Turtle mining swarm - ComputerCraft Forums (archive)

joebodo #1

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Posted 01 February 2014 - 09:19 PM

Turtle Mining Swarm (v1.2a)

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5153BiTNI8[/media]
(A really bad video I made during testing)

Test with 25 miners
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6gpewHYokM[/media]

Features

Nearly infinite autonomous mining.
Miners live off the land (they consume coal as needed).
Keeps the area it is mining chunk loaded (only 2 chunks loaded at a time if using spot-loaders).
Picks up where if left off if the server restarts.

Status Viewer
View progress on a computer/turtle, monitors, or terminal glasses display.
[attachment=1483:status-turtle.jpg] [attachment=1482:status-monitors.jpg] [attachment=1484:status-glasses.jpg]

Installation Instructions
Step 1:
v1.2a - stable

pastebin get 1ucZM1hu setup

v1.3a - newest

pastebin get pa8LvVWe setup

Step 2:

setup

Select Mining Boss or Mine Worker (only 1 turtle needs to be setup as a boss)

Step 3:
Add fuel to the turtles. Note that the mine workers only need this done once as they will refuel themselves when needed.

Operating Instructions
Place down the "boss' in the bottom left corner of a chunk (press F9 to see chunk boundaries). His back and left side should be against the chunk boundaries.

Boss inventory example:

Slot 1: Add at least 2 chunk loaders (spot loaders are recommended)
Slot 2: Add ender chests (1 for each miner)

In the following slots, add the resources that the miner should ignore. I put in the following in this order: 64 stone, 64 dirt, 64 gravel, 64 cobblestone. Note that each miner will be given 1 of these resources to use for comparison while mining. I included cobblestone as the miner will use any of these resources to fill in any blocks it has mined.

The remainder of the slots can be filled with turtles (do not leave any empty spaces between the items). At least 1 miner is required :)/>

Additional Notes

Spoiler

If you have more miners than fit in the boss, you can do any of the following:
1. Place a miner on the ground (below the boss) somewhere in the loaded chunks and start the miner (right click). The boss will find the new miner and put him to work.
2. After the boss has released the initial miners, just add more to the boss, hit 'm' for menu, then hit deploy miners.

I believe it's possible to have about 40 or so miners before they get left out of the loaded chunks. If you use chunk loaders that load more than 1 chunk, than this should not be a problem.

Change log

Spoiler

Version 1.3a

pastebin get pa8LvVWe setup

Options screen to change number of chunks, depth, plug top hole
Fixed the status program
More miner optimizations
Minor bug fixes throughout

Version 1.2a

pastebin get 1ucZM1hu setup

Miners will only fill in holes if the -f option is specified when starting the mining boss (eg: miningBoss -f)
Small tweaks to stats program
Performance improvements for miners when comparing blocks
Tracker now flies to nearly flight ceiling in order to find any turtles in the rednet dead zone
Tracker only checks 5-6 chunks ahead (but the rednet radius is much larger at flight ceiling)

Version 1.1a

pastebin get 15U6fn4W setup

Added a stats viewer program
Added a turtle tracker program (for hunting down lost miners)
Miners fill in the top spot of the bore holes
Reworked the way fuel is reserved for the miners
Added the ability to bypass the setup screen by using: setup miner, setup boss, or setup stats
Improved inventory management for miners

Version 1.0a

pastebin get uJdUxbW3 setup

Edited on 19 March 2014 - 10:22 PM

HeffeD #2

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Posted 02 February 2014 - 03:07 PM

I'm still in the process of testing, but this appears to be nearly the perfect mining script. Very impressive! It's incredibly easy to use.

I really like the fact that the turtles attempt to backfill, so you end up with extremely few 'junk' blocks from the mining process. In 3 chunks, I have only had 1 piece of dirt and 1 piece of cobblestone returned. B)/>

I have a question though. I'm not very advanced with Lua yet, so I don't understand a lot of your code. I've been trying to determine what your script does when a turtle encounters a dungeon chest, or a storage minecart in a mineshaft. It appears that it just breaks them and doesn't attempt to suck up the loot?

Also, coal usage is excessive. After mining 3 chunks, I have zero coal returned, and some turtles strolling around with 7k+ fuel! (One with 10k :o/> ) A turtle can go a long way on 7k fuel… Perhaps allow them to carry another enderchest for fuel and they can just top off when they need to? Give them a buffer of 300 or something, then they can either use coal they've mined to hit the buffer, or in case they haven't found any, place the enderchest and grab a few pieces of coal.

I guess you can probably tell that my base depends on coal for fuel? ;)/> (Liquifacted coal from Thermal Expansion to be precise…)

Another comment that I feel could improve the script would be to allow the user to set boundaries. I think it's great that you can start the mining process and basically just let it go until it hits the far lands, but I tend to like to mine certain areas. Like extreme hills biomes. So it would be great if you could tell it you wanted to mine a 4x4 chunk area, for example. In order to keep the chunks loaded, (using spot loaders) you could serpentine through the area. For example, mine the set number of chunks forward, then turn to the right at the boundary, and head back towards the chunk you started on. using that method you could always keep the current chunk loaded, as well as chunk that's not quite finished mining yet.

Anyway, great work on this! :)/>

joebodo #3

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Posted 02 February 2014 - 03:26 PM

Thanks for your response. I'm glad you like it.

Currently, the turtle does not try to suck up any items that may be broken (carts/chests) - I'll take a look and see if I can add this.

Once the turtle reaches 25,000 in fuel, it will stop refueling and will start returning coal. You can change this value by searching for 25000 and adjusting to what you feel is ok. If the turtle drops below 1024 though, the boss will pick him up.

I do want to implement a few configurable options like starting/ending depth, etc. but I wanted to get something out instead of messing with it forever :D/>. Ultimately, it will process chunks in a circular manner (I have the code for it, just haven't finished testing). This is probably another thing that should be configurable.

FYI, once you run the launch script once, it extracts all the files into the swarm directory. You can then just run the program from the swarm directory instead of having it extract each time. If you run it this way, you can open mineWorker and change line 60 to have the fuel level you want (5k is reasonable).

HeffeD #4

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Posted 02 February 2014 - 04:22 PM

I did see the 25,000 value, but I assumed I was misunderstanding your code because I couldn't imagine that such a high number would be the fuel buffer. Currently my turtles are mining their fifth chunk and the most fuel any of them have mined is 12k. It's going to take them a while to hit 25,000. When I start running this outside of my testing world, I'll definitely change the buffer value.

Yes, circular mining would work well. It's also probably easier to code than serpentining because you'd only be turning one direction throughout the mining process.

Since I'm testing, out of curiosity I used WorldEdit to remove the garbage blocks from the three chunks I'd mined earlier and found that for some reason, there are a few valuable blocks left behind. Most of them are right along the chunk boundary, but there are a few instances where the blocks are a block away from the boundary, and in two instances, three blocks away. There are no leftover blocks at all passed three blocks from the boundary. I guess this is a side effect of your code keeping the turtles inside the chunk boundary? (Which I like, by the way. The turtles should definitely stay inside the chunk you've told them to mine.

Using WorldEdit to tell me the block distribution remaining in the three chunks after removing the garbage blocks, this is what was left behind:
2 - Certus Quartz. (Applied Energistics)
3 - Obsidian.
4 - Redstone Ore.
14 - Iron Ore.
14 - Various ore from Thermal Expansion. (World edit doesn't know what those are, so they're all lumped together)
22 - Coal.

Obviously, so few remaing isn't a huge deal, but I thought it was interesting that blocks were only missed near the chunk boundary. Luckily none of those were diamonds. ;)/>

HeffeD #5

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Posted 02 February 2014 - 04:46 PM

Just had an odd thing happen.

I wanted to test resuming after a restart. The boss went over and apparently called 4 of the 5 miners to come up out of their holes, then it came back to its place by the spot loaders and stopped. Since the turtles are just paused, I looked at the boss to see what it said.

It shows turtles 2,3, and 4 ready for pickup, and says it's releasing the miner, but then threw an error.

parallel:22: turtle:22: Expected number

The boss' inventory is completely full of the fourth turtle at the surface's inventory plus the initial garbage blocks. Is it possible the boss tried to pick up the turtle after taking its inventory, then not having any space to fit the turtle, the program errored? (I haven't tried this before, so I don't know the expected procedure of a resume)

Edit: I wanted to find out if this was due to a full inventory on the boss' part, so I reset everything and almost immediately restarted. The boss called three turtles up and picked one of them up. Now it says that it's releasing the miner, but it's trying to release it where one of the turtles at the surface is. So it's currently stuck in a loop trying to place the turtle where one is currently sitting. It apparently tries, path finds around a little bit, then tries again.

Edited on 02 February 2014 - 04:08 PM

joebodo #6

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Posted 02 February 2014 - 06:21 PM

I just reproduced that problem - I'll try and fix and should be able to post another version tonight.

Edit: I updated the OP with the new pastebin code. I fixed the error that you encountered (along with some other minor issues) and reduced the refuel limit to 7500. I'll get to the other things you mentioned shortly.

Edited on 03 February 2014 - 12:39 AM

HeffeD #7

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Posted 03 February 2014 - 03:21 AM

joebodo, on 02 February 2014 - 06:21 PM said:
Edit: I updated the OP with the new pastebin code. I fixed the error that you encountered (along with some other minor issues) and reduced the refuel limit to 7500. I'll get to the other things you mentioned shortly.

Thanks! :)/>

I'm just about to go to bed, so I'll try some resume tests tomorrow. Thanks again for sharing this script.

joebodo #8

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Posted 04 February 2014 - 05:20 PM

HeffeD, on 02 February 2014 - 03:07 PM said:
… . I've been trying to determine what your script does when a turtle encounters a dungeon chest, or a storage minecart in a mineshaft. It appears that it just breaks them and doesn't attempt to suck up the loot?

The latest version (0.3) will now attempt to suck up any items after digging. It will also suck up anything that falls to the bottom of the bore location. There were a few other minor changes for some problems that I have found.

HeffeD #9

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Posted 05 February 2014 - 02:46 PM

There are still some issues with resuming. I let the turtles mine a hole all the way to bedrock, then I let them get started on the next hole and exited minecraft.

Upon restarting, the mining boss went to rescue the first turtle and threw an error:
miningBoss:589: attempt to index ? (a nil value)

Edited on 05 February 2014 - 01:49 PM

Buho #10

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Posted 06 February 2014 - 08:22 AM

I did see the 25,000 value, but I assumed I was misunderstanding your code because I couldn't imagine that such a high number would be the fuel buffer.

I don't send my turtles out on a mining operation if they have less than 100,000. :P/> Probably overkill, but a normal mining run can burn 20,000 fuel and I want all the coal (I pre-fuel with lava).

HeffeD #11

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Posted 06 February 2014 - 02:09 PM

Buho, on 06 February 2014 - 08:22 AM said:
I don't send my turtles out on a mining operation if they have less than 100,000. :P/> Probably overkill, but a normal mining run can burn 20,000 fuel and I want all the coal (I pre-fuel with lava).

