Well, tanks are lighter. The ship without fuel its heavier ofc, but all the ice in generators weigh quite alot. A full large tank weigh close to 10 000kg's less with the same amount of fuel cause of all the ice in the generator.
Yeah not really. I mean the ice alone weighs very very heavily. Reactor fuel is very light compared to the amount of thrust you get from each kg of ice. You get literally 100 thousand times the thrust per kg of uranium, as you do from ice. Once you calculate ice-weight most designs become unfeasible or pale in comparison to uranium-based designs. I have found one (and only one) effective purpose for Oxy-generator-only hydrogen designs in atmosphere. And that's for dedicated Ice-lake miners, where the fuel is constantly refilling as you go. In space, or for getting to orbit, it's much more feasible ofc.
@@isaytheenay5961 Well, d'oh! Captain obvious 0_0 Whole point of hydrogen is to be low tier/emergency high output source of thrust. So basically something you use before obtaining uranium or in combat designs (in case of hydrogen only designs I don't see sense in putting reactor in it, if it is dead without hydrogen anyway). Use in miners is wasteful, if you do have access to alternative sources of energy. Interesting option is also to use them in rovers, as hydrogen refuel is fast so it could work for short range utility unit.
I really cant help but feel like the weight of the ice is being overlooked, especially in larger quantities. The weight of ice is just as heavy as stone, meaning that a full cargos worth of ice is equivalent to that of a full cargo of stone, and depending on the size of the container, and of coarse what inventory settings are in place, this could be significantly more than that of a hydrogen tank which has the same weight value empty as it does full. This is definitely something that you need to consider when working with ice and hydro tanks, and is definitely something i've had to work with while trying to push hydro power to its limits. I feel like a good balance between the two is extremely beneficial for *most* situations, as itll cut down on your total weight, while also providing a backup.
Sadly it's the only thing that actually allows the physics calculations to happen at close to real time most of the time. Because of the collisions that need to be worked out, if you're moving too fast there aren't enough physics ticks in a second to reliably make it so when you fly at a wall you explode, rather than sometimes missing that collision and have you sail straight on through :/
I was under the impression it was due to interactions with subgrids, specifically rotors and pistons. But, regardless, after playing KSP* where orbital velocity is ~ 25x the speed limit, not being able to exceed 100 m/s is... frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I still love SE, its just one of the "oooooh but I KNOW BETTER" kind of things that always gets me when I head to orbit. *which also isn't perfect, not by a long shot.
By the way, congratulations once again. Just like a true Space Engineer, your subscriber rate is skyrocketing. it was only a few days back that I was watching the count get up to 1,000 subs and here you are flying past the 2k mark with ease. Outstanding job mate. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much Mick :) I will admit, this has happened soooo much faster than I ever thought possible, I had this grand plan back in July where I would be super excited if I reached 2000 by new years... It's awesome having people like yourself who've been around and commenting since the beginning (even though it's only been a few months)
2.4K and rising. Its nothing less than you deserve mate. The fact is, you are providing content that the viewers want to see. That is always a winner in my books.
Damn, you're making me blush ;) I got a bit lucky with it too, I saw a big hole where there used to be tutorials for Space Engineers at around the time the new UI was done, I didn't want new players to be scared away from the game by its learning curve so I figured I'd make something to help, having learnt how to edit while playing around making machinima - I'm pretty excited by how well that little decision has gone :)
When i was planning on leaving earth for the first time, i did a burn test on the thrusters; at that time, 1 full small-grid tank fueled a large thruster at full override for exactly 30 seconds. My approach was always to have enough tanks for 1 round trip, and then add one or two generators to refill in times where the thrusters were not on full throttle to enhance the flight time to a maximum. I imagine on large large grids this will be even more important, as you'd need dozens of generators to run all the large thrusters just to produce the minimum required thrust.
I think that's a great way to set things up, have the tanks ready for when you need that boost and use the generators to refill in the other times. Completely agree with you on the large ships as well, they would require silly amounts of generators :P
Same, I was curious at the time though if it was possible and indeed practical to go it without tanks at all. Turns out it is, but only if you're playing with high inventory multipliers which is something useful for I guess :P
Hydrogen in a hydrogen tank has no mass (in the game). Ice DEFINITELY has mass. You will need multiple oxygen generators to replace one hydrogen tank. The thrust to mass ratio will suck. Going without a hydrogen tank only makes sense outside of natural gravity. Even in that situation, it functions more as a pulse jet rather than as a sustained amount of force.
Actually, as the testing here showed, your thoughts are right when it comes to large grids, but small grids the tanks are so incredibly heavy that you need more than 2 tanks worth of ice (only true at x10 inventory, on realistic this will not be the case) to even match the same weight, that's why the small grid ships with tanks dropped out of the sky first. Each pair was loaded with identical amounts of ice, the tanks were filled with that ice then the generators removed from those ships, the two on the right had almost completely full tanks and still couldn't get even near the same duration of flight.
Hydrogen thrusters don’t actually use fuel while idle, the ice that was being used up was cause the O2 H2 generator was making oxygen for you to breath (since you are in survival).
Maybe I can... I've just been playing through a survival game and whenever I come up with a design decision point I try to think if there's something that I don't really understand about it, I guess we might have a similar approach :)
I wonder if a single tank for flow plus multiple generators is better than multiple tanks. Maybe test the large block 2 tanks vs 1 tank/1 generator. PS - thanks for doing these vids, I have learned alot of game mechanics from them.
This, and I'd also like to see a large grid comparison of a tank vs. many generators as you can pack into a 3x3x3 grid (with small cargo in place of conveyor junctions). Categories: total mass of the generators/cargo (loaded vs. unloaded, then compared to the tank), fuel density, and max thrust output of the generator setup.
That's an interesting point, there would definitely be value in having a single tank in any setup, so that you have a fuel guage on your HUD, but if you're generating enough fuel for all your thrusters to work at full power then the tank would only be useful for that. In the situation where you don't quite cover all your thrust needs but you only need to go at max power for short bursts then having a tank and 'just enough' generators would work really nicely :) It could be interesting to test, at the time I was running through these I did think about space requirements, but didn't think to compare them directly, could get some interesting results...
Yeah, just like with electricity. Batteries on automatic mode that recharge from excess power in times of low demand, and which can kick in to deliver the juice when the reactor doesn't fulfill demand.
The big advantage of using a small grid tank along side generators is that it acts as a buffer. This allows you to reduce the number of generators and still have full thrust for short periods.
The advantage of the multiple Generators is that they allow for extended flight time/travel distance. For example, once a tank is filled, a small grid generator will store 27kg of ice, which is enough to refill the tank about 1.5 times. In effect it is more than doubling the flight time/distance.
You may also want to take note that oxygen generators consume power. In the final test between the two remaining small grid ships, the tank ship could run for 6 years, whilst the generator ship could run for 42 days.
Good point and something to be aware of even though I suspect the amount of uranium needed will be such a small amount that you'd be unlikely to see a difference :)
Splitsie In times of scarcity it can mean the difference between being stranded in space or dropping out of the sky. I tend to use batteries in my hydrogen ships (for which I primarily use tanks) and often as few as one. I predict were I to switch to generators, those ships might become dependent on uranium where they were not previously. Or, if you're dedicated to renewable energy, you might need to come up with solutions to the slow charge speed of batteries as I have in some of my builds. In either case, it's something think about if you like to engineer your builds to operate in specific parameters: like not having a surplus of power, or never red-lining your thrusters.
It’s these kind of videos that actually teach me about the game that make me glad I decided to support you on Patreon. You do a lot of hard work and put out outstanding content. Watching other Space Engineers channels after this one is a bit of a let down.
Yes the generators won on the small ship, but keep in mind that the hydro tanks do not get any extra weight when fully filled. so try the same test with the twin tank ship with both tanks filled up and enough ice to make both the tanked and untanked versions weigh the same. in that case, the ones with the tanks just might win.
The ship with 2 tanks was filled to 90% capacity, 16,000kg of ice went into each of the last pair of small ships, in that one the generators won by an even larger amount. If the generators can provide enough fuel per second, on small grids they seem to be the way to go - if you don't mind not having a fuel guage...
Ooh thanks for this. I was wondering how to get my small hydrogen ship smaller so I wouldn't have to keep rebuilding the hydrogen tank due to bad flight skills. I'd also like to thank you for the rest of your tutorials, the first two really helped me to start playing this game after owning it for a while with no idea what to do. Thanks!
You're very welcome :) I'm always happy to hear when these tutorials have proven useful in getting people to be able to enjoy a game I've enjoyed for so long
Have you tested the hydrogen thruster idle fuel consumption in creative? Just wondering if it was the character oxygen replenishment driving that ice usage.
Hmmm.... I forgot that you use oxygen in a cockpit even with your helmet closed! I just tested it and you don't use hydrogen when your landing gear are locked, but will at any other time - even when I turned off the lifting thrusters while sitting in an open seat on the top of a small ship. I wish I'd realised this at the time! Thanks :)
I've been using the generators in a similar manner to small reactors on my ships-the generator is used to refill the tanks partially when I start pulsing the hydrogen thrusters.
Yeah, I see it like the battery/reactor system or like the tank is a capacitor. Nice for holding fuel for when you need a boost, but doesn't quite have the longevity to be your only fuel source
Generally i only build hydrogen because for two reasons. 1. I can fly in atmosphere and in space without having to switch from atmo to ion thrusters (as you'll need both to do that). And 2. MORE POWWEEEERR!!!
Oh and i use tanks as main fuel supply and o2/h2 generators for refueling tanks in a pinch. That in combination with 3 hydro power generators you can actually build a relative small vessel with alot of power. Have one in the workshop by the name of GRXT20 Jumpship. A hydrogen powered ship with 9 jumpdrives. Gonna build it in my new game on earth cause i never flew it into atmosphere
I'd agree that's the right way to go, have a generator for 'just in case' but otherwise just use fuel tanks especially since the recent hydrogen rebalance that came with the wasteland update
Your videos are gold. I love these experiment videos. My only complaint is you talk a tad slow for me to stay engaged. Not that it really matters. I watch the vids anyways lol
kiselina oh yeah that what I do. I have oxygen generator going into hydrogen tank. And I think it’s better to have more hydrogen tanks then oxygen generators.
With a _lot_ of work, it would be possible to profile the performance of all the propulsion systems in Space Engineers, then write a script that factors in all of the thrusters installed on a ship (atmo, ion, hydrogen) , plus all of the available energy capacity for those thrusters (battery, nuclear, ice + gen, tanks), looks at your position in terms of real gravity and atmosphere (ie: planet, space), then gives you the most efficient combination of hybrid thrust in any given situation. Massive props to anyone who could pull this off!
Thanks for continuing to post these vids. I think you may have some testing issues with the small merged ships. In order to compare accurately, you'd need each ship to weigh the same. Same amount of conveyors/thrusters etc, even if they arent fed by Hydro. Cheers man, keep up the good work! Your engineer's mass is added to the ship when you get in the cockpit, that's why the small ship dropped when you got in and hovered when you got out.
