How do I change the 6 hour delay on background drilling for the 'Drill-O-Matic Junior' Mining Excavator?

[iFlyAllTheTime]

I've tried searching for the answer on forums without any success.

For the 'Drill-O-Matic Junior' Mining Excavator the Practical Details section on the wiki says as follows:

To have the drill run "in the background" (so you don't need to watch it produce ore), you need to leave it alone for more than 6 hours. If you switch focus back to the craft with the drill before 6 hours have passed, the drill will retroactively stop.

Does anyone know of a way to change or remove that value by editing some config file somewhere? I'm running 1.2.2 if that makes any difference. I just don't understand why there's a delay in the first place!

Not sure if this should've been posted in the Gameplay Questions or over here...

 

[Superfluous J]

I don't know why (or even if) they have the required time for the first 6 hours, but the reason it's there at all is so if you come back to your base after a year it only has to run the simulation 400-odd times, not millions if it was every second.

Note: It's not a "6 hour delay" it's a "6 hour period." If you leave the ship for 0-5.9 hours, you get nothing (if the Wiki's correct). If you leave it for 6-11.9, you get 6 hours of drilling. If you leave it for 12-17.9, you get 12 hours of drilling. Etc.

[iFlyAllTheTime]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

Note: It's not a "6 hour delay" it's a "6 hour period." If you leave the ship for 0-5.9 hours, you get nothing (if the Wiki's correct). If you leave it for 6-11.9, you get 6 hours of drilling. If you leave it for 12-17.9, you get 12 hours of drilling. Etc.

1

Whaaa?!

This is awesome news!

I was starting to get annoyed by the seemingly arbitrary limit, but what you said makes sense. I went back and checked the wiki and it doesn't use the word delay, but I wish it was a little clearer like your reply.

[Raptor9]

Why would you want to leave your drills running in the background?

I just pour a cup of coffee and watch them in real-time. 

[Pthigrivi]

43 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

Why would you want to leave your drills running in the background?

I just pour a cup of coffee and watch them in real-time. 

In career with less than 3* kerbals it can take a while to fill a big miner. I usually have dozens of concurrent flights so tend not to watch my mining ops. 

I do kind of wish the cutoff was 1h rather than 6. 

[Raptor9]

I was being sarcastic. I wouldn't actually watch the mining take place any more than I would watch grass grow. 

[iFlyAllTheTime]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

In career with less than 3* kerbals it can take a while to fill a big miner. I usually have dozens of concurrent flights so tend not to watch my mining ops. 

I do kind of wish the cutoff was 1h rather than 6. 

As per the wiki, the "big" drill doesn't have the 6 hour time period requirement.

Even for the small drill, if I just have to leave the drill alone for six hours and it shows up that it drilled for all of those six hours after six hours, I don't think it affects the gameplay a lot.

[Pthigrivi]

@Raptor9 It seems my sarcasm radar is temporarily malfunctioning haha

[Snark]

Moving to Gameplay Questions.