Despite the large reactor not being the best on paper. It is however, the best block for power output relative to it's PCU cost. A single large reactor can power your entire ship in most cases. Which is very helpful on last-gen consoles since PCU is very limited. Because of that it's my go-to pick power generation
You two are absolutely right. PCU was something I forgot to cover and I do apologize. Luckily the list was still fairly representative in terms of PCU values (Lowest on top and biggest on the bottom), but its still something I should have covered more closely.
Yes PCU is the reason why im using large reactors evryshere possible, specialy the official servers with 20k pcu limit is the 1 large reactor way to go for your base, mining ship and basicaly evrything with jump drives. I always swap to that so i can build bigger warship with remaining pcu
I think we need a new active power source. They need to add a treadmill we can run on to power our ship. Then we can make a battleship entirely powered by sla- willing volunteer labor.
Batteries however do contribute to the overall efficiency of pretty much every power system in the game, since they store power that otherwise wouldnt be generated during times of low power consumption, which is why they are present on most craft and why they are ranked on top
I know I'm late, but for others and newcomers : In SE you can actually "generate" power with batteries. Though, not in the... conventional way. There is a known secret related to these power storing units, namely that they come with 30% energy, whenever they are newly built. If you build 3, set one to recharge, while the other 2 to discharge, you can almost fill 1 battery up. It costs you 160 power cells or 160 kg iron, 16 kg silicon and 32 kg nickel ingots. (I only meant here the "lost" components, which will turn into scraps.) So yeah, they don't "produce" the power, but you can get some out of them. If you are on an atmosphere-less moon, without ice and sun light for the next 10 minutes, with power in your base for about 7-8 minutes, you'll have to get creative and attach some in a clunky way, which you'll grind down after they filled your original batteries.
Worse than 'store'. They are loan sharks that charge you 20% of all power you produce to store the other 80%. Not a biggie when paired with renewable energy (solar/wind), but never use reactor power to power a battery, and then run off the battery on a long term basis.
@@jube8835Yes, but they should be kept turned off on such vessels, until the auxilliary power is needed. Sitting there just on auto, constantly recharging 1% to stay at max is just throwing power out the window.
@@jube8835Also, when it comes to the idea of extra power only at certain times, something else should be noted: power generators like reactors and such never produce power that isn't used. You could have a huge reactor and if all you run on it is a small light, then that is all the uranium it will burn. So, batteries aren't needed to supplement a power generator in emergencies if you are doing that because you imagine the extra power would otherwise go to waste if you had no batteries. But, in terms of weight/mass on your ship, or size/space, then the 'supplemental battery' approach might be useful.
FYI you can place the wind turbine slightly higher than 8 blocks high, and then have ones coming out from the sides of it so you have 5 total off each tier of blocks. That heavily increases their efficiency and they don't reduce eachother's efficiency. Put a single armor block at the base of each one so they stick out and then you can have them all around
Whilst that is true and a very valid point, that does also increase the sheer size of a tower with windturbines. In addition, you would have to build it quite high, so the wind turbines on the side don't lose any efficiency from being too close to the ground. But still a valid point.
and you can also put them underground if you have a space of 8 to 9 blocks away from the voxels and it still works, this combined with their cost in terms of materials, for me personally makes them S tier, at one of my bases I had about 103 wind turbines underground
That is very true, it is somewhat cheesing, though still a valid point. 👍 My main issue with that approach is how much of a performance cost it has. Having to dig a large hole, before then stuffing it with blocks that take computing power. So for me personally, just too much of a performance hog in that scenario.
@@AliceDoesThings404 Performance in SE? what a good joke, almost made me laugh, this game is not optimized at all, and the engine is very old, it's a game from 2013. and when it comes to resources used, I think it's much more efficient to build a mobile base that you convert into a station when you want to recharge the batteries
Im curious as to the 371kw mentioned for wind turbines. Mine are getting 426kw output. Optimal is still a range and a couple more blocks clearance helps. As I'm getting back into it after a long break, I have weather disabled so no boost there. I usually use 10-11 spacing as opposed to the usually recommended 8-9. I'd assume that is why, but it would change the power calculations.
The only thing I felt was missing from this was further comparison of the net power output of the hydrogen engine and small reactor. You went to the effort to mine the same volume(? unclear) of each ore and compare those all the way through the process but left out the last bit of info to sum up the final gains and compare their efficiencies. For those curious: some math extrapolates that the net power production of the hydrogen engine was 809.28 kWh (90.9% efficiency from ore to power), and the net power production of the small reactor was 9753.83 kWh (98.3% efficiency from ore to power). But what about time? The O2/H2 generator takes almost as much time to refine the fuel as the engine takes to burn it, so that's easy to balance: one ice processor per engine. The refinery took less than half as long to refine the fuel as the reactor took to burn it, so one refinery can serve two reactors and still have a little bit of time leftover to do something else. Also, the rector took much longer to burn through the total mass of the fuel but produced much more power (more than 11x as much). If you stop the reactor once it's produced as much power as the hydrogen engine, you'll find that it only took 1/3rd the time and you still have 91% of your fuel remaining. This all means that for every 1 ship load of uranium ore collected, you'd have to collect 11.14 loads of ice to produce the same amount of power. 1.014 of those ice loads would be wasted producing power for the O2/H2 generators while only 0.017 loads of uranium ore would be wasted producing power for refineries. Uranium power is far more dense than hydrogen power and takes less time and effort to collect and produce once you know where the ore is to be found. Then you have to consider that refineries can have upgrade modules to further adjust fuel and/or time efficiency depending on need while the O2/H2 generators are fixed at their base speed and efficiency. If you stumble upon a uranium deposit, it makes sense to collect it immediately since it's objectively a much better fuel than ice when you have it. You'd have to spend roughly 12x as much time mining and refining ice to get the same power. And offsetting the refining costs with renewable energy is much easier. When ore availability is not an issue, the small reactor is far better than the hydrogen engine.
hydrogen engine imo is ideal for planet locked base and rover mobile bases, while reactors are for everything up there. having to go to space to mine uranium, then go back to planet would need hydrogen thrusters or ion+atmos thruster combo and that would need a lot of electricity anyway, so in both situations you are forced to take the hydrogen route. basically for planet locked, its the best active generator full stop. for To Infinity and Beyond scenarios hydrogens are at best A tier
You can also combine multiple power sources . For example, wind and hydrogen, or solar and reactors. The nice things is the renewable power has the first priority to have power taken, which means it will be the first to supply energy. That allows you to not use fuel unless demand exceeds the renewables max power output
Personally have a 4 combo. Wind for renewable, hydrogen engine for when thats not enough, at late/end game having one or two small reactors all charging a battery network for when shit hits the fan xD
@@GamingPerks Since wind and solar are best used excusively on bases, I most often than not only use those as sources, possibly with 1 or 2 backup hydrogen generators. Otherwise I mainly leave hydro and nuclear as ship fuels, since it's the easiest to remain mobile with lol
there are scripts as well that makes it where reactors and engines only turn on when needed. i like having a mix of stuff. i aways have some batteries on stuff. if i can help it i use reactors as a jump start only
@GamingPerks 100%. I always make a battery bank in every base. Especially in early game when you're power consumption fluctuates a lot. Having that power stored up is really nice as a buffer
It feels worth mentioning that nobody would *ever* put Uranium ore into a refinery that didn't have four Yield Modules attached - so realistically, you'd get 20kg of ingots from 1000kg of ore, rather than 10.
I have a massive rover with everything in it to process material and build things. Basically a rolling base. It has 4 large grid batteries, 3 large hydrogen tanks, and 2 hydrogen engines set up on my hotbar. That way when my batteries start to drain a bit, I just switch on the engines and I’m good to go. I also have 2 solar panels on top for passive charging. If I’m not processing ore, the range on that thing is insane with that setup. You’d have to be really careless and in the dark to be stuck without power. All that to say, I absolutely love hydrogen engines, especially with the supplemental trickle of power from solar panels and occasionally being hooked up to a station to offload.
Same here one of my first large plunge mining ships ive made uses like 14 or 16 of them with 8 h2/o2 generators and 4 batterys just so i could get a full cargo of Uranium as i got tired of doing runs with my small ship miners and now its one of my go tos for mining in space
I prefer reactors to hydrogen engines, but it is worth pointing out that you will be producing oxygen at the same time you produce hydrogen which may be a resource you needed anyway.
This is a serious problem though. It happened to me several times that I accidentally left the hydrogen engines running, they drained all ice on my ship and I later died of asphyxiation not being able to generate oxygen I needed. I find that they're more trouble than they're worth.
@@seushimarejikaze1337i dont remember who but a youtuber tested that 1 ice doesnt give you 2 hydrogen 1 oxygen, instead 1 ice produces either 1 oxygen or 2 hydrogen so even with tanks having an hydrogen engine will make you run out of oxygen faster
I can't imagine why it wasn't available to begin with. It's the very first thing I wanted to do with custom turret controller. I think the devs don't actually play their own game.
I do agree it should have been there from the start, but I can understand why. Given it was added with the "warfare 2 update", they had enough other things to work on, so it probably just slipped their mind.
@@AliceDoesThings404yeah, generally when you say “turret” in a video game, people are thinking stationary guns. But there’s always another use for a tool that wasn’t immediately intended.
One thing severely lacking in SE for batteries is the ability to set discharge to specific blocks, like for instance if I have a small bank of railguns, I want to have batteries tied directly to them, so that I don't have to power the charge for them directly.
Workaround; Could use event controllers to turn on and off groupings of batteries. How many fully charged batteries to fire a rail gun? That group is OFF until said rail gun is fired upon which the group is turned on. Stays on until fully charged then turns back off until railgun is fired again. Would that achieve the same effect? When the batteries are off they can't be used by anything, retaining their charge. When turned on once fired they will discharge their energy to charge the rail gun. Recharge and then shut off until needed again.
@@ender5817 This would only semi work, because though the event control could function in this way, you could also just group the batteries you wanted and turn them off and on as you fired the rail guns. The issue isn't really how the batteries are turned off, on, recharged, etc etc, it's their specific power usage. There isn't a way (at least as far as I am aware of) to isolate the power being transferred to the rail guns. The goal would be to have the rail guns only ever pull directly from a specific set of batteries. Unfortunately though, the rail guns are going to pull from every battery that's attached to the same grid it is. Turning some batteries on and off might save some time and power, but you're still gonna end up drawing from the batteries that you're trying to specifically NOT draw from. However thinking on it, you could I suppose have some event controllers with some timer blocks perhaps set up to power down the main batteries during the rail gun charge while only the rail gun batteries are on. Issue of course there is that the rest of the ships operations would still need power, and draw from the rail gun batteries. There might be an answer somewhere in that setup for this type of situation, but I get the feeling it would not still be what OP was looking for specifically. (That being a separated battery bank that is used solely to power the rail guns, while the other batteries only powered normal operations.)
I've always wanted more in-depth wiring in SE. Breaker boxes and the ability to put devices and rooms on different circuits. Now we can actually reroute the power.
@@DoubleJJizzlewith the weight and space used by those rail gun only batteries it seems to be a waste to have them off. With them on all batteries on your ship would just last longer. So, beside cool factor, what is the actual benefit to having a system as you describe?
