Simple Self Cleaning Meteor Scanner Setup with no exploits QOL3

[Brickius]

There's loads of articles about this but almost every solution simply no longer works due to updates, contains exploits (even minor ones) or is insanely complex

So, here is a QOL3 meteor scanner 100% scan, self mining, 100% solar panel

This is the main build, each double solar panel with the structures above is a single self contained unit

The scanner must be at least 12 squares above the solar panel to avoid interference

The scanners must be at east 13 squares apart so they don't interfere with each other

The mesh tiles hold the regolith for mining without blocking sunlight

The blocks either side of the scanner are outside the Cone Of Shame-

This is the cone that extends from the bottom left of the scanner, only mesh, window or bunker doors can be inside - the wall the miner is mounted on and the crucial bunker tile above the miner are both outside the cone and therefor safe

Also note the Gap between the top lid and the side walls to prevent heat transfer from regolith sitting on that bunker tile

The mesh tile above the scanner stops regolith falling onto the base and causing the scanner to stop or heat up but the miners can still reach it and the base-

The scanners run at 100%

 

Note: I've tried to add a sweeper, but, while the sweeper itself doesn't generate electrical noise the receptacle does -

You could shift the mesh down to where the panels are and put the recepticles 12 blocks below the scanner if you want it to clean as well as mine

 

Also - all those bunker wall tiles are not required except for the ones on the very top lid

 

[JohnFrancis]

Nice design very simple and clean, thanks for putting the details of the design up I know how time consuming it is.

A few suggestions would be to integrate a cooling solution for the mining drills as they will overheat eventually. During the game many of us have a tendency to not notice the destroyed building notification and repairing them does not destroy the heat leading to a constant repair cycle. Also stack the solar panels in a pyramid shape, it gets your more power per tile. I included a video tutorial below it's a bit long winded but it's got most of the info in it and I believe it still works with the current patch. Perhaps borrow a few ideas for cooling and such.

Spoiler

 

 

[pacovf]

I like this. The lack of sweepers is unfortunate, as to me it makes no sense that  bunch of debris sitting above the scanner somehow doesn’t block it. Even if the game allows it.

Also, the lack of a cooling solution for the miners means that this is not sustainable in the long term. I hope Klei makes the miner exchange heat with the tile it’s attached to, it would make cooling them a lot more straightforward.

[Gus Smedstad]

The rule that scanners can see through mesh tiles but not windows bothers me. I wish I knew if that's intentional, or an exploit. Similarly, I wish I knew if mesh tiles counting as vacuum instead of metal tiles is intentional.

To my eye, the key thing is that the miners can clean off the top of the roof of the scanner. So far I've been using door systems to allow regolith to fall past the scanner. That requires some logic gates and some extra vertical space, neither of which you need if you can just protect the scanner with a roof.

I'm pretty sure there's a setup where you can use horizontal miners, with a drop of liquid / drywall / radiant pipe setup for cooling, that can also clean a scanner layout like this. My current base isn't anywhere near ready for the surface, so it will be a while before I can test that out.

[pacovf]

25 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

The rule that scanners can see through mesh tiles but not windows bothers me. I wish I knew if that's intentional, or an exploit. Similarly, I wish I knew if mesh tiles counting as vacuum instead of metal tiles is intentional.

For what it's worth, this also bothers me quite a bit. I don't think it's intentional, but I am not sure it will be "fixed" either.

[Troxism]

2 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

The rule that scanners can see through mesh tiles but not windows bothers me. I wish I knew if that's intentional, or an exploit. Similarly, I wish I knew if mesh tiles counting as vacuum instead of metal tiles is intentional.

To my eye, the key thing is that the miners can clean off the top of the roof of the scanner. So far I've been using door systems to allow regolith to fall past the scanner. That requires some logic gates and some extra vertical space, neither of which you need if you can just protect the scanner with a roof.

I'm pretty sure there's a setup where you can use horizontal miners, with a drop of liquid / drywall / radiant pipe setup for cooling, that can also clean a scanner layout like this. My current base isn't anywhere near ready for the surface, so it will be a while before I can test that out.

There are ways to do horizontal miners without having stuff floating above the scanners yeah, although they require some slightly different cooling solutions long term (but it's totally doable). But I don't want to hijack the thread, the build shown here works really well too.

[0xFADE]

Fairly clean.  But you can brute force it with more miners(thermium).  They will cool themselves off by being covered in space rocks.  They will eventually mine themselves free.  One of them won't be covered.  This lets you overlap your solar more.

It is an older image but it checks out.

[Troxism]

 

37 minutes ago, 0xFADE said:

(snip)

That design relies on not getting too unlucky, you can do it without relying on that by just putting tiles right above the miners and having them overlap slightly so they clear each other off (note the very specific spacing/coverage). But yeah similar concept. The tiles here can be anything really they don't have to be mesh as they are not inside the scanner arc anyways with the spacing used. As mentioned, you either need to use thermium miners as shown, or steel and then use a petroleum coolant loop hooked to a turbine behind the miners if you place them on the floor like this since you have to deal with all the heat from regolith. That is basically the reason many people use 'floating' designs as in the OP and their chief advantage as they can be done with non Steel/Thermium robominers without having to be rebuilt when they overheat. So honestly this floor based design is just for ascetics/if you think floating miners are cheating. And sorry for hijacking.

