Impossible to leave planets without hydrogen thrusters?

[u2020bullet]

Ok, so i went to the moon, disassembled my original ship there, built a complete base, built a new lander to return to earth but i can't seem to take off back into space.

I have 2 large atmosphere thrusters pointing down as well as 7 small ion thrusters. My ship is really small and only weighs 20 tons (removed all excess blocks to compact it and make it as light as possible). I reach over 8k before i lose thrust completely and start falling back down.

So is it actually possible to leave the planet without a hydrogen powered ship?

[Slye_Fox]

Atmo engines only work in atmopheres, ion engines don't work in atmopheres & hydrogen engines work where ever as long as they have fuel.
It is possable to build a mix ion/atmo ship, you just need to work out the needed amount of thrust.
Because there will be a point where both sets of engines arn't making a lot of thrust.

[Phemt]

Ion actually works in atmosphere, but their power is reduced to like 30%.
Moon has no atmosphere, but still has gravity, and to break It you'll need a ridiculous amount of ions, better to invest in hydrogen.

[u2020bullet]

I have no idea what else to do other than starting from scratch with a hydrogen guzzler every time i want to leave a planet. There's literally nothing more i can remove from the ship. I only have like 15 small light armor blocks, the thrusters (1-2 in each direction, plus the ones on the bottom that i've already written up), a large reactor, 3 gyros and the cockpit.

When i accelarate upwards from the ground, it shoots up and reaches max speed within a few seconds, so lack of power in the atmosphere doesn't seem to be the problem. But it starts slowing down extremely once i reach somewhere around 0.70g.
I also keep all my thrusters on, both ions and atmos at all times so they can help each other but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Phemt.

I can't exactly rework the ship to add a hydro thruster as it would add way too much weight once i add the tank, the thruster and tons of ice. So no way that takes off.

I swear they overcomplicated this portion of the game.

[Slye_Fox]

Got a pic of your ship?

[u2020bullet]

Just took 4 screenshots.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=868788108

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=868788071

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=868788045

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=868788018

[Slye_Fox]

Swap out those downwards small ion thrusters for a pair of large ones.
Unlike the atmo engines, on small ships it is better to go for large engines over small ones.

The large atmo engine on small ships is no where near as good as 9 small ones.
The small ones are overall lighter, produce more thrust, take up less space & are cheaper to make.

[BuLLeTSpOnGe]

ya, considering how the shuttle comes in without thrusters and works strictly on flp control, that would be some serious engineering.

You're stuck with hydrogen engines though as far as exiting a planet's gravity.

[u2020bullet]

@Slye_Fox: That might be an issue, the dumbass that i am, i forgot to bring platinum to earth, so those small ions hold all my thruster components.

Guess i really will have to build a small hydro ship as BuLLeTSpOnGe said to drop by the moon base so i can take enough platinum with me to try and modify this current ship to your specs. Hopefully it'll work.

Been a while since i built a hydro ship. Which thrusters are recommended for the small ship? Large or small?

[captainbladej52]

Actually no you're not stuck using purely hydrogen to exit a planet's gravity. I have several fighters and now a mining ship that can leave a planet's gravity using ions and atmos on their own. The thing with ions is you will need to configure them in a way that allows you to direct enough thrust down, and then forward once you've lifted off. If you can do that you're doing great. On a planet with an atmosphere you will need a combination of both ions and atmo thrusters usually. There's a cut off where atmos start to fizzle out as far as thrust and ions start to take over. if you can power through that then you're golden. I should also point out my mining ship is a small miner and can exit atmosphere with a full 200,000kg load. It's possible but it just takes some thought and enough power.

[Slye_Fox]

Originally posted by u2020bullet:

@Slye_Fox: That might be an issue, the dumbass that i am, i forgot to bring platinum to earth, so those small ions hold all my thruster components.

Guess i really will have to build a small hydro ship as BuLLeTSpOnGe said to drop by the moon base so i can take enough platinum with me to try and modify this current ship to your specs. Hopefully it'll work.

Been a while since i built a hydro ship. Which thrusters are recommended for the small ship? Large or small?

You can save some weight on your hydro ship by having the oxy-gen on a seperate grid with a connector, use it you refeul then leave that weight behind.
You can also leave the hydrogen engines off till your other engines no longer produce enough thrust, save the fuel.

[u2020bullet]

Originally posted by captainbladej52:

Actually no you're not stuck using purely hydrogen to exit a planet's gravity. I have several fighters and now a mining ship that can leave a planet's gravity using ions and atmos on their own. The thing with ions is you will need to configure them in a way that allows you to direct enough thrust down, and then forward once you've lifted off. If you can do that you're doing great. On a planet with an atmosphere you will need a combination of both ions and atmo thrusters usually. There's a cut off where atmos start to fizzle out as far as thrust and ions start to take over. if you can power through that then you're golden. I should also point out my mining ship is a small miner and can exit atmosphere with a full 200,000kg load. It's possible but it just takes some thought and enough power.

