Finding the Factorum EP07 - Ice Harvesting (Space Engineers)

[@Wellington6012]

For some reason, KZbin refusing to let me link the end-screen to the stream I have planned for tonight. Going to have ago at reprogramming using remote controls instead... kzbin.infop0_3i5BBfdU

[@ssislo84]

More thrust may help out with the AI blocks, they don't like being under powered. Just like the old remote blocks, I think where you put the AI blocks can matter when you are trying to get them to dock. You are going to use more fuel/energy than you would think when trying to automate a delivery drone, and that will hold true no matter the method. Even scripts will be fuel/energy hungry compared to human controlled. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make that stream. That ends up being 12:30AM here and I get up early to go to work. Edit: The hydrogen delivery drone I made in Ep. 15 of my survival 23 series still works. It is slow, a little awkward, and is power hungry but it works. The AI blocks can be made to work.

[@Wellington6012]

Thanks Milman. I think I overcame the bugs and ended up with my traditional autopliot headaches, such as transitioning from planets to space. I moved the remote over the connector, still had misalignment problems, then orientation problems. I been there done that before with autopilot and know the troubles, the AI blocks and remote controls do still feel worse to me then the pre-Automation remote controls alone were. Probably doesn't matter for the masses using the blocks for defence drones, that are on hand to make corrections, but being absent, I need the reliability and it just isn't there. Anywho, no biggy missing the stream, basically an extra content episode that it worked out easier just to do a stream rather than record, edit, upload and publish.

[@thesurrealtaco8097]

At the end of a stressful day of engineering, nothing beats just staring into an aquarium....or 3

[@Wellington6012]

Sushi

[@toroidaldevil9303]

Neat trick setting up the connector distance for the new build using the solar panel.🤔

[@Wellington6012]

It up there with the 5x5 lcds for ramps.

[@OMG.HopsGnue]

Breath deep.3 days I would be lucky to last an hour. Watched and Liked 👍

[@Wellington6012]

Well at least I can say I've given it a descent nudge and don't have any unanswered questions. We don't work and time to move on from those block and use alternatives. ❤ ur 👀 & 👍

[@transistordave]

The failure to work has been my experience with any kind of drone as well. Except attack drones, used to be disposable defence fighters. So much potential, so much frustration and disappointment.

[@Wellington6012]

I hear you. My frustration is they used to work and now they don't 😓. Will see how I get on tonight with an attempted back to the future.

[@XtrovertedHermit]

Brilliant.

[@Wellington6012]

😄

[@fredpryde8555]

would of been a great set up if it had worked i have never used AI blocks so i do not know much about them great series

[@Wellington6012]

The current set of bugs aside, AI blocks can be tricky, I've always had more success in natural gravity where you usually always know which way is up. Like most things in SE, you just need to give it a go.

[@ericseidel4940]

Nice episode, About Ai : it seems that when the server (AKA your PC if your playing solo) is overloaded, Ai is one of the first thing that is throttle downt to save CPU. I don't know for your game with OBS and so on...

[@Wellington6012]

Compared to other things I've done in SE, this game save is a practically empty world. Maybe with a global encounter doing its things 000's KM's away, there might be extra drain. I think the blocks are simply bugged

[@Mr76Pontiac]

I don't remember when it was, but there used to be a time when getting a drone to go along a path actually worked. I don't know if Keen removed the orientation factor to when a GPS coordinate was set, or what, but after a certain update getting the remote control to do anything was such a pain. I was able to get my drones to move between points of interest with ease. Getting them docked to my stations were idiotically simple. Then that update hit, and ships were coming in at super strange angles, upside down at times, which forced me to have to specify more waypoints and at each waypoint specify the direction the ship was supposed to go. It wasn't as brain dead easy anymore, but it worked. With OpenAI and the way things are done now? It's still not worth the effort to use the built in blocks. I'll stick with scripts and getting them to do the auto piloting to get docking done.

[@Wellington6012]

I was hoping after almost a year since I last tried the AI blocks, they would have been fixed, but sadly no. Salt in the wound, it was the AI update that broke the remote control block, I logged a bug remote with keen that was acknowledged and bug confirmed. I think I have a work around for the remotes, will try, otherwise will have to be a script.

[@senrabnairb]

Great video. Have you considered using th hyd rebalence mod.

[@Wellington6012]

Didn't Keen rebalance the hydrogen in a previous update so that mod wasn't so important anymore?

[@senrabnairb]

I don't think so, I could be wrong, but I concider it a quality of life mod. I did some testing and found the nod to be better than just vanilla.Again great series.@@Wellington6012

[@MozoTyce1]

When full it has waaay to much mass for those thrusters, even the hydrogen thrusters are not enough ! Believe me when i say "i've been there - done that" ! bung me the BP and i'll take a look, i leaned *a lot* doing Naked on Europa !

[@Wellington6012]

After failing again, ended up going with PAM, now it works.

