Mining shuttle overhaul, for optimization, profit and survivability

[DahBunny]

Right, so we all know theres alot of... filler work in mining that even when mining returns, keeps them from interacting with the crew, and the amount of time out flying, and when out flying, other the pilot, the remaining miners/guests just... sit around, for the 20 odd minutes of airtime, so thus, i recommend this, a mining overhaul, Rather then spark, im tentatively calling this the Owl, in line with the canarys name, a much larger shuttle combining the foundery with the shuttle, so that the non piloting miners can process the resources on the way back and thus, have materials on hand, making them a more tempting target for ghost role ships (lets be real, they have no use for raw ore) it also gives us alot more space to work with to improve atmospherics (the current piping is super cramped).

 

this would allow the mapper who works on the shuttle to add features they think would be cool, small lounge? locker room? stabalization room for dying miners?

 

Thus, this is a tentative veiw at what i figured would be a nice idea, light blue being new horizon hull, the dark blue, shuttle hull, red being airlocks, orange refinery (preferably that automatically unloads processed ore on docking into the warehouse) dark red being airtight flaps, allowing the mining crates to beloaded on the exterior, and unload the ore from the exterior into the interior while cycling.

 

I would also suggest duel pilot seats that can access all the control console, similiar too and keeping in line with the new canary.

Last time i did a thread like this i didnt understand much about atmospherics or wiring so i was alot more... busy and involved with my suggestions, this time im leaving alot to whatever the mappers want to try.

[Farofafeijao]

A bigger mining shuttle would do wonders for making the work easier, safer and quicker to spend some of what's left of the shift with the crew. I think it would be quite good change. Though i would personally like for the mining shuttle to remain a shoe box.

[Peppermint]

My only concern is where is the space the bigger shuttle is using going to come from? You'll lose a lot of the hallway and general mining/ops area by making the shuttle even a little bit bigger and I'm struggling to see how that fits together.

[DahBunny]

38 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

My only concern is where is the space the bigger shuttle is using going to come from? You'll lose a lot of the hallway and general mining/ops area by making the shuttle even a little bit bigger and I'm struggling to see how that fits together.

The general mining area would be moved into the shuttle (ideally), and if we move refinery and lockers into the shuttle, that leaves a large amount of space, there is also two large empty spaces in maint behind where the refinery currently is.

[Syncron]

Yeah, the mining area actually has a ton of unused space, that could be refitted to being a larger hanger port for the mining shuttle. As a mostly mining main, I would say the shuttle extension and modification would make mining far more streamlined, so that its not just flying away for 1:20, waiting for the smelting/compressing/alloying to be done for another 20, then giving the materials over at the final 20 minutes, just to go sit at the bar for the last 20 minutes which is likely either blown up, covered in blood, or in a hostage situation. It would allow miners to not miss out on more activities if its streamlined, due to helping remove time waste.

It would, as he mentioned, also allow the piping systems to not be so fervently compressed. I had to modify it at one point, and managing to do that was a miracle and a half.

 

And as for the hallway/etc area, A little bit of mapping magic would make it a bit easier to work with, but overall most of that space would just be making a new pathway access, since most of the space being modified would be used for the shuttle. The flying tic-tac honestly needs more space.

[Epicgamer545]

As a mining player, I support this. It would make our jobs way more easier while also allowing for more interaction when we are cruising to (literal or not) our deaths. Usually we barely get any fun when it comes to interacting with the rest of the crew (except when sometimes a exoplanet is luckily positioned nearby the Horizon), so having a way to process ores on the way back is great, and it makes it fun to interact with other miners like yourself while on the shuttle. I’d appreciate if the shuttle was fitted with a bar/kitchen area.

I’m concerned about space though. How will people get around the shuttle when it is undocked? 

[kermit]

As a science player, the refinery being moved onto the shuttle sounds like a pretty great idea tbh. Anything to not have to wait until 1:30 for materials.

[DahBunny]

20 minutes ago, Epicgamer545 said:

As a mining player, I support this. It would make our jobs way more easier while also allowing for more interaction when we are cruising to (literal or not) our deaths. Usually we barely get any fun when it comes to interacting with the rest of the crew (except when sometimes a exoplanet is luckily positioned nearby the Horizon), so having a way to process ores on the way back is great, and it makes it fun to interact with other miners like yourself while on the shuttle. I’d appreciate if the shuttle was fitted with a bar/kitchen area.