Yeah, that's a tad overkill… I want all the coal as well, but if a turtle is only using what it actually needs, they find more than enough coal to fuel themselves as well as enough excess to power my base.

joebodo #12

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Posted 06 February 2014 - 08:50 PM

HeffeD, on 05 February 2014 - 02:46 PM said:
Upon restarting, the mining boss went to rescue the first turtle and threw an error:
miningBoss:589: attempt to index ? (a nil value)

Should be okay now (OP updated), I shuffled some things around and it seems to restart fine. I tested restarts about 10 times without fail (should have tested this more originally - sorry!).

Slackratchet #13

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Posted 06 February 2014 - 11:54 PM

That is an impressive application of power. Nice work.

joebodo #14

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Posted 07 February 2014 - 08:25 AM

Slackratchet, on 06 February 2014 - 11:54 PM said:
That is an impressive application of power. Nice work.

Thanks - it was a bit of effort.

HeffeD #15

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Posted 07 February 2014 - 06:21 PM

joebodo, on 06 February 2014 - 08:50 PM said:
Should be okay now (OP updated), I shuffled some things around and it seems to restart fine. I tested restarts about 10 times without fail (should have tested this more originally - sorry!).

Don't worry about it. With such a complex bit of code, there are bound to be hiccups. :)/>

I'll try out the new version later. I'm currently sending some turtles rampaging across a test world to see how stable things are for extended durations. They're currently almost 700 meters away from their starting point, and have been going for a little under 20 hours.

I only have 5 miners at the moment, because through some previous stress tests with 10 miners, it appears that the mining boss can get overwhelmed eventually. I've had two instances previously where my framerate absolutely tanked. 0-1fps, and my Java client was monopolizing my CPU, so it was tough to get anything to actually respond. I actually did get to the mining boss both times and it wasn't reporting anything odd, although the first time it happened, one of the spot loaders was missing. I have no idea what happened to it because it was nowhere along the trail the miners left. I have a feeling that it somehow disappeared due to the extremely low framerate. Perhaps getting broken by the mining boss, but never actually showing up in the turtles inventory or something…

Exiting the client and restarting improved the framerates, but the mining boss was stuck at the message that it was going to resume in 5 seconds. Any attempts to restart the mining met with the same results, so I'd just start testing in a new world.

So far only using 5 miners, the test has run much longer than either of the tests with 10 miners and I've had no issues with framerate.

Very nice job with this! As I said earlier, it's nearly the perfect mining script. B)/>

Edit: Corrected Typo. 10 hours should have read 20. We're nearing 24 hours now.

The suck command is working. One of the turtles has picked up some chest loot.

Edited on 07 February 2014 - 08:38 PM

joebodo #16

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Posted 08 February 2014 - 01:12 PM

HeffeD - BTW, thanks so much for the in-depth testing. A new version (v0.5) is now included in the OP.

HeffeD, on 07 February 2014 - 06:21 PM said:
I only have 5 miners at the moment, because through some previous stress tests with 10 miners, it appears that the mining boss can get overwhelmed eventually.

I have had this happen once before - I thought it was just minecraft freaking out. Next time I encounter this, I'll try and find the root cause.

HeffeD, on 07 February 2014 - 06:21 PM said:
The suck command is working. One of the turtles has picked up some chest loot.

Excellent - I don't think it's perfect though as some of the loot gets scattered. Not sure the best approach as I don't want to attempt to chase down all the drops.

HeffeD, on 07 February 2014 - 06:21 PM said:
anything odd, although the first time it happened, one of the spot loaders was missing

I'm not really sure how this could happen as well - but… I improved the code involved and, hopefully, this won't happen again.

Since you seem so dead set on testing ( :D/>), I've included some logging options. You can use -l wireless or -l file (as in miningBoss -l wireless) to see what's going on internally. The file option will write to a mine.log file. I also included a logMonitor program with the pastebin. All you need to do is connect a wireless turtle or computer to some monitors and run the logMonitor program (and start the miningBoss as 'miningBoss -l wireless'). I need to improve this logging a bit so that I can use it to troubleshoot problems in the future. So, for right now, it's only there if you are interested in seeing what's going on.

Oh - I also improved the movement code a bit (less turns needed now). This wasn't really a problem, but it bugged me :D/>. And finally, I haven't forgotten about your other requests/issues, I just want to get this really stable before diving into those. Thanks again.

HeffeD #17

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Posted 10 February 2014 - 11:51 AM

joebodo, on 08 February 2014 - 01:12 PM said:
Excellent - I don't think it's perfect though as some of the loot gets scattered. Not sure the best approach as I don't want to attempt to chase down all the drops.

No, you definitely don't want to bother with chasing down the drops. I'm not sure of the best solution.

I know that this script:
http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/topic/7675-advanced-mining-turtle-ore-quarry/
Allows you to put a chest in one of the slots and uses that as a comparison block. If a chest is found, it sucks the items out before breaking the chest. I don't think this method will work for storage minecarts though.

This script:
http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/topic/15583-swarm-miner-quarry-up-where-you-want-version-20/
Will optionally use the OpenPeripheral mod ( http://www.openblocks.info/ ) to recognize the chest as an inventory and will suck the items out. Again, the storage carts don't seem to work with this method and carts are simply broken, with some of the items being picked up by turtle.suck.

I'm thinking that if storage minecarts aren't capable of being detected like chests, it probably makes the most sense to simply break both of them and suck up what you can, rather than using a different method on both items.

joebodo, on 08 February 2014 - 01:12 PM said:
Since you seem so dead set on testing ( :D/>), I've included some logging options. You can use -l wireless or -l file (as in miningBoss -l wireless) to see what's going on internally. The file option will write to a mine.log file. I also included a logMonitor program with the pastebin. All you need to do is connect a wireless turtle or computer to some monitors and run the logMonitor program (and start the miningBoss as 'miningBoss -l wireless'). I need to improve this logging a bit so that I can use it to troubleshoot problems in the future. So, for right now, it's only there if you are interested in seeing what's going on.

Great! I'm currently trying the log to file option. :)/>

So far, I haven't had any issues resuming with the latest version. B)/>

Buho #18

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Posted 11 February 2014 - 08:38 AM

I only have 5 miners at the moment, because through some previous stress tests with 10 miners, it appears that the mining boss can get overwhelmed eventually. I've had two instances previously where my framerate absolutely tanked. 0-1fps, and my Java client was monopolizing my CPU, so it was tough to get anything to actually respond.

I have 16 turtles in the swarm I wrote on my two year old rig and I often get 20fps on the shortest visibility when they're all running (2fps on max render distance). I'm not sure if its the complexity of the code or the sheer number of movements the turtles are doing per second. I've thought about rewriting my program to be simpler just to see but it's tough to be motivated to rewrite when there might be no payoff! Just wanted to pop in and say you're not the only one, and it's not just this program.

HeffeD #19

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Posted 11 February 2014 - 12:07 PM

Buho, on 11 February 2014 - 08:38 AM said:
I have 16 turtles in the swarm I wrote on my two year old rig and I often get 20fps on the shortest visibility when they're all running (2fps on max render distance). I'm not sure if its the complexity of the code or the sheer number of movements the turtles are doing per second. I've thought about rewriting my program to be simpler just to see but it's tough to be motivated to rewrite when there might be no payoff! Just wanted to pop in and say you're not the only one, and it's not just this program.

Thanks for your input, Buho.

However, If the movement of the turtles was the issue, I would expect it to be a consistant low framerate. However, the issue I was reporting was outside the norm. I had normal framerates as the turtles were working, but after an extended timeframe of running the script, all of a sudden the framerate dropped to unusability.

Restarting the client solved the framerate issues, but the script would no longer function. Breaking and replacing the old turtles did not help. (I've seen a script break all of the computers in a world more than once…) The only fix was starting a new world.

Edit: Removed nested quote.

Edit 2: I've had turtles disappear on two separate occaisions. I suspect that it happened during a resume, (I just saw that things appeared to be working fine and didn't check the mining boss status until later…) but it hasn't happened during any of the resumes that I've watched… :blink:/>

I also just had a failed resume using 10 mining turtles. The mining boss had called 8 out of 10 turtles up, when the script just stopped running. When this happened, the hourglass cursor icon popped up, and the framerate tanked and the client became unresponsibe. The miners were still sending updates, but the mining boss was frozen. No errors, and nothing odd showing up on the log file. Attempts to restart mining were unsuccesful. I'll start a new test world later.

Edited on 11 February 2014 - 03:02 PM

Buho #20

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 08:26 AM

HeffeD, that actually sounds similar to my experience. I haven't paid that close attention, but it does seem I have fine framerate for a while before it slows down. Jumping into the nether and back brings the FPS back, even after they've stopped, I think. I'll keep a closer eye on it, maybe it should be reported in bugs.

HibachiTime #21

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 09:42 AM

Will this program work with vanilla ender chests? I'm looking at using this program for feed the beast tech world 2 which does not use the ender chests that you appear to be using in your showcase video.

joebodo #22

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 12:15 PM

Another new version is added to the OP (v0.60). I made the resume logic a bit more fail safe. Also, some tweaks to the UI, movement logic, and logging were added. I have been running tests with 20 mine workers and the resume logic is working very well.

Edit: Forgot to mention that there is a setup program now. The setup program configures the startup file according to the role that is selected (the OP is updated with new instructions).

Edited on 12 February 2014 - 11:17 AM

HeffeD #23

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 12:21 PM

I've now witnessed several resume cycles where mining turtles are left behind.

I've seen instances in which the turtle sits there at the bottom of its borehole, broadcasting the idle status message. The turtles that have been picked up continue mining, and eventually leave the idle turtle behind. You can terminate the script and either reboot or run the script to try again.

I've also seen instances where the turtle unpacks the script components, then exits the script, (no error message) leaving you at the command prompt.

In one odd instance, I located the stalled turtle and it was broadcasting the idle message, so I needed to terminate and restart. It took three tries before the turtle started broadcasting the alive status and the mining boss came to pick it up. However, before picking up the turtle, it broke both of the spot loaders, (dropping them to the ground, much like it does when encountering any obstacles while moving…) then picked up the miner and deployed it. I gathered up the spot loaders and put them back in the mining boss' inventory, and I'm currently monitoring this instance to see what happens next.

Edit: Woops, was typing this post when you posted your latest, joebodo. I'll abandon this test and start fresh with the new version. :)/>

Edited on 12 February 2014 - 11:23 AM

joebodo #24

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 12:57 PM

HibachiTime, on 12 February 2014 - 09:42 AM said:
Will this program work with vanilla ender chests? I'm looking at using this program for feed the beast tech world 2 which does not use the ender chests that you appear to be using in your showcase video.

I tried using the default ender chests in a 1.5 world without luck. A quick test to see if this will work in your world is this:

Place down a turtle and add some items to slot 1. Place the chest above the turtle. In the turtle console, do these steps:


> lua <enter>
lua> turtle.dropUp() <enter>

If the items go into the chest, then using them should be fine.