@@inktitan as far as I am Aware of? Not a thing. There might be some arguments for stuff like having batteries specifically set aside for charging a jump drive, but for a railgun, I don't see one. It's mostly just a thought experiment on how you'd get a system to work like that. Real life of course does actually use these types of systems, usually isolating them for various reasons. Keeping redundant power supplies available for when they're needed incase main power is lost. Using power for specific systems that draw high/low amounts of wattage to keep strain off primary power sources. However this is a game and those kind of redundant systems aren't exactly efficient. Still could see an argument for jump drives though. Edit: In addition to Jump Drives, I would consider having additional batteries for other high draw blocks such as a refinery pretty useful. Normal standard operations would be essentially powered on all the time by a set of batteries. When you turn on some bigger power draining blocks, you turn on a second set of batteries/power generators. This would help keep your power drain and fuel usage to a minimum and be a bit more efficient during normal usage of a ship/station. While still giving you an option to push out more when needed. This would allow simpler power generators like solar panels and wind generators to have an easier time charging and keeping you operational, while you're basically not doing anything. However, even with all that, it still just seems like a lot of work, for something that's not really needed for a video game like this one. Considering power production is endless, resources are near infinite, and complicated builds aren't always what they're cracked up to be. Especially considering this would be a purely superficial upgrade to any build, that likely wouldn't anything of real hard value, but a few % points of efficiency.
I like solar panels because it's aesthetically pleasing to look out and see a giant solar farm surrounding your base. Also, a trick I learned is you can double stack the panels to generate 2x the output during the day. If you want to make the panels automatically track the sun they do require extra work and resources. Hydrogen overall is the best source of electricity early-mid game because as long as you have a ready supply of ice you print out free electricity,
I recently built a small grid hauler using atmospheric thrusters with a mixture of batteries and engines, the idea being the engines would allow the batteries to last longer. Works pretty alright, I did intentionally avoid hydrogen thrusters due to their big range of damage to grids, mainly with the design i went for too. Works well for ferrying goods between bases that are close by. Could be Way more better but its a fun experiment and giving different components adds to its beauty
@@spaceengineeringempire4086 Yeah! And I am loving the update, I used to rely on the P.A.M. script to get these tasks done, but good that we can now make hauling done without relying on scripts!
@@AliceDoesThings404 The term I always heard was "Voxel Locked." Calling voxel locked grids "Static" can be confusing because we can also go into the grid settings and set a grid type to static as well. Static grids (from the games perspective) aren't affected by things like gravity the way non-static grids are.
@@yamatokurusaki5790nope. The setting convert to ship/station has been around for years. It literally turns the grid into "voxsal" connected grid without touching any voxals
The solar panels can be stacked in two layers. This is not known by most new engineers. Just flip it around when making your array and you'll be operating at 200% 😁
@@BaliAgha when you put 2 solarpanels with the collectorsides above each other both get full power, or to explain it the other way around a single "layer" of a solarpanel can only harvest 50% of the incoming light with its collectors and the rest is let through
Does this work with large grid? And/or with colored panels? I was trying to do it the other day and it didn't seem like both sides were producing, and yes I did have them back to back though I can't remember what the grid size was
I know that you didn't cover mods. I just wanted to put this out there. A few years ago I was trying to find an alternative for power. It was right after they stole uranium from the planets. (How unrealistic!) So I found the Deuterium reactor mod. It uses stone and or ice to create deuterium containers for fuel (or both). There are large and small grid variants and they are POWERFUL. I do love the mod. There is also a positive thing about going to space. It's the only place to find pure deuterium deposits that is very rich when refined. So, the mod makes it very beneficial to go to space and has you actually looking to go there for that rich resource. Who doesn't want a 12GW reactor operating their base. All the power they would need FOREVER! OH! They are NOT cheap to build! You better be ready to mine a bunch of gold and other rare stuff to get the special components to build one. These things are a beast to build. The bigger they are the more expensive they will cost you to build. So, cost will depend on how much you are willing to go mine. It will be a grind just to build the low level one. I think one of the lower tier one take 2000 of the special components and it also requires like 500 or so superconductors also. Be ready to grind for some recourses. This mod does put in a really nice power gen option, but you are not going to get it easy. You WILL WORK FOR IT!
The wind turbine can be used on voxel locked subgrids, as well as static grids. This means you can put one on a vehicle, and then using rotors and pistons, deploy it. Simple designs just rotate the subgrid with the turbine and landing gear on it, and then lower vehicle suspension until locked. It's great for mobile drills, where you will be voxel locking to deploy a drill anyways.
2 things One H2 generator produces exactly as much hydrogen as one engine consumes so you could run engines on just h2 generators and skip the tanks Also imo the combination of reactors and engines works best as they reactors can take over the basic load and you can switch on the engine once the reactor runs out
Given that you construct the block, and recieve energy, it counts in the very technical sense. In addition to the fact that you can take apart the battery, make a new one, and get more charge. Though it was more a comparrison between power blocks, a category which the battery belongs. But you raise a valid point 👍
keep in mind that there also is a way to create battery powergenerator by using a blueprint of a cross-setup of four batteries that are set on discharge while mounted on a rotor. the whole setup is quiet complex because you need some additional blocks Like timers, a welder and a grinder but at the end of the day it only consumes stone to generate power stored in batteries set on auto.
Nuclear is absolutely king, especially when combined with a large battery chain. My main ship is a power hog, as it has 30, YES, THIRTY jump drives (I can enter a server in space, and in 8-10 hours straight, get the mats and weld it by hand, believe it or not). The ship has 62 batteries (2 for each JD, and 1 for general ship systems, and 1 backup battery set to recharge), and one large reactor. The power output is bonkers (measured in Gigawatts), but it means I can jump >40,000 KM in just 7 minutes 20 seconds if going full hog. It also eats uranium like a hobo wolfing down a ham sandwich, but I'm a jump addict, so it is what it is. The ship itself is actually propelled with H2 thrusters, and some small ions for docking procedures to save on H2. 4 large H2 tanks, along with 8 emergency small H2 tanks. The emergency tanks are to power 2 H2 engines long enough to get me to some ice, or, in a pinch, provide fuel for an emergency landing in high G, assuming the 3 parachute hatches are damaged, empty, or there's no atmosphere. The ship also has some solar panels, so you will never truly be dead in space when it comes to power. As long as you can find ice or uranium ore, the ship can process them into usable fuel. Every power generation system has its uses, but yeah, the battery is the greatest, and nuclear is the best for charging batteries quickly. A pro you missed about wind turbines is you can use them in underground caves, making them the best cheap power source for stealth bases on planets with atmosphere. BTW, if anyone is curious about the ship, the model a couple iterations behind my personal one (I'm on the Mk.VII) can be found here: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029694875 100% vanilla, with industrial smuggler theme. A mobile base among the stars.
Battery power is not free, you had to take energy from somewhere and make the battery. The amount of power consumed should be factored in with the cost of the individual power generation blocks.
That is fair, I completely forgot about PCU, given for years not I have mostly used block-limits, and forgot it existed, I will remember that for next time. As for the batteries, I agree they aren't for power generation, they are in the power-blocks category in SE, meaning it fits into this power-blocks comparison 👍
You'll have to be a bit more specific. I am comparing different aspects of different power sources to determine which one is the overall best. ALL of them are good in their own way, but some are better than others overall.
@@AliceDoesThings404 I would still say in terms of 'power blocks' batteries should be F-tier, as they have the biggest disadvantage of them all - they dont generate power.
maybe someone else put this out there, but you can put 2 solar stacked so in the same " space " you have more energy. the " problem" is that still is the same energy per block, but since you dont have to put anything in front of a solar panel or near the array its kinda "cheating" the math , cos you have double per "block" , i dont know if i explain it well but i think its oks eitherway just found you channel and its great keep doing it
I disagree with the ranking of the Wind Turbine vs the Solar Panel, if only because the Wind Turbine shines in early game while the Solar Panel shines in mid game. My power block recommendation would be: Wind power in the early game. This would provide most, if not all, of your early game power, and I would personally not exceed a total of three Wind Turbines. Once you outgrow those, I would recommend switching to solar arrays for the scalability. Space flight eventually necessitates the use of hydrogen for fuel anyway, so in space it can be very useful to generate power using hydrogen as well. The switch to Uranium, I would personally only ever conduct with large grids, as it seems to rare of a fuel source to use it on small grids. All of these would naturally be amplified by using batteries for power storage. But that's my idea of it.
That is very valid and I completely agree. The only reason the wind turbine really fell behind, was because its not usable on all the planets/moons, nor in space. As well as the differing performance depending on weather. Other than that, completely agree 👍
I try to use a mix of power sources never just 1 and if it is my base I tend to use all of them if I can. Just because I have a reactor doesn't mean I will get rid of my solar panels, I like the look of them with how I set them up
I like to use a main source and at least supplemental source. My main rover at the moment (large grid) runs on a couple of hydrogen engines that charge 4 batteries when they get low. However on top of the rover I have a couple solar panels that charge passively during daylight. Even if I’m stuck without power and without ice to make power, I can do whatever till daylight and get on the move to find ice or go to my fueling station. In other words, I agree. Combine them. Backups are a must.
Honestly, you can still technically use the battery in the same way as before, you just have to spend iron, nickel and silicon to do so. Which, of course, can be produced literally anywhere where there's stone.
Just keep doing what you do, I love seeing a good bit of Q&A with the proper testing to prove/disprove the findings.. Wish Luca put as much effort into her videos when she makes a claim
Thank you very much, and I appriciate it! As for uploading them to the workshop, I might make some imroved variants that I then upload, but we will have to see.
its actually more space and weight efficient to store your hydrogen as ice and generate the H2 as you burn it. you can store vast amounts of power this way. though the power per block stat drops by 33%. but since you'd otherwise be wasting dozens of blocks on tanks the net power/block is higher.
You missed some really important points: - All theses blocks have PCU, and this figures is really important on keen's vanilla official servers for instance. - Batteries have an efficiency coefficient of 80%. Meaning when you charge them with 1MWh you only get 800kWh of power stored. This really degrades them as the "ultimate" energy solution. - Your side by side comparison of H2 vs Uranium ingots production is biased as you can add power efficiency or yield modules to the refinery. Uranium is also more convenient to transport and transfer form grid to grid (you can even do this by hand). - The weight comparison between those two is also biased as the H2 Engine will also need tanks (and possibly H2/O2 generators and storage for ice) to be efficient. In the other hand, a lot of Uranium can be stored inside nuclear reactors. Another big issue with the H2 energy is .. the O2 production ! If you need to get a constant H2/O2 generation on your grid and you use a cryo pod for your AFK, the small O2 consumption will constantly drain your Ice storage only to refill your tanks at 100%. Problem is that its not really efficient unless you use the (new) event block to regulate the H2/O2 generators. The "rare fuel issue" of uranium is not a real problem once you reached space. You can find it quite easily once this is achieved. Myself I still consider the large nuclear reactor as king of energy production. No question asked !
All of these points are very valid, and I did forget about PCU, since most people usually talk about block limits instead of PCU limits. I am also not a math major unfortunately, so there is a lot of calculations I simply have not been able to do. As for if the comparison between H2 and Uranium is biased, no it is not. I am well aware that you can add modules to the refinery, but in a way, you can call that DLC. I was comparing the base produkts, and did not take extras into account. For instance, I could have also decided to fill the same space the refinery uses with more O2H2 gens, because then they use the same space. So the biased argument, is simply false. Also because I mentioned and even showed that a hydrogen tank was needed, and throughout the hydrogen engine ranking, I mentioned tanks several times. So not biased. Either way, thank you for raising these points of discussion. 👍
Not as an objective measure, but subjective. I hate batteries the most and prefer Hydrogen engines the most. Often using the water mod and can set up bases with water scoops to readily get hydrogen. Since my preferred thing to build are rovers. It gives me the most enjoyment for my time in the game.
