register, but after that I learned pretty quick haha

 

I was very glad they did away with the old skybox. It was too easy to get lost.

On topic: The main reason I have avoided trying my hand at a large ship miner is the sheer amount of stone I'd accumulate with no real easy way to dispose of it. At least small ship miners let me be selective about what I mine. If large quantities of stone don't bother you though, I'd say a large ship is the way to go. I know if I ever built one I'd be set for life. It's almost not worth it just for that reason. Investing all that time and resources into a ship that wouldn't need to be used more than a few times unless you're a hardcore builder.

 

I made this in creative, but it seems to work really well, drilling right through asteroids. As long as you don't change your vector while drilling, it comes through without a scratch. It's also loaded with refineries and arc furnaces.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=376226152&searchtext=

 

I find screen resolution has a lot to do with how "effective" the old skybox 'roids are. At HD resolution they're clearly "fuzzier" than the real ones, while below that they blend better.

 

Do large mining ships make sense?
What?
(ROFL)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C65oaIHsdYM

Small mining ships don't make sense. They are more fragile, break easily, etc. They only make sense to gather enough resources for a bigger miner.

Connectors - it's a block. You can dump stone. Works like a charm.

 

Expensive to make?

You can turn the banana boat into a miner with a little thought.

 

I built myself a large miner last night. Took about 6h. I mined almost a million iron in like 3 mins. Whoa.

 

I have several mining ships of various sizes. A small mining scout that is basically just a drill ore detector and some thrusters. I turned Old Yeller into a small mining ship by adding 25 drills and 3 large cargo containers. I used it to mine all the ore I needed to build my large mining ship (in link) The large mining ship is automatic. So it's really useful for mining ore without having to be present for the whole noisy time consuming affair. In fact, Once I finish the first one (waiting for cobalt to refine) Ill start on a second one just so I can remote mine in more than one location. These things are efficient, but slow as hell and the minerals are far away from my shipyard, and each other.

As for the stone issue -

Code:

void Main(){       
 
    var blocks = new List<IMyTerminalBlock>();        
    GridTerminalSystem.GetBlocksOfType<IMyCargoContainer>(blocks);     
   
    for(var Index = 0;Index<blocks.Count;Index++){   
   
        var container = blocks[Index];     
            
        var inventoryOwner = (IMyInventoryOwner)container;       
        var sourceInventory = inventoryOwner.GetInventory(0);     
        var items = sourceInventory.GetItems();     
         
        if(items.Count > 0){       
            var Dest = GridTerminalSystem.GetBlockWithName("Trash"); //find a connector named Trash   
            var DestOwner = (IMyInventoryOwner)Dest;     
             
            for(int i = 0; i < items.Count; i++){     
                if( items[i].Content.SubtypeName == "Stone"){  //Look for stone/gravel     
                    inventoryOwner.GetInventory(0).TransferItemTo(DestOwner.GetInventory(0), i, null, true, null);  //move to the ejector.     
                    }     
                }   
            }             
        }       
    }

 

Same here! Good to know I'm not the only one to do something dumb like that.

 

I would really like if large and station grids would be just simply removed.
have 1 single grid. more than enough.

 

Connector fills that role. Load your excess Stone into the Connector, point your Connector away from the general direction of anything you don't wanna harm, then go to the Connector in the Ship's Control Panel, & select the "Eject All" Button. Make sure your Ship does not have any non-Stone item in its Inventory anywhere, as I am not sure if the Connector is capable of Ejecting stuff not loaded into it when the "Collect All" option is set on... might be better safe then sorry.

I hope you're not suggesting that the Small Grid be the only one used... *Imagines trying to build a huge Mothership with Small Blocks...* :eek

 

In space engineers asteroids are far too close to each other, the background is totally unrealistic.

 

Large drills cover a larger area than small ship drills, and thus collect far more material faster. You usually have more ore than you know what to do with. Try capturing a mining hauler or better yet a mining transport [SIZE= 12.7272720336914px]cargo ship [/SIZE](much easier to capture), place drills in front and use them as your miners. Cheap, effective, time well spent.

If there is concern about possible damage to the large ship from so much ore flying around, place a welder behind the drills. They will auto repair any damage if any is sustained while mining.