Ships randomly become too heavy to fly, then they're fine

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I've experienced this before when I played the game some time back, but had it again last night. I'm a somewhat more experienced player now so I'm sure this is some sort of bug. Here's what happened:

I'd been mining some Iron in my basic mining ship. It's not great but does the job and can carry about 50-60k of weight and still fly ok. After collecting the Ore I wanted, about 50k worth, I lifted off vertically out of the hole I'd dug just fine, ship was a little sluggish, as expected, but it got out easily. More than ample vertical lift for the weight carried - I'd made trips carrying this weight quite a number of times.

I begin the short trip back to my main base, flying fairly level, before descending slightly and levelling off for final approach. I've flying along just fine, NOT losing any height, about 150 metres up, making micro adjustments as needed. Suddenly my ship starts to sink, fast, the thrusters cannot compensate and I hit the ground. The ship is thankfully undamaged - seems things are a little more robust and when I last played - so I unlock the landing gear (it's on automatic) and take off absolutely without problems, and dock back at base.

So, why did my ship suddenly sink like that? I was flying straight and level, had ample power, more than enough upward thrust. However, the ship suddenly exhibited characteristics of being heavily over-loaded, yet no weight was added *during* the flight of course. Additionally, after plummeting to the ground with the thruster having ZERO effect, it then took off again just fine.

Note: ship is very basic, built from the Survival Pod. It has four downward facing thrusters (small Atmospheric) three forward, three back and one each left and right. No upward facing as not needed in gravity. It has two batteries, and Ore Detector, and single Gyro, a medium cargo container and just one Drill. It uses the basic enclosed cockpit.

I've seen other ships do this too - I have a Salvage type small ship that's over-thrustered, cargo gets full before it's even close to being over-weight - and it did the same thing after a salvage run. It took off just fine, flew most of the way back to base just fine, then suddenly sank and hit the ground mid flight and took off just fine again.

To be 100% clear, when loaded these ship DO take off just fine. They DO fly perfectly for most of the trip. They have ample power in terms of stored energy and never go above 50% usage. They simply randomly drop, as if suddenly overloaded, when nothing has changed.

I'm using standard atmospheric thusters on these very early-game (Survival) designs, which use just vanilla blocks. Do others experience this? Is there any valid reason for this behaviour?

Note: game performance has been great for me, not noticeable slow downs or problems, so it doesn't appear to be glitching out due to being over loaded CPU-wise.

Scoob.

[Jogador Pedrão]

Have you tried doing doing the WEDR-space-and-mouse maneuver? It's how I call holding those all those at the same time and moving the mouse around. What I mean to say is, have you tried using the most energy you can possible?
It's very odd this thing that happened to you, but when you say "over-thrustered" I get suspicious.

[Scoob]

Hi, yes, good point, though I've already tried that and max power drain was well within the output of the two batteries. So, even if I were applying thrust in multiple directions at once, there's still ample power to support that. However, I was just flying straight at the time, with some forward / reverse thrust as I neared my base.

Note: I do turn off the forward-facing thrusters when travelling distances, but they get re-engaged obviously as I near my destination.

It's a weird one for sure, and I can't figure if there's any legitimate cause... there doesn't seem to be as I'm flying just fine, until suddenly I'm not.

Scoob.

[Burstar]

Atmospheric Thrusters are affected by the atmospheres density which is itself a function of absolute altitude from planet origin and not ground height (unless it's been changed, but I doubt it). In my experience the cause for this behaviour could be that you're climbing in altitude and have hit a pressure drop (it's not a gradual thing) that causes your ship to start to fall. When the ship gets below the pressure drop altitude it's downward velocity is too great to be overcome by your already at the limit thrust.

I know you claim your flight is level, but it's probably increasing a little bit and your base just happens to be at that drop in pressure height.

Or, it could be yet another bug in SE.

[Botji]

Just want to say that I have also had this exact problem a few times though last time it was a while ago. I havent played in a bit but I kinda hoped they had fixed it since it didnt happen last time I was playing.. perhaps its back now.

Its a really frustrating problem because nothing shows up as being wrong with the miner, it just suddenly loses like 30% of its lift and down you go and if you survive the drop and wait a little you can just fly away as if nothing was wrong in the first place.

Lost quite a lot of miners when it was happening to me.. its like a Bethesda game, it just works!

*Edit*
Its not the altitude unless planets only sometimes have like a 10km altitude difference on a plain flat field since you could fly over the same spot without any problems, just over the trees :P

[Buzzard]

Planetary atmosphere thins out very gradually, not in sudden increments. (or at least until you get to the absolute end of atmosphere just above 9k above sea level)

Something else is going on. For now, I'd add another thruster for lift. It won't add much to the power drain while running if you stick to the same payload mass, but the extra "oh carp!" lift might be handy.