I built this large grid mining rover with a drill in the middle that goes down on pistons. I just put 2 hydrogen engines on it and use the ice it mines to fuel it. Somehow it runs two large refineries while also powering 6 wheels to move it and the Mf 100000 kilos of ore. I need to add more batteries tho.
I make almost everything with batteries as they are available from the start and can be charged through any power source. Only downside is how many can be required to power everything without overloading the grid and the added weight as a result.
As someone from beta, the solar panels setup you are talking about did exist with a programmable block and a timer without using the turret control or camera. Yes more expensive, but it did exist.
I know it existed back then, and it was very useful too. I'm just glad it can finally be done in vanilla, meaning everyone can do it, not just servers/worlds with scripts turned on 🙃
Im playing on the steamdeck and ingame scripts are not available. I wasnt aware the turrent controller could be used to solar alignment. Thank goodness isys script isnt my only option anymore
Cool video. Thank you. An extra con for the battery would be that it doesn't charge with 100% efficiency. I think it's 80%, which means that if you use a reactor or hydrogen engine to charge it, 20% of your fuel is wasted. It's only worth using batteries with solar and wind, otherwise it's always more efficient to just run directly from the reactor or engine. This reduces the battery's versatility a great deal in my opinion, and precludes it being given S rank in my own rankings.
I typically use solar power (and wind when in atmosphere) for general power generation and have my Hydrogen Engines and Reactors activate when power consumption reaches a specific threshold to prevent my batteries from being drained dry. This method works pretty well when I'm doing a space start and make a giant mining ship.
Smal VS Large reactor 9 small will generate 405 Mw and only 20 Small will generate 300 Mw giving 7 block more space on a ship or les in size Sure the large one is only 72.295Kg and 20 small together are 95.860Kg . So that is like 23 tons difference yet 23 tons is nothing to be concerned about if a ship needs that match power because than we are talking about a big ship any ways . The small reactors can be spread trough the ship so that will give the advantage that taking out your power in a battle will not be easy at all . About the Battery in your video yes it needs to be in it yet its not listable because it needs to get charged and fully loaded to be of use for when all other power sources fail so you got time to restore your ship or vessel . Great video love it please do it again and ad the Vs info I have provided you :D
Batteries doesn't generate power... Batteries hold power.. Also panel and turbine doesn't require fuel source The problem with hydrogen engine is it is not making enough i think and many ppl use the hydrogen to power ships cuz it is most versatile sourse of movement
Don't think I would put the battery on its own, but always put it as an option for passive power (ie Solar and wind), as the active power supplies will always give you power regardless of external factors such as darkness or wind drop. Nice Video, but please the 'unfocussed' cam was a bit overused.
Thanks for making this. This is an excellent video. Liked and subscribed. A few things that could be added in the next iteration. Solar panels can be double stacked and still function. Even though the panels are touching, they all still work at full capacity. This method does take up extra block space, but it has the benefit of doubling the output of a solar array. Wind turbines can be placed 10 blocks high and then you can add one turbine to each side at the 8 block level to increase power output without the turbines negatively effecting each other. It looks ugly and takes up a lot of space in the sky but the power output is usually worth it. Weather can can have positive effects on wind (which is mentioned), but weather can also have negative effects. Foggy weather is horrible for wind generation. The large reactor takes fewer resources than spamming 27 small reactors in the same amount of space, but the output of the 27 small reactors in that space will be more than the large reactor.
Thank you for the feedback, and you are right. There are some things that were forgotten and that should have been mentioned. Though I was not aware that the wind turbines could be affected negatively by certain weather, interesting. And as for the reactors, the 27 small reactors make 405MW, which is only 105 more than the large reactor. So sadly not double, but 1/3rd more. Either way, thank you for the support and the advice! 🙃
One thing you should've touched on, I think, is online multiplayer and PCU limitations. On the official Keen servers, as one example, we get 20,000 PCU per person. Given that, in the moderate to long term, resources are not the constriction, but PCU is, that changes everything. For example, batteries are 15PCU each, reactors and hydrogen engine blocks are 25PCU, and wind and solar are 55PCU ( ! ), that changes things even more. Wind and solar are completely inefficient in starting sense, and late game, well. Unless youŕe using hydrogen for propulsion, it doesn´t make sense to use hydrogen engines. PCU is used up creating the H2 infrastructure. Reactors, however, will use your currently existing refineries. A single large reactor with batteries for "burst" power needs is seemingly the optimal way to go.
PCU was something I forgot to touch on. I rarely hear people talking about PCU, but rather stuff like block limits instead. I completely agree with you, I should have looked into PCU limitations as well, and I do apologize. Though from the looks of the PCU values, each of the blocks did score pretty accurately in the ranking. With batteries having the lowest and being ontop, with wind turbine and solar having the most, and landing on the bottom. So its fortunate in that sense. But that is something I will take into account next time, thank you! 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 Regrettably, the limits are low enough, on official servers anyway, that a lot of fun things are impractical or impossible. Custom designed guided missiles? Even small ones can go over a thousand PCU, and any decent target will have enough turret to shoot them down, so you´d need a swarm, which means you´d have missiles and nothing else. Small thrusters are pointless, given the large are the same PCU. And custom turrets like the ball turrets? Too expensive! I understand the PCU limits are meant to keep server impact low and to promote fast network play, but that just highlights the lack of optimization, even after all of this time.
Yeah I can fully understand that, and its honestly a shame. Especially for those who go on youtube or reddit, even the workshop, and see people with these massive ships, that they can never build. I truly hope that Vrage 3 will be a much more optimized engine, if they choose to either make a sequal or port the game over. Either that, or they find more ways to optimize the game. I mean, it has come a long way since its first release, but it should have gotten even farther. Its always so saddening when someones creativity, is limited by artificial limits..
My ships often don't have enough power to run at max load. Instead, I substitute one of the interior walls with batteries to decrease the size of my power room. In combat ships, these batteries can be spaced out as well to increase the durability, and using a large reactor as the core, it can run a terrifying amount of firepower (or shields/jumps) for an extended duration.
If you play a space pirate, you can usually get away with not having to mine. I intercepted a freighter that had a bunch of large reactors and small reactors and a jump drive. The ship was probably 10 times larger than mine but I’m pretty sure I have enough resources to build a base on a moon or large asteroid now as a refueling station for my interceptor.
The wind turine blocks separation can be solved by condnsing a star of 5 wind turbine on top of a pole. One straght up and 4 on it's sides, one block lower, all around the pole
Should be noted the refinery can be equipped with yield, speed and power modules, which can either increase the speed by a large margin, increase the amount refined creating more fuel, or save more power refining the ore itself,
I almost always stick a bunch of solar panels on whatever i build, simply for its looks. From structure to texture, it works well for almost every kind of structure and vehicle.
An important thing to consider is pcu cost. And in this case the large nuclear reactor is only 25 pcu and produces 300MW. But if you are playing solo then pcu doesn't matter.
As others mentioned, there'S easy tricks to minimize the impact of the windmills restrictions. It's pretty much an easy go to for bases on atmospheric planets. Providing ample power and for the occasional lull in the winds (or damage) a battery or two (more for bigger bases obviously) you quickly get to the point of not having to worry or think about anything. And that's kind of the biggest concern: being able to divert attention elsewhere. Some people have had bad experiences with H² Gens being forgotten and left running. Personally I never use it much, because running smaller things of batteries and planetary bases of windmills works very well. Solar panels are cheap enough to spam them (if you don't have to worry about PCU) nad theoretically, you've got enough room in space. but their low power output is a bit of a bummer. but once you're in space, transitioning to nuclear power is just a matter of time/luck finding the ores. Comparing uranium and Hydrogen as fuel, Uranium seems to be the one you could easier forget about. Considering how long making power cells takes (more than 5 min for a large grid battery in an assembler without speed modules) and how big they are, building batteries for power is a lot of a hassle, especially in the early game. I wonder how "efficient" a Setup with event controller/timer block, welder, grinder and projector would be, deconstructing the battery and building a new one, every time it runs out.
I haven't played in a long time, but I have a couple of mods to suggest that make the game much more enjoyable for me 1. I forget the name of the mod, but there is one that puts uranium back on the planet, not just on asteroids, as it used to be. I think its ridiculous to make it available only in space. It is still a rare resource, and often hard to find. 2. Water mod. If there is ice on a planet, it's only logical that there would be a water table. I put the water level far below the ground. So, you have to work to get to it, but its nice to have when you get there. This completely eliminates the need to find ice once you are able to drill down far enough.
The wind turbine is actually relatively easy to scale *up to 5 turbines* Build a tower, (more than 7 high, say 10) Put a wind turbine on top On the one but highest block, attach a block on each outward facing side (i.e. 4 blocks total) These blocks then function as mounts for other (horizontally mounted) turbines. Now you have 5 turbines in optimal position (each turbine does NOT see the others, nor the mast). Of course, scaling further requires another mast.
Personally i end up using these power options pretty much every game: Ground bases: Solar Panels + Batteries for nomal running and Hydrogen Engines as Boosters (when producing or generally using a lot of energy) Tiny working ships: Batteries and maybe a few solar pannels as range extenders or to recharge in an emergency Small ships: Batteries for power, hydrogen for trust. Medium/Large Ships (anything with a jumpdrive pretty much): Batteries for normal running, small nuclear reactors for recharging batteries and jumdrives. I find uranium to difficult to find and refine to make it my main power source. Using ground stations with hydrogen engines being able to recharge docking ships tends to be a really good option.
Maybe I'm paranoid but I put rectors of every type throughout my ship so there is no localized kill shot that can be made save for shooting the pilot directly
Och i really miss table with comparation of parameters of all power sources on one screen. Would like to compare power/block power/mass and other values.
The best energy system is clearly hydrogen due to performance and consumption, but nevertheless the reactor is useful as a backup, it has always been considered that it is imperative to have the 4 types of energy either in bases or ships, batteries, hydrogen panels and reactor , good video, greetings
Been playing on a server and I can tell you that while uranium is hard to find at the start, by the time you found it once, you're basically set for life. Reactors are so fuel-efficient that you can basically run a production-heavy ship that regularly jumps around for DAYS before the thought of your uranium running out even comes to mind, while hydrogen has the tendency to run out a lot quicker. And it doesn't help that H2O2 generators are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow. So is processing uranium, admittedly, but uranium lasts for a lot longer than hydrogen does. The large reactor personally I suggest only for huge production bases or true warships that you will expect to be jumping around and firing railguns a lot - all activities that drink a LOT of power for short bursts. Another major vulnerability of the large reactor is that it's one big block - if it is taken out, that's a huge cut out of your ship's power, while small reactors, while more expensive overall, allow for more redundancy. All in all, I consider small reactors to be the true backbone of any good ship, solars to be a great mid to late game passive power generation tool for civilian ships and bases to integrate existing power consumption, and large reactors a specialized tool for the biggest, power hungriest battleships.
The hydrogen engine sound in a ship sounds so fucking good, and the block is killer too so I incorporate it as much as I can on small grid designs despite it's size
normal output for wind turbine is around 427kwh and its perfekt for early stations to charge your ships or rovers it belongs to B or higher just for how easy it is to build.
