Miner Questions

  • Hi Guys.

    I have a minder armed wit a diamond drill and an OV Scanner. I use him on a SMP Server.

    So now i have two questions:
    Is there a way for the ov scanner to find specific or "more worthy" minerals with him. I wander around and if the OV scanner shows around 80 i start digging. He then brings up tons and tons of coal and lesser minerals but not diamonds or lapis what i need desperately. Is there a way to optimiie this. Editing the CFG wont help since its SMP on a server...

    Also - how do you power a miner? I used a geothermal generator but collecting all this lava takes a lot of time, also its not enough to make it go smoothly...I thaught i could use energy crystals as a mobile storage but the miner wont accpet them as energy source :(

  • Not sure if anything can be done in regard to targeting specific ores, however to power it, it's common to bring along an MFE or MFS unit and throw crystals in that to power the miner and pump. Just be sure to use a transformer!

  • I find that I like to bring a pump with me. If you fill it with empty cells, chances are that you'll end up with at least a few lava cells after the miner has run it's course.

    Reason I mention it is because you are probably missing some diamonds. A fully equipped miner has a 9x9 area, centered on it's self. A chunk is only 16x16. This means that it'll only take, AT MOST, four runs to pull up some diamond, as there's VIRTUALLY GUARANTEED to be some diamonds in every chunk. Problem is, it's likely below a lava lake! Your miner won't mine THROUGH lava, so you have to move it out of the way, somehow. Fortunately, you can just drop a pump right next to the miner and it'll fill any cells you supply it with, removing the obstructing lava for you!

    What's more, you can then drop those cells in a geo-gen to power the miner!

  • And now that you're able to pipe BuildCraft pipes into the geothermal generator, you can switch out the miner for a BuildCraft pump and charge up power for your miner to a MFE/MFS Unit/Crystals, emptying a lava lake, and are able to then continue to mine as normal. Without the cost of tin. :)

  • Also, most people may not have noticed that there's now an option in the config to allow Miners to accept Lapotron crystals. Not sure if they also accept energy crystals, haven't gotten back up to that point quite yet.


  • For power, I generally use 1 (or two) Geos to begin with, progressing up the chain to MFE and MFSU in due course.

    With respect to finding specific materials, there isn't a fool proof way, but looking at the "OV-map" so to speak can be helpful. For example, if the value changes 10+ from one block to another, then it's likely that a diamond vein is going just out of reach of the miner. Smililarly, a gradual build=up is more likely to be due to coal. I usually find best diamond-results from spots of 100+, but that does also, sometimes, just yield a lot of iron.

    It's mostly guesswork, but you can apply a little thought and knowledge to it, too.

    Edit: I would say, that one good way of lava harvesting is to wander to the nether and grab it from the side of a lake. One better way is to find a nether fortress, get a nice stack of fire immunity potions and take a walk in the lake.

  • My pre-buildcraft mobile rig consisted of: Miner, Pump, 2 chests, 2 copper cable, LV trans, MV trans, MFSU and some lapotrons. I'd cycle crystals through the MFSUs on my reactor. If I did not hit lava then I would not need to change the crystal.

    My +buildraft +powerconverters +teleportpipes mobile rig is: Miner, Pump, 2 chests, 3 copper cable, tin engine, BC->IC2 changer, teleport pipes for power in and items out.
    About the same amount of effort to set up but I no longer need to head out and check to see if the MFSU is empty.

    The power station that feeds it. 2 x HV Solar Arrays, 3 x MFSU and a bunch of converters. Enough energy to power 6 quarries at full speed.

    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment or chain letter? This is left as an exercise for the reader.

    Efficiency 3, 50% duty cycle. SMP friendly. Alternate two of them slowly with an rp2 sequencer for a steady 120 EU/t.

  • The best way I've found to specifically target diamonds is to do a variation of branch mining at level 17 (just above the diamond level) and bring along a lappack. Scan with your OV scanner as you mine. When you find a particularly big number, drop your mining kit there and let it operate while you check the surrounding area for more big numbers. Then, just pick up and move the mining kit to the next hotspot when it finishes.

    You'll still get thrown off by gold and other high value ores occasionally, but it helps to narrow it down quite a bit.

  • Hello. I can`t find solution by myself and can`t find same thing on forum
    i can`t make mmy miner dig 5x5 or 8x8
    i placed in both types of scanners, but it`s still 1x1 hole
    help, please

    i can`t make mmy miner dig 5x5 or 8x8
    help, please

    miners don't dig the dirt and stone and such unless it gets in the way. Let it finish and jump down the hole with an electric jetpack some time. you'll see that it really does mine stuff in the intended area.