[@MozoTyce1]

@@Wellington6012 Would be fun to see what you did wrong ;) I have successfully set up a 3 ship to 3 mines and one base drone ring but.... it works for maybe 10 mins then the drones miss the dock. I did it in vanilla and bug reported it with video but they still say "working as intended" 😒

[@Wellington6012]

It was on a stream last night on Future Wellingtons channel, had a go trying with the remote control, overcame the deleting waypoints bug, but orientation was a problem. Used PAM, and I am born again converted.

[@kev5507]

Great Vid again Wellington ..Since you use scripts anyhow ide just use pam .... has options for cargo runs

[@Wellington6012]

Going to give the Remote Control a go in about 30 mins, otherwise, might try the PAM.

[@defechan7486]

Do you have a beacon and not just relying on waypoints? Also recorder block as well as flight move. There is the ability to set up speed limits per waypoints and collision avoidance. That might help with overshooting waypoints. Again Idk if it's just me but I find the AI works better off of beacon waypoint reference rather than just gps. Another consideration is allowing enough distance between the last/first aligning waypoint down to where it will move to try and connect.

[@angelusmortis3256]

playing your scenario ive flown to Europa back to mars visiting MTIN beacon and back to Europa have found 0 encounters other then one on the surface of mars they were supposed to be neutral but shot at me... is that normal? like ive found no salvage in space at all...

[@Wellington6012]

I've flown around for what feels like hours then get 3 spawn at once. Spiltsie had the same problem in his recent economy run I believe. So I think the game has a element of buggy-ish at the moment. In the game save file, sandbox.sbc, there is a setting you can increase. It is set to 0.2, you can go up to 1.0

[@XtrovertedHermit]

As an Addition to MAYDAYS i put MES wrecks in the mod list cause theres some jump drives in some of the wrecks...

[@phforNZ]

Stubborn AI, huh? Worst case if you want to automate it, there are a few scripts that can deal with autopiloting it. A lot use PAM, but that's still some effort to set up initially, so I use SAM. I think it's less versatile overall, but you cannot beat the ease of setting it up to shuttle things.

[@Wellington6012]

I'm going to give the old remote controls ago during a stream tonight, otherwise it'll be PAM or SAM.

[@toroidaldevil9303]

I don't think the AI is very good at docking near "obstacles." Because you have the connector inset into the floor, the AI is deciding it can't get to the connector. Then gives up.

[@Wellington6012]

Yeah, I don't think it's me, it's the AI. The AI in PAM doesn't have the same problem (once I finally set it up right).

[@cabbageplays6710]

Shame your using hydrogen for the drone. It would have been much easier to sort out the cargo if you could just put a sorter in there to drag everything out of the drone. Oh well..... I think you can use atmo thrust on that moon, so it might be worth swapping out the hydro thrust for some atmo instead, as its just to get you out of the atmosphere. So im going to try and make it to the stream, but its at 6:30 in the morning, so im making no promises.

[@Wellington6012]

I don't follow? I don't have any issue with the cargo, the drills force the ice in, Isy's pulls it out.

[@cabbageplays6710]

@@Wellington6012 Instead of having to rename cargo to special on your base, you could have a sorter that just drags everything out super quick so the drone could get going again. Your right though, IIM would pull all the ice out as well. Might be worth just getting rid of that special cargo then. If your going to rely on IIM, just let the ice go into the Ore cargo. I tend to have 2 large cargos for IIM. 1 for Ore and one for Components. On my main base i would also have a 3rd for Ingots. Oh i edited the last msg by the way, LOL

[@Wellington6012]

@@cabbageplays6710 Right, I get what you are saying. The container isn't set to special for pulling out the ice, its a future programming mechanism that when the tanks are full and the O2H2Gens aren't processing, I want to limit the surplus ice on the station to just that one small cargo. Triggers for the drone to do a ice run will be drone battery full and ice container empty, so basically the drone will only run when ice is actively being processed. ...well thats the plan anyway.🥴

[@cabbageplays6710]

@@Wellington6012 AH, i get where you were going with it now, i must have missed the bit you said that in the vid, oh well, guess im a little tired today, LOL

[@Wellington6012]

@@cabbageplays6710 I probably said it, but then edited it out, there is hours on the cutting room floor.

[@montyferguson4657]

When you make it back to the earth like planet, here is a spot I want you to check out. X -11492.06 Y 25084.90 Z 54228.92

[@Wellington6012]

Might not get to earth for a while, is this a station thingy or something geographic? Might be on Alien world too, has the same terrain.

[@montyferguson4657]

@Wellington6012 it is geographic

[@Wellington6012]

@@montyferguson4657 I had a sneaky look in F8, I know the spot, been there often. It was next to my base in Farming Space Pirates, and also next to the lake I built the weekender in Scrapyard. I'll have a closer look next time passing, which won't be long, in Ancient Astronauts, it's on the way somewhere I need to visit 🏛