There are some ways to mitigate the solar panel's downsides a little further. If you're using them as cheap and reliable power for a zero atmosphere base, such as on the moon, build at or near one of the poles. A solar array with some elevation can produce maximum power 24/7 while only draining with a turret controller and one rotor. Because ai solar arrays following the sun use their actuators even at night, cutting back on one actuator and never powering actuators that aren't bringing power back in, really means a lot to your base's power grid. I don't know if it can provide more power for it's floor plan footprint than turbines when inside an atmosphere, but polar solar is always the best solar. As always, use some batteries for storage and the extra output when it's needed. I don't know if oxygen farms care about their angle to the sun, but you can stick those on your rotating solar pole too, so long as you use an advanced rotor and conveyors. Last but not least, whatever you do, DO NOT FORGET TO INSTALL METEOR COUNTERMEASURES, regardless of however you set up your ai solar arrays on the moon. It's one thing to have an impact on a static, cheapo standing array, and another to have a more expensive smart array get hit and potentially fall on something else, especially early on when you aren't set up for hydrogen power. Thankfully an inexpensive interior turret or two will be cheap enough to fire using whatever magnesium the meteors bring you, and help you maintain your foothold until hydrogen is logistically reliable, or maintain a hands-free power supply so hydrogen and ice mining aren't as necessary in the first place.
The number you really need when comparing the nuclear reactor to hydrogen is the energy gained from the fuel, minus energy spent for refining, divided by the volume of voxels mined to get that fuel. It is also generally weird to put these on a tier list when they are all meant for certain situations.
They should add a new early game AND end-game power source that goes even beyond the nuclear reactors- (New dlc concept? Sci-fi False Metal + Quantum Technology?) Early Game Generator: Biofuel Generator, place natural mass into the generator and gain great power for a short time- really good for quick charging a huge battery set up. Early Game Generator Enhancer: Electrical Fractal Optimizer - This building optimizes all generators by ensuring the electrical current reaches a perfect mathematical fractal which strictly follows the path of least resistance, allowing for increasing MW output by 15%. Mid-Game Generator: Atmospheric generator, decently cheap build to build and has no fuel requirements thereafter- The Atmospheric Generator generates 8.0 MW per 1 block and only functions in planetary atmospheres- However, it superheats environments and needs a cooling system to operate. End game Generator: Something sci-fi like an Antimatter Generator which uses a fuel source ‘Antimatter’ made from a particle accelerator. This makes nuclear reactors mid-game. Other additions: Research Analysis Machine (RAM) - How you obtain the building recipe for all of this DLC content such as the Atmospheric Generator etc. Input materials for analysis and get research applied. Molecular Fabrication & Synthesis Machine (MFS) - Really large structure, super huge power intake requirement, Allows for crafting without resources as it uses molecules in the atmosphere to create things, basically allowing one to get free stuff. It crafts SUPER slowly though. Matterform Engine - Engine required for use by Antimatter technologies. Matterbend Drive Waymaker - Creates extra dimensional coordinates to be used by Matterbend Drives for large ships. Matterbend Drive - Allows for the creation of artificial wormholes, successfully creating a portal between two spaces. Requires extra dimensional coordinates of Waymaker. Antimatter Warhead - New warhead, twice the destructive power. Dark Matter Spiral Engine - Creates Dark Matter from any material at a slow rate. Quantum Shell Generator - A shield generator that uses Dark Matter that warps incoming projectiles to the other side of the field, effectively fully nullifying incoming projectile damage. Uses up significant power, power generators cannot be active at the same time or the generators would explode from overload, requires batteries to use. Matter Eater Beam - A laser beam defense turret that eats directly at matter able to instantly destroy heavy armor, however requires extreme amounts of dark matter as ammunition and power. Antimatter Thruster - Uses antimatter as fuel, it is SUPER explosive, dangerous, and fragile- not good for combat ships, however it allows space ships to get to 200 m/s unlike the 100 cap.
You forgot a huge downside of the battery: It "loses" 20% of the power put into it. That is, if you put in 1 MWh of power, it only stores 0.8 MWh of power. This is really bad if you're charging batteries off of fuel sources like H2 or U.
I always keep a few hydrogen engines on my grid with an event controller as emergency power. If battery levels dip below 25% I have the generators turn on for 5 minutes to boost the power. This works well with solar cells.
For those who use the watermod and don't know yet, you can get infinit hydrogen by putting a collector in the water. Slap three or four hydrogen engines in your base and that will run pretty much everything you will want.
A wonderful example of Keen's lack of scientific rigor in the game. In the real world, extracting hydrogen from ice (or water with the mod) requires more energy than you can ever get back by burning it (with oxygen) in a generator (or thruster, or whatever), so isn't an effective power source. Otherwise we'd be using it instead of gasoline, solar panels, nuclear power, etc.
I think the battery grinding strat is still worth it tbh, the battery components can be made with only stone, so they're a lot more renewable that hydrogen engines or reactors
Not sure if they were out yet. But in the NEWest DLC the large turbine has a higher output. Also batterys store power they do NOT create power. they should not of been in this video
This video covers power blocks. The battery is a power block, and has the POTENTIAL to create power. I said it spawns with power, never that it makes it. But clever engineering can make a power generation system using batteries.
I did point out that the hydro generator needs fuel and pipes to run it. That was the whole point behind comparing the fuel it uses vs the fuel a reactor uses. Should pay more attention next time 🤔
32.6% (approximately) increase in weight to power ratio for the 27 Small Reactor configuration. The fringe benefit of which would be that it doesn't require any Gold to achieve a 405MW output in the same space as the large reactor. The weight difference of 57,116kg is roughly an additional 79% the weight of a Large reactor, so I can see how only gaining the additional 105MW output (34% Approximate) increase for almost 80% the weight of a second Large reactor may seem like a major flaw overall. However, as stated earlier, it doesn't require Gold and its weight/mass is a negligible factor outside of planetary gravity. Given you will likely be in space by this stage, it's an acceptable trade-off if Gold proves difficult to procure or would be better used elsewhere. The PCU factor is likely the more pressing issue for such a Small reactor configuration, practically speaking. What would be nice is a larger battery array, similarly scaled to the Small and Large reactors. A Large Battery bank block, like a single 3x3x3 Battery block or other configuration that takes up the same Volume, with a higher storage and output capacity scaled similarly to the reactors would be a nice addition to the power options. Simply considering the PCU factor, having exponentially increased power to PCU "bulk" blocks would help with a lot of issues. Much like adding tiered or purpose built (as in high acceleration, high efficiency etc with drawbacks) Thrusters and ship tools would help alleviate many issues as well.
I find that building large hydrogen engine rooms on my bases or smaller ones (2-4 engines) on my large grid ships that I can turn on when I need to charge the batteries, and turn them off when they are charged works great. Ussualy my problem with hydrogens engines is that they consume all your fuel without you realising it. But with event controllers you can make sure they turn on under specific conditions or they leave a reserve of hydrogen at all times for the thrusters on big grid ships.
One 'con' I'd like to add about batteries is that on auto mode they charge from other power sources while discharging to power power-using blocks.. unless they fixed that. (Didn't play SE recently..) I've always struggled with achieving a setup that - only charges batteries with excess wind and solar energy; and - to have all other power blocks not charge batteries. I did look at some mods for it, but didn't find anything to my liking yet. Would be great to have power prio settings options that fit these needs.. or some wiring/ logic possibilities to make this happen automatically, to waste less energy through batteries (as they have what.. 80% efficiency? And solar & wind energy already don't provide much power compared to resource-using power sources..)
When discussing the difference between Hydrogen and Uranium fuel sources I'm surprised you didn't mention the addition of upgrades to the refinery for Uranium.
Yeah, probably should have. But I wanted both the refinery and O2 gen to be stock configuration, given that there would be a lot more cost calculation to take into account for aaaaall variants and then their output.
I've always used a hybrid or combo of battery and hydrogen engine for rovers of small grid grouping for better detail and for being good for heavy cargo haul. I have been playing some travel and transporting Sims like American truck sim and snow runner and I'm a motor head for an engine sound in the background
Other than the already mentioned PCU cost, another advantage of reactors over hydrogen engine is the lower fuel weight. uranium has a much higher energy/weight ratio than ice/hydrogen
Comparing them like this makes no sense. What the things cost is only relevant in the early game. After that, you have more resources than you can ever use anyway. So the costs don't matter anymore. On servers you can't get around wind turbines / solar arrays if you don't play all the time. They cover the base turnover in the ships and bases and ensure that they remain constantly under power. My evaluation would be more like this: Wind turbines A Solar C H2 generator B Uranium reactors D Batteries are not power generation units for me and therefore do not count.
Despite the large reactor not being the best on paper. It is however, the best block for power output relative to it's PCU cost. A single large reactor can power your entire ship in most cases. Which is very helpful on last-gen consoles since PCU is very limited. Because of that it's my go-to pick power generation
or on servers, where PCU really matters.
You two are absolutely right. PCU was something I forgot to cover and I do apologize. Luckily the list was still fairly representative in terms of PCU values (Lowest on top and biggest on the bottom), but its still something I should have covered more closely.
@@AliceDoesThings404 everyone forgets about PCU until they actually need to care about it.
so don't feel too bad about it!
And you need 4 on each end of a Earth-Pertam Lazer antenna relay
Yes PCU is the reason why im using large reactors evryshere possible, specialy the official servers with 20k pcu limit is the 1 large reactor way to go for your base, mining ship and basicaly evrything with jump drives. I always swap to that so i can build bigger warship with remaining pcu
I think we need a new active power source. They need to add a treadmill we can run on to power our ship. Then we can make a battleship entirely powered by sla- willing volunteer labor.
If it's not the wheel of pain, it's not enough.
@@nazaxprime MOVE THOSE LEGS, ENGINEERS! LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT!
Imagine hunting down other players for their power value
Life is but a dream, eh?
What about those wheels where sla- I mean willing volunteers spin a wheel in a circular motion to generate power.
Point of Order: The Batteries don't produce power. They store power produced by one of the others for later use.
Batteries however do contribute to the overall efficiency of pretty much every power system in the game, since they store power that otherwise wouldnt be generated during times of low power consumption, which is why they are present on most craft and why they are ranked on top
I know I'm late, but for others and newcomers :
In SE you can actually "generate" power with batteries. Though, not in the... conventional way.
There is a known secret related to these power storing units, namely that they come with 30% energy, whenever they are newly built. If you build 3, set one to recharge, while the other 2 to discharge, you can almost fill 1 battery up. It costs you 160 power cells or 160 kg iron, 16 kg silicon and 32 kg nickel ingots. (I only meant here the "lost" components, which will turn into scraps.)
So yeah, they don't "produce" the power, but you can get some out of them.
If you are on an atmosphere-less moon, without ice and sun light for the next 10 minutes, with power in your base for about 7-8 minutes, you'll have to get creative and attach some in a clunky way, which you'll grind down after they filled your original batteries.
Worse than 'store'. They are loan sharks that charge you 20% of all power you produce to store the other 80%. Not a biggie when paired with renewable energy (solar/wind), but never use reactor power to power a battery, and then run off the battery on a long term basis.
@@jube8835Yes, but they should be kept turned off on such vessels, until the auxilliary power is needed. Sitting there just on auto, constantly recharging 1% to stay at max is just throwing power out the window.