HeffeD #25

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 02:23 PM

With the latest version, turtles can still be left behind after a resume attempt. I had to locate the wayward turtle and found that it was at the command prompt after switching to the swarm directory. No error message. It's almost like this is a general ComputerCraft issue and nothing to do with your code. It's a bit like it started running the startup script, then just gave up without completing the startup directives. I would definitely expect some sort of error message instead of just sitting at the command prompt if it was a problem with your code… :wacko:/>

Your latest version also relabels the turtles. This is a good idea, but would it be possible to use a shorter name? As it is now, when you check the status on the mining boss, you just see a list of: "mineWorker_", which isn't very descriptive. I'd like to see the number of the turtle as well. This of course may be due to the fact that I run Minecraft windowed, so perhaps my GUI scale is different than yours. (Does the GUI scale in ComputerCraft?)

joebodo #26

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 03:45 PM

HeffeD, on 12 February 2014 - 02:23 PM said:
No error message. It's almost like this is a general ComputerCraft issue and nothing to do with your code.

I wasn't sure if anyone else experienced this but me. From what I see, it appears to be a bug in rednet.broadcast. It doesn't happen very often, but upon doing the broadcast, the program just exits :(/>

I think i can work around this issue. I should be able to post a new version tonight that will contain the work-around.

HeffeD, on 12 February 2014 - 02:23 PM said:
As it is now, when you check the status on the mining boss, you just see a list of: "mineWorker_", which isn't very descriptive. I'd like to see the number of the turtle as well. This of course may be due to the fact that I run Minecraft windowed, so perhaps my GUI scale is different than yours. (Does the GUI scale in ComputerCraft?)

Oops ! I'll post this fix tonight as well. I believe the size of the console is the same regardless of GUI size.

joebodo #27

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Posted 12 February 2014 - 10:18 PM

HeffeD, on 12 February 2014 - 02:23 PM said:
With the latest version, turtles can still be left behind after a resume attempt…

Another version is added to the OP (v.07). I really like this one. There are some major changes to the way rescues / deploying / pickups are done. It was way too random before - now there is some precedence as to what needs to be done first.

I'm just hoping I didn't make any silly mistakes :)/> …

judos #28

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Posted 14 February 2014 - 07:23 AM

Hi,

The Video is amazing. I'll try this program asap. :D/>
One question: How do you get the turtle to check all four blocks around them if they mine 1x1 straight down to bedrock? I've looked in the turtle API but it says nothing about comparing blocks on the left,right,back -side of the turtle. And in your video I don't see a turtle turning around. So how does that work to make sure you find all ores? :unsure:/>

Cheers,
judos

HeffeD #29

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Posted 14 February 2014 - 12:02 PM

judos, on 14 February 2014 - 07:23 AM said:
One question: How do you get the turtle to check all four blocks around them if they mine 1x1 straight down to bedrock? I've looked in the turtle API but it says nothing about comparing blocks on the left,right,back -side of the turtle. And in your video I don't see a turtle turning around. So how does that work to make sure you find all ores? :unsure:/>

The turtles do turn. Both on the trip down, and the trip up. Between the two, they get almost all of the ore. (There are a few ore blocks left along the chunk edges)

Joebodo, still having turtles abandoned on restart with v.07. No errors, just a turtle sitting there saying "mineWorker started…" I tried rebooting several times, (same result: mineWorker started…) but the mining boss wouldn't come and pick it up. I finally broke it and took it to the surface. This time it was picked up, which makes me think it could have been a range issue. Although I didn't think to check how deep the miner was, I'm guessing it was below layer 10 and the turtle was near the front of the chunk being mined, with the mining boss at the back. So it was easily over 64 blocks. I know the transmission range increases with height, but since the mining boss was only at layer 74, the range increase is probably not very much.

Edit: I just went back and checked the hole. The turtle was at layer 3. (I use thermal expansion and have it configured to flatten the bedrock layer, so there is only a single layer of bedrock at layer 1)

I don't know how to get around this issue without going to extreme lengths like placing a satellite at max world height or having the mining boss go up into the air to listen for miners… Seems like a lot of effort for a rare case. (if the issue was indeed range…)

Edited on 14 February 2014 - 11:10 AM

joebodo #30

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Posted 14 February 2014 - 08:53 PM

judos, on 14 February 2014 - 07:23 AM said:
And in your video I don't see a turtle turning around. So how does that work to make sure you find all ores? :unsure:/>

That was my first YouTube video. I had another clip where it showed the miners corkscrewing down, but I couldn't figure out how to edit the video :)/>

HeffeD, on 14 February 2014 - 12:02 PM said:
Edit: I just went back and checked the hole. The turtle was at layer 3. (I use thermal expansion and have it configured to flatten the bedrock layer, so there is only a single layer of bedrock at layer 1)

I reproduced this problem. I put a turtle at layer 3 and experienced what you saw. It appears that when turtles are below layer 6, rednet distance is shortened (or non-existent). To fix this, I move the miner up a few blocks upon restart if I know that he has mined down. Tests so far seem to show this working fine. I'll post a new version once I'm done testing this (hopefully tonight).

Thanks for the good clues.

Edited on 14 February 2014 - 07:55 PM

HeffeD #31

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Posted 15 February 2014 - 04:27 PM

joebodo, on 14 February 2014 - 08:53 PM said:
To fix this, I move the miner up a few blocks upon restart if I know that he has mined down.

Well that's a pretty simple fix. :)/> I don't know why I didn't think of that…

joebodo #32

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Posted 15 February 2014 - 05:19 PM

HeffeD, on 15 February 2014 - 04:27 PM said:
joebodo, on 14 February 2014 - 08:53 PM said:
To fix this, I move the miner up a few blocks upon restart if I know that he has mined down.

Well that's a pretty simple fix. :)/> I don't know why I didn't think of that…

Ha ha, reminds me of when I didn't think to suck things out of the chests before breaking them :D/>

BTW, I new version is in the OP.

sjkeegs #33

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Posted 16 February 2014 - 03:33 PM

joebodo, on 14 February 2014 - 08:53 PM said:
I reproduced this problem. I put a turtle at layer 3 and experienced what you saw. It appears that when turtles are below layer 6, rednet distance is shortened (or non-existent). To fix this, I move the miner up a few blocks upon restart if I know that he has mined down. Tests so far seem to show this working fine. I'll post a new version once I'm done testing this (hopefully tonight).

Thanks for the good clues.

Modem communication distance is a minimum of 64 blocks at layer 64 and up to 384 at maximum altitude. This range can be reduced by weather conditions (Thunder). So any turtle at sea level will only be able to contact another turtle at level 1 if it is directly below it. Distance is computed x² + y² + z² = dist². It should be pretty simple to figure out how far up they need to go up to regain contact.

This actually reminded me that I need to take thunder into account in one of my programs (I'd forgotten that bit)

Wiki Page -> http://www.computercraft.info/wiki/Wireless_Modem

joebodo #34

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Posted 16 February 2014 - 07:10 PM

sjkeegs, on 16 February 2014 - 03:33 PM said:
So any turtle at sea level will only be able to contact another turtle at level 1 if it is directly below it.

This was my understanding as well, but testing showed otherwise (cc 1.5.7). I can provide more details if you are interested.

sjkeegs #35

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Posted 17 February 2014 - 09:28 AM

joebodo, on 16 February 2014 - 07:10 PM said:
I can provide more details if you are interested.

Please do,

joebodo #36

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Posted 17 February 2014 - 10:01 AM

sjkeegs, on 17 February 2014 - 09:28 AM said:
joebodo, on 16 February 2014 - 07:10 PM said:
I can provide more details if you are interested.
Please do,

Turtle 1 is at level 120
Turtle 2 is at level 3 directly below Turtle 1 (F3 shows feet at 3)

Turtle 2 is broadcasting a ping type message (rednet.broadcast)
Turtle 1 is listening for ping type messages

Turtle 1 receives nothing unless turtle 2 is above level 6 (was either 6 or 7)

Really bizarre - totally different from my understanding of how rednet works. If it only happened to me, then I would think it was a world issue, but it's also happening to HeffeD. It appears to be easily reproducible.

joebodo #37

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Posted 17 February 2014 - 10:14 AM

HeffeD, on 02 February 2014 - 03:07 PM said:
I've been trying to determine what your script does when a turtle encounters a dungeon chest, or a storage minecart in a mineshaft. It appears that it just breaks them and doesn't attempt to suck up the loot?

Should collect everything now!

HeffeD, on 02 February 2014 - 03:07 PM said:
Another comment that I feel could improve the script would be to allow the user to set boundaries. I think it's great that you can start the mining process and basically just let it go until it hits the far lands, but I tend to like to mine certain areas. Like extreme hills biomes. So it would be great if you could tell it you wanted to mine a 4x4 chunk area, for example. In order to keep the chunks loaded, (using spot loaders) you could serpentine through the area.

Finally got this working (took me awhile). You can now specify how the number of chunks to mine It will create concentric circles around the starting point until it reaches that number. Kinda like this:


10 11 12 13
 9  2  3 14
 8  1  4 15
 7  6  5

I should have this posted by tonight - just a bit more testing needed.

Edited on 17 February 2014 - 09:14 AM

HeffeD #38

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Posted 17 February 2014 - 03:27 PM

joebodo, on 17 February 2014 - 10:14 AM said:
I should have this posted by tonight - just a bit more testing needed.

Sounds great! Looking forward to trying it out. :)/>

Oh, and on the topic of rednet range, weather is never an issue with me. I think the rain in Minecraft is annoying, so I have weather disabled.

joebodo #39

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Posted 17 February 2014 - 04:39 PM

HeffeD, on 17 February 2014 - 03:27 PM said:
joebodo, on 17 February 2014 - 10:14 AM said:
I should have this posted by tonight - just a bit more testing needed.

Sounds great! Looking forward to trying it out. :)/>

Oh, and on the topic of rednet range, weather is never an issue with me. I think the rain in Minecraft is annoying, so I have weather disabled.

how ? HOW ?

HeffeD #40

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Posted 17 February 2014 - 08:52 PM

joebodo, on 17 February 2014 - 04:39 PM said:
how ? HOW ?

The Optifine mod allows you to turn off the weather.

sjkeegs #41

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Posted 18 February 2014 - 10:35 PM

joebodo, on 17 February 2014 - 10:01 AM said:
Really bizarre - totally different from my understanding of how rednet works.

Assuming that the range increases linearly from the minimum to the max, I would have thought that would work also. I would have thought the range at 120 would be around 157.

joebodo #42

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Posted 19 February 2014 - 11:51 PM

I just uploaded a new version (0.9). This version will mine the chunks in a circular manner (instead of just a straight line). There are also some new command line options. Using -c will specify the number of chunks to mine. Using -d will specify the depth to dig to (relative from the starting point). So the following:

miningBoss -c 10 -d 25

will mine 10 chunks with the miners digging down 25 blocks. The default behavior is to mine forever and dig down to bedrock.

