Ok. I built a cargo ship with 30,000 ton capacity. I also established a colony on mercury so that I could mine it. I also have hundreds of auto mines already on earth but built a few more to be sure. Now, I opened the task force window and ordered the CS Sol (the name of my cargo ship) to go to earth (where it is already as it was built in the ship yard) and pick up automines. I let 30 days go by yet on the "Ships" tab it still shows 30,000/30,0000 cargo room available. When I go to the Task force tab...it still shows the orders to pick up 4 auto mines.
My question is why is it not picking them up. what am i missing? is there an "execute order button? the ship has a commander assigned. What I wanted to do (and I found a thread n this so i thought I was doing ti correctly) was trasnport a mine to mercury so my colony could start mining. i am researching Mass drivers so one I have them, I want to build one at earth and one at mercury....correct?
Is there anything in your "plotted move" window on the F12 screen? It should say "Load Automated Mine Earth" (or something close to that) as the very first thing in the window. If not, you probably didn't double-click on the order or hit the "Add Move" button. Does your Task Group think it's at Earth? Look at the 3rd tab, off to the right at "Set task group position" - it should say "Sol" and "Earth" (NOT "no system body selected"!). What's your TG speed - is it at its max? Have you seen any windows pop up? Did you do the 30 days in one big "advance by 30 days" button push? (I would do no more than a 5-day update.) Are you 100% sure you actually have automated mines on Earth (and not just regular mines)?
Everything you described in your mail sounds like it's correct - the above is essentially flailing around in hopes you might say "aha!!". You might try moving something else, like Duranium - getting one thing to work might help you figure out what's wrong with the other.
BTW, generally speaking you'll want to put an integral multiple of 5 holds into cargo ships, since that is exactly the size of a standard facility (like auto-mine). If you put 6 holds in, then you'll end up picking up fractional facilities all over the place....
John
PS - Please post new user questions in The Academy in the new user's section.