Yes and no. If you want to collect stone, you'll need to reverse the feed on the ore-only sorters and turn off the stone-only sorters; you can leave the ejectors alone since stone won't be going to them. I've hidden a lot of the components from showing in the control menu, so open the control menu and click the "eye" to make the hidden components visible. Now select "DRM - Small Conveyor Sorter 01" through "DRM - Small Conveyor Sorter 36" (you can select all 36 at once) and turn them off. Finally, individually select "DRM - Small Sorter - Ore 1" through "DRM - Small Sorter - Ore 4" and change the filter from "blacklist" to "whitelist". Now the miner will collect stone. Change everything back if you want to collect ore again.

Is there a way to turn off the ejectors in case i want the stone?

Sorry. Nope. Connectors don't unload unless you stick a sorter behind it to suck everything out of the miner's cargo containers toward the connector. Even then, the connector itself will not unload. The best solution is have the station's connector followed by a sorter that sucks everything out of the ship. Or use Isy's Inventory Manager script and it'll do it automatically for you without sorters.

cant get the front connector to unload stuff automatically i have to always drag out from the ship to the base

I just finished some testing and found the ejectors working properly. Perhaps you need to exit SE and restart. Let me know if you're still having problems. Thanks.

I'll check it out.

Ejectors are not ejecting stone for me.

Four batteries added to the blueprint (see change notes).

Yea, I know they change stuff sometimes. I appreciate it.

I'm going to rework the design to add power (probably more batteries) because the design is anemic from a power standpoint (I don't seem to remember this being a problem before, but it's a problem now).

Let me know if power was your problem. Thanks.

OK, loaded the miner and tested it in a survival world on the Earthlike planet (1.0g gravity). I fully loaded every cargo container, the cockpit and connector, and all 36 drills with cobalt ore, then did a test flight. Power is maxed when lifting, but the ship still lifts. I then tested it, again fully loaded, on the Alien planet (1.1g gravity), and Pertam (1.2g gravity) without a problem.

However...I admit, when fully loaded, the ship is a pig that's a bit underpowered. The fact that your ship loses altitude when you're flying forward (or any other direction) is a classic symptom of not having enough power (I'm betting the power meter is pegged at 100%). You must have uranium ingots in all four large reactors, and the four batteries charged.

Thank you

Let me check to find out what's happened. Maybe something's been nerfed so it's not working anymore like it's supposed to work.

I am having issue making this stable. It will lose altitude while moving forward. What can I do to make this more stable.? I run the scrip, it is better but still unstable.. Let me know. I liked the design of the ship.. Thanks

I've never used it that way, but I believe I included a programmable block and remote control; an added camera in front would make it work automatically with the PAM script.

Can it be converted into an automatic miner?

Yeah, I intentionally dump waste stone. You can change that by resetting the sorters.

Ah I see, stone isn't let into the system by the sorters, my bad

I do notice now that there seems to be no way for ore from the drills to enter the containers...
Maybe you should take a look at that

Modify away to make it work for you. Regardless, it'll strip-mine an asteroid PDQ.

This thing looks pretty funky, I like it!

I might make a few modifications for walking space on top, as I find that kind of thing quite cool

Already done: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2732749270

Love your work. Wondering if you would consider redesigning a smaller vs? Maybe a ship with say, 6 - 10 drills? Many survival servers have block restrictions per grid of max 16 drills.

Thanks for pointing out that oversight. Look to the NOTE near the top. Good luck with your new design and don't hesitate to ask if you have any other questions.

Looking at trying my luck at first time designing something similar. Curious what script you use to auto level it? I am very interested in using that, but writing scripts is not my thing.

Thanks.

This was our second stage miner for Survival and we love it, thank you so much for your hard work. We built it on a projector and are very pleased with the result, was worth it.

I have made many. Go here to the bottom of the list and look for everyhing "auto"....
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2001519080

how comes you haven't made one using PAM intrested to know :)

No problem. Go for it.

Hey Spaceman Spiff, our server is using the build and repair system along with LWTS. Hope you don't mind, but because of the functionality of this blueprint, I took all of the drills off, upgraded engines and storage boxes, and added a bunch of the nanobot machines so now have a mobile scavenger vehicle. The way you built the framework makes this a very versitile tool.
We all use the driller on the server, so was trying to share with friends, but can't publish to the workshop for some reason. Still trying to figure out.

Go figure.