So what you're saying is, i need more ion thrusters pushing down.

@Slye_Fox: Yeah, i think that's how i did the last time, started with atmos, and then let hydros kick in once i'm down to about 20m/s. Although i had enough power to run it fully loaded with ice from earth to the moon where i mined enough ice to refuel.

Guess it'll be doable, just gonna take a few hours.

[captainbladej52]

Based off your screenshots your problem is you're using the wrong kind of thrusters to lift the ship up. you'll want some basic small atmos to get it airborne and then a few to push it forward. swap the large atmos for large ions pointed down. the ship itself doesn't look that big so you shouldn't need too much to get it airborne. the only thing you'll have to worry about is power consumption and the direction you're facing your thrusters. it can be a massive pain in the rear to work out which orientation and such is best for your individual ship but it can indeed be done. I'm going to provide you with 2 links so you can see what i mean. the first one is an electrical fighter that I made to conserve hydrogen. it's not the most aesthetically pleasing but she works, and the second one is the miner that i mentioned. hopefully those will give you some ideas.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=755973198

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865022649

[Namdoolb]

Whilst I've never attempted to build anything that would leave a planet without hydrogen, I have seen that it can be done.

The trick it seems, is to only use as many thrusters as you have to:

The ships I've seen that have worked mostly share very similar setups - they have enough atmospheric thrusters pointing downwards to lift the ship, and they have a large number of ion thrusters for pushing the ship forwards... And they have only a couple of ion thrusters in the other directions for maneuvering.

When they leave a planet they fly straight upwards, and about the time that the atmospheric thrusters start to give out they will point their nose to the sky and start flying forwards with the ion thrusters.

However, I must say that if you plan on bringing any cargo at all up into space with you then you really are better off using hydrogen thrusters: They can lift so much more weight into space than the other methods... And if you manage the thrusters properly & only use them when you need them; well you can get into space on a lot less hydrogen than you think.

[Admiral_Peck]

Originally posted by u2020bullet:

I have no idea what else to do other than starting from scratch with a hydrogen guzzler every time i want to leave a planet. There's literally nothing more i can remove from the ship. I only have like 15 small light armor blocks, the thrusters (1-2 in each direction, plus the ones on the bottom that i've already written up), a large reactor, 3 gyros and the cockpit.

When i accelarate upwards from the ground, it shoots up and reaches max speed within a few seconds, so lack of power in the atmosphere doesn't seem to be the problem. But it starts slowing down extremely once i reach somewhere around 0.70g.
I also keep all my thrusters on, both ions and atmos at all times so they can help each other but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Phemt.

I can't exactly rework the ship to add a hydro thruster as it would add way too much weight once i add the tank, the thruster and tons of ice. So no way that takes off.

I swear they overcomplicated this portion of the game.

I think you need to add more ions because once you reach the point on the Terran planet where your gravity/environment hud window thingy says no oxygen, (usually around 15000 meters) atmos ,are useless as they become unable to lift their own weight and shortly after can no longer provide thrust, ions can work at around 40% capacity there, so you obviously need more ions for when you hit that point, and when you hit that point you might as well turn off all atmos to save power, since they can't do anything for you past that point, hydrogen thrusters are 3x more powerful than atmos or ions of the same grid size and size rating, and work at 100% wherever (provided you have enough fuel to fire them at full--learned that bit the hard way) and so I primarily use hydrogen in my ship designs, which usually means I don't have enough fuel to break gravity, so I use max speed mods so I can get up to say 500m/s upwards and then if I run out of hydrogen I'll still be able to break out of the gravity well, and then stop with just ion power.

Edit: sorry for rambling, I get a bit carried away when writing things

[Lystent]

Originally posted by Slye_Fox:

Atmo engines only work in atmopheres, ion engines don't work in atmopheres & hydrogen engines work where ever as long as they have fuel.
It is possable to build a mix ion/atmo ship, you just need to work out the needed amount of thrust.
Because there will be a point where both sets of engines arn't making a lot of thrust.

*Ions don't work at full capacity in atmosphere.

I have been churning out large grid ships recently that can enter/exit a planet without use of hydrogen, and it greatly helps to lose your dependence on lateral atmospheric thrusters (because if weight wasn't you concern with hydrogen ships, it would most certainly have you attention with atmo/ion hybrids). So I use ions for lateral thrust instead.