I did quite a bit of testing to determine if any blocks are being missed. I think I fixed (hopefully) the original problem of some blocks not being mined. Here's a short video of about 20 miners set to mine everything:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_d5uZDqf4[/media]

Edited on 19 February 2014 - 10:52 PM

HeffeD #43

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Posted 20 February 2014 - 04:53 PM

Version .90 has some issues. Unless this behavior is needed for the new concentric mining strategy when specifying a quarry size…

- On initial deployment, it only deploys a single spot loader. It also picks up the single spot loader when you quit, so maybe this is just new behavior.

- The turtles don't report their depth until they reach bedrock, then they start reporting on the way back up.

- When you select "Stop Mining", the mining boss doesn't park under the spot loaders as it did in previous versions. This is just a cosmetic issue, I'm just curious if it's intended. I suspect intended, because when the "Quit" command is issued, the mining boss does make its way back and picks up the single spot loader.

ticklemestalin #44

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 02:10 PM

This looks like an amazing program, and I'd love to use it! I get a consistent error:

parallel:22: mineAPIs:736: attempt to index ? (a nil value)

The mining boss rises two blocks and places a single chunkloader, then errors out.

Am I doing something wrong? I don't have a GPS system set up, does it require that?

joebodo #45

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 02:46 PM

ticklemestalin, on 21 February 2014 - 02:10 PM said:
This looks like an amazing program, and I'd love to use it! I get a consistent error:
parallel:22: mineAPIs:736: attempt to index ? (a nil value)
The mining boss rises two blocks and places a single chunkloader, then errors out.

Am I doing something wrong? I don't have a GPS system set up, does it require that?

No, you are not doing anything wrong and a GPS system is not needed. I naively coded this thinking I am the only one communicating on rednet :(/>. You have a couple of choices until I post an updated version (should be sometime tonight):

Pick 1, they are listed easiest to hardest :)/>

1. Move far enough away from your other systems so I don't pick up foreign messages.

2. Download this version of mineAPIs with the fix:


cd /swarm
rm mineAPIs
pastebin get w3sZGS21 mineAPIs
reboot

3. Edit mineAPIs to include the fix:


733 Event.addHandler('rednet_message',
734   function(event, id, msg, distance)
735	 if msg and msg.type then
736	   for k,h in pairs(messageHandlers) do
737		 if h.type == msg.type then
738		   h.f(h, id, msg, distance)
739		 end
740	   end
741	 end
742   end
743 )

Edited on 21 February 2014 - 01:48 PM

ticklemestalin #46

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 03:53 PM

Thanks for the fast response! I chose option 2, but received a different error:

parallel:22: mineAPIs:948: bad argument: string expected, got nil

joebodo #47

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 04:12 PM

ticklemestalin, on 21 February 2014 - 03:53 PM said:
Thanks for the fast response! I chose option 2, but received a different error:
parallel:22: mineAPIs:948: bad argument: string expected, got nil

That's a pretty odd error. Can you let me know what modpack / version you are using?

Here is an updated mineAPIs to avoid that error:


cd /swarm
rm mineAPIs
pastebin get JA8RFaeF mineAPIs
reboot

Edit : found one other location that needed to be fixed for the rednet issue

Edited on 21 February 2014 - 03:19 PM

ticklemestalin #48

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 06:47 PM

~~Just to be clear, when I replace the mineAPIs, I need to do this for the boss and each of the workers?~~

Clearly, yes.

Ok, so the error is gone, but now after the boss deploys the 3 workers I have, they all sit where they are.

The workers all say Mineworker started…
and the boss gives a status with their names but no other information. Recalling doesn't move them.

Edited on 21 February 2014 - 06:04 PM

joebodo #49

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 06:58 PM

ticklemestalin, on 21 February 2014 - 06:47 PM said:
Just to be clear, when I replace the mineAPIs, I need to do this for the boss and each of the workers?

Yes, replace on all. Probably best to use just one worker until we get this issue resolved.

joebodo #50

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 07:38 PM

ticklemestalin, on 21 February 2014 - 06:47 PM said:
~~Just to be clear, when I replace the mineAPIs, I need to do this for the boss and each of the workers?~~

Clearly, yes.

Ok, so the error is gone, but now after the boss deploys the 3 workers I have, they all sit where they are.

The workers all say Mineworker started…
and the boss gives a status with their names but no other information. Recalling doesn't move them.

Sorry this is not going well and thanks for your patience. I updated a new version with all the fixes. You will need to do:


cd /
rm setup
pastebin get mJ3fVX3f setup
setup

For both the boss and the worker. If you still have issues, then try starting the mining boss with:


miningBoss -l file

This will create a log file named mine.log that may contain some clues. I can take a look at that if you upload to pastebin.

Thanks again

ticklemestalin #51

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 08:50 PM

Thank you for your patience! I'm sorry to be so much trouble.

The boss and workers do the same thing as before, the boss deploys a single chunk loader, the workers, and then they all hang in the air. The boss lists the worker's names but not their information on the status screen. The workers' modems are active (red) the boss's is not.

If I reboot the boss he shoots up into the sky then comes back down in the middle of the chunk, and thereafter his modem is red.

Where can I find the log file? I should mention that the server is not mine, if it's created locally there.

ticklemestalin #52

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 09:00 PM

I'll check back in tomorrow or monday.

joebodo #53

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Posted 21 February 2014 - 09:10 PM

ticklemestalin, on 21 February 2014 - 09:00 PM said:
I'll check back in tomorrow or monday.

The log file will be created in the /swarm directory.

joebodo #54

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 02:08 AM

HeffeD, on 20 February 2014 - 04:53 PM said:
Version .90 has some issues. Unless this behavior is needed for the new concentric mining strategy when specifying a quarry size…

- On initial deployment, it only deploys a single spot loader. It also picks up the single spot loader when you quit, so maybe this is just new behavior.

Yes - this is the new behavior

HeffeD, on 20 February 2014 - 04:53 PM said:
- The turtles don't report their depth until they reach bedrock, then they start reporting on the way back up.

I saw that and rushed in a new version - unfortunately, you were too quick.

HeffeD, on 20 February 2014 - 04:53 PM said:
- When you select "Stop Mining", the mining boss doesn't park under the spot loaders as it did in previous versions. This is just a cosmetic issue, I'm just curious if it's intended. I suspect intended, because when the "Quit" command is issued, the mining boss does make its way back and picks up the single spot loader.

Yes, it's intended. There were some changes in this area due to being able to now specify the number of chunks you want mined. When that number is reached, the boss will collect the miners and chunk loaders.

I just posted yet another version. This one is pretty close to being finished IMO - aside from any bugs that crop up. I think I handled most of the major issues. Two big changes were in the last 2 or 3 versions.

1. Due to the rednet deadzone near the bottom of the map, upon restart, the boss will fly up past level 130 or so and send out GPS type signals. The miners all the way down to bedrock will receive the signals, determine their location, and come up to the starting plane.

2. The boss will new steal some coal as needed from the miners. This will allow the boss to now work indefinitely.

Let me know what you think .. .(hopefully, you haven't tired of testing - the end is in sight :)/> )

HeffeD #55

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Posted 22 February 2014 - 10:57 AM

joebodo, on 22 February 2014 - 02:08 AM said:
Let me know what you think .. .(hopefully, you haven't tired of testing - the end is in sight :)/> )

No, haven't tired of testing. As I've already said, I think this is very nearly the perfect mining script, so I'm more than happy to help squash any bugs.

I'll download the latest right now. :)/>

HeffeD #56

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Posted 23 February 2014 - 10:20 PM

Version 1.0a is working pretty well. :)/>

It would be nice if there was a percentage complete indicator if you've chosen to mine a set number of chunks.

FredMF #57

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Posted 24 February 2014 - 01:04 PM

Is there a option to bypass the gui in the setup process? can i just type setup miner or setup boss?

gh057gurl #58

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Posted 24 February 2014 - 02:47 PM

Amazing turtle program. Perhaps a warning for those with trypophobia, though. I have a friend that will not go anywhere near our mining age now :D/>

joebodo #59

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Posted 24 February 2014 - 06:29 PM

FredMF, on 24 February 2014 - 01:04 PM said:
Is there a option to bypass the gui in the setup process? can i just type setup miner or setup boss?

Sorry, there's not - but I will definitely include the ability in the next version.

gh057gurl, on 24 February 2014 - 02:47 PM said:
Amazing turtle program. Perhaps a warning for those with trypophobia, though. I have a friend that will not go anywhere near our mining age now :D/>

Ha ha - glad you like the program.

SyberSmoke #60

98 posts

Posted 26 February 2014 - 12:31 AM

I have something of an odd suggestion. But I was wondering if it would be possible to cap the holes the turtles make as they ascend? Having a field of holes in rough terrain can be a deadly (AHHHHHHHH SHHIIITTTTT….SPLAT) proposition. So I was curious if the turtle could be made to note the location of the first block it hits when it digs down, and then when it ascends, it places a piece of Cobble there to plug the hole.

joebodo #61

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Posted 26 February 2014 - 06:02 AM

SyberSmoke, on 26 February 2014 - 12:31 AM said:
I have something of an odd suggestion. But I was wondering if it would be possible to cap the holes the turtles make as they ascend? Having a field of holes in rough terrain can be a deadly (AHHHHHHHH SHHIIITTTTT….SPLAT) proposition. So I was curious if the turtle could be made to note the location of the first block it hits when it digs down, and then when it ascends, it places a piece of Cobble there to plug the hole.

Yeah, I've been on the fence about this one… It's kinda nice to know what's been mined, but like you said, it can be deadly :)/>

I'll go ahead and save one filler piece for the top spot in the next version. It may be a couple of days til I put out the new version though.

SyberSmoke #62

98 posts

Posted 26 February 2014 - 08:02 AM

Thank you, Fortunately if Cobble is used then the filler will not match the ground (Soil) so you can still see progress…you just will not fall into your progress.

joebodo #63

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Posted 26 February 2014 - 08:49 AM

HeffeD, on 23 February 2014 - 10:20 PM said:
Version 1.0a is working pretty well. :)/>/> It would be nice if there was a percentage complete indicator if you've chosen to mine a set number of chunks.

Here's what I came up with - let me know if this is enough info:

CptAbusive #64

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Posted 26 February 2014 - 07:58 PM

This program is amazing! I love it!

But I think you need to do something about the refueling.

I started the swarm 44 hours ago with 16 turtles in it. I checked the swarm when i got home about 4 hours ago and only 10 turtles were mining. 2 of them were in the boss turtle's inventory, but the other 4 turtles were gone, I'm guessing they're out of fuel too. and i don't feel like checking out the 5500 holes they had dug by then, especially since there's lava in many of the holes. I tried deploying the 2 turtles again, but the boss just picked them up again straight away. It seemed they were out of fuel.

When i checked again now only 6 turtles were digging. Luckily the boss had picked up the 4 turtles that had stopped.