Sooo, spawned the MK3 version last night, and it did the same thing, wouldn't drop stone in MP. So figured I'd scrap it as well, and rebuilt the MK4, figuring I'd redo the conveyers, sorters and ejectors as needed to get some stone ejected. But when this one built, I tried setting "Collect All" for the Ejectors to ON, and it actually started working. Go figure!
So now, since I am on an ice planet, I've changed the sorters to include ice, and it works great. And for those times I want stone for reactor rods, I change the 4 ore sorter to just blacklist ice.
Working great! Two other users on the server are gonna probably be building this as well, so we shall see what they encounter. Cheers!

I certainly understand that, and I'm sure it's frustrating. Everybody approaches the ship design process differently. First and foremost for me is function. I try to design all my ships so they can still fly when fully loaded (usually tested with a full ore loadout), and specialty ships such as grinder ships when fully loaded with a mix of components (which is generally heavier than ore). Aesthetics is of secondary importance to me, which is why none of my designs win any beauty contests; they have insufficient "wow" factor. "They may be nugly, but they sure do work good!"

There are sooo many really creative people in this game like you that create cool ships and vehicles in the workshop. But unfortunately for us, because of the game design, the one place where they could really be fun to use is in MP, but it is the one place most cannot be spawned.

Although I hardly ever play in MP mode, it seems like 9 problems out of 10 seem to be MP-related. Go figure.

I went ahead and spawned the mk4 in creative, and it worked fine with no changes to any settings. Then switched that game into solo mode, and worked fine there as well. Soooo, MP related issue or some sort I guess?

Thanks. I've had problems with sorters and ejectors/connectors working consistently for quite some time. I can only assume that there's some bug floating around in there that randomly hits, but always at the worst time. Sorry.

Yep, all of them were set to throw out. I had checked that first to try and force them to eject, but nothing. And had restarted when the patch came out earlier today. I had used the mk4 a few months ago with no issue, though my teammates did have problems. So it's weird it wouldn't work this time. Fickle little bugger. But do keep sharing, you do some really nice designs!

It's always worked for me, but I almost always use it in single-player mode. I suggest you first exit out of SE completely, then reload and see if that solves the problem. And double-check that the ejectors are set to throw out.

Well, I tried building this miner, and it looked really good. BUT, it doesn't seem to want to dump the stone. I tried setting the sorters to blacklist and that didn't work, so tried whitelist again, but still doesn't work. Guess it's back to V3 for now, unless someone else found a way to make it work.

Here's a screenshot of the critter: https://i.imgur.com/DpoWiOb.jpg

I've got to do more testing for robustness. I added a bunch of interconnecting blast door edges between grinders hoping they'll stabilize them a bit, i.e., so they don't get so easily destroyed. I'm crashing now. BTW, it's got 16 large cargo containers; it'll hold a lot of loot (I was able to grind up an entire Cerebus Destroyer in one session, but I had the cargo setting at 10X).

It works quite well, but those grinders are fragile. You've got to move the ship downward carefully to avoid banging any grinders too hard. On a positive note, one can simply use parts collected to repair or replace any damaged or destroyed grinders. I'll do some more tweaks with it and then publish a test version for you to try. Probably not tonight, but tomorrow.

nice

OK, I've developed my first draft pf a semi-successful grinder ship. It cut clean through a Ceberus Destroyer in about a minute, falling into two separate pieces. I've determined that I really need not only down-oriented grinders, but side (outward-facing) grinders completely around the periphery. That way it protects the guts of the ship from damage and does a much more comprehensive job working through a large structure. I'll do a new version with this layout and it should work much better.

OK, I've looked at enough now to know that the existing frame just won't work. I've got several things going against me:
1. The grinders (and welders) require a large port and, unlike large-grind grinders, only have one port (at the end). Large ports are required so that all parts can be captured since some parts will not pass through small ports.
2. All grinders have to be ported together using large ports, so a conveyor junction will be required at the end (top) of each welder; unfortunately, small-grid large-port conveyor junctions only have 4 large ports. This process will be...puzzling (i.e., a big puzzle).
3. I need to maintain a low enough profile such that this thing will fit through airtight hangar doors (if possible). Therein lies a challenge.
Let the fun begin.

OK. I'll slide this guy to the front of my list (I always have a dozen or two ongoing projects) and get 'er done. Stay tuned for more. (I use the Nanobot Build&Repair Mod when I'm playing survival and I nerf my jetpack on planets *and* have a zillion NPCs who want to eat my soul.)

Also having the build set up for planets would make it easy to change out the engines for Hydro or Ion as needed.

Hey Spiff, planetary would be great. We are using the Build and repair nanobots mod currently, so retro fitted the platform with those. A standard grinder setup would be awesome for when we dont use Nanobots!

Look at my suggestions back in March. Have you double-checked the settings for the ejectors and sorters? Those have to be set correctly for it to properly eject stone (if that's your problem).