You're welcome :) I didn't want the ships to weigh the same, the only difference in weight between the ships is because of having a tank or having a generator. The core of the ships are identical, same number of connectors, thrusters etc. So both get the same amount of fuel, one converts it into a tank and the other remains as ice. I think that's a more realistic comparison between the two rather than artificially balancing their mass. Good point about the engineer, though all the tests ended the same or with enough margin that my hopping in and out didn't make any difference to the outcome thankfully :)
Another great video splitsie. I wonder if there is a way to make a 3 stage rocket with this idea.when the hydrogen runs out it departs and the next rocket starts
Nice one. Hydrogen Tanks are the mechanical versions of Bagpipes. They keep the output constant while the input is sporadic. In my quest to use tugs with merge blocks, rather than build a cockpit for every ship, I have had success with two earth-based tugs that run purely on Hydrogen Thrusters getting their power from Oxygen Generators. (The second one is a large grid tug, which I have yet to test in Survival mode. It works, but I’m not sure that it can carry enough ice to do the job.) The beauty of using the tug system is that the tugs can be kept small because the main body carries all of the power and lift capabilities, while the tug itself needs only enough power to move around and connect. Once connected, the tug provides the command and control required to fly the ship. Employing this method, I built a largish small grid cargo ship that I was able to get into space and park, then fly the tug back to earth. I wasn’t sure if I could get the tug back safely as it barely has enough lift to move around slowly at the earth base. But, by pointing it in the right direction and letting inertia and gravity do their thing, I was able to get it down to the point where it could eventually hover and then very gently eased it down to land. Tip for numpties like me. On the Earth like planet, be sure to turn off your Vent before trying to use a Generator only vessel it the system is connected to your cockpit. If you don’t, most of the gasses generated will disappear out through the vent.
21:30 If you do this test again you might want to put another pair of merge blocks with maybe some light armor as a spacer between the test ships so when one of the test units falls it will not bump the others. when you unlock the spacer blocks would fall away m = Merge Block a = light armor [S#] = Test Ship m[S1]mmaaamm[S2]mmaaamm[S3]m
once you reach 100mps the weight doesnt matter i think, since they are applying the same thrust(315kn). but the faster you reach that top speed the further you will reach.
But two ship doesn't weight the same. E.g at 6:00 the ship with the tank weights 12.4 tons but the one with the generator weights 19.5 tons; is it possible it falls because it weight too much?
That's intentional, the tanks weigh less when having the amount of hydrogen in them that the other ship has to carry as ice. Things are even more in favour of the tanks these days as the generators produce fuel more slowly now
This is a great demo. I just build a small class hydrogen vessel and i used a combination of tanks and gens, but this does show that i am overdoing it on the tanks by a lot a lot. time to hit the redesigns again, but you have given me a couple of great tips.
Thanks, I'm glad they've been useful. Just remember, if you're on x1 inventory I'd stick with the tanks over the generators as these tests were all done on x10 to give the generator a helping hand :)
I wanted to comment on something in the beginning of the video for hydrogen thrusters using ice during idle. You are in a cockpit with the helmet off, which requires oxygen. Just a quick note. But I love your channel btw
I'm probably going to stay away from testing mods for the time being, the main reason is that they change a fair bit. However, I am going to keep doing occasional videos highlighting the most useful mods and why they're useful so some of the small hydrogen tank mods are almost certainly going to make their way into one of those at some point :)
thanks for posting this! this still makes me conclude that hydro tanks and icegens need to be a system. BUT! icegens can sustain light small block craft.
One question, go merge blocks transfer power when they merger? Like, would the batteries on one grid fill up from power sources on another merged grid?
Inertial dampeners were still on. Those engines were trying to fight against gravity still. I'm wondering if you land that test ship flat, leave the landing gear off, but turn inertial dampeners off as well, would it still be burning hydro.
@@Splitsie Ahhhhh yeah I didn't even think of that. Could be! My intuition though is that one player would take hours to use up enough oxygen for even 1% ice loss. Now that's got me wondering exactly how many units of ice a player character breathing uses per minute. THAT would be an interesting test. I'm also curious if it's even remotely viable to build a ship without any hydrogen tanks at all, but enough O2 generators to just-in-time-manufacture all the hydro you need. As in, if that would scale. If a large warship could do that, or if the number of O2 gennys it would take, would end up being more mass than any benefit you get out of them.
How comviniently timed, I was just last night modifying a fighter to run on hydrogen but I didn't have the space for a tank so I used generators as they fit in the same space it's previously installed batteries were. The thing about inventory size I hadn't considered though, and I may have to reevaluate the design.
It's certainly handy that the generators and batteries have the same footprint, for a small ship if you've got a few generators the performance might be good enough, but for a fighter not knowing if you're about to run out of fuel would terrify me...
Splitsie I think the trick to that is a script based LCD readout if there's anyplace to mount that in cockpit view. In my case I was working on a relatively short range fighter for carrier deployment so fuel wasn't my primary concern, I certainly wouldn't want to take it on any long haul trips on low inventory settings!
Ah yes, of course! If you put that on an LCD that would fix a lot of the problems - until the LCD gets shot off and then you fly by the seat of your pants! :D
When you need is to have both since the tanks can hold more of it and make it lighter that's good for long distance travel but once it runs out your kind of screwed but if you have an O2 generator on it and you find ice then you're good
If you are in creative or have creative tools enabled in the spacemaster menu, you can spectate with F8 then press ctrl+space to teleport to the spectator camera :)
splitsie with the 2 generators added you had the same amount of fuel but the problem is they ran at the same time only giving you the thrust time of 10 ice if you know what mean. your bottle neck was the flow rate wich is why you halved it but that also halved your potential thrust time therfore also halving your fuel in a sense.
I'd absolutely recommend both, but that wasn't going to be a fun comparison ;) I looked at the two extremes here to try to get a better feel of where the sweet spot in the middle would lie
What about a small grid tank, low mass, in a large grid ship for high flow thrust and generators to refill tanks when high flow is not needed and for normal use for long trips between fueling.
That would work, the trouble would be the weird flight when you have subgrids. Another thing to note is that the balance of these has changed since the recent survival update, generators produce even less fuel and tanks hold more, so there would be even fewer situations where the generator and ice setup has an advantage
I'm pretty fortunate with my build, so I usually run with everything on high in 1440p, but unless I'm barely moving around I still can't run with voxels on extreme :P
Splitsie Ty i just got the game and with a mid computer on medium settings i run it decently. After finishing the campaing i dont know waht to do in the game. Any tips?
I made a series of beginner tutorials that goes through how I start out a survival game and finishes with building a large grid ship that can travel from planet to space. Once you've learned how to do that much the game is pretty much a sandbox where you can try to make whatever you can imagine :) Set your own challenges, and with multiplayer working you can join in with some others build something epic together
Do you mean comparing small grid to large grid? I wonder if I could get something to work reliably using rotors to attach large ship drills to a small ship...
That too, but I was thinking of is putting drills next to each other (X is a drill, = is a conveyors etc) XXX Vs X=X=X can you mine a wider area with less resources or do you have to have them next to each other to smoothly clear area. Large drill on small ship using rotors..... Thats an intresting idea !
May I ask something, if you have ice in a container that’s connected to a hydrogen tank and generator, would it be converted to hydrogen gas and used in thrusters??
(14:20) You do not have half the fuel in each generator. You have fuel fuel in each. You have half the fuel you would have needed to get half the fuel from one and add it to the other one. Instead you took the ice from the cargo to fill the second generator
In my opinion, hydrogen is only really useful for transitioning from planet to space and vice versa so I've never given it much thought. I much prefer the more renewable, passive sources of energy.
Another stellar video! I wonder if you had small-ish cargo ship, would it benefit from having both generator and a tank? Using the generator when the ship is empty, albeit slower. Then use the tank when the ship is loaded up and needs more power.
I'd be curious to see how well this stands up to the test of time. In part because of changes in the past two years, and in part because I'd personally be curious to see how a hydrogen engine powering ion or atmo thrusters would fair over the straight hydrogen thrusters. I'd assume the extra effort for the engine and electric thrusters would prove superior, without as many of the shortfalls of EITHER just tank, or just generator options as presented here.
The adjustments to the game since this was done have made tanks even more superior to carrying ice as the efficiency of the generators has been reduced. Not sure about atmo vs hydrogen though
@@Splitsie Considering the wiki says you are getting about 3 times the energy out of the same amount of hydrogen by running it through an engine compared to using it in the thrusters, it may well prove a rival! Edit: Though looking at the wiki, I also didn't realize the atmospheric thrusters were quite as heavy as they are, so perhaps it may not end so well for them either.
I might do something like that in the future, could be something useful when I finally get around to doing a bit of a more in depth survival series so everyone can watch me fail in ways that might help them learn :)
This is the kind of a test where you really want a handful of numbers to rub against each other. According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Thruster a small large grid hydrogen thruster uses up 1092.5 units of hydrogen per second. According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Oxygen_Generator a large grid oxygen generator can produce 501 units of hydrogen per second. This means you need a little bit more than two generators per thruster to burn it at full power. With small grid, the numbers are correspondinly 109.2 and 166. This matches your results. It should be possible to come up with a formula to find the best solution for each use case.
Nice to know my tests came close to those results :) In some ways I like to go into these tests blind and just see what happens, but in this case being able to use the numbers to explain why might have actually been useful... oops :P
I loaded the game in survival then enabled creative mode through the alt+f10 menu. With that your hydrogen still gets consumed but the player doesn't actually need it for their jetpack
Just now seeing this vid, and I had a question--which I'll likely check myself in a bit lol. Once the ice is converted to Hydrogen, do does the grid's weight change? Do the tanks weight the same full as empty? [and do large and small grid H2 gens convert at the same rate?] I theorize the large grid w/ tank [holding 200k ice converted to hydrogen] is lighter than the large grid with 200K /unconverted/ ice in twin O2/H2 gens.
The tanks are exactly the same mass empty or full last I checked so the advantage you get in mass with the generators is all thanks to the dry tank being so heavy (it's also why I had to use x10 inventory to make the competition interesting) :)
Another question if I may. I have recently started a new game and decided to start on the Alien planet (I like a challenge). My oxygen level always reads as low, even when my helmet is closed and my tanks are full. Is this normal? I checked out the Wiki which states that the atmosphere has some oxygen and is breathable, just. but makes no mention of the permanent low oxygen reading. I tried removing my helmet and found the air not to be breathable at all.
My understanding of the oxygen reading is that it will give you how much is in the volume of gas your character is in. So it will still be telling you about the atmosphere even with your helmet closed so that you can know if it's safe to open it :)
Also with the bit about losing health, there are degrees of low atmoshpere, if it's low enough you should be able to use a vent to collect oxygen (albeit slowly) but might not be able to breathe the same air if that makes sense.
redo the hydrogen thruster idle consumption test with a tank instead of Oxygen generator. I've noticed a cockpit attached to an oxygen generator will consume power and ice continually, even though there's nothing to be done. I think it is running to "maintain" the cockpit atmosphere.
That's an interesting thought. I'm glad you brought it up, when I have a look at revisiting a test I go through all the video comments to try and address anything I missed the first time, so when I come back to oxygen generators I'll make sure I test this out :)
I have 16 hydrogen tanks in my largest ship, and 14 H2 generators, but I would only use the generators in an emergency, if I run low on hydrogen. (I also carry a small mining ship inside the main hangar, so I can mine ice anywhere) With 10 large thrusters, even at 6.2 mill KG, the ship can land and depart with 1g of gravity, and still have a lot of fuel remaining. With a jump setup, you really don't use a lot of hydrogen anyway. Plus, I simply refuel the ship at my space station, where I keep 30 generators and 60 H2 tanks, and enough ice capacity to completely refill it all. lol Go big! :D
I just mean using a fixed position test rig; landing gear, battery, o2generator or h2tank and a thruster, set them both to the same override and see which one runs out 1st
I hope they have too, I like playing in survival too much to use exploit mechanics, I want challenge! Though if the game allows it, then who am I to say it's wrong if that's what you want to do? :)
I'm definitely late to this, but you must also consider sizing, the tanks are huge and can't fit everywhere, you could place generators anywhere you could easily place your conveyor lines without sacrificing a lot of space for a tank.
ice to hydrogen ratio for small grid is only 1:2, but is 1:3 for large grid :) inventory settings also change things, as this setting alters the the ships mass calculation for inventory items. On 10x inventory, 10,000Kg (10,000 units) of ice in an inventory only has 1000kg mass for when this is added to the ships mass
I don't understand why should you be able to lift more mass on *10 ? Let's say I have a container with 1000 volume of ice. on realistic setting, the container will only have 100 volume. Also if you fill a cargo with platinum, they will weight the same.