Long story short:
After 40 hours 6 of 16 turtles had stopped, 2 turtles that were out of fuel had been picked up by the boss. 4 were missing.
4 hours later 4 more had been picked up by the boss.

They had put more than 130 stacks of coal in the ender chests by then so they get enough coal.

Maybe you should make it always keep one space reserved for coal, and only put the excess coal in the chest. Or maybe you can think of something cleverer :)/>

Other than that i have had no problems and the program is absolutely amazing!
I've gotten 350+ stacks of iron in less than two days! I'm the guy people on the server asks if they need something that can be dug :D/>

joebodo #65

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Posted 26 February 2014 - 08:59 PM

CptAbusive, on 26 February 2014 - 07:58 PM said:
This program is amazing! I love it!

But I think you need to do something about the refueling.

I started the swarm 44 hours ago with 16 turtles in it. I checked the swarm when i got home about 4 hours ago and only 10 turtles were mining. 2 of them were in the boss turtle's inventory, but the other 4 turtles were gone, I'm guessing they're out of fuel too. and i don't feel like checking out the 5500 holes they had dug by then, especially since there's lava in many of the holes. I tried deploying the 2 turtles again, but the boss just picked them up again straight away. It seemed they were out of fuel.

When i checked again now only 6 turtles were digging. Luckily the boss had picked up the 4 turtles that had stopped.

Long story short:
After 40 hours 6 of 16 turtles had stopped, 2 turtles that were out of fuel had been picked up by the boss. 4 were missing.
4 hours later 4 more had been picked up by the boss.

They had put more than 130 stacks of coal in the ender chests by then so they get enough coal.

Maybe you should make it always keep one space reserved for coal, and only put the excess coal in the chest. Or maybe you can think of something cleverer :)/>

Other than that i have had no problems and the program is absolutely amazing!
I've gotten 350+ stacks of iron in less than two days! I'm the guy people on the server asks if they need something that can be dug :D/>

I'm glad you like the program. I'll see what I can do to improve the fuel reserves. I have a few ideas that I'll test out. I should have a new version up tonight with some of the requested changes. I'll also give you a turtle program that you can use to track down those lost miners.

joebodo #66

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Posted 27 February 2014 - 10:58 AM

I posted a new version v1.1a and updated the OP. Hopefully, I have corrected any issues that were brought up and added everyone's suggestions. If I missed anything, let me know (I added a changelog to the OP as well).

The stats viewer is a separate program that can be run on a turtle or computer. This program is selectable from the setup menu. If you add some monitors beside the computer/turtle, it will use those. If placed on top of a terminal glasses bridge, it will use that as well :D/>

Also included is a tracker program. If you lost some miners for some reason, you can run the tracker program on a turtle.


cd /swarm
tracker

The turtle will attempt to locate any miners in the area - if it doesn't find any, it will move forward 16 blocks and try again. It will move a total of 192 blocks before returning back to the starting position. If it does find a miner, it will call that miner to the surface and then return back to the starting spot. So… you may need to run it several times if you have more than 1 miner lost.

sjkeegs #67

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Posted 27 February 2014 - 01:20 PM

I don't see a link for the tracker program.

joebodo #68

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Posted 27 February 2014 - 02:08 PM

sjkeegs, on 27 February 2014 - 01:20 PM said:
I don't see a link for the tracker program.

It's included in the setup (you get 4 programs altogether).

SyberSmoke #69

98 posts

Posted 28 February 2014 - 07:53 AM

I have updated my turtle…lost four from v1.0 sadly…but 6 were recovered. Wish I knew where they were lost. Any way I am curious about a couple things. on the seven turtles left, Do I need to wipe them and reload the program? Or will setup (the new one)overwrite the old code.

And if not…may be say an updater program? Yeah I am just lazy…I know. :-) Sadly…tracker could not find my four lost turtles…sigh.

CptAbusive #70

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Posted 28 February 2014 - 03:19 PM

I didn't find any turtles with the tracker either, but I don't think that program will be necessary anymore. I'm been mining with 20 turtles for 15 hours and they are all still digging :)/>

I wish it wouldn't fill in the top block though. first of all since I set up the turtles pretty far above ground because of hills and second because i really love the holes!

As you can see they don't really seal the holes (I'm glad they don't) and i get a dirt grid up in the air.

Also there are some holes in the dirt grid. Some places the turtles have dug a hole, but not sealed it (green arrows) and some places the turtles haven't dug either (red). There wasn't any dirt on the surface in the green area, that's probably why.

But I'm not complaining, the turtles dig without getting lost now! :D/> A missing hole here and there doesn't matter :)/> I'll just dig them out my self.

The program was amazing before, and now it's even better. Getting close to perfect. You're freakin awesome!

joebodo #71

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Posted 28 February 2014 - 11:51 PM

Another new version is available v1.2a (OP is updated with info)

SyberSmoke, on 28 February 2014 - 07:53 AM said:
Do I need to wipe them and reload the program?

The setup will automatically overwrite the previous version.

SyberSmoke, on 28 February 2014 - 07:53 AM said:
Sadly…tracker could not find my four lost turtles…sigh.

Give the latest tracker a try - I made some improvements (and even found 2 of my own :)/> )

CptAbusive, on 28 February 2014 - 03:19 PM said:
I wish it wouldn't fill in the top block though. first of all since I set up the turtles pretty far above ground because of hills and second because i really love the holes!

I changed it so you have to use miningBoss -f in order to fill in holes. You made a good point - I would guess most everyone is not mining flat areas (my mining dimension just happened to turn out flat).

CptAbusive, on 28 February 2014 - 03:19 PM said:
Also there are some holes in the dirt grid. Some places the turtles have dug a hole, but not sealed it (green arrows) and some places the turtles haven't dug either (red). There wasn't any dirt on the surface in the green area, that's probably why.

The miners only reserve 1 block for the top spot. I could be that they just didn't collect anything to use as filler.
As for the red arrows - this has been plaguing me for awhile. In a creative world or if I have no mobs around, every spot is mined. The issue seems (at least for me) is I get a bit of lag when the zombies start path finding to me. I think during this lag, some rednet messages may be lost. I would get maybe 1 or 2 missed holes every few chunks - so I haven't really concentrated on fixing the issue (but it bugs the hell out of me :)/> ).

CptAbusive, on 28 February 2014 - 03:19 PM said:
The program was amazing before, and now it's even better. Getting close to perfect. You're freakin awesome!

Thanks :)/> and thanks a lot for the feedback - it's only getting better with your ideas and problem finding.

sjkeegs #72

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Posted 01 March 2014 - 12:13 AM

joebodo, on 28 February 2014 - 11:51 PM said:
I think during this lag, some rednet messages may be lost. I would get maybe 1 or 2 missed holes every few chunks - so I haven't really concentrated on fixing the issue

Moving turtles can miss rednet messages. It appears that you are running those in parallel, although I haven't dug that far into the code to find the specific locations. I'm guessing you knew this already.

joebodo #73

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69 posts

Posted 01 March 2014 - 12:43 AM

sjkeegs, on 01 March 2014 - 12:13 AM said:
joebodo, on 28 February 2014 - 11:51 PM said:
I think during this lag, some rednet messages may be lost. I would get maybe 1 or 2 missed holes every few chunks - so I haven't really concentrated on fixing the issue
Moving turtles can miss rednet messages. It appears that you are running those in parallel, although I haven't dug that far into the code to find the specific locations. I'm guessing you knew this already.

Yeah, both are idle when communicating. Basically, the miner finishes what he was instructed to do, sends a message to the boss indicating he is idle. The boss may or may not receive the message depending upon what he is doing at the time. If the boss is idle, he will send a single message to the miner with the instructions (ie. goto movement plane, goto a coordinate, bore, provide status). Upon receiving the message, the miner then does those instructions - all during that communication time he's just sitting there (takes a split second though). If the boss doesn't provide instructions in 5 seconds, the miner repeats the idle message.

Edited on 28 February 2014 - 11:49 PM

maxtraxv3 #74

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2 posts

Posted 01 March 2014 - 10:00 PM

when ever i try to run miningStatus.lua it tells me missing miningStatus.lua:1:

witch i take it, it cant find rom/programs/classes ?

(useing advanced computer (the gold one) with modem on top and 3x3 advanced screen setup next to the computer, the same setup as the pic on first post)

ok now the mining boss has desied to leave the mining turtles and the chunkloader where they are and dig up?

joebodo #75

joebodo's profile picture

69 posts

Posted 02 March 2014 - 02:09 AM

maxtraxv3, on 01 March 2014 - 10:00 PM said:
when ever i try to run miningStatus.lua it tells me missing miningStatus.lua:1:

witch i take it, it cant find rom/programs/classes ?

(useing advanced computer (the gold one) with modem on top and 3x3 advanced screen setup next to the computer, the same setup as the pic on first post)

ok now the mining boss has desied to leave the mining turtles and the chunkloader where they are and dig up?

Make sure you are running the program from the /swarm directory, like:
cd /swarm miningStatus.lua

I see the issue, I will need to post a new version.

During a resume, the boss will go high above the miners and become a gps for a few seconds. He will then descend and restart the miners.

If you did not want the boss to resume (perhaps you broke him instead of quitting the program), you can delete the mining.state file like this:


cd /swarm
rm mining.state

Edited on 02 March 2014 - 02:00 AM

maxtraxv3 #76

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2 posts

Posted 02 March 2014 - 02:18 AM

no i didnt break him, i let him go saw him get back to work

im in swarm same error, also same error every time the computer is rebooted also tryed this on a tutrle(wireless modem one) get the same error

also the swarm seems buggy in the deep dark

SyberSmoke #77

98 posts

Posted 02 March 2014 - 04:00 AM

Question: The tracker program, wouldn't it make more sense to have the player place the turtle, use the program, and then the turtle goes to the most effective height to get maximum range, searching out the turtle that way? Or does that only allow the boss to send out a message and keep the lost ones from sending?

On a side note, I would be interested in an update tool for the boss. A command that lets the boss program or update turtles to it's new version. The reason is I have 10 of the little buggers and it is something of a pain to download setup for each one run it, and tell it it is a miner. I would dread doing that with more turtles.

Any way I will try the new tracker and see if it works.

SuperZorro #78

SuperZorro's profile picture

10 posts

Posted 13 March 2014 - 07:53 PM

Thanks for this awsome program. Used the 1.2a version nonstop for a few days, and it works great.

I would like to make a request though. I don't like the turtles wasting real coal, when I have a huge stockpile of charcoal in my base. I would prefer they used a refuel enderchest. Maybe just on the Boss, and the miners would go refuel when neeeded.

joebodo #79

joebodo's profile picture

69 posts

Posted 14 March 2014 - 02:16 PM

SuperZorro, on 13 March 2014 - 07:53 PM said:
Thanks for this awsome program. Used the 1.2a version nonstop for a few days, and it works great.

I would like to make a request though. I don't like the turtles wasting real coal, when I have a huge stockpile of charcoal in my base. I would prefer they used a refuel enderchest. Maybe just on the Boss, and the miners would go refuel when neeeded.

