Mineral reserve levels and Freighters

[Resident Evil (OP)]

Hi.
New guy here - been playing for a few weeks now and battling with the learning curve 

I have a problem which I can't figure a way around.  The situation is I have minerals on Earth along with mass drivers (50k worth) pointing at the moon.  Another colony on the moon with another 45k mass drivers pointing at Earth.

Now obviously I don't want these mass drivers shooting mineral back and forth ad infinitum, so I have reserve levels set at 10 million to stop this happening, except on the minerals I do want to move.  My problem comes when I have a freighter try to collect minerals from Earth to take to another colony.  I can't see a way to get the freighter to ignore the reserve level and just pick up the minerals I want - and so, for the moment, as it's just a one off collection, I've had to turn the mass driver off - adjust the reserve levels, load the freighter, adjust the reserve levels again, and then turn the mass driver back on.

There has got to be an easier way.  Please someone tell me

By the way, I like the game - It reminds me of games I used to play when I was younger - particularly Star Fleet Battles - and I think I can see some SFB influences in the game; but also Starfire (Task Force games).

Thanks.

[davidb86]

The first question is how many minerals do Earth and Luna really need.  You do not indicate how much you are mining or using.  Do you really need 45k tons per year from your mass drivers or did you overbuild mass drivers.  Only one is necessary to catch minerals.  After 30 games years and a conventional start even earth only mines 25,000 tons per year with projrctred usage of 340,000 tons

I typically set my reserve level to the next 1000 tons above the projected usage value, remember that projected usage is for all of your current projects, even though for most players queue up several years (decades) worth of industry projects.  If your reserve level is close to your projected usage and your freighters cannot load minerals, that indicates you are short of minerals and need more mines.

With realistic reserve levels there should be plenty of minerals for freighter to haul, unless you have a mineral shortage.

The similarity to star fire is that Aurora evolved from a program by Steve called star fire assistant which was based on 3rd edition star fire.

[vorpal+5]

Resurrecting this thread because I really don't get why using 'reserve level' generates these DB errors or just do nothing when I try reshuffling some minerals between Earth and Luna. Is there a catch somewhere?

I have set Earth to 1000 in all minerals. Luna level is 100. My stockpiles on Earth are around 1000 to 5000 per mineral. Freighter capacity is 100k.
I set an order to load/unload to reserve level on Earth.
Same on Luna
Then unload all minerals on Earth.
The aim is to have 100 of each on Luna and put back the remainder on Earth.

Now when I process that, I get DB error, and then after a while Earth is equalized, but not Luna. It should be plain and simple stupid and yet something is not working.