The reason they changed those mass calculations mostly comes down to people wanting to get blueprints off the workshop. When they first introduced cargo adding mass to your ship they didn't have the adjustment factor. This meant that if you downloaded a ship that was made for x1 and used it on a x10 world things would rarely work because you'd quickly overload the thrusters. If they didn't put a correction factor in you'd have to have 3 separate workshop categories, one each for x1, x3 and x10 which would not be good in general. Anything that divides a community is usually a pretty bad idea, so although it seems odd, the reasoning keen used is pretty sound (in my opinion anyway). Also I didn't realise you get better conversion rates with large grid generators, that puts a small pro in favour of your small ships having tanks and refilling from a base - though ice is so plentiful it might not really matter :P
The way that Oxygen generators work hasn't changed, so it's most likely that there's something wrong with the conveyor system. Check to make sure all the conveyors are lined up properly and if they are it may be a bug that's been more common in recent versions, if that's the case it can sometimes be fixed by turning the ship off then on again with 'Y'
To really maximize the efficiency of small grid gen based systems, add an ejector with a timer or switch. The small amount of ice lost will be offset by the efficiency gains from recalculating the grid mass.
Yep. By ejecting a small amount of inventory every so often, it forces the UI to update the total mass of the grid. Whether this actually reflects on grid calculations is an uncertainty. IIRC, the same thing happens if inventory passes between the ship inventory and your personal inventory.
This would explain why my mining vessel wouldn't run on hydrogen tanks lol. Small to maybe even medium sized ships. Would be better running off of a generator. Larger ships definitely off of Tanks. What about a ship that has both tanks and generators? 🤔 They're actually could be a purpose for this. If you have a Dropship that needs to function in both space and within the planet's atmosphere. Really big ships probably not very practical but one potential problem is with Fighters. Clearly generators have the advantage for longevity. But where thrust and longevity need to co-exist might be harder to do. As a real world scenario let's take an F-16 fighter for instance. Which has the speed and maneuverability. But not necessarily the fuel for long missions. Could we create a scenario where we have both and still function? 🤔 Loved this!! :b
I use a combination, I have one tank and two generators leading into it (A separate generator for air inside the ship), This leads into two large thrusters, with this I can launch a fully equipped jump capable mobile air base from any planet, with plenty spare fuel for travelling too and from numerous planets, moons, this also includes an autonomous mining ship for gathering supplies from asteroids and planets, just a few simply changes to make to it but I'm pleased with the results.
A mixture of both is definitely more versatile and has always been my preference. Though doing this comparison has helped me get a clearer idea of which mix is going to work best for any particular vehicle so I'm glad I spent the time messing about :)
I went through a lot of different amounts of thrusters and configurations, eventually I figured I was just adding more and more weight for the sake of it and stripped them right down and used half armour blocks instead of full. Can't take a hit but can jump 2000km lol
Video is old as hell at this point but something to note as of the last update. Tanks now explode if they have enough gas in them when they he 0hp. So now you need more armor to protect tanks or at least firewall them from other components, mitigating the weight benefit. I do use a lot of hydrogen when building, frequently 100% hydrogen thrust but it hasn't hindered me to much as I will normally make redundant conveyor tube pathways. But in terms of generator vs tanks, tanks will always be the bulk of my fuel generators there is a number of them on the ships based on how many tanks it has (I don't have a set %), but basically every hydrogen ship I build needs a fuel depo to refuel at that has a lot of generators and tank farm for rapid refueling, but the generators on the ship are there for "I'm a dumb ass" moments of not paying attention to fuel being able to trickle fuel it at a moon, a roid, or w/e you are stuck.
hi mate im still relativly new to space enginners, but im having a lot of problems with hydrogen. 1 i dont have oxegen generator, i have the 02/hydrogen generater and hydrogen generator. 2 I do produce liquid hydrogen, is that the same ...and it wont go into a hydrogen tank. 3 my o2/hydrogen gen produces liquid hydrogen and oxegen is there a way to instruct it to produce only one.
Keen renamed the generator, so the oxygen generator and o2/h2 are the same block :) If you've got a generator attached via conveyors to a tank and there aren't any thrusters using up the hydrogen you're making then with all default settings the tank will fill, though it will take a LOT of ice to do this (have a look at the tank in the control panel for a more specific load, as it'll show a percent filled in the lower right). If you've got both oxygen and hydrogen tanks attached it'll make both until either one is full, if you turn off one of the tanks then none of that gas will be produced, completely unrealistic but that's how it works :P Also note, when people are talking tanks, they're talking the big ones that are part of the grid, the smaller things that can fit into your player inventory are bottles (I'm hoping I haven't messed that up in my tutorials, but I know I've mixed the two when talking in my survival series)
Splitsie Yeah that makes sense..it just I had some mods installed one specifically that uses ice to gen liquid hydrogen and oxygen .. but then uses the hydrogen to make superfluid helium ..my main thing was when I looked at tanks there was nothing in there ..but I realised the other day the gas does not show up anywere exempt in the percentage fill level but thanks for the arification
Yeah but how many thrusters (of small or large) can one generator run at full power? This is important for the weight to ship calculations because you could make a "Thruster pack" equation. I.E. G+T=P (G=# of Generators) (T=# of Thrusters) (P=Total weight this pack could move at full load)
To quote Nethan2000 who replied earlier: "According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Thruster a small large grid hydrogen thruster uses up 1092.5 units of hydrogen per second. According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Oxygen_Generator a large grid oxygen generator can produce 501 units of hydrogen per second. This means you need a little bit more than two generators per thruster to burn it at full power. With small grid, the numbers are correspondinly 109.2 and 166. This matches your results. It should be possible to come up with a formula to find the best solution for each use case." So you could plug those numbers in quite neatly if you add in the information about how many Nm of force the thrusters can generate :)
Im curious if i should make my planet miners powered by hydrogen cause with atmospheric ones i never have enough power to lift up a miner that has like 500k units of ore in them.
I've built a hydrogen powered miner before, but the trouble with them is that they end up very bulky and while they can lift a lot, they also run out of fuel quite quickly. A hybrid might be an option though, so you only use you hydrogen once the atmospherics are at capacity, and not needing any hydrogen for the trip to the mine would help give you a longer flight time... though again that would still be bulky but maybe not as bad
Great idea, i will make it today and just manualy switch to hydrogen trust when my ship gets over its max weight for atmospheric ones so i can get back home safe.
I think it should also be worth pointing out that a tank takes up a lot more space than a generator. You could essential replace 1 tank with three generators on a small grid and even more on a large grid. Me I mostly use generators but I'll stick one or two tanks on a ship so I can get an idea of how much I have left from the HUD rather than going into the terminal to see.
Since these tests they've reduced the output of generators considerably so I would sincerely doubt there's ever a real advantage to having loads of generators on something that needs to fly inside a planet's gravity well. Tanks will always outperform them in terms of power to weight and efficiency. Even back when this was made the generators only really stood a chance on x10 inventory settings (which all the tests were performed at)
Flaw in your comparison at 6:16 I think.... You disengaged the merge block,, one is now alone, the one that fell, has a bunch of blocks attached to it the other doesn't mirror/ Which I presume includes MOST of the atmospheric thrusters and at minimum other 16 blocks, plus the merge block. Since this means it has more mass, it isn't a fair comparison. Even if every single block extra amounted to only 1% of its total mass, you would be looking at a minimum of 17% more mass on one than the other, if they are both equipped with the same exact thruster configuration, the one carrying the extra blocks has more mass from structural blocks. (including the merge block it was left holding) Placing an undue bias on that unit. If you add mass to one over the other, the thrusters need to produce additional thrust to maintain or gain altitude. (I can put on a 15kg backpack and stand here all day, but you put a 50kg backpack on me, I'm going to need to set it down from time to time) The LOGICAL approach, would be yes, have a tank, but bring a generator. The generator produces fuel, from ice, and can run at full processing speed to fill the tank. Let the tank have a short time to fill sufficiently for launch (or load from outside) and then the generator makes more fuel as your tank empties. Short answer for *launch* tanks win. But consider the mass to carry for a 24 to 96 hour in space operation? (especially since the tank only approach won't have oxygen resupply, just whatever you packed on board before launch) Carrying the ice and a single generator into space makes sense, but to achieve orbit you're going to need a tank, or an overabundance of ice and generators.
Some extra information with maths/simple stoichiometry involved in case you might be scared with number (pray I didn't stuff up calculations and units... lol) Ice will have the upper hand as the amount of H2 stored in a large cargo block is greater than what can be hold in a H2 tank. This is true for ALL cargo modifiers (x1 upto x10 and anymore above). Since cargo space is the same size as a H2 tank, 3x3x3, not including O2 generators size or amount they can hold, we will compare the 2 H2 tank holds a static 2,500,000 L, where large Cargo holds 421875*10 L under x10 (I will use standard cargo space for simple sake and convert when need to). 1 kg of ice = 9 H2 (O2 generators seem to have very poor yield rates since 1kg of ice, with water having a Molar mass of 18g.mol^-1 should produce 55 moles but I'm gonna say it is for balancing reasons) Large cargo under normal cargo limits can hold 1,137,129 kg of ice, which means it can hold 10,234,161 potential amounts of H2. I can not find any details on the units for this number so I am gonna assume it to be litres. 10,234,161 vs 2,500,00 L is quite a difference and if you make it x10 storage, you can make enough H2 to put the Hindenburg to shame. I have left a lot of things out like ice generators storage as well grid space but we can assume they won't effect the outcome much, even if there is 6 generators and a large cargo block against 2 H2 tanks, there is more H2 overall in the generators. Do note, it is a hell load more to push around than just a H2 tank. So what would be the best thing to do?... gfycat.com/gifs/detail/FarflungLastCygnet Still, don't disregard what Splitsie said, defiantly a really good video. Keep up the good work mate, loving the content!
Love the Old el paso commercial - applicable to so many things... especially in Space Engineers: batteries and generators, O2 gens and tanks, ion, hydrogen and atmospheric thrusters the list goes on :) Glad you're enjoying the content, I hadn't even thought about how inefficient the oxygen generator is for balancing reasons - thanks for taking me back to my organic chemistry days :P
XD it is interesting how different some blocks are when you change inventory settings isn't it? And what that other dude was saying in the comments about the energy density of ice was an excellent point. What I don't like about the inventory and tool handicap settings is that they disincentivise people to build things! Why bother with a mining ship or cargo rover early game when your dude can lug 4 tonnes in his tardis - i mean backpack? Why build a grinding or welding ship when your character has a wizard tool that does it all???
Lol, I agree. I tend to play on x3 just because in find the realistic suit size so small that the million trips down my first mine shafts get the better of me :P Hopefully they'll change the way it works so you can adjust suit size separately as I like designing ships for realistic inventory, until then someone linked a mod that does this so I might start using it :)
Has anyone figured out how to refill a fuel tank made of SMALL parts? It seems this area of functionality is completely broken - connectors do not appear to work with smaller H2 tanks, even with an O2/H2 generator and H2 engine, and a necessary powersource for the above all does nothing at all. Made out of large parts, it refills normally (I've tried toggling "Stockpile") anyone know if this can be done or is it just completely broken functionality?