@@jube8835Also, when it comes to the idea of extra power only at certain times, something else should be noted: power generators like reactors and such never produce power that isn't used. You could have a huge reactor and if all you run on it is a small light, then that is all the uranium it will burn. So, batteries aren't needed to supplement a power generator in emergencies if you are doing that because you imagine the extra power would otherwise go to waste if you had no batteries. But, in terms of weight/mass on your ship, or size/space, then the 'supplemental battery' approach might be useful.
FYI you can place the wind turbine slightly higher than 8 blocks high, and then have ones coming out from the sides of it so you have 5 total off each tier of blocks. That heavily increases their efficiency and they don't reduce eachother's efficiency. Put a single armor block at the base of each one so they stick out and then you can have them all around
Whilst that is true and a very valid point, that does also increase the sheer size of a tower with windturbines. In addition, you would have to build it quite high, so the wind turbines on the side don't lose any efficiency from being too close to the ground. But still a valid point.
and you can also put them underground if you have a space of 8 to 9 blocks away from the voxels and it still works, this combined with their cost in terms of materials, for me personally makes them S tier, at one of my bases I had about 103 wind turbines underground
That is very true, it is somewhat cheesing, though still a valid point. 👍
My main issue with that approach is how much of a performance cost it has. Having to dig a large hole, before then stuffing it with blocks that take computing power. So for me personally, just too much of a performance hog in that scenario.
@@AliceDoesThings404 Performance in SE? what a good joke, almost made me laugh, this game is not optimized at all, and the engine is very old, it's a game from 2013.
and when it comes to resources used, I think it's much more efficient to build a mobile base that you convert into a station when you want to recharge the batteries
Im curious as to the 371kw mentioned for wind turbines. Mine are getting 426kw output. Optimal is still a range and a couple more blocks clearance helps. As I'm getting back into it after a long break, I have weather disabled so no boost there. I usually use 10-11 spacing as opposed to the usually recommended 8-9. I'd assume that is why, but it would change the power calculations.
The only thing I felt was missing from this was further comparison of the net power output of the hydrogen engine and small reactor. You went to the effort to mine the same volume(? unclear) of each ore and compare those all the way through the process but left out the last bit of info to sum up the final gains and compare their efficiencies.
For those curious: some math extrapolates that the net power production of the hydrogen engine was 809.28 kWh (90.9% efficiency from ore to power), and the net power production of the small reactor was 9753.83 kWh (98.3% efficiency from ore to power).
But what about time? The O2/H2 generator takes almost as much time to refine the fuel as the engine takes to burn it, so that's easy to balance: one ice processor per engine. The refinery took less than half as long to refine the fuel as the reactor took to burn it, so one refinery can serve two reactors and still have a little bit of time leftover to do something else.
Also, the rector took much longer to burn through the total mass of the fuel but produced much more power (more than 11x as much). If you stop the reactor once it's produced as much power as the hydrogen engine, you'll find that it only took 1/3rd the time and you still have 91% of your fuel remaining.
This all means that for every 1 ship load of uranium ore collected, you'd have to collect 11.14 loads of ice to produce the same amount of power. 1.014 of those ice loads would be wasted producing power for the O2/H2 generators while only 0.017 loads of uranium ore would be wasted producing power for refineries. Uranium power is far more dense than hydrogen power and takes less time and effort to collect and produce once you know where the ore is to be found.
Then you have to consider that refineries can have upgrade modules to further adjust fuel and/or time efficiency depending on need while the O2/H2 generators are fixed at their base speed and efficiency.
If you stumble upon a uranium deposit, it makes sense to collect it immediately since it's objectively a much better fuel than ice when you have it. You'd have to spend roughly 12x as much time mining and refining ice to get the same power. And offsetting the refining costs with renewable energy is much easier. When ore availability is not an issue, the small reactor is far better than the hydrogen engine.
hydrogen engine imo is ideal for planet locked base and rover mobile bases, while reactors are for everything up there. having to go to space to mine uranium, then go back to planet would need hydrogen thrusters or ion+atmos thruster combo and that would need a lot of electricity anyway, so in both situations you are forced to take the hydrogen route.
basically for planet locked, its the best active generator full stop. for To Infinity and Beyond scenarios hydrogens are at best A tier
You can also combine multiple power sources . For example, wind and hydrogen, or solar and reactors. The nice things is the renewable power has the first priority to have power taken, which means it will be the first to supply energy. That allows you to not use fuel unless demand exceeds the renewables max power output
Personally have a 4 combo. Wind for renewable, hydrogen engine for when thats not enough, at late/end game having one or two small reactors all charging a battery network for when shit hits the fan xD
@@GamingPerks Since wind and solar are best used excusively on bases, I most often than not only use those as sources, possibly with 1 or 2 backup hydrogen generators. Otherwise I mainly leave hydro and nuclear as ship fuels, since it's the easiest to remain mobile with lol
there are scripts as well that makes it where reactors and engines only turn on when needed. i like having a mix of stuff. i aways have some batteries on stuff. if i can help it i use reactors as a jump start only
I add an event block and only have the hydrogen engines turn on if power is too low.
@GamingPerks 100%. I always make a battery bank in every base. Especially in early game when you're power consumption fluctuates a lot. Having that power stored up is really nice as a buffer
It feels worth mentioning that nobody would *ever* put Uranium ore into a refinery that didn't have four Yield Modules attached - so realistically, you'd get 20kg of ingots from 1000kg of ore, rather than 10.
I’ve always liked the hydrogen engine, usually used as back up power since you can find ice pretty much everywhere
I have a massive rover with everything in it to process material and build things. Basically a rolling base. It has 4 large grid batteries, 3 large hydrogen tanks, and 2 hydrogen engines set up on my hotbar. That way when my batteries start to drain a bit, I just switch on the engines and I’m good to go. I also have 2 solar panels on top for passive charging. If I’m not processing ore, the range on that thing is insane with that setup. You’d have to be really careless and in the dark to be stuck without power.
All that to say, I absolutely love hydrogen engines, especially with the supplemental trickle of power from solar panels and occasionally being hooked up to a station to offload.
Same here one of my first large plunge mining ships ive made uses like 14 or 16 of them with 8 h2/o2 generators and 4 batterys just so i could get a full cargo of Uranium as i got tired of doing runs with my small ship miners and now its one of my go tos for mining in space
Yeah, it’s really nice especially with your Hydrogen ships as you already have a large amount of Hydrogen onboard.
It’s super convenient.
I prefer reactors to hydrogen engines, but it is worth pointing out that you will be producing oxygen at the same time you produce hydrogen which may be a resource you needed anyway.
Forgot to include that part actually, but it is definitely a valid point. Well spotted!
This is a serious problem though. It happened to me several times that I accidentally left the hydrogen engines running, they drained all ice on my ship and I later died of asphyxiation not being able to generate oxygen I needed. I find that they're more trouble than they're worth.
I usually combine both
@@Nethan2000 make sure you build an oxygen tank then lol
@@seushimarejikaze1337i dont remember who but a youtuber tested that 1 ice doesnt give you 2 hydrogen 1 oxygen, instead 1 ice produces either 1 oxygen or 2 hydrogen so even with tanks having an hydrogen engine will make you run out of oxygen faster
I did not notice that the custom controller had an always aim at sun option! Thank-you for this
It was added with the Automatons update, a handy feature!
I can't imagine why it wasn't available to begin with. It's the very first thing I wanted to do with custom turret controller. I think the devs don't actually play their own game.
I do agree it should have been there from the start, but I can understand why. Given it was added with the "warfare 2 update", they had enough other things to work on, so it probably just slipped their mind.
@@AliceDoesThings404yeah, generally when you say “turret” in a video game, people are thinking stationary guns. But there’s always another use for a tool that wasn’t immediately intended.
I have over 2000 hours in this game I still watch tutorial and ranking videos because I always end up learning something new.
One thing severely lacking in SE for batteries is the ability to set discharge to specific blocks, like for instance if I have a small bank of railguns, I want to have batteries tied directly to them, so that I don't have to power the charge for them directly.
Workaround; Could use event controllers to turn on and off groupings of batteries. How many fully charged batteries to fire a rail gun?
That group is OFF until said rail gun is fired upon which the group is turned on. Stays on until fully charged then turns back off until railgun is fired again.
Would that achieve the same effect? When the batteries are off they can't be used by anything, retaining their charge. When turned on once fired they will discharge their energy to charge the rail gun. Recharge and then shut off until needed again.
@@ender5817 This would only semi work, because though the event control could function in this way, you could also just group the batteries you wanted and turn them off and on as you fired the rail guns. The issue isn't really how the batteries are turned off, on, recharged, etc etc, it's their specific power usage.
There isn't a way (at least as far as I am aware of) to isolate the power being transferred to the rail guns. The goal would be to have the rail guns only ever pull directly from a specific set of batteries. Unfortunately though, the rail guns are going to pull from every battery that's attached to the same grid it is. Turning some batteries on and off might save some time and power, but you're still gonna end up drawing from the batteries that you're trying to specifically NOT draw from.
However thinking on it, you could I suppose have some event controllers with some timer blocks perhaps set up to power down the main batteries during the rail gun charge while only the rail gun batteries are on. Issue of course there is that the rest of the ships operations would still need power, and draw from the rail gun batteries.
There might be an answer somewhere in that setup for this type of situation, but I get the feeling it would not still be what OP was looking for specifically. (That being a separated battery bank that is used solely to power the rail guns, while the other batteries only powered normal operations.)
I've always wanted more in-depth wiring in SE. Breaker boxes and the ability to put devices and rooms on different circuits.
Now we can actually reroute the power.
@@DoubleJJizzlewith the weight and space used by those rail gun only batteries it seems to be a waste to have them off. With them on all batteries on your ship would just last longer. So, beside cool factor, what is the actual benefit to having a system as you describe?
@@inktitan as far as I am Aware of? Not a thing. There might be some arguments for stuff like having batteries specifically set aside for charging a jump drive, but for a railgun, I don't see one. It's mostly just a thought experiment on how you'd get a system to work like that.
Real life of course does actually use these types of systems, usually isolating them for various reasons. Keeping redundant power supplies available for when they're needed incase main power is lost. Using power for specific systems that draw high/low amounts of wattage to keep strain off primary power sources.
However this is a game and those kind of redundant systems aren't exactly efficient. Still could see an argument for jump drives though.
Edit: In addition to Jump Drives, I would consider having additional batteries for other high draw blocks such as a refinery pretty useful. Normal standard operations would be essentially powered on all the time by a set of batteries. When you turn on some bigger power draining blocks, you turn on a second set of batteries/power generators.
This would help keep your power drain and fuel usage to a minimum and be a bit more efficient during normal usage of a ship/station. While still giving you an option to push out more when needed.
This would allow simpler power generators like solar panels and wind generators to have an easier time charging and keeping you operational, while you're basically not doing anything.
However, even with all that, it still just seems like a lot of work, for something that's not really needed for a video game like this one. Considering power production is endless, resources are near infinite, and complicated builds aren't always what they're cracked up to be. Especially considering this would be a purely superficial upgrade to any build, that likely wouldn't anything of real hard value, but a few % points of efficiency.