Glad to hear you like it. The miners will only refuel if their level runs below 7500. You could fuel them up beforehand so they do not use the collected coal. I like your suggestion and I'll see what it would take to implement.

Agregg8 #80

Agregg8's profile picture

1 posts

Posted 15 March 2014 - 10:08 PM

Please excuse the newbie but…

Two questions:

1. Would someone be willing to modify this script to use obsidian pipe connected to phase pipe in the mine shafts that the turtles could drop inventory into while in the mine shaft hole before emerging instead of using ender chests above the holes? (This would allow me to not have to farm blaze rods on our server. PLEASE!!! :)/>

2. Is it necessary to use advanced turtles to run this program?

Verox #81

Verox's profile picture

8 posts

Posted 16 March 2014 - 02:33 AM

Hey, absolutely loving the program at the moment but I have a couple questions.

It seems that even if you have a chunk loader loading all of the chunks the program might come into while you are offline, the master turtle still seems to leave a few behind so my question is just on if you know what the root of this problem is or not.

My other question is regarding the resume function, as it stands if the server crashes or the chunk is unloaded and the turtles are in the middle of digging, when the master resumes them all, they go back to doing a new hole instead of finishing their hole. So my question is if there's a way for the master to check if the turtles were mining prior to the crash.

Loving the program though, I bumped the turtles up to 40 (might be the cause of turtles being left behind but even with 25 turtles I lost 10 or so, doesn't bother me that much when I mine out enough gold and diamonds to make another 500 but it's still pretty annoying) and it's already dug out more then I did with 25, sure increases speed alot.

joebodo #82

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69 posts

Posted 16 March 2014 - 03:30 PM

Verox, on 16 March 2014 - 02:33 AM said:
It seems that even if you have a chunk loader loading all of the chunks the program might come into while you are offline, the master turtle still seems to leave a few behind so my question is just on if you know what the root of this problem is or not.

With 40, you shouldn't be getting any left behind. Is the server frequently restarted? I do lose some when the server crashes (turtles sometimes lose their equipment / id, and some will just plain disappear after a crash).

Verox, on 16 March 2014 - 02:33 AM said:
…when the master resumes them all, they go back to doing a new hole instead of finishing their hole. So my question is if there's a way for the master to check if the turtles were mining prior to the crash.

Yeah, I've been meaning to fix this for awhile. I am going to have the miner just redo the hole he was working on prior to the restart.

Verox, on 16 March 2014 - 02:33 AM said:
Loving the program though, I bumped the turtles up to 40 (might be the cause of turtles being left behind but even with 25 turtles I lost 10 or so, doesn't bother me that much when I mine out enough gold and diamonds to make another 500 but it's still pretty annoying) and it's already dug out more then I did with 25, sure increases speed alot.

:)/>
I did one test with 100 miners - was pretty awesome to watch. I was unable to process everything they mined.

I have some updates ready that may help with losing some turtles - I just need to finish testing (I've been sidetracked lately).

Verox #83

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8 posts

Posted 17 March 2014 - 08:09 AM

joebodo, on 16 March 2014 - 03:30 PM said:
With 40, you shouldn't be getting any left behind. Is the server frequently restarted? I do lose some when the server crashes (turtles sometimes lose their equipment / id, and some will just plain disappear after a crash).

I'm an admin and 'technician' on the server I'm currently testing it on and as far as I know there are no frequent restarts that I've had to put on. For instance I started with 40 turtles but I've lost 8 after about 48 hours. I don't have a reason to complain though considering how many resources I've gotten over the past few days anyway :)/>

joebodo #84

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69 posts

Posted 19 March 2014 - 11:26 PM

Just posted a new version - 1.3a (OP is updated). Aside from bug fixes and optimizations, the biggest changes are: status viewer should now work :)/>, and there is now an options screen (instead of having to use command line parameters). You can change the options at any time and the changes will be reflected immediately (even if already mining).

Verox #85

Verox's profile picture

8 posts

Posted 21 March 2014 - 08:55 AM

I'm going to report a few bugs with 1.3a.

The main bug is that now for some reason the miningBoss just leaves turtles around like nobody's business.

The other not serious bug comes in the form of maybe a new mining procedure done by the turtles (I'm not sure to be honest) but it seems like if they get lost or something they dig erratically on the layer they started digging from.

joebodo #86

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69 posts

Posted 21 March 2014 - 06:25 PM

Verox, on 21 March 2014 - 08:55 AM said:
I'm going to report a few bugs with 1.3a.

Thanks for the info - I'll do some more testing.

Shalterra #87

Shalterra's profile picture

2 posts

Posted 23 March 2014 - 06:38 AM

In regards to this program, It looks awesome, but there's one question I haven't seen, or noticed being addressed. How do they deal with height changes? All the videos display superflats which, with Mystcraft isn't insanely hard to achieve, I suppose, but, my main world is mostly mountains…

So, do they mine through things? Go up over? Stop and bug out? Just curious!

Xaviens #88

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3 posts

Posted 23 March 2014 - 10:26 AM

Shalterra, on 23 March 2014 - 06:38 AM said:
In regards to this program, It looks awesome, but there's one question I haven't seen, or noticed being addressed. How do they deal with height changes? All the videos display superflats which, with Mystcraft isn't insanely hard to achieve, I suppose, but, my main world is mostly mountains…

So, do they mine through things? Go up over? Stop and bug out? Just curious!

In my experience, they just punch right on through, digging their own little tunnels at launch height, then dropping down once they're in position.

Shalterra #89

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2 posts

Posted 24 March 2014 - 09:13 AM

Awesome! That's a major concern of mine that is settled then. Though I suppose I'd run the risk of them getting utterly trapped inside a mountain… Welp; I guess we'll see

joebodo #90

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69 posts

Posted 26 March 2014 - 07:15 AM

joebodo, on 21 March 2014 - 06:25 PM said:
Verox, on 21 March 2014 - 08:55 AM said:
I'm going to report a few bugs with 1.3a.

Thanks for the info - I'll do some more testing.

I've been mining continuously for several days now without losing a miner. Can you tell me how many miners you are using and how you set up the boss (and any other details you can think of). Thanks

Verox #91

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8 posts

Posted 27 March 2014 - 09:00 AM

joebodo, on 26 March 2014 - 07:15 AM said:
joebodo, on 21 March 2014 - 06:25 PM said:
Verox, on 21 March 2014 - 08:55 AM said:
I'm going to report a few bugs with 1.3a.

Thanks for the info - I'll do some more testing.

I've been mining continuously for several days now without losing a miner. Can you tell me how many miners you are using and how you set up the boss (and any other details you can think of). Thanks

I use 40 miners and the boss was set up as usual, in the right spot of the chunk and with the right amount of spot loaders and cobble, ender chests etc. The only thing that was different was that I was trying to use the mining status part of the program so I could see how much they mined, I attempted to use the terminal glasses functionality and it was in a Mystcraft world so the only thing that comes to mind is that.

I also have a question regarding the chunk loading as well. Can you use an actual chunk loader from Chicken Chunks or does the boss have troubles with placing them? I was thinking that placing the 9 chunk loading part might mean that the boss doesn't leave any turtles behind for no reason.

The only thing I have to know that the miners are being left behind is that on the boss and the mining status computer almost every turtle doesn't respond to the boss. For example anywhere from 5-7 computers could have 4000 seconds since they last responded.

Oh and I forgot to mention this but my sorting and storage system was being worked on at the time so that actually could've been the problem. I'll have to test it again with the same setup and see if they stop working again.

Edited on 27 March 2014 - 08:03 AM

keramond #92

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13 posts

Posted 31 March 2014 - 02:59 PM

hello,

first: Thanks for the great work, it's awesome!

second: Right now i am testing in small ops (5 chunks with 14 miners) with 1.3a. On recalling miners, they or the boss drop the enderchest of some of them onto the ground. Is there some way to fix this?

third: I use the status turtle in combination with terminal glasses. Is the status turtle able to move with the mining op to stay in wireless range and still send to my glasses?

joebodo #93

joebodo's profile picture

69 posts

Posted 01 April 2014 - 12:58 AM

keramond, on 31 March 2014 - 02:59 PM said:
hello,

first: Thanks for the great work, it's awesome!

second: Right now i am testing in small ops (5 chunks with 14 miners) with 1.3a. On recalling miners, they or the boss drop the enderchest of some of them onto the ground. Is there some way to fix this?

third: I use the status turtle in combination with terminal glasses. Is the status turtle able to move with the mining op to stay in wireless range and still send to my glasses?

first: Thanks :)/>

second: I've not seen that happen before. How many ender chests do you start with in the boss?

third: I place the status turtle very high above the starting spot. If you go to the flight ceiling, you get incredible range.

keramond #94

keramond's profile picture

13 posts

Posted 01 April 2014 - 03:38 PM

hello again

i tried it just now with 14 turtles and exactly 14 enderchests, added the miners, witch did not fit in the boss later and deploeyed them. At the end i got just 9 enderchests back, he had collected 11 miner, and 3 waiting in the chunk, this 3 had no inventory too

ok my testing run:

boss starting inventory:

slot1: 2 spotloader
slot2: 14 enderchests
slot3: 14 stone
slot4: 14 dirt
slot5: 14 cobblestone
slot6-slot16: 11 miner

Then i started mining one chunk, while adding 3 more miner. At the end the boss hat:

slot1: 2 spotloader
slot2: 9 enderchests
slot3: 14 stone
slot4: 14 dirt
slot5: 14 cobblestone
slot6-slot16: 11 miner

and there where 3 miners on standby in the chunk(with emty invetory)

saftus #95

saftus's profile picture

1 posts

Posted 01 April 2014 - 09:30 PM

Hello!

First, this program is awesome!

However, I play on a server where enderchests does not work. Is it possible for the turtles to place a chest at top surface when full(or done with a hole). And what do I have to do for tweaking the code? Is there maybe any other smart options for this?

Regards!

keramond #96

keramond's profile picture

13 posts

Posted 04 April 2014 - 12:48 AM

do you know what the problem is?

Edited on 03 April 2014 - 10:49 PM

joebodo #97

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69 posts

Posted 04 April 2014 - 09:06 AM

keramond, on 04 April 2014 - 12:48 AM said:
do you know what the problem is?

Everything you listed sounds fine. Once the boss has filled all his slots, he will collect the resources from the 3 remaining miners and shut them off. So all that seemed to work ok. Either the miners lost their ender chests somehow (unlikely), or the boss pitched them while collecting the miners. I'll do some tests now with your exact setup to see. I really hate losing ender chests - blaze rods are a pain.

saftus, on 01 April 2014 - 09:30 PM said:
Hello!

First, this program is awesome!

However, I play on a server where enderchests does not work. Is it possible for the turtles to place a chest at top surface when full(or done with a hole). And what do I have to do for tweaking the code? Is there maybe any other smart options for this?

Regards!