I haven't had any issues with them but I suspect your problem is not that the tank isn't filling it's that the engine is burning all your H2 or it's internal tank is filling first (which it always will). Try turning off the engine and see if the tank fills then :)
@@Splitsie I wish i had some good footage saved to compare to, but from what it feels like* even adding hydro tanks to the same ship gives it back its hydrogen output but with the added weight still doesn't fly the same like they did before. I'm putting something together so I can spread the word and hopefully Keen will take a look at tweaking the O2 gens back. steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1672490439
There shouldn't be a significant drop due to the cockpits not being airtight in atmosphere and that I think the generators can make both oxygen and hydrogen together from the same ice based on some tests I saw on reddit recently :)
well, the fact that Hydrogen does not have weight in the game unless you use the mod "Gasses with Masses" or something like that, ice will be a lot of weight to carry and volumetrics REALLY scales up, specially in 10x inventory spaces! also i think hydrogen engines might not consume fuel for real when ON, you have to turn OFF and ON back again the dampeners after landing since some engines gets stuck firing when parked. all tho all those test are really valid for me "now" since i mainly play 1.9.3 still.
I think that if you would have kept a similar rate of speed increase by adjusting the thrust override, the tank would have been an even more clear-cut winner. For most of the climb in the distance test, it was maxed out at 99.99m/s, (which as you know wastes fuel) whereas the generators had a much longer time not spent at max. Good test though.
i was alwais wondering about that. but to be honest i still alwais make both jsut because its more easy for me. but now i am thinking about making a second generator so i can use the tank as a "reserve fuel" because tanks are burned out so fast
If you are building battery ships, you can fill your hydrogen tanks off of base power and then need very little battery power in flight. I kind of feel like that is one of the biggest differences.
Not necessarily, if you're on realistic inventory settings you're going to be best getting to space with tanks, then refilling them with ice mined up there, not carrying lots of ice to be converted en route :)
Hey Splitsie. when contemplating topics to cover, could you give some thought to educating some of us less informed about the behind the scenes type of stuff in the game. Things like: it is quite easy to understand how a ship designed in Creative can be saved as a blueprint and the buit in Survival, but how does it work the other way? How can I take a ship from a Survival game and drop it into a Creative game? I'm quite sure I don't have to use a blueprint and build it in Survival, but I have no idea how to do it. Also, in your PvE tutorial you flew from one loc to another with the spectator cam and then appeared to be able to function/interact in the remote location. How is that done. I'm sure there is also a lot more stuff that I don;t know about. How am I to know what it is that I don't know ^--^ Cheers mate.
I've got blueprints and projectors as a topic yet to cover, but for transferring ships between games, either creative or survival you'll need to use blueprints. The upshot of creative is that you can paste it in directly with ctrl+v so you don't need to use projectors at all :) I must have teleported my character with ctrl+space so that I could interact at the new location as I'm pretty sure it's impossible to interact with keypads etc from spectator cam. I've got a few ideas including a quick tips for creative mode video that might include some of the things you're talking about :)
Thanks. I knew how to copy and paste in creative but that didn't help to get ships built in survival into my creative world and couldn't figure out how to copy them to make them available to paste. Your hint was enough to get me in the general area and I got there eventually. I don't know why people call me slow ^--^
Haha! I didn't even work out that you have to double-click on the blueprint. First I clicked on a blueprint and tried the Ctrl+v - nothing. So then I selected a blueprint, then closed the blueprint screen and then pressed Ctrl+v - success. I guess that double clicking selects the blueprint and closes the screen. No matter. I got there in the end, thanks to your assistance.
The hydrogen engine seems to need to be switched off then on again when already connected to a fuel source in order for it to start working, not sure whether that's intentional or not though :/
The margins on the tests were so clearly in favour of one or the other that small things like that were unlikely to be relevant. With the current build of the game there's no contest at all, the tanks win always because the generators are now less efficient than they were
@@Splitsie Ok. Thats a little shame. But what we can do :-(. So now hydrogen thrusters in atmosfere is useless? And they are only relevant when go to space or you are in space? Or did you manage to build effective hydrogen ship in you Survival, Maybe... series (I am at episode 50)?
You've misunderstood - this testing was hydrogen tank vs generator, the generator getting nerfed has had no impact on the thrusters so they're still just a powerful in and out of atmosphere as they were, it's just more difficult to run them off generators without having a tank to store pregenerated fuel :)
These days I'd say if you were going to choose just one I'd choose the tanks, but I agree having at least one generator for refuelling in desperate circumstances is valuable. The reason I say that tanks win hands down is that the generators got further nerfed after this was recorded making them even less effective in comparison to the light weight tanks
It is worth noting in my opinion that with an actual ship that isn't ultra minimal (that has a function and possibly armor blocks) the ratio of the weight of generator/tank versus the total weight of the ship would decrease as generators/tanks represent a smaller portion of it. Meaning that weight advantage of generators over tanks would progressively become negligible. Not to mention that a non-minimal design could quickly overwhelm one or more generators while a single tank would remain enough (if ok with a short flight autonomy) A definitive advantage of generators that you did not consider is size. If you are trying to build something as small as possible that perhaps work in space and therefor have very low trust requirements generators have a clear advantage here. Tanks are huge. An other advantage generators have (i believe) over tanks is that in a military scenario I do believe that tanks can explode and do significant extra damage to your ship. There are no such concerns with generators.
That's a very good point about the tanks exploding and building a military ship. From the times small ships hit the ground, it certainly seemed like the tanks gave off a pretty big explosion, not sure if it does block damage but it should if it doesn't. But then on a military ship you're going to want to have maximum power available and probably don't have time to jump into the console to check your fuel reserves... but you might know your ship's 'dry' weight so could work off mass. I think it's worth looking into the size issue more closely, there might be some unexpected results there.
Oxygen generators can be even worse. Hydrogen tanks explode and that's it, but generators release a huge boulder of ice that can smash the rest of your ship. Avoid building them over vital components.
A combination of both is better, in my experience. Sure, you need more cargo capacity, and a good deal more weight, but, if you're going to have a ship that runs solely on Hydrogen (minus the atmos, of course), a way to generate hydrogen is going to be the best option. Mind you, neither is entirely viable on its own. You're gonna need a storage tank (or four lol) to store the hydrogen. Awesome video, by the way, though.
I completely agree that for anything out of some quite specific scenarios a mix is going to be better. For ships that go to space and back, having just enough hydrogen in your tanks to reach space from a planet - then refilling using on-board generators - is probably a good setup. But if you want a really tiny ship to go collect all those cosmetic drops, maybe a cockpit, generator and a few hydrogen thrusters would be perfect for getting there without using your personal jetpack... but a battery and some atmo thrusters could work just as well :)
I use both tanks for when I'm actually moving and generators for when I'm not they also ever so slightly decrease the rate i lose hydrogen (probably) the extra weight from the ice probably negates it but on the plus side I can never run out of hydrogen unless I lose power all I need is patience.
The ice is lasting longer because it can't output as much hydrogen. You are pushing against the maxspeed with both, so you can't see a difference in power output. Large grid Tanks are equivalent to 625000kg of ice. Small tanks = 20000kg. The only advantage I see to generators is that you can refuel if you find ice, and they give O2 as well. Another upside that I used recently is that they are smaller and I already had a cargo container to store ice.
I had a look at the amount of power they can generate in atmosphere - trying to get an idea of how much armor you could put on your ship once you know it can lift: th-cam.com/video/UMtWSSMdO7w/w-d-xo.html What other aspects of them would you find useful?
I remember watching that video but im saying in energy efficiency in terms of large ships using combined or just only one of them. since my largest craft is a combo of both, the usg ishimura 1/5 is using lots of power, exactly 2 large reactors to just keep itself in the air, what if i used more ions or atmo thrusters, what would be more cost effective? i know that small ship thrusters were broken a while ago, are they fixed now? Maybe engines are good but then comes the problem of power is it more cost effective to use batteries or reactors? in terms of weight and charge time plus taking in concideration that solar power = infinite power solar panels have big advantage but they have the cost drawback
Actually apart from that i wanted to ask how do i implement models ingame using space engineers toolbox? i wanted to implement this model with max lenght at 160 blocks if its possible steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=130024652
Hmm... engergy consumption could be interesting to look at. In the same line of thought, could have a look at batteries vs reactors in that setting too as the results would vary with atmo vs ion. Might take me a while to come up with a good way of testing them though, since the two work in totally separate environments so I'm not sure how to compare them just yet... Sadly, in regard to import models I have no idea at all how you might do that. I've never played around with the toolbox myself.
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pZbsSDRrmXA/mqdefault.jpg)
so all in all, tanks have more maximum output but heavier like batteries, generators lighter but lower output just like reactors.
Perfect analogy!
Well, tanks are lighter. The ship without fuel its heavier ofc, but all the ice in generators weigh quite alot. A full large tank weigh close to 10 000kg's less with the same amount of fuel cause of all the ice in the generator.
Yeah not really. I mean the ice alone weighs very very heavily. Reactor fuel is very light compared to the amount of thrust you get from each kg of ice. You get literally 100 thousand times the thrust per kg of uranium, as you do from ice. Once you calculate ice-weight most designs become unfeasible or pale in comparison to uranium-based designs.
I have found one (and only one) effective purpose for Oxy-generator-only hydrogen designs in atmosphere. And that's for dedicated Ice-lake miners, where the fuel is constantly refilling as you go. In space, or for getting to orbit, it's much more feasible ofc.
@@shanillaabdul9896 , I say thee nay , anyone heard of a profile pic?
@@isaytheenay5961 Well, d'oh! Captain obvious 0_0
Whole point of hydrogen is to be low tier/emergency high output source of thrust. So basically something you use before obtaining uranium or in combat designs (in case of hydrogen only designs I don't see sense in putting reactor in it, if it is dead without hydrogen anyway). Use in miners is wasteful, if you do have access to alternative sources of energy. Interesting option is also to use them in rovers, as hydrogen refuel is fast so it could work for short range utility unit.
With the addition of the small hydrogen tank, this may be worth revisiting.
I was wondering why it wasn't included! Then I realized im watching this years after it was made lol. Im new to this wonderfully creative game.
I really cant help but feel like the weight of the ice is being overlooked, especially in larger quantities. The weight of ice is just as heavy as stone, meaning that a full cargos worth of ice is equivalent to that of a full cargo of stone, and depending on the size of the container, and of coarse what inventory settings are in place, this could be significantly more than that of a hydrogen tank which has the same weight value empty as it does full. This is definitely something that you need to consider when working with ice and hydro tanks, and is definitely something i've had to work with while trying to push hydro power to its limits.
I feel like a good balance between the two is extremely beneficial for *most* situations, as itll cut down on your total weight, while also providing a backup.
Jesus. It's 4 in the morning and I still gotta watch your vids. Love ya, b.
Wow thanks!
Now get back to sleep! ;)
Same
The speed ceiling really borks up the the physics in this game.
Sadly it's the only thing that actually allows the physics calculations to happen at close to real time most of the time. Because of the collisions that need to be worked out, if you're moving too fast there aren't enough physics ticks in a second to reliably make it so when you fly at a wall you explode, rather than sometimes missing that collision and have you sail straight on through :/
I was under the impression it was due to interactions with subgrids, specifically rotors and pistons. But, regardless, after playing KSP* where orbital velocity is ~ 25x the speed limit, not being able to exceed 100 m/s is... frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I still love SE, its just one of the "oooooh but I KNOW BETTER" kind of things that always gets me when I head to orbit.
*which also isn't perfect, not by a long shot.
@@Splitsie Quantum tunnelling! Using this, with the speed of light as the speed ceiling, can we calculate the physics tick rate of our universe?
By the way, congratulations once again. Just like a true Space Engineer, your subscriber rate is skyrocketing. it was only a few days back that I was watching the count get up to 1,000 subs and here you are flying past the 2k mark with ease.