I’m concerned about space though. How will people get around the shuttle when it is undocked? 

You mean on the horizon? or on the interior of the shuttle? on the horizon, it would be via going up stairs and across to cargo, since the only people who should be using that hanger as a through line is miners anyway, interior? thats up too the specific mapper that picks it up

[DahBunny]

Fluffy Ghost asked me to expand on the blueprint some, this is what i figure for the more complicated parts (refinery, engine fueling area and power)

One again, dark blue are walls/windows of the shuttle hull

As are lightblue outlines are horizon hull/windows

Red filled with solid grey is airlocks for docking

Red outline with pale yellow is storage

Green filled with yellow is piloting

Black filled with brown, is fueling, power ect

Black filled purple, is thrusters

Orange filled with grey is both airtightflaps and mining crates on one tile, allowing mining to unload while cycling in by pushing crates into position from exterior

White filled with grey is unloaders

Black filled with grey is conveyors, the first one on the left is left too right, three of them, keeping mining resources seperated for the sake of mining points, the one of the right, is a single conveyor, moving up at this point merging the output of all three lines as points are handled before this point.

Yellow filled with grey is smelters, three of them for the sake of seperating mining points

Black filled with yellow is a sheetstacker that collects the outputs of all three smelters

Black filled with green is mining points terminals, in line with they're smelters

Yellow lines without fill are a hallway bypass, it comes out next too the teleporter door in line with the corridor

 

Note one of the airlocks is larger for cycling in misc loot/salvage, and there is one smaller airlock for quicker in and out type cycling.

 

There is alot of room unused right now upfront for stuff like a stabalisation bay/lounge or some such, but i don't know what would be required for that sorta stuff but i don't know what'd be required for any additions there so i can't exactly work out they're maping, since i main mining only.

Edited June 3, 2023 by DahBunny
Missed one description

[Syncron]

As a mining main with engineering experience, I'd say it looks pretty ideal to me. Pretty simplistic layout to keep things smooth. Though depends on all of the required parts. Over all I'd say +1 from me in general

[Peppermint]

I've been fiddling around a little to try and figure it out. This is a very general layout, and I've not begun to tackle how to actually make it fit into the ship yet. I'm also not 100% sure I'll be finishing it, but wanted to see if this kind of thing is what's in mind? So if anyone else is interested in doing it don't take this as being unable to/competition. Obviously a lot is missing and I've not done wiring/atmos yet as well.

[Shimmer]

What peppermint posted looks awesome, +1, full support, I love this suggestion

[DahBunny]

1 hour ago, Peppermint said:

I've been fiddling around a little to try and figure it out. This is a very general layout, and I've not begun to tackle how to actually make it fit into the ship yet. I'm also not 100% sure I'll be finishing it, but wanted to see if this kind of thing is what's in mind? So if anyone else is interested in doing it don't take this as being unable to/competition. Obviously a lot is missing and I've not done wiring/atmos yet as well.

Yeah that looks pretty great

[Peppermint]

I've taken a look and the sheer amount of shit that needs to be moved, redone, and reconfigured to make things fit into the horizon is quite insane.

Edited June 3, 2023 by Peppermint

[DahBunny]

17 hours ago, Peppermint said:

I've taken a look and the sheer amount of shit that needs to be moved, redone, and reconfigured to make things fit into the horizon is quite insane.

Yeah thats why with the little blueprint i outlined i tried to not expand too much left or right, and remained in the hanger area, its not as spacious as your version, but it'd require less fucking with the horizon

[Carver]

On 03/06/2023 at 12:51, Peppermint said:

I've been fiddling around a little to try and figure it out. This is a very general layout, and I've not begun to tackle how to actually make it fit into the ship yet. I'm also not 100% sure I'll be finishing it, but wanted to see if this kind of thing is what's in mind? So if anyone else is interested in doing it don't take this as being unable to/competition. Obviously a lot is missing and I've not done wiring/atmos yet as well.

You could probably cut out a lot (read: nearly all) of the living space to make it better fit. A whole triage section is unusual as well - Miners are neither trained doctors nor first responders, perhaps just one of those emergency medical dispensers on the wall? Making it larger doesn't mean it needs to overall contest the Intrepid in utility; I'd argue to focus on the refinery and mining storage, a token 'rest area' with a cryopod so players can potentially leave if they're expected to be out for longer as well as the usual first aid wall dispenser and perhaps ration crate, and the spare room could be used for more dedicated engine/thruster sections to make it seem more like a realistic industrial shuttle and not a houseboat.

