Mining Turtles

[Danwatson]

Hey guys, I've been experimenting with mining turtles for the past hour now and there's one thing that's bothering me. Whenever I send my turtle off to excavate, he runs out of fuel and then gives the command 'waiting for fuel' at the drop of chest. Is there a way that I can automatically refill my turtle so I don't have to check back every half an hour or so? It would be cool if someone could answer my problem.

Thanks

 

[SlickSplit]

Write your own script, or fuel with a stack of lava/lithium cells.

 

[Dvidan]

You probely need to edit the "excavate" program to either check a chest nearby for fuel or have it send some kinda signal that it needs fuel.

 

[INCSlayer]

i have actually cheated and turned off fuel in the config file but beyond that you could possibly make a script that after digging a hole and returning to the chest with a full inventory it goes to a chest with fuel and takes some out and uses it to refuel and then goes back to mining

 

[FlukeSDS]

I power my turtles with charcoal which I have tons of due to converting all the wood from forestry farms into charcoal. So, what I would do is grab a couple stacks of charcoal place a stack in the turtle type refuel all then repeat until my fuel level is something like 50k. That should be good for a while lol.

Or you could write your own version of excavate that calculates how much the turtle will have to move and refuel itself based off that number before it begins it's mining.

 

[Tylor]

if you name a turtle (with "label set" command), then it will preserve fuel level even when picked up and re-placed. So, name it, feed it lots of lava and then use it as you see fit.

Also, default excavate is very ineffective, because it digs only one layer per pass, instead of three. So, you are better installing some better digging program from cc forum. I have one called "ex" in my lib here https://github.com/baturinsky/CCFun that you can use, but it can be somewhat buggy.

 

[damaged]

What I did was setup a gps system in the sky, then defined a refueling station (chest full of fuel), and a dumping chest, define its coordinates in the code, then each time my turtle starts a new line, it selects every slot and tries to refuel itself(you can eliminate this if wanted, this is a relic before I made the refuel station, but it can save travel time), it then checks for fuel level, if below a certain amount, it stores its current location, then it will travel to the refueling station, dock at junk chest, dump its load, move to refueling chest and dock, and suck up to load fuel, then continue where it left off.

 

[voidreality]

I find it best to use two different colored ender chests for maintenance. One with fuel in it, and one to dump items when turtle is full.

 

[lindyhopfan]

I find it best to use two different colored ender chests for maintenance. One with fuel in it, and one to dump items when turtle is full.

Interesting. So do you have the turtle carry both of these ender chests, plop down the fuel chest when running low on fuel, pull a bunch of fuel out of the chest, then pick up the chest again? Similarly, plopping down the items chests when running low on inventory space, waiting for a minute (while the items are pumped out at your main base), then picking up the chest again?

 

[Danwatson]

Thanks for all the possible solutions to my problem. The thing is I've never tried to code and I dont have much time to either, if someone could send me a script where the turtle auto-refills that would be great! Or any other solutions that do not involve me coding would still help

 

[INCSlayer]

I find it best to use two different colored ender chests for maintenance. One with fuel in it, and one to dump items when turtle is full.

remind me is the chunkloader for turtles in CC or is that misc peripherals? i have been playing on a 1.4.5 custom pack for awhile because if you can just put a chunkloader on the turtle then you could just send it off in a direction and it would just continue forever and ever and ever mining out the world for you

 

[DoctorCube]

Name him:
label set your-name-here -- Naming your turtle lets you keep scripts and fuel when you break him
Give him a ton of coal then
refuel all -- It will use ALL of the fuel you give him
then tell him to start digging
excavate ##

You could easily duplicate the existing excavate program and write this in.[DOUBLEPOST=1355778153][/DOUBLEPOST]

remind me is the chunkloader for turtles in CC or is that misc peripherals? i have been playing on a 1.4.5 custom pack for awhile because if you can just put a chunkloader on the turtle then you could just send it off in a direction and it would just continue forever and ever and ever mining out the world for you

Its in the perhipherals. I really hope that gets added by default, if not its easy enough to add. I'm almost done with a shaft mining turtle that does the hard work of a branch mine for me.