[0xFADE]

Nice.

I do have a petrol cooling loop that I'm getting some power out of.  It is more efficient now that steam turbines run under 130c

[Maxeek]

1 hour ago, Troxism said:

 

That design relies on not getting too unlucky, you can do it without relying on that by just putting tiles right above the miners and having them overlap slightly so they clear each other off (note the very specific spacing/coverage). But yeah similar concept. The tiles here can be anything really they don't have to be mesh as they are not inside the scanner arc anyways with the spacing used. As mentioned, you either need to use thermium miners as shown, or steel and then use a petroleum coolant loop hooked to a turbine behind the miners if you place them on the floor like this since you have to deal with all the heat from regolith. That is basically the reason many people use 'floating' designs as in the OP and their chief advantage as they can be done with non Steel/Thermium robominers without having to be rebuilt when they overheat. So honestly this floor based design is just for ascetics/if you think floating miners are cheating. And sorry for hijacking.

Wow, this is great, would use airflow tiles tho, since glass blocks 10% of light.

[Troxism]

You can't use airflow if your using that cooling system because it relies on the tiles of regolith that fall conducting to the diamond tiles, which then conduct to the diamond tiles under the miner which then conduct to the petrol which conducts to the miner itself. At least unless you happen to get regolith chunks to bounce under there, but idk what causes it and it shouldn't be happening so prefer to not rely on that. So to be super safe you need about 1/2 the tiles to remain solid tiles since airflow tiles don't conduct any heat unless they have atmosphere inside them. But yes in theory you could use airflow instead for the slight efficiency boost.

[Maxeek]

I know. I meant using cooling loop. Something like this. One would have to be really gentle with the petrol, only dripping like 1 kg of it so it doesn't block light.

[Troxism]

Yeah, makes sense in the cooling loop case.

[SharraShimada]

There will be a problem with the original posted design in long termn. Because the pillars hosting the miners are made from metal, they can heat up. If everything  is working as planed, thats no problem, because nothing should transfer heat. The problem begins, when the system glitches. 

Sometimes one row of bunker-tiles is not enough, and meteor-debris will crash through. And sometimes a meteor strikes next to it, causing excess material fill the gap between the roof and the pillar. 

I would make 2 little changes: make a double layered roof to prevent the one bug, and make the 2 tiles hosting the miner of insulated tiles, so they will not transfer heat. 

[Gus Smedstad]

8 hours ago, 0xFADE said:

But you can brute force it with more miners(thermium).  They will cool themselves off by being covered in space rocks. 

This is true, and easy. But the more interesting case is discussing how you keep your scanners safe prior to your first cargo rocket, when steel miners are your only option. Steel miners have to be protected from direct contact with regolith, and either cooled or periodically rebuilt.

Solutions without cooling are almost as easy as thermium miner solutions, since all they need is a roof and periodic Dupe labor. Solutions with steel miners that are sustainable because the miners are cooled in some way are the most interesting ones.

[0xFADE]

You need more steel for the walls but I don’t think you need bunker doors above the rocket at all.  Miners to both sides will clear any regolith that makes it to the bottom.  Rockets don’t take damage from meteors. 

[Gus Smedstad]

48 minutes ago, 0xFADE said:

 Rockets don’t take damage from meteors. 

But the walls will, unless you make them out of steel bunkers. It's less expensive to put bunker doors over a rocket silo to put steel bunker walls all the way down. That, and steel bunker walls conduct heat easily, which they'll pick up from the exhaust gas, and you may not want that.

Even ignoring that, you're going to put other things in there that can take damage from meteors. Gantries at the very least, and the miners for clearing regolith you mentioned.

[0xFADE]

I did say steel for walls. Gantries, at least the extended part of it, don’t take damage from meteors either.

[Troxism]

Technically don't need to clear regolith from rocket silos, as the rocket destroys it itself when launching/taking off, so once the rockets are fully automated you can just seal off the silo completely and forget about it more or less (some will pile in on the sides of the rocket where it won't destroy over time due to meteors sneaking in during launches/returns, but it won't matter since you never have to back in there). Before then can just manually clear it while still building/making changes. Rocket and fuel pipes/conveyor rails/automation wires/power cables don't take damage/get melted if made out of the right materials and the astronauts never need to leave the capsule anyways. Gantries are totally unneeded in the long term in rocket silos.

[DreamApart]

On 2019/4/23 at 9:03 AM, Gus Smedstad said:

The rule that scanners can see through mesh tiles but not windows bothers me. I wish I knew if that's intentional, or an exploit.

FYI, the solar light can go through the mesh tiles, while ordinary light (shine bugs and lamps) cannot.

So it's probably a bug rather than it was designed so. (Unless we introduce something like polarization.)

And so it's probably the same for scanner rays.

 

An alternative (that involves slightly heavier automation) is to put the scanner on a horizontal door, and spare the beneath with plenty of vertical space, so the signal won't be affected by the solar panel down there.

Open the door on the end of the meteor shower, so the regolith falls and uncover the scanner, and there are robo-miners down there to dig it off. 

[DreamApart]

On 2019/4/22 at 8:39 PM, Brickius said:

There's loads of articles about this but almost every solution simply no longer works due to updates, contains exploits (even minor ones) or is insanely complex

Just curious, which exploits do you refer?