I like solar panels because it's aesthetically pleasing to look out and see a giant solar farm surrounding your base. Also, a trick I learned is you can double stack the panels to generate 2x the output during the day. If you want to make the panels automatically track the sun they do require extra work and resources. Hydrogen overall is the best source of electricity early-mid game because as long as you have a ready supply of ice you print out free electricity,
I recently built a small grid hauler using atmospheric thrusters with a mixture of batteries and engines, the idea being the engines would allow the batteries to last longer. Works pretty alright, I did intentionally avoid hydrogen thrusters due to their big range of damage to grids, mainly with the design i went for too. Works well for ferrying goods between bases that are close by. Could be Way more better but its a fun experiment and giving different components adds to its beauty
With the modern update you can even automate the process of transporting materials
@@spaceengineeringempire4086 Yeah! And I am loving the update, I used to rely on the P.A.M. script to get these tasks done, but good that we can now make hauling done without relying on scripts!
Absolutely, the more power to create in vanilla, the better. 🙃
Large grids that are parked with magnetic plates onto voxels can produce power with windmills without having to convert to station BTW.
True, but when parked with magnetic plates/landing gears, they are technically static 🤔
@@AliceDoesThings404 The term I always heard was "Voxel Locked." Calling voxel locked grids "Static" can be confusing because we can also go into the grid settings and set a grid type to static as well. Static grids (from the games perspective) aren't affected by things like gravity the way non-static grids are.
That's new
@@yamatokurusaki5790nope. The setting convert to ship/station has been around for years. It literally turns the grid into "voxsal" connected grid without touching any voxals
The solar panels can be stacked in two layers. This is not known by most new engineers. Just flip it around when making your array and you'll be operating at 200% 😁
this^ is so huge and not talked about enougth
I don’t understand what you’re saying, “stacked in two layers”
@@BaliAgha when you put 2 solarpanels with the collectorsides above each other both get full power, or to explain it the other way around a single "layer" of a solarpanel can only harvest 50% of the incoming light with its collectors and the rest is let through
All of my solar usage takes advantage of the panel double up twice the power half the space
Does this work with large grid? And/or with colored panels? I was trying to do it the other day and it didn't seem like both sides were producing, and yes I did have them back to back though I can't remember what the grid size was
I know that you didn't cover mods. I just wanted to put this out there. A few years ago I was trying to find an alternative for power. It was right after they stole uranium from the planets. (How unrealistic!)
So I found the Deuterium reactor mod. It uses stone and or ice to create deuterium containers for fuel (or both). There are large and small grid variants and they are POWERFUL. I do love the mod. There is also a positive thing about going to space. It's the only place to find pure deuterium deposits that is very rich when refined. So, the mod makes it very beneficial to go to space and has you actually looking to go there for that rich resource. Who doesn't want a 12GW reactor operating their base. All the power they would need FOREVER!
OH! They are NOT cheap to build! You better be ready to mine a bunch of gold and other rare stuff to get the special components to build one. These things are a beast to build. The bigger they are the more expensive they will cost you to build. So, cost will depend on how much you are willing to go mine. It will be a grind just to build the low level one. I think one of the lower tier one take 2000 of the special components and it also requires like 500 or so superconductors also. Be ready to grind for some recourses. This mod does put in a really nice power gen option, but you are not going to get it easy. You WILL WORK FOR IT!
Ah yes i have that mod as well and i do agree that is by far the best reactor mod the mod is called Life Tech Energy pack.
The wind turbine can be used on voxel locked subgrids, as well as static grids.
This means you can put one on a vehicle, and then using rotors and pistons, deploy it. Simple designs just rotate the subgrid with the turbine and landing gear on it, and then lower vehicle suspension until locked. It's great for mobile drills, where you will be voxel locking to deploy a drill anyways.
2 things
One H2 generator produces exactly as much hydrogen as one engine consumes so you could run engines on just h2 generators and skip the tanks
Also imo the combination of reactors and engines works best as they reactors can take over the basic load and you can switch on the engine once the reactor runs out
technicly the battery doesn't create energy, it only stores energy. not sure if you can count the basic charge as energy generation
Given that you construct the block, and recieve energy, it counts in the very technical sense. In addition to the fact that you can take apart the battery, make a new one, and get more charge. Though it was more a comparrison between power blocks, a category which the battery belongs. But you raise a valid point 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 ok, if you put it that way. but for me it'S stil more like the hydrogen tank for the hydrogen engine :)
Fair fair. Oh if only the tank came with 30% hydrogen when constructed, it would have been a dream! 😋
@@AliceDoesThings404 we need beans instead of clan cola, so at least the space suit will be filled with methane :D
keep in mind that there also is a way to create battery powergenerator by using a blueprint of a cross-setup of four batteries that are set on discharge while mounted on a rotor.
the whole setup is quiet complex because you need some additional blocks Like timers, a welder and a grinder but at the end of the day it only consumes stone to generate power stored in batteries set on auto.
Nuclear is absolutely king, especially when combined with a large battery chain.
My main ship is a power hog, as it has 30, YES, THIRTY jump drives (I can enter a server in space, and in 8-10 hours straight, get the mats and weld it by hand, believe it or not).
The ship has 62 batteries (2 for each JD, and 1 for general ship systems, and 1 backup battery set to recharge), and one large reactor.
The power output is bonkers (measured in Gigawatts), but it means I can jump >40,000 KM in just 7 minutes 20 seconds if going full hog. It also eats uranium like a hobo wolfing down a ham sandwich, but I'm a jump addict, so it is what it is.
The ship itself is actually propelled with H2 thrusters, and some small ions for docking procedures to save on H2. 4 large H2 tanks, along with 8 emergency small H2 tanks. The emergency tanks are to power 2 H2 engines long enough to get me to some ice, or, in a pinch, provide fuel for an emergency landing in high G, assuming the 3 parachute hatches are damaged, empty, or there's no atmosphere.
The ship also has some solar panels, so you will never truly be dead in space when it comes to power. As long as you can find ice or uranium ore, the ship can process them into usable fuel.
Every power generation system has its uses, but yeah, the battery is the greatest, and nuclear is the best for charging batteries quickly. A pro you missed about wind turbines is you can use them in underground caves, making them the best cheap power source for stealth bases on planets with atmosphere.
BTW, if anyone is curious about the ship, the model a couple iterations behind my personal one (I'm on the Mk.VII) can be found here:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029694875
100% vanilla, with industrial smuggler theme. A mobile base among the stars.
solar pannel facing towards sun is so awesome to see :)
Battery power is not free, you had to take energy from somewhere and make the battery. The amount of power consumed should be factored in with the cost of the individual power generation blocks.
Appreciate the vid. Two things. PCU vs out put may have been a good addition. I consider batteries energy storage not power generation
That is fair, I completely forgot about PCU, given for years not I have mostly used block-limits, and forgot it existed, I will remember that for next time. As for the batteries, I agree they aren't for power generation, they are in the power-blocks category in SE, meaning it fits into this power-blocks comparison 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404but what are you comparing? You're comparing apples with oranges
You'll have to be a bit more specific. I am comparing different aspects of different power sources to determine which one is the overall best. ALL of them are good in their own way, but some are better than others overall.
@@AliceDoesThings404 I would still say in terms of 'power blocks' batteries should be F-tier, as they have the biggest disadvantage of them all - they dont generate power.
The way you build graphs in game with blocks and block textures is excellent
Very informative
maybe someone else put this out there, but you can put 2 solar stacked so in the same " space " you have more energy.
the " problem" is that still is the same energy per block, but since you dont have to put anything in front of a solar panel or near the array its kinda "cheating" the math , cos you have double per "block" , i dont know if i explain it well but i think its oks
eitherway just found you channel and its great keep doing it
I disagree with the ranking of the Wind Turbine vs the Solar Panel, if only because the Wind Turbine shines in early game while the Solar Panel shines in mid game.
My power block recommendation would be:
Wind power in the early game. This would provide most, if not all, of your early game power, and I would personally not exceed a total of three Wind Turbines.
Once you outgrow those, I would recommend switching to solar arrays for the scalability.
Space flight eventually necessitates the use of hydrogen for fuel anyway, so in space it can be very useful to generate power using hydrogen as well.
The switch to Uranium, I would personally only ever conduct with large grids, as it seems to rare of a fuel source to use it on small grids.
All of these would naturally be amplified by using batteries for power storage.
But that's my idea of it.
That is very valid and I completely agree. The only reason the wind turbine really fell behind, was because its not usable on all the planets/moons, nor in space. As well as the differing performance depending on weather. Other than that, completely agree 👍
I try to use a mix of power sources never just 1 and if it is my base I tend to use all of them if I can. Just because I have a reactor doesn't mean I will get rid of my solar panels, I like the look of them with how I set them up
I like to use a main source and at least supplemental source. My main rover at the moment (large grid) runs on a couple of hydrogen engines that charge 4 batteries when they get low. However on top of the rover I have a couple solar panels that charge passively during daylight. Even if I’m stuck without power and without ice to make power, I can do whatever till daylight and get on the move to find ice or go to my fueling station.
In other words, I agree. Combine them. Backups are a must.
It's almost as if all these energy methods are scaling into the endgame.....
Honestly, you can still technically use the battery in the same way as before, you just have to spend iron, nickel and silicon to do so. Which, of course, can be produced literally anywhere where there's stone.
Just keep doing what you do, I love seeing a good bit of Q&A with the proper testing to prove/disprove the findings.. Wish Luca put as much effort into her videos when she makes a claim
Oh no Luca is a she! Been miss gendering her 😅
I quite like what you made as a showcase here 9:12 and 1:34 there. Do you mind uploading these on the workshop?
Thank you very much, and I appriciate it! As for uploading them to the workshop, I might make some imroved variants that I then upload, but we will have to see.
Can you also do this tier list for thrusters?
Hmmm, a tierlist for thrusters sounds interesting. Let me think about it! 🤔
its actually more space and weight efficient to store your hydrogen as ice and generate the H2 as you burn it. you can store vast amounts of power this way. though the power per block stat drops by 33%. but since you'd otherwise be wasting dozens of blocks on tanks the net power/block is higher.
You missed some really important points:
- All theses blocks have PCU, and this figures is really important on keen's vanilla official servers for instance.
- Batteries have an efficiency coefficient of 80%. Meaning when you charge them with 1MWh you only get 800kWh of power stored. This really degrades them as the "ultimate" energy solution.
- Your side by side comparison of H2 vs Uranium ingots production is biased as you can add power efficiency or yield modules to the refinery. Uranium is also more convenient to transport and transfer form grid to grid (you can even do this by hand).
- The weight comparison between those two is also biased as the H2 Engine will also need tanks (and possibly H2/O2 generators and storage for ice) to be efficient. In the other hand, a lot of Uranium can be stored inside nuclear reactors.
Another big issue with the H2 energy is .. the O2 production ! If you need to get a constant H2/O2 generation on your grid and you use a cryo pod for your AFK, the small O2 consumption will constantly drain your Ice storage only to refill your tanks at 100%. Problem is that its not really efficient unless you use the (new) event block to regulate the H2/O2 generators.
The "rare fuel issue" of uranium is not a real problem once you reached space. You can find it quite easily once this is achieved.
Myself I still consider the large nuclear reactor as king of energy production. No question asked !
All of these points are very valid, and I did forget about PCU, since most people usually talk about block limits instead of PCU limits. I am also not a math major unfortunately, so there is a lot of calculations I simply have not been able to do.
As for if the comparison between H2 and Uranium is biased, no it is not. I am well aware that you can add modules to the refinery, but in a way, you can call that DLC. I was comparing the base produkts, and did not take extras into account. For instance, I could have also decided to fill the same space the refinery uses with more O2H2 gens, because then they use the same space. So the biased argument, is simply false. Also because I mentioned and even showed that a hydrogen tank was needed, and throughout the hydrogen engine ranking, I mentioned tanks several times. So not biased.