Outstanding job mate. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much Mick :)
I will admit, this has happened soooo much faster than I ever thought possible, I had this grand plan back in July where I would be super excited if I reached 2000 by new years...
It's awesome having people like yourself who've been around and commenting since the beginning (even though it's only been a few months)
At this rate you are going to be more like 5k subs or by NY.
It's totally crazy to me that something in that order feels within reach...
2.4K and rising. Its nothing less than you deserve mate. The fact is, you are providing content that the viewers want to see. That is always a winner in my books.
Damn, you're making me blush ;)
I got a bit lucky with it too, I saw a big hole where there used to be tutorials for Space Engineers at around the time the new UI was done, I didn't want new players to be scared away from the game by its learning curve so I figured I'd make something to help, having learnt how to edit while playing around making machinima - I'm pretty excited by how well that little decision has gone :)
When i was planning on leaving earth for the first time, i did a burn test on the thrusters; at that time, 1 full small-grid tank fueled a large thruster at full override for exactly 30 seconds.
My approach was always to have enough tanks for 1 round trip, and then add one or two generators to refill in times where the thrusters were not on full throttle to enhance the flight time to a maximum. I imagine on large large grids this will be even more important, as you'd need dozens of generators to run all the large thrusters just to produce the minimum required thrust.
I think that's a great way to set things up, have the tanks ready for when you need that boost and use the generators to refill in the other times. Completely agree with you on the large ships as well, they would require silly amounts of generators :P
I've always used both together. Tank feeding the engines, Gen feeding the tank and cargo feeding the gen.
Same, I was curious at the time though if it was possible and indeed practical to go it without tanks at all. Turns out it is, but only if you're playing with high inventory multipliers which is something useful for I guess :P
Hydrogen in a hydrogen tank has no mass (in the game). Ice DEFINITELY has mass. You will need multiple oxygen generators to replace one hydrogen tank. The thrust to mass ratio will suck. Going without a hydrogen tank only makes sense outside of natural gravity. Even in that situation, it functions more as a pulse jet rather than as a sustained amount of force.
Actually, as the testing here showed, your thoughts are right when it comes to large grids, but small grids the tanks are so incredibly heavy that you need more than 2 tanks worth of ice (only true at x10 inventory, on realistic this will not be the case) to even match the same weight, that's why the small grid ships with tanks dropped out of the sky first. Each pair was loaded with identical amounts of ice, the tanks were filled with that ice then the generators removed from those ships, the two on the right had almost completely full tanks and still couldn't get even near the same duration of flight.
Note ships ideling don’t use Hydrogen it was the oxigen required for him
Yep, I definitely facepalmed when that was first pointed out to me :P
Hydrogen thrusters don’t actually use fuel while idle, the ice that was being used up was cause the O2 H2 generator was making oxygen for you to breath (since you are in survival).
Wow.. it like you can read my mind, yesterday i was thinking about this, now u made a vid about it, very helpfull as always!
Maybe I can...
I've just been playing through a survival game and whenever I come up with a design decision point I try to think if there's something that I don't really understand about it, I guess we might have a similar approach :)
I wonder if a single tank for flow plus multiple generators is better than multiple tanks. Maybe test the large block 2 tanks vs 1 tank/1 generator. PS - thanks for doing these vids, I have learned alot of game mechanics from them.
This, and I'd also like to see a large grid comparison of a tank vs. many generators as you can pack into a 3x3x3 grid (with small cargo in place of conveyor junctions). Categories: total mass of the generators/cargo (loaded vs. unloaded, then compared to the tank), fuel density, and max thrust output of the generator setup.
That's an interesting point, there would definitely be value in having a single tank in any setup, so that you have a fuel guage on your HUD, but if you're generating enough fuel for all your thrusters to work at full power then the tank would only be useful for that. In the situation where you don't quite cover all your thrust needs but you only need to go at max power for short bursts then having a tank and 'just enough' generators would work really nicely :)
It could be interesting to test, at the time I was running through these I did think about space requirements, but didn't think to compare them directly, could get some interesting results...
Yeah, just like with electricity. Batteries on automatic mode that recharge from excess power in times of low demand, and which can kick in to deliver the juice when the reactor doesn't fulfill demand.
The big advantage of using a small grid tank along side generators is that it acts as a buffer. This allows you to reduce the number of generators and still have full thrust for short periods.
The advantage of the multiple Generators is that they allow for extended flight time/travel distance. For example, once a tank is filled, a small grid generator will store 27kg of ice, which is enough to refill the tank about 1.5 times. In effect it is more than doubling the flight time/distance.
Are you shure that ice shortage wasn't caused by player drawing oxygen (you were in survival and you have everything connected) ?
I'm not sure actually, I stupidly didn't think of that at the time. I think you could be right though :)
You may also want to take note that oxygen generators consume power.
In the final test between the two remaining small grid ships, the tank ship could run for 6 years, whilst the generator ship could run for 42 days.
Good point and something to be aware of even though I suspect the amount of uranium needed will be such a small amount that you'd be unlikely to see a difference :)
Splitsie
In times of scarcity it can mean the difference between being stranded in space or dropping out of the sky.
I tend to use batteries in my hydrogen ships (for which I primarily use tanks) and often as few as one.
I predict were I to switch to generators, those ships might become dependent on uranium where they were not previously.
Or, if you're dedicated to renewable energy, you might need to come up with solutions to the slow charge speed of batteries as I have in some of my builds.
In either case, it's something think about if you like to engineer your builds to operate in specific parameters: like not having a surplus of power, or never red-lining your thrusters.
Good points well made :)
It’s these kind of videos that actually teach me about the game that make me glad I decided to support you on Patreon. You do a lot of hard work and put out outstanding content. Watching other Space Engineers channels after this one is a bit of a let down.
Wow, thanks :)
That's very kind
Yes the generators won on the small ship, but keep in mind that the hydro tanks do not get any extra weight when fully filled. so try the same test with the twin tank ship with both tanks filled up and enough ice to make both the tanked and untanked versions weigh the same. in that case, the ones with the tanks just might win.
The ship with 2 tanks was filled to 90% capacity, 16,000kg of ice went into each of the last pair of small ships, in that one the generators won by an even larger amount. If the generators can provide enough fuel per second, on small grids they seem to be the way to go - if you don't mind not having a fuel guage...
Hmm....but im sure thats easy enough to fix with an inventory manager script.
If you're talking about displaying the amount of ice left, yep an LCD and the appropriate script should have you covered :)
Ooh thanks for this. I was wondering how to get my small hydrogen ship smaller so I wouldn't have to keep rebuilding the hydrogen tank due to bad flight skills. I'd also like to thank you for the rest of your tutorials, the first two really helped me to start playing this game after owning it for a while with no idea what to do. Thanks!
You're very welcome :)
I'm always happy to hear when these tutorials have proven useful in getting people to be able to enjoy a game I've enjoyed for so long
Another great video. At high inventory settings the energy density of ice is hard to beat.
Thanks and very true :)
Have you tested the hydrogen thruster idle fuel consumption in creative? Just wondering if it was the character oxygen replenishment driving that ice usage.
Hmmm.... I forgot that you use oxygen in a cockpit even with your helmet closed! I just tested it and you don't use hydrogen when your landing gear are locked, but will at any other time - even when I turned off the lifting thrusters while sitting in an open seat on the top of a small ship. I wish I'd realised this at the time! Thanks :)
No problem, glad my 2000 hours in game was actually useful for something!
I've been using the generators in a similar manner to small reactors on my ships-the generator is used to refill the tanks partially when I start pulsing the hydrogen thrusters.
Yeah, I see it like the battery/reactor system or like the tank is a capacitor. Nice for holding fuel for when you need a boost, but doesn't quite have the longevity to be your only fuel source
Generally i only build hydrogen because for two reasons.
1. I can fly in atmosphere and in space without having to switch from atmo to ion thrusters (as you'll need both to do that). And
2. MORE POWWEEEERR!!!
Oh and i use tanks as main fuel supply and o2/h2 generators for refueling tanks in a pinch. That in combination with 3 hydro power generators you can actually build a relative small vessel with alot of power. Have one in the workshop by the name of GRXT20 Jumpship. A hydrogen powered ship with 9 jumpdrives. Gonna build it in my new game on earth cause i never flew it into atmosphere
I'd agree that's the right way to go, have a generator for 'just in case' but otherwise just use fuel tanks especially since the recent hydrogen rebalance that came with the wasteland update
Your videos are gold. I love these experiment videos. My only complaint is you talk a tad slow for me to stay engaged. Not that it really matters. I watch the vids anyways lol
10/10 Will instal both
It's better option for longevity.
I will nearly always build both, but I think I've got a better handle on what sort of ratio might work best since testing this :)
kiselina oh yeah that what I do. I have oxygen generator going into hydrogen tank. And I think it’s better to have more hydrogen tanks then oxygen generators.
Both is better that way if you some how run out of fuel you just throw a few thousand ice in and you're good to go
With a _lot_ of work, it would be possible to profile the performance of all the propulsion systems in Space Engineers, then write a script that factors in all of the thrusters installed on a ship (atmo, ion, hydrogen) , plus all of the available energy capacity for those thrusters (battery, nuclear, ice + gen, tanks), looks at your position in terms of real gravity and atmosphere (ie: planet, space), then gives you the most efficient combination of hybrid thrust in any given situation. Massive props to anyone who could pull this off!
Thanks for continuing to post these vids. I think you may have some testing issues with the small merged ships. In order to compare accurately, you'd need each ship to weigh the same. Same amount of conveyors/thrusters etc, even if they arent fed by Hydro. Cheers man, keep up the good work!
Your engineer's mass is added to the ship when you get in the cockpit, that's why the small ship dropped when you got in and hovered when you got out.
You're welcome :)
I didn't want the ships to weigh the same, the only difference in weight between the ships is because of having a tank or having a generator. The core of the ships are identical, same number of connectors, thrusters etc. So both get the same amount of fuel, one converts it into a tank and the other remains as ice. I think that's a more realistic comparison between the two rather than artificially balancing their mass.
Good point about the engineer, though all the tests ended the same or with enough margin that my hopping in and out didn't make any difference to the outcome thankfully :)
i use always minimum 2x oxy gens per hydro tank and usually keeps me in the air in any atmosphere
Another great video splitsie.
I wonder if there is a way to make a 3 stage rocket with this idea.when the hydrogen runs out it departs and the next rocket starts
Thanks Stan :) You should be able to and with parachutes the early stages should be recoverable too!
Nice one.
Hydrogen Tanks are the mechanical versions of Bagpipes. They keep the output constant while the input is sporadic.
In my quest to use tugs with merge blocks, rather than build a cockpit for every ship, I have had success with two earth-based tugs that run purely on Hydrogen Thrusters getting their power from Oxygen Generators. (The second one is a large grid tug, which I have yet to test in Survival mode. It works, but I’m not sure that it can carry enough ice to do the job.)
The beauty of using the tug system is that the tugs can be kept small because the main body carries all of the power and lift capabilities, while the tug itself needs only enough power to move around and connect. Once connected, the tug provides the command and control required to fly the ship.
Employing this method, I built a largish small grid cargo ship that I was able to get into space and park, then fly the tug back to earth. I wasn’t sure if I could get the tug back safely as it barely has enough lift to move around slowly at the earth base. But, by pointing it in the right direction and letting inertia and gravity do their thing, I was able to get it down to the point where it could eventually hover and then very gently eased it down to land.
Tip for numpties like me. On the Earth like planet, be sure to turn off your Vent before trying to use a Generator only vessel it the system is connected to your cockpit. If you don’t, most of the gasses generated will disappear out through the vent.
