Mining drills stop when I leave/quit

[Jimbodiah]

I have a mining setup on Eeloo for Ore/KA/K+, and I notice every time I switch view to one of the landers the drills have stopped working and I need to restart them. Ofcourse no resources were mined since I left, making this very tedious. It seems like the drills stop when I quit the game (or it crashes).

As I was using a microwave receiver I thought maybe this mod craps out when the game is not active, but even placing a fixed power supply (like the little power canisters or even a 2000ec/s fusion reactor) will not keep the drills running. The drill I use are the orange Ore drill and the Karbonite drills.

Anyone have an idea how to keep them running?



[IMG]http://dasher.nl/kerbal/kerbal_07.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://dasher.nl/kerbal/kerbal_08.jpg[/IMG] Edited November 16, 2015 by Jimbodiah

[Gilph]

I have the same problem on Pol. When I exit the screen, it thinks the lander is still in midair. Do you get the drill lost contact with ground error on the drill?

[Jimbodiah]

not that I have seen. Where would it say that?

[jackal40]

I have seen the same with my mining operation on the Mun. No messages were presented, the drills just stop drilling. There is sufficient power and cooling so I am at a loss.

Kinda defeats the purpose if they need to be baby sat.

[Jimbodiah]

Yeah, what I was thinking. I have 8 mining rigs running on Eeloo. Sometimes they keep running no problems, sometimes they just stop right after I leave. I need to check in every time I start up the game.

[Acet]

What I've seen happening in the past is that the drills stop when I restore focus to the the ship, and if I right click they say that it's because they moved. This can happen with standard drills, MKS dust sifters and I used to see it with Karbonite drills when I used it.

This is especially bad with bases where a hard component (such as an orange tank) is directly sitting on the ground. In fact, large bases with large hard surfaces sitting on the ground visibly jump when I switch to them, sometimes extremely so.

I think this is a problem in KSP's activation of physics calculations on a craft when its landed and focus is switched to it.


The best solution I found so far is using landing legs and not locking them.

Could it be something like that?

[Jimbodiah]

I dont have any part touching the surface like tanks, checked that. Often times I also see the craft is stuck in the sand when you first switch to it and then it pops to the surface which makes it jump. But don't think that was my problem.


It could be the legs... I had the adaptive landing legs mod and locked the legs because they would keep wobbling. I just replaced all the miners with the fixed legs from the Karbonite mod and will check again.

[KerbMav]

Do the drills continue to fill the tanks or does it look like they stop working as soon as you leave them, not only the moment you come back to them?

[sal_vager]

Drills will overheat and shut down, you need radiator now.

[Jimbodiah]

Kerb, they stopped filling the moment I left, tanks with 0.03 inside etc. But I think it has to do with the leg suspension being locked, I have 10 miners running now without problems.

Sal, I can check, but I think I have a radiator, but will keep an eye out, thanks!