Either way, thank you for raising these points of discussion. 👍
Not as an objective measure, but subjective. I hate batteries the most and prefer Hydrogen engines the most. Often using the water mod and can set up bases with water scoops to readily get hydrogen. Since my preferred thing to build are rovers. It gives me the most enjoyment for my time in the game.
I built this large grid mining rover with a drill in the middle that goes down on pistons. I just put 2 hydrogen engines on it and use the ice it mines to fuel it. Somehow it runs two large refineries while also powering 6 wheels to move it and the Mf 100000 kilos of ore. I need to add more batteries tho.
I make almost everything with batteries as they are available from the start and can be charged through any power source. Only downside is how many can be required to power everything without overloading the grid and the added weight as a result.
I would argue that "the best power block" depends on what you're using it for, what you need it to do. That said, good video!
Absolutely, and that was one of the conclusions made. Thank you!
As someone from beta, the solar panels setup you are talking about did exist with a programmable block and a timer without using the turret control or camera. Yes more expensive, but it did exist.
I know it existed back then, and it was very useful too. I'm just glad it can finally be done in vanilla, meaning everyone can do it, not just servers/worlds with scripts turned on 🙃
The great thing about battery is, they can double function as an armor during combat.
Battery is SSS tier
Battery? I think you misspelled "Nickel Reactor" lol.
Great work Alice! Love all the neat background builds!
Im playing on the steamdeck and ingame scripts are not available. I wasnt aware the turrent controller could be used to solar alignment. Thank goodness isys script isnt my only option anymore
This is an exceptional detail and explanation of things that have been confusing me.
Cool video. Thank you. An extra con for the battery would be that it doesn't charge with 100% efficiency. I think it's 80%, which means that if you use a reactor or hydrogen engine to charge it, 20% of your fuel is wasted. It's only worth using batteries with solar and wind, otherwise it's always more efficient to just run directly from the reactor or engine. This reduces the battery's versatility a great deal in my opinion, and precludes it being given S rank in my own rankings.
I typically use solar power (and wind when in atmosphere) for general power generation and have my Hydrogen Engines and Reactors activate when power consumption reaches a specific threshold to prevent my batteries from being drained dry. This method works pretty well when I'm doing a space start and make a giant mining ship.
How do you get your engines & generators to automatically switch on on that threshold and not have them recharge batteries?
@@Dardomor Manually
Did they fix the solar panels where you could double stack them and the ones on the under side still got sunlight?
Thank you for this video, it helps to see all the numbers. Cheers!
Smal VS Large reactor
9 small will generate 405 Mw and only 20 Small will generate 300 Mw giving 7 block more space on a ship or les in size
Sure the large one is only 72.295Kg and 20 small together are 95.860Kg .
So that is like 23 tons difference yet 23 tons is nothing to be concerned about if a ship needs that match power because than we are talking about a big ship any ways .
The small reactors can be spread trough the ship so that will give the advantage that taking out your power in a battle will not be easy at all .
About the Battery in your video yes it needs to be in it yet its not listable because it needs to get charged and fully loaded to be of use for when all other power sources fail so you got time to restore your ship or vessel .
Great video love it please do it again and ad the Vs info I have provided you :D
In the start I say 9 I ment 27 will generate 405Mw and 27 take the same space like one large Reactor
Batteries doesn't generate power... Batteries hold power..
Also panel and turbine doesn't require fuel source
The problem with hydrogen engine is it is not making enough i think and many ppl use the hydrogen to power ships cuz it is most versatile sourse of movement
Don't think I would put the battery on its own, but always put it as an option for passive power (ie Solar and wind), as the active power supplies will always give you power regardless of external factors such as darkness or wind drop. Nice Video, but please the 'unfocussed' cam was a bit overused.
You can't call a battery a power generator. It's a power storage device with losses.
very smooth video with cool cinematics and well made build to shocase, good stuff
I use nuclear for its scale size and power output only dependent on storage for its fuel
Thanks for making this. This is an excellent video. Liked and subscribed. A few things that could be added in the next iteration. Solar panels can be double stacked and still function. Even though the panels are touching, they all still work at full capacity. This method does take up extra block space, but it has the benefit of doubling the output of a solar array. Wind turbines can be placed 10 blocks high and then you can add one turbine to each side at the 8 block level to increase power output without the turbines negatively effecting each other. It looks ugly and takes up a lot of space in the sky but the power output is usually worth it. Weather can can have positive effects on wind (which is mentioned), but weather can also have negative effects. Foggy weather is horrible for wind generation. The large reactor takes fewer resources than spamming 27 small reactors in the same amount of space, but the output of the 27 small reactors in that space will be more than the large reactor.
Thank you for the feedback, and you are right. There are some things that were forgotten and that should have been mentioned. Though I was not aware that the wind turbines could be affected negatively by certain weather, interesting. And as for the reactors, the 27 small reactors make 405MW, which is only 105 more than the large reactor. So sadly not double, but 1/3rd more. Either way, thank you for the support and the advice! 🙃
@@AliceDoesThings404 Haha. Math is hard. I'll fix my comment.
No worries, easy mistake to make, easy to fix 🙃
One thing you should've touched on, I think, is online multiplayer and PCU limitations. On the official Keen servers, as one example, we get 20,000 PCU per person. Given that, in the moderate to long term, resources are not the constriction, but PCU is, that changes everything. For example, batteries are 15PCU each, reactors and hydrogen engine blocks are 25PCU, and wind and solar are 55PCU ( ! ), that changes things even more. Wind and solar are completely inefficient in starting sense, and late game, well. Unless youŕe using hydrogen for propulsion, it doesn´t make sense to use hydrogen engines. PCU is used up creating the H2 infrastructure. Reactors, however, will use your currently existing refineries. A single large reactor with batteries for "burst" power needs is seemingly the optimal way to go.
PCU was something I forgot to touch on. I rarely hear people talking about PCU, but rather stuff like block limits instead. I completely agree with you, I should have looked into PCU limitations as well, and I do apologize. Though from the looks of the PCU values, each of the blocks did score pretty accurately in the ranking. With batteries having the lowest and being ontop, with wind turbine and solar having the most, and landing on the bottom. So its fortunate in that sense. But that is something I will take into account next time, thank you! 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 Regrettably, the limits are low enough, on official servers anyway, that a lot of fun things are impractical or impossible. Custom designed guided missiles? Even small ones can go over a thousand PCU, and any decent target will have enough turret to shoot them down, so you´d need a swarm, which means you´d have missiles and nothing else. Small thrusters are pointless, given the large are the same PCU. And custom turrets like the ball turrets? Too expensive! I understand the PCU limits are meant to keep server impact low and to promote fast network play, but that just highlights the lack of optimization, even after all of this time.
Yeah I can fully understand that, and its honestly a shame. Especially for those who go on youtube or reddit, even the workshop, and see people with these massive ships, that they can never build. I truly hope that Vrage 3 will be a much more optimized engine, if they choose to either make a sequal or port the game over. Either that, or they find more ways to optimize the game. I mean, it has come a long way since its first release, but it should have gotten even farther. Its always so saddening when someones creativity, is limited by artificial limits..
@@AliceDoesThings404 I just keep in mind how things went during the SE / ME years.
My ships often don't have enough power to run at max load. Instead, I substitute one of the interior walls with batteries to decrease the size of my power room. In combat ships, these batteries can be spaced out as well to increase the durability, and using a large reactor as the core, it can run a terrifying amount of firepower (or shields/jumps) for an extended duration.
If you play a space pirate, you can usually get away with not having to mine. I intercepted a freighter that had a bunch of large reactors and small reactors and a jump drive. The ship was probably 10 times larger than mine but I’m pretty sure I have enough resources to build a base on a moon or large asteroid now as a refueling station for my interceptor.
The wind turine blocks separation can be solved by condnsing a star of 5 wind turbine on top of a pole. One straght up and 4 on it's sides, one block lower, all around the pole
Should be noted the refinery can be equipped with yield, speed and power modules, which can either increase the speed by a large margin, increase the amount refined creating more fuel, or save more power refining the ore itself,
but, refineries are expensive, you can plop 10+ H2O2 generators for the cost of one refinery....
I almost always stick a bunch of solar panels on whatever i build, simply for its looks.
From structure to texture, it works well for almost every kind of structure and vehicle.
An important thing to consider is pcu cost. And in this case the large nuclear reactor is only 25 pcu and produces 300MW. But if you are playing solo then pcu doesn't matter.
Do You happen to have a link to that ion powered miner you briefly show?
Its my own design, and will be released soon 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 Excellent!
As others mentioned, there'S easy tricks to minimize the impact of the windmills restrictions. It's pretty much an easy go to for bases on atmospheric planets. Providing ample power and for the occasional lull in the winds (or damage) a battery or two (more for bigger bases obviously) you quickly get to the point of not having to worry or think about anything.
And that's kind of the biggest concern: being able to divert attention elsewhere.
Some people have had bad experiences with H² Gens being forgotten and left running.
Personally I never use it much, because running smaller things of batteries and planetary bases of windmills works very well.
Solar panels are cheap enough to spam them (if you don't have to worry about PCU) nad theoretically, you've got enough room in space. but their low power output is a bit of a bummer.
but once you're in space, transitioning to nuclear power is just a matter of time/luck finding the ores. Comparing uranium and Hydrogen as fuel, Uranium seems to be the one you could easier forget about.
Considering how long making power cells takes (more than 5 min for a large grid battery in an assembler without speed modules) and how big they are, building batteries for power is a lot of a hassle, especially in the early game. I wonder how "efficient" a Setup with event controller/timer block, welder, grinder and projector would be, deconstructing the battery and building a new one, every time it runs out.
this is actually really helpful because i need to set up an outpost and i dont know where to start in terms of power production
I haven't played in a long time, but I have a couple of mods to suggest that make the game much more enjoyable for me
1. I forget the name of the mod, but there is one that puts uranium back on the planet, not just on asteroids, as it used to be. I think its ridiculous to make it available only in space. It is still a rare resource, and often hard to find.
2. Water mod. If there is ice on a planet, it's only logical that there would be a water table. I put the water level far below the ground. So, you have to work to get to it, but its nice to have when you get there. This completely eliminates the need to find ice once you are able to drill down far enough.
The wind turbine is actually relatively easy to scale *up to 5 turbines*
Build a tower, (more than 7 high, say 10)
Put a wind turbine on top
On the one but highest block, attach a block on each outward facing side (i.e. 4 blocks total)
These blocks then function as mounts for other (horizontally mounted) turbines.
Now you have 5 turbines in optimal position (each turbine does NOT see the others, nor the mast).
Of course, scaling further requires another mast.
Please do a video about small-grid power generation, too!
Personally i end up using these power options pretty much every game:
Ground bases: Solar Panels + Batteries for nomal running and Hydrogen Engines as Boosters (when producing or generally using a lot of energy)
Tiny working ships: Batteries and maybe a few solar pannels as range extenders or to recharge in an emergency
Small ships: Batteries for power, hydrogen for trust.
Medium/Large Ships (anything with a jumpdrive pretty much): Batteries for normal running, small nuclear reactors for recharging batteries and jumdrives.
I find uranium to difficult to find and refine to make it my main power source. Using ground stations with hydrogen engines being able to recharge docking ships tends to be a really good option.
