Refinery/Mining Help

[Macobber]

My mate and I are doing platinum mining in Pythons. He is using a 4A Refinery (10 bins) and 6 collector limpets. His bins seem to take much longer to process than mine, and as a result somehow all 10 bins are continuosly filling up to 100%. Then the second weird thing happens, his collector limpets wont start collecting again until all 10 bins finish processing, instead of just filling up an empty bin as soon as one becomes available.
All the obvious things we've double checked, e.g: Plenty of cargo room. Plenty of power. All Metals/Minerals other than Platinum added to limpet ignore list.
We thought it might have been a bug so we tried uninstalling the Refinery and reinstalling, no luck.
As proof that something is definitely wrong, I'm flying almost an identical Python build with only a 2A Refinery and have no problem keeping up with the amount of platnium. I've only maxed out my bins like twice and his fills up almost every asteroid.
Any help would be appreciated as it's slowing down our profit per hour drastically.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

It has been a while since I went mining, but I seem to remember a bug where the refinery mistakingly thought that the cargo hold was full. If it is that, try to jettison a few limpets and see what happens. Only other thing I can think of is some sort of wing bug, but others may have other ideas.

Apart from that, the 4A refinery is quite honestly a huge waste. The additional number of bins play no additional role when you mine a single mineral apart from acting as extra cargo space and 10 cargo is less than what would be provided by a c4 cargo rack. The 2A refinery, on the other hand, is magic. Apart from being able to refine stuff, it is also 2 more cargo than the same size cargo rack.

 

[Macobber]

It has been a while since I went mining, but I seem to remember a bug where the refinery mistakingly thought that the cargo hold was full. If it is that, try to jettison a few limpets and see what happens. Only other thing I can think of is some sort of wing bug, but others may have other ideas.

Apart from that, the 4A refinery is quite honestly a huge waste. The additional number of bins play no additional role when you mine a single mineral apart from acting as extra cargo space and 10 cargo is less than what would be provided by a c4 cargo rack. The 2A refinery, on the other hand, is magic. Apart from being able to refine stuff, it is also 2 more cargo than the same size cargo rack.

Couldn't agree more that 4A Refinery is a waste under normal circumstances, and is why I am using a 2A myself. However since this bug (no doubt) is present, my thought process was "If your limpets wont collect until ALL your refinery bins are empty after they fill up, lets make it harder for the Refinery to fill up." The extra four bins achieve this rather well, at the very least it's a large enough improvement to warrant the extra measly 3 milliion credits.

That's a good suggestion. I will get him to try that and see what happens. Thanks

 

[K Olley]

I mine on a regular basis using 4A refineries in a number of ships including a Python, I occasionally see a slow down in processing when more than one bin fills at the same time but this normally clears after a few seconds. check pip use I normally run 1 sys, 1 eng, 4 wep. if he has got none in sys it may slow the refinery down.

the only other thing that may affect it is if there is a poor or slow connection between them and the servers but this is only a guess, I sometimes see a slowdown between firing prospectors and them leaving when server problems are starting.

 

[Donaldi]

Any help would be appreciated as it's slowing down our profit per hour drastically.

Never happened to me both on Playstation and Xbox, the 4A refinery performs always as well as the 2A and they fill up only on all slots if the hold is full. I use 8 drones in parallel (two 3A for time and two 3B for range) when laser mining, een the 2A copes with that (I have a somewhat extensive ignore list, though).

You write that you are set up identical, have enough energy, but do you both have the same free cargo space (number of limpets at the beginning) and the same energy priorities and module priorities? And also the same exclude list (eg. ignore Water and so on)?

As for the difference between a 2A and 4A all is already said, the 3A is a good compromise if you have the slot available (I use the 4A mostly when I have have a size 4 slot available anyway and nothing else to put into it (besides another 3a collector) and the size 2 slot is already taken (by the DSS most of the times). So if a 3 and a 4 is free while equipping, the 3 gets the collector, the 4 the a4 refinery and I get two more bins.

 

[Macobber]

they fill up only on all slots if the hold is full

Hence the reason for this post, because this is not the case. The problem is they are filling up without the cargo hold being full.

do you both have the same free cargo space (number of limpets at the beginning)

Yes, we both have 192T cargo space. We both get around 120 limpets and we always abandon limpets when the cargo hold gets close to maximum capacity.

and the same energy priorities and module priorities?

Yes & yes.

also the same exclude list (eg. ignore Water and so on)?

Yes, everything other than platinum is ignored:

All Metals/Minerals other than Platinum added to limpet ignore list.

As for the difference between a 2A and 4A all is already said, the 3A is a good compromise if you have the slot available (I use the 4A mostly when I have have a size 4 slot available anyway and nothing else to put into it (besides another 3a collector) and the size 2 slot is already taken (by the DSS most of the times). So if a 3 and a 4 is free while equipping, the 3 gets the collector, the 4 the a4 refinery and I get two more bins.

I appreciate all the words of wisdom I'm receiving about the Refinery types and advantages/disadvantages but I was never really in need of this information, as I'm already well aware. This post was meant to bring light to an obvious bug, and if possible receive a solution or an educated suggestion on what may help resolve this issue.

 

[Macobber]

I mine on a regular basis using 4A refineries in a number of ships including a Python, I occasionally see a slow down in processing when more than one bin fills at the same time but this normally clears after a few seconds. check pip use I normally run 1 sys, 1 eng, 4 wep. if he has got none in sys it may slow the refinery down.

the only other thing that may affect it is if there is a poor or slow connection between them and the servers but this is only a guess, I sometimes see a slowdown between firing prospectors and them leaving when server problems are starting.

I feel like a slow connection to the server is the most likely culprit. Thanks for the suggestions about the pips, I'll double check this with him.