Author Topic: Orbiting Mineral packets  (Read 1987 times)

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gamemonger56

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Orbiting Mineral packets
« on: January 31, 2012, 08:24:24 PM »
Not sure how i did it but i have nearly a million tons of mining packets in orbit arround the two planets on the system. Once i'd noticed this i corrected the mass drivers but i still have the stuff in ordit around each plaent. I went back in and de-selected targets on the mass drivers hoping the stuff will fall out of orbit and back to the planet?

Another question just popped up: is there an actually in-system range limit on mass drivers?


Just checked and thery are 1350billion miles apart

« Last Edit: January 31, 2012, 08:27:32 PM by gamemonger56 »
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2012, 02:33:32 AM »
Quote
Just checked and thery are 1350billion miles apart

What.  How did you even establish those colonies...? lol
 

Offline Nathan_

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2012, 02:39:10 AM »
LPs maybe.

There should be no real range limit for a mass driver(excluding computer limitations of course). And you are probably stuck with the minerals in orbit, though perhaps there is a tick alignment where they will land.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2012, 02:42:00 AM by Nathan_ »
 

Offline Marthnn

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2012, 07:15:00 AM »
Well, an orbiting planet can possibly travel in orbit faster than a mineral packet.

Take Earth.  In Aurora, its orbital distance is 150m km, meaning its orbital circumference (distance traveled every revolution) is 150m X 2PI.  Its year duration is precisely 1 Earth year or 365 Earth days.  So the Earth orbital speed is [ (150m X 2PI) m km / (365 X 24 X 3600) sec], which is equal to 29. 9 km/s.  This matches real world, as expected.

If you had a spaceship, such as an orbital habitat with engines, traveling at less than 29. 9 km/s, it could possibly be unable to reach Earth except with an intercepting course.

Mineral packets travel just like spaceships, always straight to their target.  If said target moves, the packet adjusts its bearing accordingly.
Also, mineral packets always travel at 1000 km/s when fully loaded.  If partly loaded, they travel faster following some equation close to E=mv^2, with E the fixed energy installed mass drivers give to objects (might not be linear).

With a planet far enough and having a year short enough, it should be possible that its speed is above 1000 km/s.  It can even be a binary system with the 2nd star traveling very fast, or some other nonsense.

Have you got that system data for us? I find it quite funny.

The solution would be to use way more mass drivers than necessary to send faster packets, or change its target to a more stationary "relay" body.  As for the current stuck packets. . .  dunno.
 

gamemonger56

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2012, 01:36:07 PM »
system info? how do i find that and put it here. the packets are basically in the originating planets orbit.
 

Offline Marthnn

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2012, 02:54:45 PM »
Quote from: gamemonger56 link=topic=4600.  msg46032#msg46032 date=1328124967
system info? how do i find that and put it here.   the packets are basically in the originating planets orbit. 
The packets are not moving, simply staying at their origin? I might be wrong then.  .  . 

You can find all the information of a system in the System Generation and Display screen, shortcut F9.   I was most interested in the Orbital distance and Year data of the origin and destination bodies, as well as the planet (if it's a moon) and the star (if it's not the primary star). 

But if the packets are not trailing after the destination body, and simply never moving away from the origin, then it might just be a bug.   Could using SM fix it?.  .  .   I would also try smaller time increments, like 1 day. 


Edit : I might understand what's happening.  I've got a comet about 85b km away, and its mineral packets seem all clumped up in orbit.  If I zoom in a lot, I can actually see the packets in a neat line, traveling at 1000 km/s towards Earth.  Travel time will only be 2 to 3 years. . .  In your case, it's more like 40+ years.  So much mineral in limbo. . .
« Last Edit: February 02, 2012, 10:29:11 AM by Marthnn »
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2012, 11:09:06 AM »
Oh man, I'm sure glad my inner solar system is rich enough that I don't need to worry about flinging in minerals from hundreds of billions of kilometers away!

In these situations, I don't use mass drivers.  Too long.  I have two styles of freighters-- megalift freighters that I usually run at 5000 km/s+ and smaller fastdelivery freighters that run closer to 9k, with ICF technology.  Those fastlift freighters can do a circuit of even long-range worlds in much less time than all those packets.

I don't like ultralong mineral chains because each of those packets are just one more thing aurora has to process, and if you have a chain composed of thousands of them...
 

Offline blue emu

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2012, 11:26:39 AM »
Somewhat on-topic:

Is there any way to transfer cargo between ships in deep space? Then you could use Hyperdrive Freighters outside the gravity well, and trans-ship the cargo to conventional Freighters for the last stage of the trip.
 

Offline Marthnn

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2012, 11:39:07 AM »
Quote from: blue emu link=topic=4600. msg46063#msg46063 date=1328203599
Is there any way to transfer cargo between ships in deep space? Then you could use Hyperdrive Freighters outside the gravity well, and trans-ship the cargo to conventional Freighters for the last stage of the trip.
Yes, it seems possible to order the unload of minerals to another task group, except you can't order "all minerals", only "duranium" or any other.  That means 11 queued orders to unload everything.

In my opinion, that transfer wouldn't be worth micromanaging.  I'd just use the hyper ship all the way, even if it's suboptimal.  Although, using hyperdrive already requires similar micromanagement. . .
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2012, 12:29:59 PM »
This is a good application for a deep space cargo transfer station.  Set it up big-- giant cargo holds, commercial maintenance, and tug it out to the middle of nowhere.  Set your hyperdrive freighter on cycled orders to fill it ad infinitum.  Then, set the other ship to pick up from the freighter.  As long as you tune ship sizes properly, the queued orderlists will never foul.  Not being able to "transfer all minerals" between task forces is a problem, however.

This requires a suggestion!
 

Offline blue emu

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2012, 01:26:45 PM »
This is a good application for a deep space cargo transfer station.

That's what I had in mind, yes. There's no point in transferring from (mobile) ship to (mobile) ship, because you'd need to wait for the other dude to show up. A space station, though... a ship with no engines but lots and lots of cargo holds... would avoid a lot of the micromanagement and simplify things tremendously.
 

Offline Marthnn

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #11 on: February 02, 2012, 03:50:42 PM »
You can get your ships to unload by themselves, but there's no load order when you target a task force.  So right now, there's no way of automating the non-hyper ships.  If you had access to the same orders as with colonies, like "load all minerals" and "load duranium when X available", you'd just have to leave extra transports that empty the cargo station, no half-load travels.

We can ask, but it's not the only thing that can't be automated.  I'm still uncomfortable with emptying sorium harvesters.
 

gamemonger56

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Re: Orbiting Mineral packets
« Reply #12 on: February 03, 2012, 05:31:52 PM »

i gave up and deleted the system and am now repopulating the new one. got all the jp's hooked back up and gonna start ferrying supplies and colonists again.