21:30 If you do this test again you might want to put another pair of merge blocks with maybe some light armor as a spacer between the test ships so when one of the test units falls it will not bump the others. when you unlock the spacer blocks would fall away
m = Merge Block a = light armor [S#] = Test Ship
m[S1]mmaaamm[S2]mmaaamm[S3]m
How much does breathing the ice while in the cockpit effect the efficiency?
once you reach 100mps the weight doesnt matter i think, since they are applying the same thrust(315kn). but the faster you reach that top speed the further you will reach.
I just have settings like lift low/med and high and air brake when I need it this way u can preserve your fuel for when its absolutely needed.
But two ship doesn't weight the same. E.g at 6:00 the ship with the tank weights 12.4 tons but the one with the generator weights 19.5 tons; is it possible it falls because it weight too much?
That's intentional, the tanks weigh less when having the amount of hydrogen in them that the other ship has to carry as ice. Things are even more in favour of the tanks these days as the generators produce fuel more slowly now
@@Splitsie I see, thank you.
This is a great demo. I just build a small class hydrogen vessel and i used a combination of tanks and gens, but this does show that i am overdoing it on the tanks by a lot a lot. time to hit the redesigns again, but you have given me a couple of great tips.
Thanks, I'm glad they've been useful. Just remember, if you're on x1 inventory I'd stick with the tanks over the generators as these tests were all done on x10 to give the generator a helping hand :)
Yup, its 10x at the moment for me.
I wanted to comment on something in the beginning of the video for hydrogen thrusters using ice during idle. You are in a cockpit with the helmet off, which requires oxygen. Just a quick note. But I love your channel btw
My apologies, I didn't see others had mentioned this also
No worries, I'd completely forgotten about that aspect at the time (was a little too focused on the hydrogen side of H20) :P
Interesting, how about trying to test some hydro/oxy tank mods, especially ones for tanks for small ships?
I'm probably going to stay away from testing mods for the time being, the main reason is that they change a fair bit. However, I am going to keep doing occasional videos highlighting the most useful mods and why they're useful so some of the small hydrogen tank mods are almost certainly going to make their way into one of those at some point :)
thanks for posting this! this still makes me conclude that hydro tanks and icegens need to be a system. BUT! icegens can sustain light small block craft.
That's pretty much the conclusion I came to as well :)
One question, go merge blocks transfer power when they merger? Like, would the batteries on one grid fill up from power sources on another merged grid?
Once merged they are no longer two grids but a single grid. So power transfers exactly the same as it would through armour blocks :)
@@Splitsie thx 😊
Inertial dampeners were still on. Those engines were trying to fight against gravity still. I'm wondering if you land that test ship flat, leave the landing gear off, but turn inertial dampeners off as well, would it still be burning hydro.
I think it was actually burning ice due to me breathing in the cockpit and using up O2 - didn't remember that little thing at the time :(
@@Splitsie Ahhhhh yeah I didn't even think of that. Could be! My intuition though is that one player would take hours to use up enough oxygen for even 1% ice loss. Now that's got me wondering exactly how many units of ice a player character breathing uses per minute. THAT would be an interesting test. I'm also curious if it's even remotely viable to build a ship without any hydrogen tanks at all, but enough O2 generators to just-in-time-manufacture all the hydro you need. As in, if that would scale. If a large warship could do that, or if the number of O2 gennys it would take, would end up being more mass than any benefit you get out of them.
How comviniently timed, I was just last night modifying a fighter to run on hydrogen but I didn't have the space for a tank so I used generators as they fit in the same space it's previously installed batteries were.
The thing about inventory size I hadn't considered though, and I may have to reevaluate the design.
It's certainly handy that the generators and batteries have the same footprint, for a small ship if you've got a few generators the performance might be good enough, but for a fighter not knowing if you're about to run out of fuel would terrify me...
Splitsie I think the trick to that is a script based LCD readout if there's anyplace to mount that in cockpit view.
In my case I was working on a relatively short range fighter for carrier deployment so fuel wasn't my primary concern, I certainly wouldn't want to take it on any long haul trips on low inventory settings!
Ah yes, of course! If you put that on an LCD that would fix a lot of the problems - until the LCD gets shot off and then you fly by the seat of your pants! :D
Splitsie Makes life exciting, relish the danger!
When you need is to have both since the tanks can hold more of it and make it lighter that's good for long distance travel but once it runs out your kind of screwed but if you have an O2 generator on it and you find ice then you're good
so interesting videos, a question how do you teleport?
If you are in creative or have creative tools enabled in the spacemaster menu, you can spectate with F8 then press ctrl+space to teleport to the spectator camera :)
yep, I know how spectate :) Thank for the tip of the teleportation :)
You're welcome! I thought you probably did, just thought I'd throw that in there for anyone else who might come across the comments :)
yep, that will probably happen. Thanks again :)
splitsie with the 2 generators added you had the same amount of fuel but the problem is they ran at the same time only giving you the thrust time of 10 ice if you know what mean. your bottle neck was the flow rate wich is why you halved it but that also halved your potential thrust time therfore also halving your fuel in a sense.
can't you do both ? if you wan't a selfsustaining ship ? the oxygen generator gives hydrogen to the hydrogen tank ??
I'd absolutely recommend both, but that wasn't going to be a fun comparison ;)
I looked at the two extremes here to try to get a better feel of where the sweet spot in the middle would lie
What about a small grid tank, low mass, in a large grid ship for high flow thrust and generators to refill tanks when high flow is not needed and for normal use for long trips between fueling.
That would work, the trouble would be the weird flight when you have subgrids. Another thing to note is that the balance of these has changed since the recent survival update, generators produce even less fuel and tanks hold more, so there would be even fewer situations where the generator and ice setup has an advantage
What are your graphics settings? Also i love your channel.
I'm pretty fortunate with my build, so I usually run with everything on high in 1440p, but unless I'm barely moving around I still can't run with voxels on extreme :P
Splitsie Ty i just got the game and with a mid computer on medium settings i run it decently. After finishing the campaing i dont know waht to do in the game. Any tips?
I made a series of beginner tutorials that goes through how I start out a survival game and finishes with building a large grid ship that can travel from planet to space. Once you've learned how to do that much the game is pretty much a sandbox where you can try to make whatever you can imagine :)
Set your own challenges, and with multiplayer working you can join in with some others build something epic together
I would like to see comparisons between drill setups for most efficient mining vs componet cost
Do you mean comparing small grid to large grid?
I wonder if I could get something to work reliably using rotors to attach large ship drills to a small ship...
That too, but I was thinking of is putting drills next to each other (X is a drill, = is a conveyors etc) XXX Vs X=X=X can you mine a wider area with less resources or do you have to have them next to each other to smoothly clear area. Large drill on small ship using rotors..... Thats an intresting idea !
Ah! That could be interesting to test :)
If your ship explodes while trying the rotors I cannot be held responsible ;)
May I ask something, if you have ice in a container that’s connected to a hydrogen tank and generator, would it be converted to hydrogen gas and used in thrusters??
Yep :)
With the changes to H2/O2 generators and tanks are there now any benefits to generators only builds or does this guide still stand?
Things are even more in favour of tanks than before since you can now carry more fuel with zero mass
(14:20) You do not have half the fuel in each generator. You have fuel fuel in each. You have half the fuel you would have needed to get half the fuel from one and add it to the other one. Instead you took the ice from the cargo to fill the second generator
In my opinion, hydrogen is only really useful for transitioning from planet to space and vice versa so I've never given it much thought. I much prefer the more renewable, passive sources of energy.
That's fair :)
Great video like always ! thanks, very instruitive...
Thank you :)
Another stellar video!
I wonder if you had small-ish cargo ship, would it benefit from having both generator and a tank? Using the generator when the ship is empty, albeit slower. Then use the tank when the ship is loaded up and needs more power.
That's a pretty cool design idea and a great way to maximise your fuel :)
new subscriber here,.,. you've helped me through getting started in game
I'd be curious to see how well this stands up to the test of time. In part because of changes in the past two years, and in part because I'd personally be curious to see how a hydrogen engine powering ion or atmo thrusters would fair over the straight hydrogen thrusters. I'd assume the extra effort for the engine and electric thrusters would prove superior, without as many of the shortfalls of EITHER just tank, or just generator options as presented here.
The adjustments to the game since this was done have made tanks even more superior to carrying ice as the efficiency of the generators has been reduced. Not sure about atmo vs hydrogen though
@@Splitsie Considering the wiki says you are getting about 3 times the energy out of the same amount of hydrogen by running it through an engine compared to using it in the thrusters, it may well prove a rival!
Edit: Though looking at the wiki, I also didn't realize the atmospheric thrusters were quite as heavy as they are, so perhaps it may not end so well for them either.
Hey I was wondering If you could make U.A.V or a recon Vehicle for atmosphere (preferred if it flew)
I might do something like that in the future, could be something useful when I finally get around to doing a bit of a more in depth survival series so everyone can watch me fail in ways that might help them learn :)
Splitsie all right I well make to watch your vids then
This is the kind of a test where you really want a handful of numbers to rub against each other. According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Thruster a small large grid hydrogen thruster uses up 1092.5 units of hydrogen per second. According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Oxygen_Generator a large grid oxygen generator can produce 501 units of hydrogen per second. This means you need a little bit more than two generators per thruster to burn it at full power. With small grid, the numbers are correspondinly 109.2 and 166. This matches your results. It should be possible to come up with a formula to find the best solution for each use case.
Nice to know my tests came close to those results :)
In some ways I like to go into these tests blind and just see what happens, but in this case being able to use the numbers to explain why might have actually been useful... oops :P
At 10:09 when you started to fly I noticed that you did not have hydrogen. I thought, he WILL die again, but why were you still able to fly?
I loaded the game in survival then enabled creative mode through the alt+f10 menu. With that your hydrogen still gets consumed but the player doesn't actually need it for their jetpack
Just now seeing this vid, and I had a question--which I'll likely check myself in a bit lol.
Once the ice is converted to Hydrogen, do does the grid's weight change? Do the tanks weight the same full as empty? [and do large and small grid H2 gens convert at the same rate?]
I theorize the large grid w/ tank [holding 200k ice converted to hydrogen] is lighter than the large grid with 200K /unconverted/ ice in twin O2/H2 gens.
The tanks are exactly the same mass empty or full last I checked so the advantage you get in mass with the generators is all thanks to the dry tank being so heavy (it's also why I had to use x10 inventory to make the competition interesting) :)
Another question if I may.
I have recently started a new game and decided to start on the Alien planet (I like a challenge). My oxygen level always reads as low, even when my helmet is closed and my tanks are full. Is this normal?
I checked out the Wiki which states that the atmosphere has some oxygen and is breathable, just. but makes no mention of the permanent low oxygen reading. I tried removing my helmet and found the air not to be breathable at all.
My understanding of the oxygen reading is that it will give you how much is in the volume of gas your character is in. So it will still be telling you about the atmosphere even with your helmet closed so that you can know if it's safe to open it :)
Also with the bit about losing health, there are degrees of low atmoshpere, if it's low enough you should be able to use a vent to collect oxygen (albeit slowly) but might not be able to breathe the same air if that makes sense.
So tanks good for atmosphere, gens would be good for cruising in space?
redo the hydrogen thruster idle consumption test with a tank instead of Oxygen generator. I've noticed a cockpit attached to an oxygen generator will consume power and ice continually, even though there's nothing to be done. I think it is running to "maintain" the cockpit atmosphere.
