Efficient usage of dumping sites?

[offhand]

It seems to me that when the drones are looking to dump waste rock, they pick a dumping site to use... at random? Definitely not the closest, and does not seem to be the emptiest either.

For example here I have 3 sources of waste rock within controller (rocket) range, and there is a dedicated dumping site right next to each of them, but the drones are happy to take a few hours to carry each individual rock across the whole base. That's a pretty massive hit to early-game efficiency, and you can't even micro them.

Any hints to convince the drones to use sane sites? I could just not build them I guess, and then clean up local messes with an RC controller with a very small range.

 

[Ri0Rdian]

I think they are trying to spread it out among available locations.

 

[Captain Slide]

There is something about the drone algorithm which tries to balance supplies between all repositories. You see this when you move stuff around with the transporter or bring in cargo from Earth. If you have 5 Universal pads next to each other any supplies brought in will be evenly distributed between those pads. Ie you will end up with 2 machine parts on each pad if you brought in 10. if there is more than one then this will eventually propagate out if your drone controllers overlap some of the pads. You can clearly see this in action with 2 pads with the same product. Take all the stuff away from one with a transporter and a drone will come along and split the rest up evenly (down to halves with electronics and machine parts).

This is both good and bad.

I have literally had food end up half way across the map on a pad I just used for establishing a remote water source.

Conversely machine parts can end up right where you need them for a breakdown.

Shuttles spread things around faster but follow the same pattern.

I think closer attention needs to be spent excluding things from universal pads otherwise you end up with stuff in place you don't want. Although spreading stuff around does protect it somewhat from asteroid strikes.

Note: fuel explodes usually wiping out everything on a pad. Good idea to exclude it.

I also think dump points need to have much bigger storage, they end up propagating like fungus until you develop the convert to concrete tech.

 

[DragonShadow]

I think they are trying to spread it out among available locations.

I have observed the same thing. They seem to try to even out the waste rock amongst open sites, without moving anything from the sites themselves.

 

[Gilmund]

There is something about the drone algorithm which tries to balance supplies between all repositories. You see this when you move stuff around with the transporter or bring in cargo from Earth. If you have 5 Universal pads next any supplies brought in will be evenly distributed between those pads. Ie you will end up with 2 machine parts on each pad if you brought in 10. if there is more than one then this will eventually propagate out if your drone controllers overlap some of the pads. You can clearly see this in action with 2 pads with the same product. Take all the stuff away from one with a transporter and a drone will come along and split the rest up evenly (down to halves with electronics and machine parts).

This is both good and bad.

I have literally had food end up half way across the map on a pad I just used for establishing a remote water source.

Conversely machine parts can end up right where you need them for a breakdown.

Shuttles spread things around faster but follow the same pattern.

I think closer attention needs to be spent excluding things from universal pads otherwise you end up with stuff in place you don't want. Although spreading stuff around does protect it somewhat from asteroid strikes.

Note: fuel explodes usually wiping out everything on a pad. Good idea to exclude it.

I also think dump points need to have much bigger storage, they end up propagating like fungus until you develop the convert to concrete tech.

I stopped making universal deposits for this reason. Finally it's better to rely on deposits of each sort and to overlap drone hubs and rovers with deposits in the overlap area to get things from one place to another. When really needed a transport rover will be used directly with a transport route or not. It's less work in the end.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I also think dump points need to have much bigger storage, they end up propagating like fungus until you develop the convert to concrete tech.

Yes, they fill a greater and greater area. A little bit too big an area. Should be able to have maybe 4x what it can handle now. (Not sure exact value, but it is too low now.

That or have a "bulldozer" option. "Put all that rock into that hole/crater over there." Or fill in where the concrete extractor dug out.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

There is something about the drone algorithm which tries to balance supplies between all repositories.

This can be a good thing.

However, if I have a supply pad that is getting full, and I plop a new one next to it, I get annoyed to see drones wasting their time moving a few from the partly full one to the new empty one.

 

[Captain Slide]

Yes, they fill a greater and greater area. A little bit too big an area. Should be able to have maybe 4x what it can handle now. (Not sure exact value, but it is too low now.

That or have a "bulldozer" option. "Put all that rock into that hole/crater over there." Or fill in where the concrete extractor dug out.

Agreed. Although i have found that once you remove a concrete extractor you can put 3-5 dump points in the hole it leaves.

This can be a good thing.

However, if I have a supply pad that is getting full, and I plop a new one next to it, I get annoyed to see drones wasting their time moving a few from the partly full one to the new empty one.

Yes that is annoying. Fortunately the only exception is stuff cant come out of a dump point, not until later with the appropriate tech.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Agreed. Although i have found that once you remove a concrete extractor you can put 3-5 dump points in the hole it leaves.

Actually, if you place the rock dumps in the hole left by extractors, you can immediately delete them and it will leave the hole mostly filled in and flat.

 

[Captain Slide]

I hadn't noticed that. Thanks will have to try.

 

[offhand]

I think they are trying to spread it out among available locations.

Looks like it, although I see absolutely no reason to do that for garbage. If they just dumped it in the nearest possible location it would save time overall.

 

[Miravlix]

Looks like it, although I see absolutely no reason to do that for garbage. If they just dumped it in the nearest possible location it would save time overall.

The game *really* doesn't need different depots to have different rules and it would break all other depots if they didn't balance.

The issues here is

Using dumping sites (They are pointless until you get the tech and then you only want ONE in an area)

It's not a good drone hub location, it really shouldn't be covering multiple waste rock producers, it creates inefficient droid travel times.

