Tell every hold what it wants: storage and hauling
Published
In short: every storage has a setting for each type of goods, and your craft work by it. Gatherers drop their load where it’s welcome, and a Prospector set to Haul carries goods from a storage you want emptied to one that wants them. You set the rules once and the ore moves by itself. Numbers are placeholders.
At a glance
| Storages | a carrier, or a bunker with a hold |
| Settings | Accept, Collect, Clear, Refuse, per item type |
| Default | Accept |
| Stock target | the Keep button, K and Shift+K on a hold row, or the production screen |
| Change a setting | cargo screen (F2): click it, or A on a row |
| Gather or Haul | Shift+H, or the Haul column on the Work panel (F11) |
| Reach | one area only |
| At the start | Prospector 2, on Haul, beside the carrier |
The four settings
| Setting | Gatherers drop it here | Haulers |
|---|---|---|
| Refuse | no | never bring it here |
| Accept | yes | bring it here from Clear storages when no Collect storage takes it |
| Collect | yes | bring it here from Clear storages |
| Clear | yes, as a staging point | take it away to the nearest Collect storage, else the nearest Accept one |
Each item type has its own setting: ore, salvage, metal, water, rounds, rice, fuel, kits and the rest.
Gatherers
A gatherer unloads at the nearest storage that takes its load and has room. A Prospector comes down over a bunker to do it. If nowhere takes the load, it waits with a full hold and its status says why: “waiting: nowhere takes ore here”. It carries one kind a trip, and won’t pick a kind no storage there takes.
Stock targets
A storage can say how much it wants to keep of a raw good: ore, salvage, metal or water. On the cargo screen (F2) the Keep button steps through no limit, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 m³. K on a hold row of that good does the same, and Shift+K goes back. On the production screen (F12), clicking a chain’s output steps the same target.
- Targets take over. Once any storage in an area has a target for a good, gatherers work only to targets for it there. They unload only at storages with a target, up to it, and storages without one get none from gatherers. With no target anywhere, gatherers use the nearest storage with room.
- A trip takes what’s wanted, so one gatherer lands on the number.
- Met, it waits. Its status says “waiting: ore stocked”, and when the stock falls it goes back by itself for what’s missing.
- Several gatherers can overshoot by up to a load each: a load already on its way always goes in.
- Others respect them too: a bunker’s mining module, ground harvesters and haulers. Moves by hand on F2 and trade don’t.
The haul loop
- Fly to the nearest Clear storage holding something another storage will take.
- Load a hold-full of one type.
- Fly to the nearest storage taking it and unload.
- Go again.
With nothing to haul it waits, and says “waiting: nothing to haul”. Hurt, it goes to repair as a gatherer does.
Clear empties all of that type, even a carrier’s rounds. That’s your choice to make.
An example
Set the carrier to Clear ore and your bunker to Collect ore, and the hauler drains the carrier’s ore into the bunker, where a metal refinery can use it. A cargo hold on the bunker gives it more room.
What the settings don’t touch
You can still move goods by hand on F2. The machine shop still draws its ore, rounds and repairs still come out of the holds, and trading works as before.
More: work and gathering, bunkers.