Guest dnoyeB! Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 I am having a heck of a time with these things.I have deployed them, but as soon as the SC gets on the planet, I dont see it in my displays anymore. I don't see the drones on my displays. Do I have to send my avatar to the SC in order to see and use the SCs tools to see the drone when he is on the planet? I currently can only give orders to the SC but I can't switch to it.How do I know where my drone is on the planet? I have to write it down on a piece of paper when I drop him off? because my scanners dont pick him up. Thus I can never retrieve him because I dont know where he is..And since I can't see him, I have no idea what he is doing. I dont know how full he is.This is confusing. I thought I would deploy him and follow him like I follow all my other ships, then zoom in on him on the planet if I wanted to see first hand, but this is not working as expected.Am I to understand that CC can not see a mining drone? If so, how do I see one?Also, how do I know what minerals a planet has before I deploy my drone. AGain, zooming in with tacops does not do it as I expected it would. Confused, dnoyeb[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: dnoyeB! ]
CommanderJohnson Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 Ok, the way to use, find, and effectively control mining drones:Go to tacops, observe a planet with bases on it, select a mission zone, then zoom in next to a city (remember the city name or something) Open up waypoints, select SC1, add waypoint, put it next to the base, tell shuttle to deploy drone. Repeat for SC2-SC4. Launch the 4 shuttles. You can see their progress by highlighting them on the bridge via the shuttle icon and the #. It should be saying ENTER ATMOSPHERE, then after they are deployed, it'll say COLLIDE. Wait for the shuttles to dock with you, then leave and do something exciting (go attack Gammula1, drop the RANDOM weapon on the planet or something). Go to tactical, loadout, SC1-SC4, select drone. The % full will display. When it reaches 100, go back to planet. Select near the city referred to and zoom in. If you can't see the drones, double check the city name, if your sure it's the right one and you cant see the drones, create the waypoints like last time but select collect drone instead. The shuttles will likely find the drones and get them for you anyway (well, it worked for me). Then wait like last time for them to dock. Unload the drones via tactical interface, go to a station, and enjoy the money.Oh yeah, you can't tell what minerals the planet has ahead of time.[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: Captain Dread ]
Soback Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 Yeah, you don't need to know exactly where they are to pick them up. You do the same thing as when you drop them off, but reverse the command for pick up and don't worry about where you place the waypoint, if you droped the dron off in the north, you can still pick him up in the south.
Soback Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 The drones move so fast I can't imagine having to chase after them in a shuttle if you would have to be within a certain distance to pick one up.
Guest dnoyeB! Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 OK. So I have learned a few things.1. You can only see your mining drone's progress/status from the shuttle that dropped him off. Because I tried to see from the shuttles still in the CC, but they only show their own drones. So you must wait till your shuttle returns to your ship to know if he is finding anything.2. Its your responsibility to remember where you dropped off your drone. (unless his location is shown in the shuttle's info, as I would expect) Im unsure if the shuttle will find him if the waypoint is clear across the planet from the drone or not?3. You have no idea what minerals are on the planet. Didn't bc3000ad provide that info though? is that info still valid from bc3000ad? If I need strontium or some such, how can I increase my chances of mining it. Be nice If say, strontium was only found in far planets in other territories, and the price of minerals was tied to the difficulty in finding/mining them. Then It would be worth the risk to break into enemy territory cloked and try to mine out some of their planets
Guest [PCA]Pheonix Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 If you goto the drone number, in the shuttle DRONE display (tactical - Loadout - Drone). Theres a number on the left, click on it! Works for me anywayWhy do you have to drop em near a city?
CommanderJohnson Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 I only said drop em near a city so you have some general clue where they are. Also, i'm not sure, but i'm assuming if you drop them near hostile forces, they'll destroy em. Im not 100% sure, but i'm not going to put my drones near a terran insurgent base to find out.
Gallion Posted November 24, 2001 Report Posted November 24, 2001 Refer to the Manaul.To Wit:1. Pages 30-32 Setting Wapoints and Waypoint Orders.2. The paragraph at the top of page 43 - carry over from TacOps/Loadout section.TTFN[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: Gallion ]
Supreme Cmdr Posted November 25, 2001 Report Posted November 25, 2001 quote:Originally posted by Soback: The drones move so fast I can't imagine having to chase after them in a shuttle if you would have to be within a certain distance to pick one up.1. Shuttles are faster than drones2. Drones stop periodically. Have you ever actually observed how they 'mine'? Check it out.
