Mining

Not everyone mines and not everything is minable, and they mine from where they stand — reaching the tile is the unit's own problem

mediumYou need: Items: take and drop, Where the ore is

steptick 0

Unit Bind0

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Unit Control1

typeminexy

Sensor2

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 in

Sensor3

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 in

Sensor4

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 in

@counter0number

cargonullnull

whatnullnull

miningnullnull

ubind @mono
ucontrol mine 9 4 0 0 0

The mono reaches the ore with a beam and starts mining: mining becomes one, cargo grows, what shows copper. In about nine seconds the unit gathers its twenty — no more will fit — and the mining stops by itself.

Field	What is in it
first	mine
second and third	the tile with ore, not an item
the rest	unused

The fields hold coordinates, not an item: a unit mines a particular tile, not “copper in general”. ulocate ore can find such a tile: it gives the coordinates of the nearest ore of the kind you want.

Silent failure

A unit does not fly to the ore. It mines from where it stands, reaching out with a beam: the tile has to be no further than eight and a half tiles away already at the moment the order is given. Further, and mine simply does nothing — no error and no attempt to fly over.

So a unit is led to distant ore yourself:

ucontrol approach 9 4 6 0 0
ucontrol mine 9 4 0 0 0

Every miner has the same reach — seventy world units, a little over eight tiles.

Not everyone mines and not everything is minable

Every unit has a mining tier and every ore a hardness. Ore harder than the tier — and the order silently does nothing:

Unit	Tier	What it takes	Cargo slots
Mono	1	sand, scrap, copper, lead	20
Poly	2	and coal as well	30
Mega	3	and titanium as well	60
Dagger, flare	none	nothing	—

Ore hardness: sand and scrap are zero, copper and lead one, coal two, titanium three, thorium four. A unit takes everything no harder than its tier, and thorium on that list goes to nobody: it needs tier four.

Silent failure

No refusal and no error. Ore that is too hard, the wrong tile, the wrong unit — in every case mine simply never starts. You can check with sensor mining @unit @mining: a one means mining is under way.

A full hold ends the work

When the cargo is full, mining stops. The unit stays where it is until somebody unloads it — it will not fly anywhere by itself.

So a mining program is always a pair of “mine — deliver”:

ubind @mono
sensor cargo @unit @totalItems
jump 5 greaterThanEq cargo 20
ucontrol mine 9 4 0 0 0
end
ucontrol move 4 4 0 0 0
ucontrol itemDrop container1 20 0 0 0

While the hold is not full — mine; once it is — fly to the store and hand over. There is no need to give a “stop mining” order: a movement command cancels it by itself.

Note

Mining by units is faster than a drill, not slower. One unit of ore takes 50 + hardness * 15 ticks divided by the unit’s mining speed: for a mono that is 26 ticks for copper — nearly two a second. A mechanical drill on four ore tiles gives one every two and a half seconds.

And there is no lock on a tile: twenty monos can hang over the same ore at once, and each will mine at full speed. Exactly one drill can stand on that spot.

The price is delivery: a drill puts items on a belt itself, while a unit has to be driven to the store by a program.

Remember

• ucontrol mine x y sends a unit to mine a tile, not an item.
• A unit mines from where it stands: beyond eight and a half tiles the order does not work.
• What is available to whom is decided by the unit’s mining tier and the ore’s hardness.
• A full hold stops the mining; unloading is the program’s job.
• sensor @mining shows whether the work is under way.

Task

Change @mono in the example to @flare: there are no flares on the map, the binding gives emptiness, and mining becomes empty — there is nobody to command. Adding a flare and trying again will not help either: it cannot mine at all.

Then put the mono back and set the tile to 5 4. There is no ore there, but the result is not “nothing”: what shows sand. Sand is dropped by the floor itself rather than by an overlay, and for mining that is ore like any other — simply the softest.