Maybe I'm paranoid but I put rectors of every type throughout my ship so there is no localized kill shot that can be made save for shooting the pilot directly
Large Reactor = S tier.
hey, you had your tierlist upside down
I love hydro's. 💕 💕 The sound of them is like a honking great diesel engine and when you get a room full its music to me.
hmmm. can you stack the wind turbines?
"The most endgame block of them all"
I wanna see this episode done again but add prototech stuff
Och i really miss table with comparation of parameters of all power sources on one screen. Would like to compare power/block power/mass and other values.
The best energy system is clearly hydrogen due to performance and consumption, but nevertheless the reactor is useful as a backup, it has always been considered that it is imperative to have the 4 types of energy either in bases or ships, batteries, hydrogen panels and reactor , good video, greetings
Been playing on a server and I can tell you that while uranium is hard to find at the start, by the time you found it once, you're basically set for life. Reactors are so fuel-efficient that you can basically run a production-heavy ship that regularly jumps around for DAYS before the thought of your uranium running out even comes to mind, while hydrogen has the tendency to run out a lot quicker.
And it doesn't help that H2O2 generators are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow. So is processing uranium, admittedly, but uranium lasts for a lot longer than hydrogen does.
The large reactor personally I suggest only for huge production bases or true warships that you will expect to be jumping around and firing railguns a lot - all activities that drink a LOT of power for short bursts.
Another major vulnerability of the large reactor is that it's one big block - if it is taken out, that's a huge cut out of your ship's power, while small reactors, while more expensive overall, allow for more redundancy.
All in all, I consider small reactors to be the true backbone of any good ship, solars to be a great mid to late game passive power generation tool for civilian ships and bases to integrate existing power consumption, and large reactors a specialized tool for the biggest, power hungriest battleships.
The hydrogen engine sound in a ship sounds so fucking good, and the block is killer too so I incorporate it as much as I can on small grid designs despite it's size
normal output for wind turbine is around 427kwh and its perfekt for early stations to charge your ships or rovers it belongs to B or higher just for how easy it is to build.
Having an ice mining operation/refuel port and a tanker ship is a great way to roll play in SE.
There are some ways to mitigate the solar panel's downsides a little further. If you're using them as cheap and reliable power for a zero atmosphere base, such as on the moon, build at or near one of the poles. A solar array with some elevation can produce maximum power 24/7 while only draining with a turret controller and one rotor. Because ai solar arrays following the sun use their actuators even at night, cutting back on one actuator and never powering actuators that aren't bringing power back in, really means a lot to your base's power grid. I don't know if it can provide more power for it's floor plan footprint than turbines when inside an atmosphere, but polar solar is always the best solar. As always, use some batteries for storage and the extra output when it's needed.
I don't know if oxygen farms care about their angle to the sun, but you can stick those on your rotating solar pole too, so long as you use an advanced rotor and conveyors. Last but not least, whatever you do, DO NOT FORGET TO INSTALL METEOR COUNTERMEASURES, regardless of however you set up your ai solar arrays on the moon. It's one thing to have an impact on a static, cheapo standing array, and another to have a more expensive smart array get hit and potentially fall on something else, especially early on when you aren't set up for hydrogen power. Thankfully an inexpensive interior turret or two will be cheap enough to fire using whatever magnesium the meteors bring you, and help you maintain your foothold until hydrogen is logistically reliable, or maintain a hands-free power supply so hydrogen and ice mining aren't as necessary in the first place.
The number you really need when comparing the nuclear reactor to hydrogen is the energy gained from the fuel, minus energy spent for refining, divided by the volume of voxels mined to get that fuel.
It is also generally weird to put these on a tier list when they are all meant for certain situations.
They should add a new early game AND end-game power source that goes even beyond the nuclear reactors- (New dlc concept?
Sci-fi False Metal + Quantum Technology?)
Early Game Generator:
Biofuel Generator, place natural mass into the generator and gain great power for a short time- really good for quick charging a huge battery set up.
Early Game Generator Enhancer:
Electrical Fractal Optimizer - This building optimizes all generators by ensuring the electrical current reaches a perfect mathematical fractal which strictly follows the path of least resistance, allowing for increasing MW output by 15%.
Mid-Game Generator:
Atmospheric generator, decently cheap build to build and has no fuel requirements thereafter- The Atmospheric Generator generates 8.0 MW per 1 block and only functions in planetary atmospheres- However, it superheats environments and needs a cooling system to operate.
End game Generator: Something sci-fi like an Antimatter Generator which uses a fuel source ‘Antimatter’ made from a particle accelerator. This makes nuclear reactors mid-game.
Other additions:
Research Analysis Machine (RAM) - How you obtain the building recipe for all of this DLC content such as the Atmospheric Generator etc. Input materials for analysis and get research applied.
Molecular Fabrication & Synthesis Machine (MFS) - Really large structure, super huge power intake requirement, Allows for crafting without resources as it uses molecules in the atmosphere to create things, basically allowing one to get free stuff. It crafts SUPER slowly though.
Matterform Engine - Engine required for use by Antimatter technologies.
Matterbend Drive Waymaker - Creates extra dimensional coordinates to be used by Matterbend Drives for large ships.
Matterbend Drive -
Allows for the creation of artificial wormholes, successfully creating a portal between two spaces. Requires extra dimensional coordinates of Waymaker.
Antimatter Warhead - New warhead, twice the destructive power.
Dark Matter Spiral Engine - Creates Dark Matter from any material at a slow rate.
Quantum Shell Generator - A shield generator that uses Dark Matter that warps incoming projectiles to the other side of the field, effectively fully nullifying incoming projectile damage. Uses up significant power, power generators cannot be active at the same time or the generators would explode from overload, requires batteries to use.
Matter Eater Beam - A laser beam defense turret that eats directly at matter able to instantly destroy heavy armor, however requires extreme amounts of dark matter as ammunition and power.
Antimatter Thruster - Uses antimatter as fuel, it is SUPER explosive, dangerous, and fragile- not good for combat ships, however it allows space ships to get to 200 m/s unlike the 100 cap.
You forgot a huge downside of the battery: It "loses" 20% of the power put into it. That is, if you put in 1 MWh of power, it only stores 0.8 MWh of power. This is really bad if you're charging batteries off of fuel sources like H2 or U.
That is something I did not know, and is a huge downside indeed. Thank you for notifying me 👍
I always keep a few hydrogen engines on my grid with an event controller as emergency power. If battery levels dip below 25% I have the generators turn on for 5 minutes to boost the power. This works well with solar cells.
For those who use the watermod and don't know yet, you can get infinit hydrogen by putting a collector in the water. Slap three or four hydrogen engines in your base and that will run pretty much everything you will want.
A wonderful example of Keen's lack of scientific rigor in the game. In the real world, extracting hydrogen from ice (or water with the mod) requires more energy than you can ever get back by burning it (with oxygen) in a generator (or thruster, or whatever), so isn't an effective power source. Otherwise we'd be using it instead of gasoline, solar panels, nuclear power, etc.
i like your spinning drill. i built one with a 1block spaceing between the drill heads. still, very nice.
I made a smal reactor and 12 bateries and it charge in almost 20 minutos lol, so i turn off to not wast uranium.
Good video
I think the battery grinding strat is still worth it tbh, the battery components can be made with only stone, so they're a lot more renewable that hydrogen engines or reactors
Not sure if they were out yet. But in the NEWest DLC the large turbine has a higher output.
Also batterys store power they do NOT create power. they should not of been in this video
This video covers power blocks. The battery is a power block, and has the POTENTIAL to create power. I said it spawns with power, never that it makes it. But clever engineering can make a power generation system using batteries.
@@AliceDoesThings404 how much energy does it take to mine and refine then assemble the parts for that 900 power? That's the real question
@woodzyfox4735 Good question. Might test it later.
you missed the fact that the hydro generator needs fuel and pipes ...and add in the tanks and h202 generator to the size...it adds ups quite a bit
I did point out that the hydro generator needs fuel and pipes to run it. That was the whole point behind comparing the fuel it uses vs the fuel a reactor uses. Should pay more attention next time 🤔
32.6% (approximately) increase in weight to power ratio for the 27 Small Reactor configuration. The fringe benefit of which would be that it doesn't require any Gold to achieve a 405MW output in the same space as the large reactor. The weight difference of 57,116kg is roughly an additional 79% the weight of a Large reactor, so I can see how only gaining the additional 105MW output (34% Approximate) increase for almost 80% the weight of a second Large reactor may seem like a major flaw overall.
However, as stated earlier, it doesn't require Gold and its weight/mass is a negligible factor outside of planetary gravity. Given you will likely be in space by this stage, it's an acceptable trade-off if Gold proves difficult to procure or would be better used elsewhere. The PCU factor is likely the more pressing issue for such a Small reactor configuration, practically speaking.
What would be nice is a larger battery array, similarly scaled to the Small and Large reactors. A Large Battery bank block, like a single 3x3x3 Battery block or other configuration that takes up the same Volume, with a higher storage and output capacity scaled similarly to the reactors would be a nice addition to the power options. Simply considering the PCU factor, having exponentially increased power to PCU "bulk" blocks would help with a lot of issues.
Much like adding tiered or purpose built (as in high acceleration, high efficiency etc with drawbacks) Thrusters and ship tools would help alleviate many issues as well.
Will you do a video on small block power generation?
At some point in the future, for sure 👍
I find that building large hydrogen engine rooms on my bases or smaller ones (2-4 engines) on my large grid ships that I can turn on when I need to charge the batteries, and turn them off when they are charged works great. Ussualy my problem with hydrogens engines is that they consume all your fuel without you realising it. But with event controllers you can make sure they turn on under specific conditions or they leave a reserve of hydrogen at all times for the thrusters on big grid ships.
this is the Strangest and incomprehensible tier list that I have ever seen
One 'con' I'd like to add about batteries is that on auto mode they charge from other power sources while discharging to power power-using blocks.. unless they fixed that. (Didn't play SE recently..)
I've always struggled with achieving a setup that
- only charges batteries with excess wind and solar energy; and
- to have all other power blocks not charge batteries.
I did look at some mods for it, but didn't find anything to my liking yet. Would be great to have power prio settings options that fit these needs.. or some wiring/ logic possibilities to make this happen automatically, to waste less energy through batteries (as they have what.. 80% efficiency? And solar & wind energy already don't provide much power compared to resource-using power sources..)
When discussing the difference between Hydrogen and Uranium fuel sources I'm surprised you didn't mention the addition of upgrades to the refinery for Uranium.
Yeah, probably should have. But I wanted both the refinery and O2 gen to be stock configuration, given that there would be a lot more cost calculation to take into account for aaaaall variants and then their output.
the wind tubine can scale quite well if you take into account that it only checks in 8 directions for obstructions.
I've always used a hybrid or combo of battery and hydrogen engine for rovers of small grid grouping for better detail and for being good for heavy cargo haul. I have been playing some travel and transporting Sims like American truck sim and snow runner and I'm a motor head for an engine sound in the background
Other than the already mentioned PCU cost, another advantage of reactors over hydrogen engine is the lower fuel weight. uranium has a much higher energy/weight ratio than ice/hydrogen
Comparing them like this makes no sense. What the things cost is only relevant in the early game. After that, you have more resources than you can ever use anyway. So the costs don't matter anymore.
On servers you can't get around wind turbines / solar arrays if you don't play all the time. They cover the base turnover in the ships and bases and ensure that they remain constantly under power.
My evaluation would be more like this:
Wind turbines A
Solar C
H2 generator B
Uranium reactors D
Batteries are not power generation units for me and therefore do not count.