Sadistic Posted November 25, 2001 Report Posted November 25, 2001 Okay, I'm pretty pissed off about this. I did what you said and put wps near a city on a planet and it was working fine, but the problem is, it was gonna take em 50 thousand years to get there, and I couldn't even tell how far away they were exactly. So, I decided to just delete the wps and put wps right under em so they would just stop right there and deploy the drone. Well, I did that, but they just returned to the ship after I had sat there for like 2 hrs getting em on the damn planet. I think what I did is didn't put deploy drone for the wp action, so it's my fault, but that reaallyy pisses me off hehe. Anyways, I think I'll be able to do it right next time I try, but is there a way to make em fly faster on the planet, because how can they ever get to wps at cities and stuff if they fly so slow.Also, they sometimes don't hyperspace into the planet and try to just fly in, which needless to say takes way too much time even when i deploy them from like 1200 whatevers away from the planet. I also tried setting wps far out from the planet before the wps on the planet whihc just caused more problems. I guess tacops takes some time to master.BCM is a game the requires thought and intelligence on the part of the player. Try sending those SC to a NAV point, them give them orders to Resume WaypointsTTFN[ 11-25-2001: Message edited by: Sadistic ][ 11-25-2001: Message edited by: Gallion ]
Wolferz Posted November 25, 2001 Report Posted November 25, 2001 Sadistic,You should be able to zoom all the way down to a relatively small chunk of the planet. Set all your WPS there, along with the deploy order, then launch your shuttles from the TACOPS menu. If you watch that plot of land long enough, you will see your shuttle's FPI as it drops off the drones. You should then see Target Scan icons for the drones. If you left click on one of those, the camera should zoom in to the drone.When you return to the planet to pick up the drones, zoom in to the general area where you left them, tilt the view and pan around until you find the drone icons, left click on one and you should zoom right to it. Then you can set a WP to retrieve it. When I deploy drones, I never use more than one WP. The shuttle will return automatically after executing the drop or recovery.
CommanderJohnson Posted November 25, 2001 Report Posted November 25, 2001 Planetfall to area your deploying the shuttles to deploy the drones via a waypoint there, and THEN launch the shuttles.
Sadistic Posted November 25, 2001 Report Posted November 25, 2001 Alright, I figured it out, I got em to drop off the drones.. but now I got another problem, I dunno where. What I think I can do is just leave the wps, and then later when I wanna pick em up I can tell all my shuttles to resume wps and change all of them to pick up drone instead. Hopefully that'll work.By the way, during the course of doing this, I think that SC should definitely add these things in a patch:1) The ability to set 1 wp for several units. IE set a wp on a planet for deploy drone for ALL shuttles.Hehehe, ya right Dont hld your breath2) The ability to see on the planet exactly where certain minerals are located so if you are looking for a certain mineral you can find that on the map and set your wp(s) there. Now, I know this would take a whole shitload of work, and for that reason I in no way expect you to SC, but it would definitely be reaaalllyyy helpful.There is for this. Just collect minerals, unload the drones, sell the minerals at stations, then buy th eminerals you really want.Well, thanks everyone, I think I've got it now. I don't quite have it down to a science just yet, but I can at least do it somewhat now.Also, just now I thought of something that could help alot. Probably most of you already thought of this, but what you could do is first, before you do anything, hyperjump your cc to a jumpgate in the area or (more useful if the planet has a moon) to the moon of the planet and THEN tell your shuttles to go to the planet. Afterwards find your SC's on the planet and set their wps there.[ 11-25-2001: Message edited by: Sadistic ]TTFN[ 11-25-2001: Message edited by: Gallion ]
Zuul Posted November 25, 2001 Report Posted November 25, 2001 I will confirm that it does'nt matter whatsoever if you remember where you left the drone.All you need to do is go into Tacops and Observe any area (whether it is near your drone or not) and give the order for one of your shuttles to Exract Drone. The shuttle WILL find the drone and bring it back to your CC automaticaly.
scorchedearth Posted December 18, 2001 Report Posted December 18, 2001 Just thought I'd post here to bring this thread up to the top, where the other "mining drones" thread is....