 

[CoderJ]

Interesting. So do you have the turtle carry both of these ender chests, plop down the fuel chest when running low on fuel, pull a bunch of fuel out of the chest, then pick up the chest again? Similarly, plopping down the items chests when running low on inventory space, waiting for a minute (while the items are pumped out at your main base), then picking up the chest again?

I do. It's not too hard to code in and it's an easier system than having him come back to a central station constantly.... between that and his BFF, chunk loader, I have a large area in my test age missing .

 

[wolvyn]

So im a newby to computer craft stuff.. ive got three turtles, a diskdrive, computer. I followed the link above to the stuff that tylor posted, but i dont understand how to get it onto my turtle. I tried to copy/paste it onto the turtle and onto the computer for that matter but it didnt copy all of the info.

All i want to do is have my turtles mine, defult tunnel is fine (though larger would be kinda handy) and drop things off at a chest when they fill up, and pick up fuel from second chest.

 

[Tylor]

Heh, installing programs is kind of sore spot for CC. Lots of way, none perfect.

If it's SSP, you can find "computer" folder in your save, and find there folder for your in-game computer and copy file there.

If it's SMP (and you are are not server admin), use pastebin, like this-
"pastebin get HZ9b5bVP ex"
pastebin is a program that downloads (or uploads) files from pastebin.com
But for this to work HTTP should be allowed in computercraft.cfg on server

If it's not SSP and http is turned off, there is also this program - http://www.computercraft.info/forum...py-your-solution-to-servers-without-http-api/

 

[Peppe]

I did two things to make turtles easier to use:
They will use and store stacks of fuel.
Redesign the basic programs to mine 3 blocks for each move. They only use fuel to move, not to mine or rotate. They rotate slow, so i like to just mine forward, move, mine up+down, mine forward.... etc.

So my tunnel program starts by just rising up one to eye level and mines a 3x1 tunnel of the length specified. Torches optional. Returns to start when done.

My excavate program is the same as the core one, but goings down 3 rows at a time, so it can mine up and down clearing 3* faster.

I made a room clearing programs to excavate a 3 high any size square room.

Programs:
Excavate Example

Spoiler

http://pastebin.com/dwUDaKXj

Square room is the excavate program with the down part of the main loop removed.

 

[wolvyn]

its on a smp, none of us have admin, so we dont get tempted to go creative or use op commands. HTTP is not allowed, as its being hosted on a real server that one of my guildies is hosting in his office.

o.0 did i read that correct that you can make turtles place torches as they clear out tunnels?

Not to be a pain, but could you give me an idiots guide to how to do this?

 

[Peppe]

To torch tunnels i used place down command as part of my tunnel script.

Turtles don't know what blocks they are holding, so the program assumes whatever is in slot 1 is the torches.

Programs:

Spoiler

3x1 mining tunnel with optional torch placement every 10 blocks
http://pastebin.com/gKbgBdeS

3 high square room clear
http://pastebin.com/ibCJwmng

Excavate
http://pastebin.com/dwUDaKXj

Works same as excavate, so it will unload whatever it mines back into a chest at the block it started. If it placed torches that run it won't unload the first slot. I usually run 3 in parallel to dig a 3x3 tunnel with the middle turtle placing torches.

Not super fool proof. It doesn't check for ground to place the torch on or check for torches mid cycle, so if it runs out of torches mid tunnel it will place whatever ends up in slot one for the rest.

After getting a few going they feel over powered for the cost, so i kinda stopped using them for mining and mainly just use them to carve out rooms/tedious jobs. Working on a programs to place floor+wall blocks to handle cleaning up my cave.

 

[wolvyn]

I see you programs, but my problem is I think that I have no clue how i physically give the program to the turtle?
Do i type that all out into the computer? Is there a youtube video that shows how to do this so i dont have waste ya alls time? Like the bee university?

 

[damaged]

I see you programs, but my problem is I think that I have no clue how i physically give the program to the turtle?
Do i type that all out into the computer? Is there a youtube video that shows how to do this so i dont have waste ya alls time? Like the bee university?

I highly recommend the following series:

http://youtube.com/user/BSGSamuel