That's an interesting thought. I'm glad you brought it up, when I have a look at revisiting a test I go through all the video comments to try and address anything I missed the first time, so when I come back to oxygen generators I'll make sure I test this out :)
I have 16 hydrogen tanks in my largest ship, and 14 H2 generators, but I would only use the generators in an emergency, if I run low on hydrogen. (I also carry a small mining ship inside the main hangar, so I can mine ice anywhere) With 10 large thrusters, even at 6.2 mill KG, the ship can land and depart with 1g of gravity, and still have a lot of fuel remaining. With a jump setup, you really don't use a lot of hydrogen anyway. Plus, I simply refuel the ship at my space station, where I keep 30 generators and 60 H2 tanks, and enough ice capacity to completely refill it all. lol Go big! :D
could possibly do it with landing gears engaged and just using override to negate mass and getting away with just a single thruster
That's still a bug? I thought they fixed that...
I just mean using a fixed position test rig; landing gear, battery, o2generator or h2tank and a thruster, set them both to the same override and see which one runs out 1st
I hope they have too, I like playing in survival too much to use exploit mechanics, I want challenge!
Though if the game allows it, then who am I to say it's wrong if that's what you want to do? :)
I'm definitely late to this, but you must also consider sizing, the tanks are huge and can't fit everywhere, you could place generators anywhere you could easily place your conveyor lines without sacrificing a lot of space for a tank.
ice to hydrogen ratio for small grid is only 1:2, but is 1:3 for large grid :)
inventory settings also change things, as this setting alters the the ships mass calculation for inventory items. On 10x inventory, 10,000Kg (10,000 units) of ice in an inventory only has 1000kg mass for when this is added to the ships mass
I don't understand why should you be able to lift more mass on *10 ? Let's say I have a container with 1000 volume of ice. on realistic setting, the container will only have 100 volume.
Also if you fill a cargo with platinum, they will weight the same.
The reason they changed those mass calculations mostly comes down to people wanting to get blueprints off the workshop. When they first introduced cargo adding mass to your ship they didn't have the adjustment factor. This meant that if you downloaded a ship that was made for x1 and used it on a x10 world things would rarely work because you'd quickly overload the thrusters.
If they didn't put a correction factor in you'd have to have 3 separate workshop categories, one each for x1, x3 and x10 which would not be good in general. Anything that divides a community is usually a pretty bad idea, so although it seems odd, the reasoning keen used is pretty sound (in my opinion anyway).
Also I didn't realise you get better conversion rates with large grid generators, that puts a small pro in favour of your small ships having tanks and refilling from a base - though ice is so plentiful it might not really matter :P
after a few years and updates to hydrogen, is there any chance for us to get an updatet version? :)
Maybe, but the gist is likely to be - use tanks, they're heaps better than they were back when this was made 🙂
In the latest version of survival, I can't figure out how to refuel them, I can't put Ice in them. Please help me!
The way that Oxygen generators work hasn't changed, so it's most likely that there's something wrong with the conveyor system. Check to make sure all the conveyors are lined up properly and if they are it may be a bug that's been more common in recent versions, if that's the case it can sometimes be fixed by turning the ship off then on again with 'Y'
To really maximize the efficiency of small grid gen based systems, add an ejector with a timer or switch. The small amount of ice lost will be offset by the efficiency gains from recalculating the grid mass.
I don't think I understand what you mean... are you suggesting dumping ice with the ejector?
Yep. By ejecting a small amount of inventory every so often, it forces the UI to update the total mass of the grid. Whether this actually reflects on grid calculations is an uncertainty. IIRC, the same thing happens if inventory passes between the ship inventory and your personal inventory.
The value on the HUD also updates if you jump out and back in, so I hope that it's just a display thing because otherwise that's just silly :P
Perhaps it is a way of reducing recursive calculation.
This would explain why my mining vessel wouldn't run on hydrogen tanks lol. Small to maybe even medium sized ships. Would be better running off of a generator. Larger ships definitely off of Tanks.
What about a ship that has both tanks and generators? 🤔 They're actually could be a purpose for this. If you have a Dropship that needs to function in both space and within the planet's atmosphere.
Really big ships probably not very practical but one potential problem is with Fighters. Clearly generators have the advantage for longevity. But where thrust and longevity need to co-exist might be harder to do.
As a real world scenario let's take an F-16 fighter for instance. Which has the speed and maneuverability. But not necessarily the fuel for long missions. Could we create a scenario where we have both and still function? 🤔 Loved this!! :b
I use a combination, I have one tank and two generators leading into it (A separate generator for air inside the ship), This leads into two large thrusters, with this I can launch a fully equipped jump capable mobile air base from any planet, with plenty spare fuel for travelling too and from numerous planets, moons, this also includes an autonomous mining ship for gathering supplies from asteroids and planets, just a few simply changes to make to it but I'm pleased with the results.
Whole thing weighs around 700k and that's with enough ice in the containers to fully recharge each oxygen generator.
A mixture of both is definitely more versatile and has always been my preference. Though doing this comparison has helped me get a clearer idea of which mix is going to work best for any particular vehicle so I'm glad I spent the time messing about :)
I went through a lot of different amounts of thrusters and configurations, eventually I figured I was just adding more and more weight for the sake of it and stripped them right down and used half armour blocks instead of full. Can't take a hit but can jump 2000km lol
Video is old as hell at this point but something to note as of the last update. Tanks now explode if they have enough gas in them when they he 0hp. So now you need more armor to protect tanks or at least firewall them from other components, mitigating the weight benefit. I do use a lot of hydrogen when building, frequently 100% hydrogen thrust but it hasn't hindered me to much as I will normally make redundant conveyor tube pathways. But in terms of generator vs tanks, tanks will always be the bulk of my fuel generators there is a number of them on the ships based on how many tanks it has (I don't have a set %), but basically every hydrogen ship I build needs a fuel depo to refuel at that has a lot of generators and tank farm for rapid refueling, but the generators on the ship are there for "I'm a dumb ass" moments of not paying attention to fuel being able to trickle fuel it at a moon, a roid, or w/e you are stuck.
hi mate im still relativly new to space enginners, but im having a lot of problems with hydrogen.
1 i dont have oxegen generator, i have the 02/hydrogen generater and hydrogen generator.
2 I do produce liquid hydrogen, is that the same ...and it wont go into a hydrogen tank.
3 my o2/hydrogen gen produces liquid hydrogen and oxegen is there a way to instruct it to produce only one.
Keen renamed the generator, so the oxygen generator and o2/h2 are the same block :)
If you've got a generator attached via conveyors to a tank and there aren't any thrusters using up the hydrogen you're making then with all default settings the tank will fill, though it will take a LOT of ice to do this (have a look at the tank in the control panel for a more specific load, as it'll show a percent filled in the lower right).
If you've got both oxygen and hydrogen tanks attached it'll make both until either one is full, if you turn off one of the tanks then none of that gas will be produced, completely unrealistic but that's how it works :P
Also note, when people are talking tanks, they're talking the big ones that are part of the grid, the smaller things that can fit into your player inventory are bottles (I'm hoping I haven't messed that up in my tutorials, but I know I've mixed the two when talking in my survival series)
Splitsie Yeah that makes sense..it just I had some mods installed one specifically that uses ice to gen liquid hydrogen and oxygen .. but then uses the hydrogen to make superfluid helium ..my main thing was when I looked at tanks there was nothing in there ..but I realised the other day the gas does not show up anywere exempt in the percentage fill level but thanks for the arification
Yeah but how many thrusters (of small or large) can one generator run at full power? This is important for the weight to ship calculations because you could make a "Thruster pack" equation. I.E. G+T=P (G=# of Generators) (T=# of Thrusters) (P=Total weight this pack could move at full load)
To quote Nethan2000 who replied earlier: "According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Thruster a small large grid hydrogen thruster uses up 1092.5 units of hydrogen per second. According to spaceengineerswiki.com/Oxygen_Generator a large grid oxygen generator can produce 501 units of hydrogen per second. This means you need a little bit more than two generators per thruster to burn it at full power. With small grid, the numbers are correspondinly 109.2 and 166. This matches your results. It should be possible to come up with a formula to find the best solution for each use case."
So you could plug those numbers in quite neatly if you add in the information about how many Nm of force the thrusters can generate :)
Im curious if i should make my planet miners powered by hydrogen cause with atmospheric ones i never have enough power to lift up a miner that has like 500k units of ore in them.
I've built a hydrogen powered miner before, but the trouble with them is that they end up very bulky and while they can lift a lot, they also run out of fuel quite quickly. A hybrid might be an option though, so you only use you hydrogen once the atmospherics are at capacity, and not needing any hydrogen for the trip to the mine would help give you a longer flight time... though again that would still be bulky but maybe not as bad
Great idea, i will make it today and just manualy switch to hydrogen trust when my ship gets over its max weight for atmospheric ones so i can get back home safe.
I think it should also be worth pointing out that a tank takes up a lot more space than a generator. You could essential replace 1 tank with three generators on a small grid and even more on a large grid. Me I mostly use generators but I'll stick one or two tanks on a ship so I can get an idea of how much I have left from the HUD rather than going into the terminal to see.
Since these tests they've reduced the output of generators considerably so I would sincerely doubt there's ever a real advantage to having loads of generators on something that needs to fly inside a planet's gravity well. Tanks will always outperform them in terms of power to weight and efficiency. Even back when this was made the generators only really stood a chance on x10 inventory settings (which all the tests were performed at)
Flaw in your comparison at 6:16 I think.... You disengaged the merge block,, one is now alone, the one that fell, has a bunch of blocks attached to it the other doesn't mirror/ Which I presume includes MOST of the atmospheric thrusters and at minimum other 16 blocks, plus the merge block. Since this means it has more mass, it isn't a fair comparison. Even if every single block extra amounted to only 1% of its total mass, you would be looking at a minimum of 17% more mass on one than the other, if they are both equipped with the same exact thruster configuration, the one carrying the extra blocks has more mass from structural blocks. (including the merge block it was left holding) Placing an undue bias on that unit.
If you add mass to one over the other, the thrusters need to produce additional thrust to maintain or gain altitude. (I can put on a 15kg backpack and stand here all day, but you put a 50kg backpack on me, I'm going to need to set it down from time to time)
The LOGICAL approach, would be yes, have a tank, but bring a generator. The generator produces fuel, from ice, and can run at full processing speed to fill the tank. Let the tank have a short time to fill sufficiently for launch (or load from outside) and then the generator makes more fuel as your tank empties. Short answer for *launch* tanks win. But consider the mass to carry for a 24 to 96 hour in space operation? (especially since the tank only approach won't have oxygen resupply, just whatever you packed on board before launch) Carrying the ice and a single generator into space makes sense, but to achieve orbit you're going to need a tank, or an overabundance of ice and generators.
Some extra information with maths/simple stoichiometry involved in case you might be scared with number (pray I didn't stuff up calculations and units... lol)
Ice will have the upper hand as the amount of H2 stored in a large cargo block is greater than what can be hold in a H2 tank. This is true for ALL cargo modifiers (x1 upto x10 and anymore above). Since cargo space is the same size as a H2 tank, 3x3x3, not including O2 generators size or amount they can hold, we will compare the 2
H2 tank holds a static 2,500,000 L, where large Cargo holds 421875*10 L under x10 (I will use standard cargo space for simple sake and convert when need to). 1 kg of ice = 9 H2 (O2 generators seem to have very poor yield rates since 1kg of ice, with water having a Molar mass of 18g.mol^-1 should produce 55 moles but I'm gonna say it is for balancing reasons)
Large cargo under normal cargo limits can hold 1,137,129 kg of ice, which means it can hold 10,234,161 potential amounts of H2. I can not find any details on the units for this number so I am gonna assume it to be litres.
10,234,161 vs 2,500,00 L is quite a difference and if you make it x10 storage, you can make enough H2 to put the Hindenburg to shame.
I have left a lot of things out like ice generators storage as well grid space but we can assume they won't effect the outcome much, even if there is 6 generators and a large cargo block against 2 H2 tanks, there is more H2 overall in the generators. Do note, it is a hell load more to push around than just a H2 tank. So what would be the best thing to do?...
gfycat.com/gifs/detail/FarflungLastCygnet
Still, don't disregard what Splitsie said, defiantly a really good video. Keep up the good work mate, loving the content!