I see what you're doing with shutting off the forward-facing thrusters. By not having to keep the power on to go forward, you can coast along until it's time to stop. You get the benefit of coasting without inertia dampeners running, without the whole crash-into-planet-and-explode mess. Nice.

[Da'Nutz]

How about your power levels? During manouvers you use more engines beside those giving you vertical lift. You might have dipped a bit to much in you reactor power with and vertical lift thrusters end up power starved and not able to keep your ship in the air. This happened to me a few times.

[Scoob]

My base is on an ice lake, so totally flat terrain. I drop down a couple of hundred metres as I approach the lake, then fly straight and level for several hundred metres to approach the base from the appropriate direction - it's tucked up against a cliff face, so I'm coming from the other direction. I'm not dropping, levelling off and continuing to drop or anything like that - I'm pretty sure this isn't pilot error.

Literally, I'm flying straight and level at a set altitude of usually between 100 and 150 metres over the ice lake. Everything is perfectly fine, when suddenly my altitude plummets and I hit the ground.

I've done this run back to my base lots of times this current game, each time fully loaded with whatever Ore I've collected, each time approaching at around the same height, speed and overall weight. However, only *sometimes* does my ship suddenly drop from the skies.

For whatever reason, my ship loses its ability - temporarily - to hold its self in the air. As mentioned previously, overall thrust is ample - I took off fine at this weight - and I have power to spare - I'm at like 23% during normal flight when this issue occurs. Also, I'm not going too high to experience reduction in lift from the Atmospheric Thrusters - I've flown high a few times and experience this, and it's waaay higher than my base approach.

So, I don't know what's happening. I welcome the feedback on this thread, but nothing has answered what's happening to me, as I'm able to reliably rule out any of the good suggestions people are making.

I can't really do any more testing on this now as, last night, I upgraded the Miner, giving it more drills and two of the larger Thrusters for lift, due to the increased weight. However, I thought I'd mention the issue I was experiencing with the original design, to see what people thought. I'll be sure to say if the newer design has issues - I'm yet to even test fly it.

I still suspect that this is an obscure bug, but I cannot see quite what triggers it, though I'm usually at a fairly low altitude when it happens.

Scoob.

[Weaver]

Don't trust power readings with battieries involved, especially in a mixed power system, it's never accurate.

[Scoob]

Originally posted by Weaver:

Don't trust power readings with battieries involved, especially in a mixed power system, it's never accurate.

Really, the power usage can be wrong? I know I can thrust up, move forward and strafe at the same time when loaded and lift off just fine - which would suggest that, irrespective of reading accuracy, that the ship had sufficient power.

I do *just* have batteries, no reactors or solar panels, so I assumed the reading would be consistent.

Scoob.

[Buzzard]

One problem with the idea that a battery dropped out for whatever reason: If a battery ran out of power, it wouldn't magically regain power after running out.

Query: Running any mods or scripts? Is this on a server or a private, solo game?

[Scoob]

Originally posted by Buzzard:

One problem with the idea that a battery dropped out for whatever reason: If a battery ran out of power, it wouldn't magically regain power after running out.

Query: Running any mods or scripts? Is this on a server or a private, solo game?

Could an empty battery possibly recharge from one that still has a partial recharge? I.e. if for whatever reason one battery drained totally, the ship crashes, then gains a little charge while downed? I don't think this is happening - both batteries report as over 75% charged - but you comment made me wonder.

I am modded yes, I have the Modular Encounters collection installed, as well as a couple of recommended weapon mods and a shield mod. Nothing crazy. The ship in question is only using vanilla blocks. I'm just playing local single player.

Scoob.

[Buzzard]

The way power is coded and handled, the only way for a battery to recharge from the other is to SET the battery to RECHARGE. Auto mode, which you're likely running on, doesn't allow for batteries to steal from each other. When a battery runs out, it's just out.

Even if the drained battery somehow got set to recharge by some means unseen, you'd notice, no question, that something was up with the power. The power gauge isn't the most accurate of things sometimes, but something that big, it'd show one hell of a blip.

I had thought about another player screwing with you through remote access, but you're doing single player. The chances of this being a Hacking Drones mod be unlikely as well, as there's a whole lot of other things they'd do to you, leading to you always going out well armed, just to keep them from screwing with you.

[Scoob]

Yep, batteries are just set to auto. I suspect this is just some random glitch as all indicators suggest I should not just fall out of the sky like that.

Not tried MP yet, though I hope to at some point...cooperatively first though.

Scoob.

[Buzzard]

Yeah, co-op with friendlies is the way to go. Starting off in hostile territory... is a recipe for much pain and suffering.

[humanoid.mp4]

I had same glitch recently. I was mining ice at lake on earth and then went afk to wait until this ice turns into hydrogen. After my tanks were full I was ready to go. But ship didn’t want to lift off. I cut off everything and completely emptied its inventory. Just 2 tanks, gyro and cockpit were so heavy that even 4 atmospheric thrusters couldn’t lift it. After server restart it all became fine