The deep miner

A deep miner is an ore source that never runs dry. In return it is big, needs a lot of power and does not stop by itself. A chip makes sure it only drills when that makes sense.

What it does#

The deep miner (StructureDeepMiner) drives its drill head down to bedrock and then produces dirty ore – according to the world data a stack of 10 or 11 pieces every 100 to 119 seconds. (The data say “10 to 12” and “100 to 120”, but the game's random generator never reaches the upper limit.) What is in the dirty ore depends on the site, for example iron, copper and silicon mixed. The centrifuge separates it into pure ores.

Readable are On, Power, Error, ExportCount, ImportCount and output slot 0.

Switching the drill on and off#

The motor spins up with On and down again with On 0. According to the game code it gains 1.5 revolutions per minute per tick up to 200, when switched off it loses 4 per tick. So a good minute passes until it is at full speed. Whoever switches it every second never drills properly. That is why the release needs a hysteresis.

Power and space#

The deep miner draws 500 W while it is on. It occupies a big block of about 4 × 7 × 2 metres in the small grid. According to the reference its kit comes from a tier 2 autolathe and costs steel, constantan, invar and electrum – do not plan it as your first mining.

Watching the output#

If the chute behind it is full, it can output nothing more and stops producing – but keeps spinning happily at 500 W. A long jam is therefore wasted power. The chip recognises it by the occupied output slot and switches off:

sgt jam count JAM
seqz tmp jam
and tmp tmp free
sbn MINER HASH("Bohrer") On tmp

As soon as the chute clears, the slot empties, the counter drops to 0 and the drill starts again.