Love the Old el paso commercial - applicable to so many things... especially in Space Engineers: batteries and generators, O2 gens and tanks, ion, hydrogen and atmospheric thrusters the list goes on :)
Glad you're enjoying the content, I hadn't even thought about how inefficient the oxygen generator is for balancing reasons - thanks for taking me back to my organic chemistry days :P
But only on CHEATING inventory settings :P great video, really helps illustrate things. Thanks for all your hard work
Cheeky! Can we call it handicapping instead of cheating? Just wanted to give the generators a chance ;)
XD it is interesting how different some blocks are when you change inventory settings isn't it? And what that other dude was saying in the comments about the energy density of ice was an excellent point.
What I don't like about the inventory and tool handicap settings is that they disincentivise people to build things!
Why bother with a mining ship or cargo rover early game when your dude can lug 4 tonnes in his tardis - i mean backpack? Why build a grinding or welding ship when your character has a wizard tool that does it all???
Lol, I agree. I tend to play on x3 just because in find the realistic suit size so small that the million trips down my first mine shafts get the better of me :P
Hopefully they'll change the way it works so you can adjust suit size separately as I like designing ships for realistic inventory, until then someone linked a mod that does this so I might start using it :)
Has anyone figured out how to refill a fuel tank made of SMALL parts?
It seems this area of functionality is completely broken - connectors do not appear to work with smaller H2 tanks, even with an O2/H2 generator and H2 engine, and a necessary powersource for the above all does nothing at all. Made out of large parts, it refills normally (I've tried toggling "Stockpile") anyone know if this can be done or is it just completely broken functionality?
I haven't had any issues with them but I suspect your problem is not that the tank isn't filling it's that the engine is burning all your H2 or it's internal tank is filling first (which it always will). Try turning off the engine and see if the tank fills then :)
The Survival Update (2/28/19) Nerfed O2/H2 Output. Pretty much useless without a Hydrogen Tank now. 😥
It certainly seems that way - and I haven't checked yet but it looks like they increased the tank capacity?
@@Splitsie I wish i had some good footage saved to compare to, but from what it feels like* even adding hydro tanks to the same ship gives it back its hydrogen output but with the added weight still doesn't fly the same like they did before.
I'm putting something together so I can spread the word and hopefully Keen will take a look at tweaking the O2 gens back.
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1672490439
Quick question, is the generator competing to create oxygen for the cockpit? If so, the hydrogen output is only 50%.
There shouldn't be a significant drop due to the cockpits not being airtight in atmosphere and that I think the generators can make both oxygen and hydrogen together from the same ice based on some tests I saw on reddit recently :)
A well made video well explained!
Thanks :)
well, the fact that Hydrogen does not have weight in the game unless you use the mod "Gasses with Masses" or something like that, ice will be a lot of weight to carry and volumetrics REALLY scales up, specially in 10x inventory spaces! also i think hydrogen engines might not consume fuel for real when ON, you have to turn OFF and ON back again the dampeners after landing since some engines gets stuck firing when parked. all tho all those test are really valid for me "now" since i mainly play 1.9.3 still.
I think that if you would have kept a similar rate of speed increase by adjusting the thrust override, the tank would have been an even more clear-cut winner. For most of the climb in the distance test, it was maxed out at 99.99m/s, (which as you know wastes fuel) whereas the generators had a much longer time not spent at max. Good test though.
i was alwais wondering about that. but to be honest i still alwais make both jsut because its more easy for me. but now i am thinking about making a second generator so i can use the tank as a "reserve fuel" because tanks are burned out so fast
If you are building battery ships, you can fill your hydrogen tanks off of base power and then need very little battery power in flight.
I kind of feel like that is one of the biggest differences.
I think the threat of smashing back into the planet trying to leave the atmosphere should tell you both...
Not necessarily, if you're on realistic inventory settings you're going to be best getting to space with tanks, then refilling them with ice mined up there, not carrying lots of ice to be converted en route :)
Hey Splitsie. when contemplating topics to cover, could you give some thought to educating some of us less informed about the behind the scenes type of stuff in the game. Things like: it is quite easy to understand how a ship designed in Creative can be saved as a blueprint and the buit in Survival, but how does it work the other way? How can I take a ship from a Survival game and drop it into a Creative game? I'm quite sure I don't have to use a blueprint and build it in Survival, but I have no idea how to do it. Also, in your PvE tutorial you flew from one loc to another with the spectator cam and then appeared to be able to function/interact in the remote location. How is that done. I'm sure there is also a lot more stuff that I don;t know about. How am I to know what it is that I don't know ^--^
Cheers mate.
I've got blueprints and projectors as a topic yet to cover, but for transferring ships between games, either creative or survival you'll need to use blueprints. The upshot of creative is that you can paste it in directly with ctrl+v so you don't need to use projectors at all :)
I must have teleported my character with ctrl+space so that I could interact at the new location as I'm pretty sure it's impossible to interact with keypads etc from spectator cam.
I've got a few ideas including a quick tips for creative mode video that might include some of the things you're talking about :)
Thanks. I knew how to copy and paste in creative but that didn't help to get ships built in survival into my creative world and couldn't figure out how to copy them to make them available to paste. Your hint was enough to get me in the general area and I got there eventually. I don't know why people call me slow ^--^
Yeah, I didn't explain myself very well, I should have said you double click on the blueprint then press ctrl+v to paste the ship in, oops!
Haha! I didn't even work out that you have to double-click on the blueprint. First I clicked on a blueprint and tried the Ctrl+v - nothing. So then I selected a blueprint, then closed the blueprint screen and then pressed Ctrl+v - success. I guess that double clicking selects the blueprint and closes the screen. No matter. I got there in the end, thanks to your assistance.
Byt how do you fill the hydrogen engine with fuel... I feel like im missing something
The hydrogen engine seems to need to be switched off then on again when already connected to a fuel source in order for it to start working, not sure whether that's intentional or not though :/
First test was bugged to favour of tank, becouse you forget to unlock legs before toggle on trhursters, so it take some fuel before it can fly.
The margins on the tests were so clearly in favour of one or the other that small things like that were unlikely to be relevant. With the current build of the game there's no contest at all, the tanks win always because the generators are now less efficient than they were
@@Splitsie Ok. Thats a little shame. But what we can do :-(.
So now hydrogen thrusters in atmosfere is useless? And they are only relevant when go to space or you are in space?
Or did you manage to build effective hydrogen ship in you Survival, Maybe... series (I am at episode 50)?
You've misunderstood - this testing was hydrogen tank vs generator, the generator getting nerfed has had no impact on the thrusters so they're still just a powerful in and out of atmosphere as they were, it's just more difficult to run them off generators without having a tank to store pregenerated fuel :)
@@Splitsie but generator is much lighter than tank, so it was easirer to make effecient hydrogen small ship in previous version.
0:10 The tow because you can refill away form your base
These days I'd say if you were going to choose just one I'd choose the tanks, but I agree having at least one generator for refuelling in desperate circumstances is valuable. The reason I say that tanks win hands down is that the generators got further nerfed after this was recorded making them even less effective in comparison to the light weight tanks
It is worth noting in my opinion that with an actual ship that isn't ultra minimal (that has a function and possibly armor blocks) the ratio of the weight of generator/tank versus the total weight of the ship would decrease as generators/tanks represent a smaller portion of it. Meaning that weight advantage of generators over tanks would progressively become negligible. Not to mention that a non-minimal design could quickly overwhelm one or more generators while a single tank would remain enough (if ok with a short flight autonomy)
A definitive advantage of generators that you did not consider is size. If you are trying to build something as small as possible that perhaps work in space and therefor have very low trust requirements generators have a clear advantage here. Tanks are huge.
An other advantage generators have (i believe) over tanks is that in a military scenario I do believe that tanks can explode and do significant extra damage to your ship. There are no such concerns with generators.
That's a very good point about the tanks exploding and building a military ship. From the times small ships hit the ground, it certainly seemed like the tanks gave off a pretty big explosion, not sure if it does block damage but it should if it doesn't. But then on a military ship you're going to want to have maximum power available and probably don't have time to jump into the console to check your fuel reserves... but you might know your ship's 'dry' weight so could work off mass.
I think it's worth looking into the size issue more closely, there might be some unexpected results there.
Oxygen generators can be even worse. Hydrogen tanks explode and that's it, but generators release a huge boulder of ice that can smash the rest of your ship. Avoid building them over vital components.
Hmmm... this seems like it could be worth playing around with to test the survivability
Good point Nethan.
A combination of both is better, in my experience. Sure, you need more cargo capacity, and a good deal more weight, but, if you're going to have a ship that runs solely on Hydrogen (minus the atmos, of course), a way to generate hydrogen is going to be the best option. Mind you, neither is entirely viable on its own. You're gonna need a storage tank (or four lol) to store the hydrogen. Awesome video, by the way, though.
I completely agree that for anything out of some quite specific scenarios a mix is going to be better. For ships that go to space and back, having just enough hydrogen in your tanks to reach space from a planet - then refilling using on-board generators - is probably a good setup. But if you want a really tiny ship to go collect all those cosmetic drops, maybe a cockpit, generator and a few hydrogen thrusters would be perfect for getting there without using your personal jetpack... but a battery and some atmo thrusters could work just as well :)
A very good point there.
I use both tanks for when I'm actually moving and generators for when I'm not they also ever so slightly decrease the rate i lose hydrogen (probably) the extra weight from the ice probably negates it but on the plus side I can never run out of hydrogen unless I lose power all I need is patience.
The ice is lasting longer because it can't output as much hydrogen. You are pushing against the maxspeed with both, so you can't see a difference in power output. Large grid Tanks are equivalent to 625000kg of ice. Small tanks = 20000kg. The only advantage I see to generators is that you can refuel if you find ice, and they give O2 as well.
Another upside that I used recently is that they are smaller and I already had a cargo container to store ice.
this was very interesting, maybe atmo thrusters and ions next?
I had a look at the amount of power they can generate in atmosphere - trying to get an idea of how much armor you could put on your ship once you know it can lift: th-cam.com/video/UMtWSSMdO7w/w-d-xo.html
What other aspects of them would you find useful?
I remember watching that video but im saying in energy efficiency in terms of large ships using combined or just only one of them. since my largest craft is a combo of both, the usg ishimura 1/5 is using lots of power, exactly 2 large reactors to just keep itself in the air, what if i used more ions or atmo thrusters, what would be more cost effective? i know that small ship thrusters were broken a while ago, are they fixed now?
Maybe engines are good but then comes the problem of power is it more cost effective to use batteries or reactors? in terms of weight and charge time plus taking in concideration that solar power = infinite power solar panels have big advantage but they have the cost drawback
Actually apart from that i wanted to ask how do i implement models ingame using space engineers toolbox?
i wanted to implement this model with max lenght at 160 blocks if its possible
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=130024652
Hmm... engergy consumption could be interesting to look at. In the same line of thought, could have a look at batteries vs reactors in that setting too as the results would vary with atmo vs ion. Might take me a while to come up with a good way of testing them though, since the two work in totally separate environments so I'm not sure how to compare them just yet...
Sadly, in regard to import models I have no idea at all how you might do that. I've never played around with the toolbox myself.
The multiplier definitely changed I set mine to x10 xuz I thought it was the default and the large hydrogen tank had 1e+304 or something like that
could it be that the generator is just producing hydrogen regardless wether or not hydrogen or oxigen of that matter is needed?
It seems that's not the case, locked to the ground with nothing on you use no ice :)
ok thank you for clarifying
No worries :)