Badly placed non-waste depots that again make the bots travel to much.

 

[LorimerLonghaul]

early game, i'd say don't bother having dumping sites! i don't start building them until i have lots of drones with lots of downtime, and i want some cleanup and/or to start prepping for waste rock liquefication

 

[offhand]

early game, i'd say don't bother having dumping sites! i don't start building them until i have lots of drones with lots of downtime, and i want some cleanup and/or to start prepping for waste rock liquefication

That's what I've started doing in my last game as well, and it definitely feels more time-efficient this way.

If there are no dumping sites, they dump it right behind the extractor. Often 1 drone quickly dumps all of of the garbage at once. If the garbage is in the way of construction, the drones just quickly shuffle it one hex aside.

The piles only stack to 5 per hex unlike 10 per hex for the designated sites, so it is less space-efficient. So the time to build a dumping site is when you want to reduce the area taken. It happens faster with a dedicated RC controller with a small coverage area.

 

[offhand]

The game *really* doesn't need different depots to have different rules and it would break all other depots if they didn't balance.
<snip>

The rules affecting depots and dumping sites are already different.

 

[offhand]

Seems I was a bit too optimistic, and getting rid of the dumping sites does stop the issue. The drones still prioritize moving waste rock into an existing pile, even if said pile is all the way on the other side of their controller's coverage area. But if all existing piles of 5 are full, they feel free to create a new pile close by.

Basically each existing non-full pile of rocks creates a request to deliver more rocks there, which does makes sense in a local area of say 5 hexes, but not across the whole coverage area.

So the only no-micromanagement solution I can think of is to make sure each drone controller only has 1 waste rock producer and 1 dump site in range.

And harder difficulties more or less necessitate micromanaging RC rovers, as you can't afford enough hubs/rovers/rockets/drones to have 1 per mine + cover other tasks.

 

[Gilmund]

So the only no-micromanagement solution I can think of is to make sure each drone controller only has 1 waste rock producer and 1 dump site in range.

Yes. But imo you overthinking it a bit, as soon as you can the main solution is to have extra drones and keep them in light/middle workload. I'm usually bringing a full drone rocket (around 50-60 if i recall correctly) as soon as i have the money for it.
What i'm doing to prevent this prob is not including far away concrete or water extractors in my main drone hub range but give the extractors one extra drone rover. Then the only things needed to connect the 2 areas are well placed stockpiles. You even can put dump piles in the two areas as long the drone zones are not crossing each other.

 

[offhand]

the main solution is to have extra drones and keep them in light/middle workload. I'm usually bringing a full drone rocket (around 50-60 if i recall correctly) as soon as i have the money for it.

Agree, throwing lots of resources at the problem does help to alleviate it. But I seem to always have other competing uses for those resources.

What i'm doing to prevent this prob is not including far away concrete or water extractors in my main drone hub range but give the extractors one extra drone rover.

Yep, that seems to be the best approach currently. An extra RC has reasonable costs, comes with 4 drones, does not cost maintenance, and can also be used to speed up new construction.

Good news is that drone logic is moddable. Bad news is that it is optimized in C code, so modded Lua code will definitely be slower.

 

[Jaol]

I stopped making universal deposits for this reason. Finally it's better to rely on deposits of each sort and to overlap drone hubs and rovers with deposits in the overlap area to get things from one place to another. When really needed a transport rover will be used directly with a transport route or not. It's less work in the end.

So long as you exclude all the resources you don't want filled, I find they're quite useful in remote extraction sites where you need a few of a couple things. For example, for a remote concrete+water+fuel site, I have one universal depot, where I manually drop off a few electronics and polymers to cover maintenance for the battery and drone hub, then set it to exclude everything except metal and machine parts, which get topped up by shuttles as needed to keep the setup running. Fuel and concrete get dedicated depots.

 

[Gilmund]

So long as you exclude all the resources you don't want filled, I find they're quite useful in remote extraction sites where you need a few of a couple things. For example, for a remote concrete+water+fuel site, I have one universal depot, where I manually drop off a few electronics and polymers to cover maintenance for the battery and drone hub, then set it to exclude everything except metal and machine parts, which get topped up by shuttles as needed to keep the setup running. Fuel and concrete get dedicated depots.

I do exactly the same thing but i'm placing different and dedicated stockpiles. And this avoid for me the necessity of excluding ressources (what i don't remember 30min later when i'll make in the exact same place a building which will need these excluded ressources of course) and allow me to quickly see where there are ressources i need or where i have to place extra dedicated stockpiles to have things moving. For building things far away i don't really need universal stockpiles, i'm using transport and drones rovers and directly dumping parts in the martian sand with a bit of backup for maintenance.
Plus as some buildings need huge amount of particular parts, i don't like how the universal stockpile is limited ressource wise anyway.
Like i'm giving every dome at least one food pile next to one of his doors, generally the door close to restaurants/groceries i'm giving one machine parts pile next to a machine parts factory, one fuel pile if i've a fuel reactor nearby and later on, i'm giving extractors machine parts stockpiles to be fixed.

But as i said in another post, my way of building a base is generally by avoiding a main drone hub to have an extractor on his edges therefore i avoid any wasted rock displacement mess from one extractor to the other. So drones will not tend to fill extra stockpiles until i finally decide to cross two drone hubs areas placing stockpiles in the middle of them, what i don't do to run a few extractors (rc and transport rovers are enough for the job).
It also prevents drones to go search large concrete quantities on the edges, i'm using my transport to pile up and dump parts in the middle of the base, my drones have other things to do. Keeping things close is a modus operandi.