Orbital Mining Station for moons and other resources

posted on January 5th, 2024, 4:06 am

I am looking into the idea of using orbital mining stations to mine resources other than metal. In theory, it should be as easy as making those moons into planets and using the resourcesCanHandle command to make it mine other resources. As far as I can tell, nothing in the mining weapons freighters use would specifically designate them for dilithium and Latinum. In theory, the Orbital beam weapon should also be able to mine dilithium and latinum from moons. I'm running into the same kind of wall this poster had:

https://www.fleetops.net/forums/modsinp ... oons-12265

His problem was that changing the classlabel to planet turned the model of a moon into a class-M planet by default. I even tried the "BaseName" command to force it back to the moon model, but it didn't work.

So now I'm thinking, what if I put a mining beam on a dilithium mining station? Could that work as a go-around? Or does it have to come from a freighter?

posted on January 5th, 2024, 9:21 pm

I am looking into the idea of using orbital mining stations to mine resources other than metal. In theory, it should be as easy as making those moons into planets and using the resourcesCanHandle command to make it mine other resources. As far as I can tell, nothing in the mining weapons freighters use would specifically designate them for dilithium and Latinum. In theory, the Orbital beam weapon should also be able to mine dilithium and latinum from moons. I'm running into the same kind of wall this poster had:

https://www.fleetops.net/forums/modsinp ... oons-12265

His problem was that changing the classlabel to planet turned the model of a moon into a class-M planet by default. I even tried the "BaseName" command to force it back to the moon model, but it didn't work.

So now I'm thinking, what if I put a mining beam on a dilithium mining station? Could that work as a go-around? Or does it have to come from a freighter?

Orbital Mining Stations are Hardcoded by the Armada II game engine by default to be for mining planets ONLY. They use the Class Label: “p_miming”. The p stands for “planet” and what codes the station to orbit the planet. The regular mining station is Class Label: “mining”. Mining stations use the #include “station.odf” well orbital stations say #include “orbital.odf” then that file says #include “station.odf”. Even if you add “dilithium” to the resourceCanHandle = “metal” in the orbital.odf file it’s still not allowed to be built around a dilithium moon. That’s due to as I’ve already stated the hardcoded class label of: Classlabel = “p_mining”.

There is no workaround to change that since that’s the only way to make an orbital station orbit. As such you cannot have any orbital station mine dilithium or any other resources except metal. The game is hardcoded to NOT allow it.

posted on January 6th, 2024, 2:13 am

Well, I ended up just making a super freighter. The orbital mining idea was for buildable resource moons—the Nexus Build N Mine mod. I ended up making a freighter that was bigger and had mining beams that would constantly fire instead of every 1.5 seconds. For some reason, I couldn't make the beams pull more than 12 or 15 units of a resource per shot. So, I ended up changing the shot delay. The freighter has enough capacity for one full dilithium moon and a large amount of latinum/metal. Now, I need to figure out how to make the freighter go to a mining station before it dumps its cargo and goes to the next nearest resource. I had that happen this morning; it finished mining a whole moon and immediately dumped all 20,000 units for the nearest Latinum nebula. I've thought about making a replace weapon that changes the frieghter's mining mode from dilithium only to latinum only or metal only. Would that stop it from dumping a bunch of resources? Or should I make the max capacity just under the 20,000 standard for dilithium? I also made an enhanced, larger mining station to go with it with faster processing.

I'll have to buff the health on it, though, because it was mostly full of latinum when the Borg decided to kill it. The resulting explosion produced a latinum shockwave that covered the map...

posted on January 6th, 2024, 6:15 am

Well, I ended up just making a super freighter. The orbital mining idea was for buildable resource moons—the Nexus Build N Mine mod. I ended up making a freighter that was bigger and had mining beams that would constantly fire instead of every 1.5 seconds. For some reason, I couldn't make the beams pull more than 12 or 15 units of a resource per shot. So, I ended up changing the shot delay. The freighter has enough capacity for one full dilithium moon and a large amount of latinum/metal. Now, I need to figure out how to make the freighter go to a mining station before it dumps its cargo and goes to the next nearest resource. I had that happen this morning; it finished mining a whole moon and immediately dumped all 20,000 units for the nearest Latinum nebula. I've thought about making a replace weapon that changes the frieghter's mining mode from dilithium only to latinum only or metal only. Would that stop it from dumping a bunch of resources? Or should I make the max capacity just under the 20,000 standard for dilithium? I also made an enhanced, larger mining station to go with it with faster processing.

I'll have to buff the health on it, though, because it was mostly full of latinum when the Borg decided to kill it. The resulting explosion produced a latinum shockwave that covered the map...

You may be too hasty, there is a coding my modding partner and I have discovered in some non-stock planet and moon mods. The Station coding is hardcoded but there is an ODF coding line in some moons and some sub-files they’re linked to. This code is:
//Can We Have An Orbital Station
canHaveOrbitalStation = 1

My modding partner and I have created an UNTESTED MODIFICATION by copying a few Moons, Nebulas and Asteroid ODF files and added the above coding to them. We have uploaded to our Mega.nz Storage our tentative work on this concept but haven’t tested it. We haven’t included any SOD files or textures for the renamed “advanced” moons, asteroids and nebulas so hopefully our chosen ones are Stock or people have. We personally believe that this Coding is the key since the Class Label “p_mining” is hardcoded to be able to build orbital stations around “resource” moons and possibly nebulas and asteroids. To add this coding to every single ODF file for moons, asteroids and even nebulas would be a lot to do so we elected to modify these included files and to eventually copy and modify some maps as well as create some maps utilizing these modified files.

https://mega.nz/file/6AoT0CAR#zpsx-zC-L4b5Ee3I-nQnsgf6VIqXK2STMPsuY_q8QGE

Reminder: The Above Download Link Is UNTESTED in game.

posted on January 6th, 2024, 2:06 pm

I've noticed this command, too. But without changing the class label of the object being mined to "planet," it doesn't generally work. It also doesn't solve the "only mines metal" issue either.
Putting a station around a latinum nebula would have it explode as soon as it was finished.

I've gotten orbital stations in orbit of moons before, but it won't mine anything but metal, and again that's hard coded, as you said.

posted on January 15th, 2024, 11:11 pm

I think your initial approach was correct. You would have to make a custom map where all the moons are only visually moons but in reality, are coded as planets. Then you should be able to use a replaceweapon to have the mining stations periodically generate any resource you want

posted on January 16th, 2024, 12:04 am

I think your initial approach was correct. You would have to make a custom map where all the moons are only visually moons but in reality, are coded as planets. Then you should be able to use a replaceweapon to have the mining stations periodically generate any resource you want

Actually that doesn’t work at all. My modding partner and I have been trying to make this concept idea work and that doesn’t work for the game will not allow planets to be treated as moons even through a Replace Weapon.

Actually there is a way to make it work and it just requires the coding I’ve previously specified and specifically designated mining stations to orbit. We’re actually getting somewhere with the concept but it’s cutting into working on our main mod.

posted on January 20th, 2024, 1:51 am

I guess I meant, essentially make them all planets, and just make some of the planets have the model of a moon instead of a planet. The replaceweapon is a separate topic, where any ship/station could have a hidden replace weapon to generate whatever resource you want. (borg nodes come to mind)