I can't really see a way to get around using ender chests. It was pretty much a core design thing. Sorry!

bnm12 #98

bnm12's profile picture

4 posts

Posted 07 April 2014 - 11:09 AM

Hi I have an issue too, the mining operation spontaneously stops after 1- 2 chunks for what seems like no good reason.
First I figured that it might be something about the spot loaders, but then I tried standing AFK next to the mining boss, and the whole operation still stopped (after mining 92% of the chunk)
All the miners sat just at the top of their holes, but either they didn't accept commands, or the boss didn't send any, so they just stayed there. They all had 9000+ fuel

Technical info:
Mining in a MystCraft Age
TurtleOS 1.5
FTB Monster 1.0.9
Using spot loaders
8 Miners

Sam_Starfall #99

Sam_Starfall's profile picture

23 posts

Location Massachusetts, USA

Posted 08 April 2014 - 03:01 AM

I have tried to D/L the program 1.2 and 1.3 but when I open the program its empty. can you tell me what happened? did I make a mistake or something?

joebodo #100

joebodo's profile picture

69 posts

Posted 08 April 2014 - 08:19 PM

bnm12, on 07 April 2014 - 11:09 AM said:
Hi I have an issue too, the mining operation spontaneously stops after 1- 2 chunks for what seems like no good reason.
First I figured that it might be something about the spot loaders, but then I tried standing AFK next to the mining boss, and the whole operation still stopped (after mining 92% of the chunk)
All the miners sat just at the top of their holes, but either they didn't accept commands, or the boss didn't send any, so they just stayed there. They all had 9000+ fuel

Technical info:
Mining in a MystCraft Age
TurtleOS 1.5
FTB Monster 1.0.9
Using spot loaders
8 Miners

I've seen rednet just stop working after a period of time. I believe this can happen if there are a lot of unanswered rednet broadcasts happening. For this reason, I stay away from broadcasting - do you possibly have computers/broadcasting elsewhere in your world ?

Sam_Starfall, on 08 April 2014 - 03:01 AM said:
I have tried to D/L the program 1.2 and 1.3 but when I open the program its empty. can you tell me what happened? did I make a mistake or something?

Are you able to get anything else using pastebin get? Also, make sure you have enough disk space available on your turtle.

kreezxil #101

187 posts

Location Bowie, TX

Posted 09 April 2014 - 11:12 PM

joebodo, on 04 April 2014 - 09:06 AM said:
saftus, on 01 April 2014 - 09:30 PM said:
Hello!

First, this program is awesome!

However, I play on a server where enderchests does not work. Is it possible for the turtles to place a chest at top surface when full(or done with a hole). And what do I have to do for tweaking the code? Is there maybe any other smart options for this?

Regards!

I can't really see a way to get around using ender chests. It was pretty much a core design thing. Sorry!

What about Item Tesseracts? Those act very similar to ender chests.

bnm12 #102

bnm12's profile picture

4 posts

Posted 10 April 2014 - 08:18 AM

Well I can't get the quote button working :S ?

I've seen rednet just stop working after a period of time. I believe this can happen if there are a lot of unanswered rednet broadcasts happening. For this reason, I stay away from broadcasting - do you possibly have computers/broadcasting elsewhere in your world ?

(hope that worked)

I don't have anything else which uses rednet running, can't speak for the other guys on the server though, I'm asking them right now… (but I don't think they do)

joebodo #103

joebodo's profile picture

69 posts

Posted 10 April 2014 - 10:07 PM

kreezxil, on 09 April 2014 - 11:12 PM said:
joebodo, on 04 April 2014 - 09:06 AM said:
saftus, on 01 April 2014 - 09:30 PM said:
Hello!

First, this program is awesome!

However, I play on a server where enderchests does not work. Is it possible for the turtles to place a chest at top surface when full(or done with a hole). And what do I have to do for tweaking the code? Is there maybe any other smart options for this?

Regards!

I can't really see a way to get around using ender chests. It was pretty much a core design thing. Sorry!

What about Item Tesseracts? Those act very similar to ender chests.

Might work - give it a shot :)/>

bnm12, on 10 April 2014 - 08:18 AM said:
Well I can't get the quote button working :S ?

I've seen rednet just stop working after a period of time. I believe this can happen if there are a lot of unanswered rednet broadcasts happening. For this reason, I stay away from broadcasting - do you possibly have computers/broadcasting elsewhere in your world ?
(hope that worked)

I don't have anything else which uses rednet running, can't speak for the other guys on the server though, I'm asking them right now… (but I don't think they do)

Well, I've reworked the communications part of the program over the last few days. I need to do a lot more testing though before I put it up for download. Maybe keep an eye on the thread to see when it's released and hopefully it will resolve your issue.

Crimor #104

Crimor's profile picture

3 posts

Posted 11 April 2014 - 12:14 PM

I've got a small request that's probably easy to do, is it possible to have the turtles plug the holes they make back up as they fly out of them? Like just the top part of it.

joebodo #105

joebodo's profile picture

69 posts

Posted 11 April 2014 - 10:24 PM

Crimor, on 11 April 2014 - 12:14 PM said:
I've got a small request that's probably easy to do, is it possible to have the turtles plug the holes they make back up as they fly out of them? Like just the top part of it.

Definitely, I'll put that in the next release.

Sam_Starfall #106

Sam_Starfall's profile picture

23 posts

Location Massachusetts, USA

Posted 12 April 2014 - 05:03 AM

yes the startup program D/L and after I run it there is a directory called swarm and a file called swarminer but the file is empty when I go into edit the file and if I run the other file it just creates a new lower lvl directory called swarm. so I am not sure what is happening.

bnm12 #107

bnm12's profile picture

4 posts

Posted 14 April 2014 - 08:16 AM

joebodo, on 10 April 2014 - 10:07 PM said:
kreezxil, on 09 April 2014 - 11:12 PM said:
joebodo, on 04 April 2014 - 09:06 AM said:
saftus, on 01 April 2014 - 09:30 PM said:
Hello!

First, this program is awesome!

However, I play on a server where enderchests does not work. Is it possible for the turtles to place a chest at top surface when full(or done with a hole). And what do I have to do for tweaking the code? Is there maybe any other smart options for this?

Regards!

I can't really see a way to get around using ender chests. It was pretty much a core design thing. Sorry!

What about Item Tesseracts? Those act very similar to ender chests.

Might work - give it a shot :)/>

bnm12, on 10 April 2014 - 08:18 AM said:
Well I can't get the quote button working :S ?

I've seen rednet just stop working after a period of time. I believe this can happen if there are a lot of unanswered rednet broadcasts happening. For this reason, I stay away from broadcasting - do you possibly have computers/broadcasting elsewhere in your world ?
(hope that worked)

I don't have anything else which uses rednet running, can't speak for the other guys on the server though, I'm asking them right now… (but I don't think they do)

Well, I've reworked the communications part of the program over the last few days. I need to do a lot more testing though before I put it up for download. Maybe keep an eye on the thread to see when it's released and hopefully it will resolve your issue.

Any chance of getting a beta version? :D/>

Also: I don't know if this could have anything to do with it, but on the server I'm playing on when there's no one on the server, not even chunk loaders can keep the chunks loaded (It goes into "sleep mode") could that be what's breaking it?

bnm12 #108

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4 posts

Posted 25 April 2014 - 11:23 AM

Are you still working on this ? :/

Dr. McDonald #109

Dr. McDonald's profile picture

1 posts

Location Middlesex School, Concord, MA

Posted 27 April 2014 - 07:09 PM

I'm currently designing a Robotics Curriculum to be run as an elective course this fall. I am getting so many great ideas from work like this and I hope to incorporate some CompuCraft into my program.

I've used Turtles before (the lego kind) and I like the idea of "place" and "suck" but I wish they were called "put" and "take" - in part because the word "suck" could cause a raised eyebrow but really because "place" and "suck" are a bit ambiguous with the potential to imply more than is really happening. For example, "place" implies that you've "put" in a certain orientation and "suck" suggests a mechanism that isn't there. It's the only thing I'd change in this mod and it's really not that big a deal.

Lyqyd #110

Lyqyd's profile picture

8543 posts

Posted 28 April 2014 - 12:37 AM

Welcome to the forums!

You may have missed the two other functions that are the opposites of the two you mentioned; turtle.place and turtle.dig are opposites, and turtle.drop and turtle.suck are opposites. The dig and place functions deal with blocks in the world. Dig will remove the block in front of the turtle, while place will attempt to place a block from the turtle's currently selected slot into the world immediately in front of the turtle. The suck function will pull a stack of items from an adjacent inventory, or if an inventory isn't present, suck up an item entities from the world, from immediately in front of it. Drop, being the opposite of suck, will drop a specifiable quantity of items from the selected slot into an inventory, or if no inventory is present, drop them into the world.

apemanzilla #111

apemanzilla's profile picture

1610 posts

Posted 28 April 2014 - 12:44 PM

Additionally, it is possible to "rename" the functions by adding a simple program to the autorun folder in the ROM.


turtle.take = turtle.suck
turtle.suck = nil

This would break all programs that attempt to use turtle.suck, however.

D35Per4d0 #112

D35Per4d0's profile picture

1 posts

Posted 29 April 2014 - 12:52 AM

I too have tried a few of the version, but am having no luck. When I run the initial setup file, it creates the first file from the table, but it doesn't populate it.
I get the following error when I run the script through an emulator:

ERROR: [string "input"]:7056: attempt to index global 'textutils' (a nil value)

I've tried troubleshooting the code myself to figure it out. I've got very little programming experience, none with LUA, but I am usually pretty good at figuring out how these work. I've tried adding some print commands to see where the program actually breaks. I have come up with a few possibilities.

#1:
I tried changing the textutils.unserialize line to textutils.serialize, which does extract the files and writes them, but all the \ lines in the contents causes further problems. This makes me think that the contents need to be serialized before they can be unserialized, but I didn't see anywhere that was taking place?

#2:
I've also read that this particular error can result when the file that attempting to be written is in the ROM folder, but I added a print line to display the directory that it is writing to, and it is showing up properly as swarm, even though there is no swarm directory actually being created.

Perhaps I am completely wrong and don't know what I am talking about, but this is all new to me and I'm just trying to piece it together. Any suggestions from the masters?

Draaven #113

Draaven's profile picture

5 posts

Posted 05 June 2014 - 10:34 PM

Hi, been losing quite a few turtles lately for some reason so I tracked a few down manually to see if any error messages were on them. I can use the tracker program to find them if I remove the chunk/spot loaders and disconnect/reconnect so that they reboot and talk to the mining boss.

Anyway the error on the workers is: parallel 22:turtle 22: too long without yielding.

Anyway to fix this?

Edited on 05 June 2014 - 09:10 PM

masterwai #114

masterwai's profile picture

4 posts

Posted 15 June 2014 - 05:57 PM

I have some problems with this Programm, my Interface doesnt reallly as it should, and when I tell the Boss to Deploy the Miners it doesnt do anything :(/> The Boss and the Miners have fuel and the boss also has the chests and chunk loaders.. can someone help me maybe?