Supreme Cmdr Posted December 18, 2001 Report Posted December 18, 2001 Yes, two threads about the same thing. What are the odds of that happening?
Supreme Cmdr Posted December 18, 2001 Report Posted December 18, 2001 LOL!!! Talk about run-by posting; they're just as bad as drive-by shootings
snark Posted December 28, 2001 Report Posted December 28, 2001 Does anyone know if there's a way to get planetary info (such as mineral richness) without docking at an orbitting station? It would be helpful for planets without star-stations (and moons, for that matter).
Rico Jansen Posted December 28, 2001 Report Posted December 28, 2001 If you read the Version control File at date: v1.0.02 RC9 - 12.07.01, you will see that the SC changed the time it takes for mining drones to completely fill up to 400 mins. (not upto) And since the drones ought to have a fixed carrying ability of minerals I deduce that it shouldn't matter on what planet or moon you are. Bc3k has that diversity. I guess it didn't make that much of a difference to gameplay. What kind of minerals you get is said to be at random. (was for bc3k anyway) But atleast 10 different kinds are the max.[EDIT] (looks down to Pugwashes thread) Strange! I'm probably missing something.[ 12-28-2001: Message edited by: Rico Jansen ]
Pugwash Posted December 28, 2001 Report Posted December 28, 2001 look in C:Program Files3000ADBattlecruiser Millenniumdatanavchart.ini if that's where you installed BCM, you need word, TextPad or the like to cope with the document formattingread the info at the top of the file or just look at this page I made earlier Planets.htmlCYA
Supreme Cmdr Posted December 29, 2001 Report Posted December 29, 2001 Pugwash, there are some errors and old data in most of your files at that link.e.g. [*]Tradeing has the incorrect spelling on one page [*]Moon is not a valid Navitron target (since its in the same Earth space region as the planet Earth [*]Some of the race/alliance info is incorrect [*]Some of the launch base names are incorrect You might want to go over that data again, fix some of the formatting issues etc.
Epsilon 5 Posted December 30, 2001 Report Posted December 30, 2001 About targeting drones : go in tacops, observe the planet you have drones on and find/click the zoom-to button, then support unit/mining drone. Watch them digging (turn vid diplay on).I always drop my drones at 0-0 (the default entry point... they're easier to find manually.
Johnrich Posted December 31, 2001 Report Posted December 31, 2001 quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: LOL!!! Talk about run-by posting; they're just as bad as drive-by shootings hey, rather than start a new post, I'll just jump in here. I lost one of my drones for 2 days! and I had a lot of trouble getting the SC to drop the drone, one thing on waypoints, it seems to help he you setposition a few of them on the suface , spaced a part: wp1 proceed to next wp2 deploy drone wp3 RTB , it must take time for the SC to clear its previous wp or something , so having it fly a small loop seems to help.I thought I would leave the WPs as a location marker for the Drone , but they go away , dissappear, gone... Second I found I could relocate my drone if I made it a priority target , that also only worked once. apparently the drones get removed from the priority list after docking? Does "extract" mean the SC will pick up the drone or does that mean the CC telaports the drone? I am confused on that...For somereason even with my other SCs picking up and dropping off on the earth the overhead view and the "Zoom to" thingie would not show the drone on the surface, I only found it when I physical "landed" my AE on the surface in an SC. It seems to me the "zoom to" should have been able to see any of my "support craft" on the surface. hey 3 days of straight play , I am really having a fun time. great SIM...John in Indianapolis
Tyrn Posted December 31, 2001 Report Posted December 31, 2001 quote:Originally posted by Johnrich: For somereason even with my other SCs picking up and dropping off on the earth the overhead view and the "Zoom to" thingie would not show the drone on the surface, I only found it when I physical "landed" my AE on the surface in an SC. It seems to me the "zoom to" should have been able to see any of my "support craft" on the surface. hey 3 days of straight play , I am really having a fun time. great SIM...John in IndianapolisWord to the wise, mining drones are listed in the support units menu IOW Zoom to|Support Units|mining drone of choice.[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: Tyrn ]
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