Recovering jettisoned cargo using limpets

[Dural]

Can you recover cargo you have jettisoned using limpets without having to target things individually?

The reason I'm asking is it turns out I have mapped the jettison all cargo button next to the free camera mode button so when I was trying to do a screenshot, I dumped 3 hours worth of bromellite (sp) and 160 limpets into space. Yay.

I synthesised some more limpets which I launched but they completely ignored the canisters.

I'm in a t9 in an asteroid field so collecting them manually isn't an option.

Oh, then the canisters all exploded.

Yes, I will be unbinding the jettison all cargo button.

 

[Adhock]

You really should unbind that.

But the answer is yes. As long as you don't target anything they'll make a clean sweep of the area.

If you target something and then fire the limpet, it will collect that one item and then self destruct meaning you need to waste more limpets collecting everything.

So just untarget the cargo by facing empty space and press T. Or target a planet and fire the limpet. As long as there is no cargo targeted, one limpet will make a clean sweep.

 

[Dural]

OK, thank you. Hmm, I thought I tried that, I didn't have anything targeted but the new limpets I synthesised stopped picking things up when they had cleared the remaining mining fragments.

oh well, lesson learned. The engineer will just have to stay locked a while longer.

 

[Adhock]

Given you typed this:

....without having to target things individually?

Leads me to believe you did not deselect the cargo.

While it's possible there may be some function of jettison all I'm unaware of, I've have my collector limpets collect things I've vented manually and return them to me.

It's possible things may have drifted out of pickup range since when you vent cargo they have velocity. Newton's First Law and all. Did you close the cargo scoop?

 

[Dural]

The first limpet brought back something which was targeted and then expired. I made sure nothing was targeted and sent off the other three which collected mining fragments and then just sat about outside the cargo hatch doing nothing until all the canisters exploded. I did open and close the hatch a few times. The canisters weren't on ignore either.

I have had "stop putting the stolen cargo back into the ship when I have jettisoned it three times already" fights with limpets in RES before so thought they should just go about their business picking everything up for me.

Everything was well within range, certainly the vast majority was anyway.

 

[Adhock]

Hmmm... odd. I'd file a bug report on that one to hopefully get clarification on the behavior of "Jettison All" and limpets.

 

[Dural]

That sounds like a plan.