Edited on 16 June 2014 - 01:25 PM

SyberSmoke #115

98 posts

Posted 17 June 2014 - 03:32 AM

I also hope that the OP fixes this, or some other skilled person can fork and fix this as it was one of my favorites.

masterwai #116

masterwai's profile picture

4 posts

Posted 17 June 2014 - 04:33 PM

Never mind my ComputerCraft was outdated.. it didnt even have advanced turtles :o/> Now I updated and its working fine :)/>

MineCraft9397 #117

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1 posts

Posted 26 June 2014 - 04:25 AM

Hi i recently tried to use your swarm program but none of my modpacks have chunk loaders or have the right forge loader to get the loaders so can you tell me whitch mod pack you use

Mjmac85 #118

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1 posts

Posted 28 June 2014 - 08:11 PM

Looking at the boss inventory this uses ender chests? Is there a more detailed user guide or setup somewhere? Do we need 1 enderchest per miner? Do they go to a central location?

HunterG22 #119

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7 posts

Posted 30 June 2014 - 09:32 PM

When I download the program and use setup it says "extracting: swarmsetup" and when I go to that program its blank? Any ideas?

SergeyS #120

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2 posts

Posted 02 July 2014 - 07:16 AM

HunterG22, on 30 June 2014 - 09:32 PM said:
When I download the program and use setup it says "extracting: swarmsetup" and when I go to that program its blank? Any ideas?

I've had same problem with Computercraft v1.63.
Here is the fixed 1.2a version: http://pastebin.com/XX1gKx8i

HunterG22 #121

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7 posts

Posted 02 July 2014 - 08:35 PM

Thanks now when its 100%done mining the chunk the boss tries to remove a chunk loader and gets miningBoss:893:expected string

SergeyS #122

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2 posts

Posted 03 July 2014 - 10:08 AM

HunterG22, on 02 July 2014 - 08:35 PM said:
Thanks now when its 100%done mining the chunk the boss tries to remove a chunk loader and gets miningBoss:893:expected string

Yeap, I've found and fixed this problem in Mining Swarm 1.3a. Here a pastebin: UDrg7R9r

If you prefer 1.2a version, tell me and I'll post fixed version.

HunterG22 #123

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7 posts

Posted 05 July 2014 - 03:29 AM

Everything works :D/> thanks a ton for the help.

masterwai #124

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4 posts

Posted 03 September 2014 - 04:28 PM

Hello there, first: THIS IS AWESOME! Everything works fine btw. I just have one Question: If i have like 10 different kinds of stone (underground biomes) and they all have the same id, but different meta data( is that called like this?) for example 544 ,544:1 ,544:4 and so on.. Do I need to add every single kind of stone as comparison for the turtles?

flaghacker #125

656 posts

Posted 03 September 2014 - 10:16 PM

masterwai, on 03 September 2014 - 04:28 PM said:
Hello there, first: THIS IS AWESOME! Everything works fine btw. I just have one Question: If i have like 10 different kinds of stone (underground biomes) and they all have the same id, but different meta data( is that called like this?) for example 544 ,544:1 ,544:4 and so on.. Do I need to add every single kind of stone as comparison for the turtles?

Yes.

Supershadow30 #126

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2 posts

Posted 17 September 2014 - 10:21 PM

Hello, I'm new here, and I'd like to use this program on my turtles. How do I install it?

masterwai #127

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4 posts

Posted 18 September 2014 - 07:57 PM

Just watch the first post :huh:/> I have another question.. do I need to use advanced turtles for this?

Dwayne Dibbley #128

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8 posts

Posted 28 September 2014 - 11:19 AM

Does this work with CC1.6.4 and MC1.7.10 ?

I have tried 1.2 and 1.3 but when calling setup i get

extracting: swarmsetup
Java exeception thrown

Thanks

jacobjlr #129

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1 posts

Posted 08 November 2014 - 10:57 PM

A follow up on Dwayne's question, by copying the extracted files from a previous world I can get it to work, however the boss will not pick up the miners.

Dwayne Dibbley #130

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8 posts

Posted 09 November 2014 - 02:55 PM

jacobjlr, on 08 November 2014 - 10:57 PM said:
A follow up on Dwayne's question, by copying the extracted files from a previous world I can get it to work, however the boss will not pick up the miners.

see post #122 for a working version by SergeyS for CC 1.64 MC 1.7.10

ValdemarGrange #131

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1 posts

Posted 10 November 2014 - 04:52 PM

Just an idea, but you could add monitor support for the status turtle. Very cool, i'm really impressed, nice work.

xlilcasper #132

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13 posts

Posted 11 December 2014 - 11:16 PM

I am unable to get monitor or terminal bridge glasses to work using SergeyS code for 1.7.10. Both the monitor and glasses just give a black screen. I do get the status on the advanced computer though.

Avarion #133

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29 posts

Posted 29 December 2014 - 01:43 PM

Each turtle keeps telling me it has no fuel and I should add some. But I've added a stack of charcoal to each inventory. What do I miss?

Avarion #134

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29 posts

Posted 29 December 2014 - 07:22 PM

Ok. Unlike some other programms I've tested I have to fuel each bot manually. Now its working.

Is there any way to specify a chest to drop the ores in? The bots just eject it when on ground level.

martijnenco #135

10 posts

Posted 29 December 2014 - 08:24 PM

Wohw! Incredibly done!

Me and a frend of me where writing nearly the same thing.. ..but we hitted a bug and stopped developing further.. ..But so far.. ..You have way and way better turtle management as far as they don't seem to smash each other or gett stuck by each other..
But our Gui looked way nicer of the master ^^

Looking forward to try this one out..
Keep it up!

Riyshn #136

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1 posts

Posted 07 January 2015 - 09:54 PM

Dwayne Dibbley, on 28 September 2014 - 11:19 AM said:
Does this work with CC1.6.4 and MC1.7.10 ?

I have tried 1.2 and 1.3 but when calling setup i get

extracting: swarmsetup
Java exeception thrown

Thanks

Getting the same problem here.

Dwayne Dibbley, on 09 November 2014 - 02:55 PM said:
see post #122 for a working version by SergeyS for CC 1.64 MC 1.7.10

That version starts to run, but it just sends a single turtle out and then up to the world limit, and the boss reports "miningBoss:818: attempt to compare nil with number"

nodar86 #137

3 posts

Posted 04 February 2015 - 09:16 PM

Hello,
could you possibly add an option for refilling railcraft anchors with enderpearls? (or whatever fuel they take) Because they retain their remaining time, but you cant pre-fill them.
i hope its possible

voidbreath #138

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6 posts

Posted 27 February 2015 - 07:45 AM

ok so im having an issue when i run "miningBoss" it prints the menu and current fuel and then errors out with mineAPIs:853: attempt to call nil. can anyone help me with this? CC1.5 in minecraft 1.4.7 (tekkit lite)

wakafanykai123 #139

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20 posts

Posted 28 February 2015 - 07:23 AM

Dang, the terminal glasses are not working. Tried putting it all around the computer.

Nonamenoob #140

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1 posts

Posted 26 April 2015 - 02:19 PM

Hello! I have to say, this program is Amazing, did you do this on your own?

Also, has development of this program stopped? If so, and you allow me, I would love to try and continue development of this program. (I don't have much programs to share to show experience, but I do have a team of friends who would help develop this with me)

It seems that a mass of bugs have formed since the new updates to CC, and that a few people have been trying to work to fix them.

Can you allow me (and my tiny team) to continue development?

Thanks.

mugsy888 #141

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10 posts

Posted 29 April 2015 - 02:36 PM

meh…

miningBoss
No such program

Xerxes #142

56 posts

Location SwitchCraft

Posted 14 May 2015 - 05:32 PM

I really enjoyed using this program, especially on multiplayer lol
Very useful. Thanks.

nodar86 #143

3 posts

Posted 14 October 2015 - 07:27 PM

There's one thing I cant understand:
How can it keep the chunks loaded with 2 spot loaders, I mean they load 1 chunk so turtles can move and build inside it, how can it place the second spot loader ona different chunk? :o/>

Could somebody fill me in on this? :D/>

Bomb Bloke #144

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7083 posts

Location Tasmania (AU)

Posted 14 October 2015 - 11:06 PM

Last I knew, if any turtle moves into an unloaded chunk, then that chunk will load to accommodate it.

The chunk loaders prevent these chunks from unloading when a player moves away from them.

apemanzilla #145

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1610 posts

Posted 14 October 2015 - 11:30 PM

nodar86, on 14 October 2015 - 07:27 PM said:
There's one thing I cant understand:
How can it keep the chunks loaded with 2 spot loaders, I mean they load 1 chunk so turtles can move and build inside it, how can it place the second spot loader ona different chunk? :o/>

Could somebody fill me in on this? :D/>

Bomb Bloke, on 14 October 2015 - 11:06 PM said:
Last I knew, if any turtle moves into an unloaded chunk, then that chunk will load to accommodate it.

The chunk loaders prevent these chunks from unloading when a player moves away from them.

If this weren't the case, the turtles could also stand on the edge of the chunk and place the spotloader into the next chunk.

nodar86 #146

3 posts

Posted 15 October 2015 - 02:13 PM

apemanzilla, on 14 October 2015 - 11:30 PM said:
nodar86, on 14 October 2015 - 07:27 PM said:
There's one thing I cant understand:
How can it keep the chunks loaded with 2 spot loaders, I mean they load 1 chunk so turtles can move and build inside it, how can it place the second spot loader ona different chunk? :o/>

Could somebody fill me in on this? :D/>
Bomb Bloke, on 14 October 2015 - 11:06 PM said:
Last I knew, if any turtle moves into an unloaded chunk, then that chunk will load to accommodate it.

The chunk loaders prevent these chunks from unloading when a player moves away from them.

If this weren't the case, the turtles could also stand on the edge of the chunk and place the spotloader into the next chunk.

Thanks, I run some tests and I found that the turtled did not load chunks they moved in (using DW20 1.7 btw) but they could place chunk loaders in the next chunk and then they could move forward

xeotrel2 #147

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1 posts

Posted 19 October 2015 - 06:05 PM

The setup program doesn't work for me. When I execute it, it says it extracted them, but then the files are empty.
Can you fix this? Because it looks awesome…

sahoahfoa #148

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1 posts

Posted 17 November 2015 - 04:13 AM

I'm going to take a look into why the files aren't extracting correctly. If anything I'll post pastebins of each file.

It seem he might have overlooked something before he sent it out. The textutils.unserialize function is unneeded on line 7056 as the "file contents" are just a multi-line strings. Here is a new pastebin with the aforementioned removal. http://pastebin.com/qGDuLaMp. Enjoy. I think I may fork this and work on issues that arise if the maintainer is gone.

11/19/15: Updated to incorporate SergeyS changes to prevent boss from crashing when it tries to pick up a chunkloader

Edited on 19 November 2015 - 11:38 PM