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Blue Crab Miner mk2

Spiff's Practical Engineered Solutions, a division of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, presents the Blue Crab Miner, mk2. The Blue Crab Miner is a pressurized, small-grid mining vehicle with articulated drilling arms that enable precise control over the tunneling and/or drilling operation. By adjusting the drill-arm angle, the operator can control the rate of mining or tunneling ascent or descent and, once in an ore pocket, adjust the drill-arms so that it's mining level. An LCD screen displays drill-arm angle above and below horizontal. The relatively short, but wide wheelbase allows for a relatively tight-radius turn for mining in cramped tunnels.

The Blue Crab Miner is vanilla (modless) and uses NO DLC.

With only 228 blocks and 2,135 PCUs, this build is my favorite planetary-based miner for survival mode.

Stone is sorted and dumped from two large connectors on the rear of the drill-arms. These large connectors dump stone at a much higher rate than small-grid ejectors, so stone never gets passed into either of the two large cargo containers. Fore and aft atmospheric thrusters are used to provide precise thrust control for downward descents into a mining region and especially for upward ascents back out of the mine when loaded with ore.

When tunneling (select drills and right-click the mouse), setting the drill-arm angle to 10° will result in a shallow descending tunnel. Adjust the drill-arms up or down for fine-tuning the machine's levelness during mining operations. Setting the drill-arm angle to a high value will allow the player to scrape-mine a ceiling.

NOTE: If you fill the cargo containers to capacity and start filling the drills, it's possible to over load them to the point where the drill rotors will no longer function, i.e., tilt the drills up or down; they will just drop to the ground and you'll be stuck. You must either unload the drills or increase the torque capacity of the rotors (or both).

Because this blueprint uses rotor subgrids, building with a projector in survival mode has been a tedious, frustrating effort (especially for me, and I designed it!!). I played around with grid pivots for awhile before I finally got everything properly aligned. Assuming you've located and oriented each projector correctly, the drill arms should project correctly without having to make any linear or rotational adjustments...at least...they did the two times I tested it in survival mode.

Now the drill arms can be installed with local projectors in a few easy steps as follows:

1. Install a left-side conveyor sorter to "BCM - Advanced Rotor Left" with the directional arrows facing inward as shown in the accompanying pictures, then do the following:

a. For consistency, rename the left-side conveyor sorter to to be "BCM - Conveyor Sorter - Left Ore".

b. Set the conveyor sorter Filter Mode to "Whitelist".

c. Set the conveyor sorter Active Filters to add "*ore*" and "Ice".

d. Install a projector at the top-middle location on the conveyor sorter with the projector's front facing forward (identified with a single vertical gray line) and the top facing upward (identified with a gray cross); rename it "Projector Left".

e. Set the projector to use the "BCM - Left Drill Arm" blueprint: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1916129358

2. Install a right-side conveyor sorter to "BCM - Advanced Rotor Right" with the directional arrows facing inward as shown, then do the following:

a. For consistency, rename the right-side conveyor sorter to to be "BCM - Conveyor Sorter - Right Ore".

b. Set the conveyor sorter Filter Mode to "Whitelist".

c. Set the conveyor sorter Active Filters to add "*ore*" and "Ice".

d. Install a projector at the top-middle location on the conveyor sorter with the projector's front facing forward (identified with a single vertical line) and the top facing upward (identified with a gray cross); rename it "Projector Right".

e. Set the projector to use the "BCM - Right Drill Arm" blueprint: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1916129458

3. After ensuring that both projections are properly aligned, i.e., the last red block overlaps the projector and the arms are correctly oriented forward, completely weld the two drill arm subgrids; do not weld the red alignment/reference blocks.

4. Remove the two projectors. Or leave them. Whatever.

(4½. Note that one single light armor slope 2X1X1 tip will not be weldable on each arm; I don't know why. Keen!!! You'll need to insert one manually on each drill arm.)

5. Much mining now! Great happiness!!