Calculating harvester routes

[Jaofos]

So I'm sure someone a bit smarter than me has figured this stuff out already, but I'm wondering if there is a way to calculate the optimal number of harvesters required to move resources back to a colony?

Say I have the following setup:

System A -> (1 jump) -> System B -> (3 jumps) -> System C -> (4 jumps) -> Colony System

System A: +3550 CO/hr
System B: +1800 CO/hr
System C: +700 CO/hr

My setup includes small harvesters within the system funneling the resources to a single "hub" planet within the system. 1 (or sometimes 2) remote harvester for whenever the resources leave the system. So right now I have 1 Remote Harvester delivering resources from the hub in System A to the hub in System B, then 2 funneling those goods into System C, and 2 funneling the resources from the hub in C back to my Colony.

How could one calculate the optimal number of harvesters to funnel resources back to a colony without running partial cargo or having to have an idle harvester waiting on resources to respawn?

A couple of questions I asked myself trying to figure this out:

- What is the rate of travel between systems?
- Can harvesters make direct, diagonal jumps, or will they zig-zag?

Anybody else working on theorcrafting and want to share their findings?

[Noah David]

Harvesters take the shortest route... by first going diagonally towards the destination until they hit its X or Y axis, then they travel horizontally or vertically along the X or Y axis until they reach the destination.

So if Source is 0,0 and Destination is 3,10 the route would be...

0,0
1,1
2,2
3,3
3,4
3,5
3,6
3,7
3,8
3,9
3,10

Make sense?

[Jaofos]

Good information.

Is the rate of travel between systems static, or does the location within the system / planet of orbit effect the time it takes to jump out of the original system?

When landing in a system, does a harvester first land at the "default" landing square in the system grid, and then perform a second jump to the destination planet, etc?

Wonder if there is a way to accurately calculate the duration of the following actions of a ship on autopilot:

1) Origin departure (i.e., given the command when idle under player control)
2) Inter-system transit
3) Destination Arrival and Delivery / Source Arrival and Pickup

[AntiHaze]

Wonder if there is a way to accurately calculate the duration of the following actions of a ship on autopilot:

1) Origin departure (i.e., given the command when idle under player control)
2) Inter-system transit
3) Destination Arrival and Delivery / Source Arrival and Pickup

We've asked for ETA's for ships on autopilot and I think the devs are looking into adding that information to the display

[Leedot]

In the mean time if you read the description for the various resource gathering ships it should tell you what each ships optimal range is. Additionally the travel times for each ship per sector tile are as follows-

Small / Regular Harvestor - 4 min per sector tile.
Cargoship - 3 min per sector tile.
Freighter - 2.4 min per sector tile.

Also keep in mind that they all spending 30 seconds loading / unloading for each trip.

[Jaofos]

So.. napkin math time!

( 60 / ( (one_way_trip_tiles*2) * 4 + 1 ) ) * cargo_capacity = ore per hour per harvester (round trip)

So my partially upgraded remote harvester moving 4 tiles would be

(60 / ((4*2) * 4 + 1 )) * 1650 = 3000 ore per hour?

[Jaofos]

Hmm.. does the destination system count?

For example, a trip from 18.5 to 18.1, would it be like this:

1) 30 seconds to load cargo from source planet
2) 4 minute trip to 18.4
3) 4 minute trip to 18.3
4) 4 minute trip to 18.2
5) 4 minute trip to 18.1
6) 30 seconds to dock and unload

Or is there a step between 5 and 6 where the harvester lands in the system, and does it take 4 minutes to travel to the destination planet or is that all included in the 30 second unload window?

[Supamand]

Your math is fudged a little
4 tile trip with a harvester should give you around 300CO/hour at best

[Jaofos]

Your math is fudged a little
4 tile trip with a harvester should give you around 300CO/hour at best

Remote harvester, not a normal one? 300CO/hr seems quite low given my partially upgraded Remote Harvester can carry 1650CO in one trip.

[2pourdrummer]

I'm wondering if the regular ones are worth it for the short trips. I see it for longer trips but don't really see an advantage on shorter ones. But I haven't done any calculations to figure it out.