Asteroid Mining?

[PayneRamsey (OP)]

Im confused as to how to get my asteroid miner's to work.  I made a ship design with an asteroid mining module and cargo space.  I made 5 ships with design.  Default orders move to mineral source.  Conditional orders fuel less than 30% refuel at colony within 4 jumps.  The 5 ships i made with this design are just following around a comet and not mining it.  Need help please

[Yonder]

You have to make a colony on the comet/asteroid they are mining. (Just click Add Colony on the body in one of several windows, like the "Potential Mining Sites" window, you don't need any people or buildings)

At that point it will give you a colony on that body, and the minerals will start to collect on the surface stockpile.

[Charlie Beeler]

This one comes up about every other month.  Please do a simple search of the Academy with the key words 'asteroid mining' and you will find a wealth of answers in very short order.

[PayneRamsey (OP)]

Thank you

[ndkid]

This one comes up about every other month.  Please do a simple search of the Academy with the key words 'asteroid mining' and you will find a wealth of answers in very short order.

Amusingly, this topic is now the top hit for a forum-wide search, and the next 9 or so are people's campaigns. You have to get way farther down before you get back to the answer to this question. Apparently, ensuring that when you search, you search the proper subforum, is the key to success! :-)

[Girlinhat]

It's only useful to search in the Academy subforum.  Any and every search you perform will turn up three pages of people's campaigns and then one clipped-short relevant answer.  I really think that the campaign forums should get a separated/omitted search function, because it's otherwise nigh-impossible so search for anything.

[Charlie Beeler]

It's amazing the answers to questions that you can find with a little application of your search-fu!!   

[Goron]

Search is not an efficient tool for gaining information on web forums.
Search is not an efficient tool period, but that's another point.

Not to mention, while you may be search-prone, others may not be.  I find that computer users fall into two different categories when it comes to search, those that do it, and those that do not.  In my experience it is generally a pretty strict divide, too.  Nielsen's early studies show a divide as well, just not so 'strong' as I have seen in more recent experience ( hxxp: www. useit. com/alertbox/9707b. html ).

It is possible that early successes/failures in internet use help define whether a user is a searcher or not but I've read nothing to really make a connection or not.  I personally prefer to link scan myself, especially on web forums.  By searching you are exposing yourself to *everything*, not just relevant materials.  I am not sure if you have noticed or not, but this forum contains posts from 2006.  Half the time I use search here, my results are far outdated and/or of questionable integrity.  The other half is completely unrelated to the goal of my search.

So while you may be a search-fu master, not everyone is.  Not everyone understands the dynamics of board-specific searching or what exact keywords to use like you may.  So when they type "Asteroid mining" into search and get, literally, an entire page of campaign AAR posts it only disheartens them from trying to search again (except, as pointed out, THIS post is now number one on the results, so the OP actually did a service to the forum by posting).  Not to mention search result success drops drastically with each iteration of the query (51% success on first try, 32% on second try, down to 18% on third try).  But that is aside, considering most users don't try a second time.

I suggest that in the future instead of making a pointless post saying 'use search' that ultimately benefits no one but does alienate the OP, you should consider just answering the question.  Then your answer will help saturate further potential searches AND link scan attempts. . .

[Thiosk]

You'll have to excuse people, there are a class of about 3 or 4 questions that come up like clockwork.

Perhaps some aggressive editing of the wiki would assist people on answering such questions early on.

However, the search function would be greatly improved if the fiction could be more easily excised from the results, allowing searches of the academy, mechanics, and similar forums.  Fora. whatever.

[Erik L]

You'll have to excuse people, there are a class of about 3 or 4 questions that come up like clockwork.

Perhaps some aggressive editing of the wiki would assist people on answering such questions early on.

However, the search function would be greatly improved if the fiction could be more easily excised from the results, allowing searches of the academy, mechanics, and similar forums.  Fora. whatever.

There are no standard restrictions on what forums are searched. I'll look into seeing if there is an extension that allows that.

[Erik L]

There are no standard restrictions on what forums are searched. I'll look into seeing if there is an extension that allows that.

After a thorough search of the simplemachines site, I found no mod that limits searches by forum

[Dutchling]

Could try to add such a limit to the wiki? When I last searched something there the only results were player designed ships.

[Erik L]

Could try to add such a limit to the wiki? When I last searched something there the only results were player designed ships.

I don't think there would be a way to do that, unless all the player ships are put into a separate category.

[Charlie Beeler]

Use of the advanced search has always worked for me.

[Vynadan]

... But it does say that the spoiler subforum isn't indexed for the search.
Can't the same be applied to the fiction subforum(s)?

(Though I agree with Charlie; for search, always 'advanced')

*edit*
A quick test revealed that topics and posts from there turn up with the search engine anyway. Disregard my post, though it's sorta misadvertising there.