[Dreamix]

 

But why does the mining shuttle need to be so huge? Two airlocks take up a lot of space, but ultimately are redundant. Living space or medbay as well. Miners should still have some reason to do stuff on Horizon, and shouldn't be self-sufficient with a shuttle that can take care of all their needs.

If what's really truly needed, is just a way for miners to process materials in transit, then the refinery thingy would be very easy to add to the current shuttle. See my suggested layouts above.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Dreamix

[DahBunny]

10 minutes ago, Dreamix said:

 

But why does the mining shuttle need to be so huge? Two airlocks take up a lot of space, but ultimately are redundant. Living space or medbay as well. Miners should still have some reason to do stuff on Horizon, and shouldn't be self-sufficient with a shuttle that can take care of all their needs.

If what's really truly needed, is just a way for miners to process materials in transit, then the refinery thingy would be very easy to add to the current shuttle. See my suggested layouts above.

Only real problem with your design there is that there is only one refinery, which would force all the miners point/ore reports into a single pool, plus, Items on the exterior of the shuttle generally need to be inside a crate or they risk yeeting themselves into the void, and while they don't need to be "self sufficient" they do need stuff to do, given your avarage mining (mining specialist mains aside, we're not your avarage miners, we've min max'd out strats) will take upwards of an hour twenty, alot of which is spent buckled into a small space.

[Dreamix]

With my design, horizon's refinery would be untouched, so they could process a portion of the ore on the Spark, and the rest on Horizon.

[DahBunny]

1 minute ago, Dreamix said:

With my design, horizon's refinery would be untouched, so they could process a portion of the ore on the Spark, and the rest on Horizon.

I may be wrong, we'd need other miners feed back, but once again, it'd only allow a single person to do so, and they'd be doing it on the exterior, most likely while moving, generally we don't let people ride the exterior without being buckled due to safety, it also does not address the long periods of just nothing for two of the three miners, plus any guests (rookie xenoarchs for example often ask to join spark)

 

I get you don't want to minimize interaction with the rest of the crew, but honestly thats why we want the ability to handle this stuff in transit, assuming that a little more self sufficancy would lead to less interaction is not putting enough faith in the miners who are like every other player, here to roleplay, its why we try to min-max to get back to interact.

[Syncron]

 

6 hours ago, Dreamix said:

 

But why does the mining shuttle need to be so huge? Two airlocks take up a lot of space, but ultimately are redundant. Living space or medbay as well. Miners should still have some reason to do stuff on Horizon, and shouldn't be self-sufficient with a shuttle that can take care of all their needs.

If what's really truly needed, is just a way for miners to process materials in transit, then the refinery thingy would be very easy to add to the current shuttle. See my suggested layouts above.

I would also like to point out with this design, you are literally forced to be staying still. If you start moving, or taking off with ore moving freely on belts, its going to just get tossed off like other non-heavy objects. To add, that leaves the crew out in space if you do start doing it out there. This doesn't help the initial concern to save time so miners can actually do something other than mine, smelt, and restart the round.

[Carver]

On 05/06/2023 at 08:55, Syncron said:

 

I would also like to point out with this design, you are literally forced to be staying still. If you start moving, or taking off with ore moving freely on belts, its going to just get tossed off like other non-heavy objects. To add, that leaves the crew out in space if you do start doing it out there. This doesn't help the initial concern to save time so miners can actually do something other than mine, smelt, and restart the round.

Leaving the crew in space isn't really an issue between magboots and the handrails, you're entirely safe chilling out there as-is so long as your boots are left on. As for things getting tossed, it wouldn't be super difficult to map in some windows or the like - perhaps walls/windows and some of those flaps so it's still an easy-access 'airless zone' instead of properly being on the interior.

[Syncron]

2 hours ago, Carver said:

Leaving the crew in space isn't really an issue between magboots and the handrails, you're entirely safe chilling out there as-is so long as your boots are left on. As for things getting tossed, it wouldn't be super difficult to map in some windows or the like - perhaps walls/windows and some of those flaps so it's still an easy-access 'airless zone' instead of properly being on the interior.

You overestimate the average IQ of us miners.