I have added these suggestions to my 'to do' list so they might make it into v4.1 but there is still a lot to do on the rewrite.

I'd be happy if they're on the 4.2 to do list - I'm getting anxious to see 4.1

John

While we´re at it, how about the ability to set a "reserve level"? Like, being able to tell the Massdrivers on Mars to keep 100t of all minerals on the planet and only launch the surplus stuff?
Would also be usefull if I want to assemble some prefabed PDCs or build a few facilities while still shooting the minerals not needed for those tasks to earth.

Quote from: "jmelzer"

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"

You can now build Mass Drivers on planets that will send mineral packets to other populations in the same system. ...
 One Mass Driver can launch 5000 tons of minerals per year and catch any amount of minerals per year.
...
Each 5-day increment, a mineral packet will be assembled and dispatched toward its destination. The packet is assembled by calculating the amount of minerals that can be sent. This is based on the number of mass drivers * 5000 tons * (Increment Length/Year). A roughly equal amount of each available mineral will be sent. This is done by the program checking each mineral type in turn and adding up to 10 tons to the packet. This process loops until either all available minerals have been added or the packet reaches its maximum size.
...
Steve

Should we be able to specify which minerals to send? (just put a list of tick-boxes, so you can ticky off the ones you're interested in sending).
e.g. a system with 2 populated worlds, one produces lots of neutronium, one lots of duranium. Would be nice to allow trade this way.

You can't do this at the moment but it would be a useful option

Steve

Did this (selecting which minerals will be sent by a mass driver) ever get coded up?  I can't find it anywhere.

I'm in a situation where I've got a freighter perpetually parked at Mars accumulating Sorium for shipment to Earth.  I need to do this because Mars is both a manufacturing and mining center - I need the other minerals for production on Mars, but the sorium needs to go to Earth since that's where the fuel factories are.  I'm beginning to hit the same problem with Venus - I'd like to put maintenance facilities there, but then I'd have to shut down the mass driver so that the (small amounts of) maintenance minerals don't get shipped off to Earth.

John

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"

Of course, this problem is limited to situations where two sides have major worlds in the same system.  

That wouldn't be a problem. Although you may need a lot of mass drivers to send minerals, one mass driver at the target will catch an unlimited amount of minerals, so one mass driver will protect a colony against any size of mineral packet.

Steve

That changed?  I thought that a mass driver could only catch 5 packets at a time.[/quote]

Do'oh!  It's right there in the first post in this thread, in the second paragraph!  And all this time I thought that MD's could only catch the same amount that they could send out!  Oops!

Kurt

I didn't remember any change being mentioned, but I sometimes miss things, especially when I'm running a campaign and not paying attention to the latest version.  Happened with SA all the time.  

That is just as well.  In the Twin Moons campaign, I was going to have the Colonists use their mass drivers to systematically wipe Strug colonies out throughout the system.  This might lead to a situation where everyone needs to keep building mass drivers to make sure that no one else has more than they do.  The more I thought about it, the more untenable this situation seemed.  Both sides might be able to protect their home worlds, but it seemed unlikely that either would be able to build any colonies, as they wouldn't be able to divert enough mass drivers to protect the colony without weakening their homeworld defenses.  

Of course, this problem is limited to situations where two sides have major worlds in the same system.  

That wouldn't be a problem. Although you may need a lot of mass drivers to send minerals, one mass driver at the target will catch an unlimited amount of minerals, so one mass driver will protect a colony against any size of mineral packet.

Steve

Steve-

In the original message of this thread you stated that the permissable targets for a mass driver are other of your populations in the same system with mass drivers, and any detected alien populations whether they have mass drivers or not.  

Has this changed at some point?  In the Twin Moons game both races have detected at least one alien population, but neither can target anything but their own populations with their mass drivers.  

It looks like it has changed, although I don't remember changing it. There was probably a good reason at the time but I don't remember that either . Senility is obviously creeping in.

Steve

Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"

I think the only way to do it is to keep a temp table of packet arrivals during each movement phase and then add that to the new overall packet changes table if it turns out to be a 5-day increment. Any packet arrivals in-between 5-day increments will change the +/- situation as they arrive.

That was along the lines of what I was thinking of.  Note that I've found a workaround - when a packet arrives the +/- is set to the "correct" value.  Between that and the ability to see what's in a packet, I think this request has dropped to low(er) priority.

I have done it anyway

There is now a mass driver +/- column on the mineral tab that includes any packet arrivals during the movement phase of the 5-day increment. I setup the temporary table as above and it seems to work OK. From the user perspective, it resets at the start of each 5-day increment, although it is a little more complicated behind the scenes. It is useful to know what minerals are flying around in packets.

Steve

Um - is there any way to tell how much of what is in the mineral packets in transit?  I'm trying to figure out my home system's duranium burn rate and I don't have a good handle on how much my asteroid mine is making every update since it's immediately being loaded onto a mass driver and fired off to Terra.  This causes the "Recent Stockpile +/-" field to show up as "0.0".

Could "we" maybe add another column for "mass driver +/-" that would tell how much of the change is due to mass driver packets?

I also am not seeing a speed/eta for my mineral packet on the system window.

I've added speed, time and distance for mineral packets. I have also added an option to show the content of each packet, rounded down to the nearest integer for each mineral type for space reasons

The extra column is a little more tricky. The existing stockpile +/- is zeroed before mineral production in the 5-day increment so you can see the change. If I zero mass driver +/- at the same point, you would lose any packet arrivals during the movement phase of the 5-day increment. I can't reset it before movement though because I never know until after movement if this is going to be a 5-day increment or a standard increment (because of movement sub-pulses). I think the only way to do it is to keep a temp table of packet arrivals during each movement phase and then add that to the new overall packet changes table if it turns out to be a 5-day increment. Any packet arrivals in-between 5-day increments will change the +/- situation as they arrive.

Steve