Do you need an Hydrogen tank?

[Geoff]

my friend built a ship, all thrusters are powered. He doesnt have a tank. we are woundering if a hydrogen tank is needed? Any Answers?

[hippybaker]

You can run a small hydro thruster or two from an o2 generator, but any more than that and you exceed the production capacity of the o2 gen, and no more thrust is gained.

So, yes.
But you need a lot of o2 generator.

[EmberStar]

Ice is also heavy, and the small O2/H2 generator doesn't hold very much. You'll need to attach cargo containers and fill those with ice, which makes the ship even heavier. Without a hydrogen tank you also have the problem that the moment you run out of ice you also run out of fuel. If you are moving when that happens you won't be able to stop unless you crash into something in space. On a planet, you'll drop to the ground.

A large grid ship with a lot of O2/H2 generators and plenty of cargo space can probably get away with depending on just ice if there really isn't room for a hydrogen tank. Because small ships carry so much less ice, it's most likely rolling the dice on ending up as a crater.

[Lordbufu]

Long story short, it kind of depends on your inventory size and ship size.

Although i can say for sure, that if your intend is to leave and return to a planet with hydro thrusters. A tank is not a waste of time and or wieght, your most likely going to need it (and maybe some extra ice if you can carry that weight) even if your trying to leave with a small grid ship.

[Buzzard]

I have a monster of a 'Heavy Lifter', ground-to-orbit, that can run on pure O2 gen output... of course, this ship is running with WAY too many O2 gens for it to be practical outside of mods. The mod in question (Azimuth) makes for 1/2 size O2 gens with double-ish output. As it is, the ship is pretty much built out of O2 gens and H2 tanks. It still goes through ice faster than I want to be supplying it.
As a pure vanilla setup... it could be done, but it wouldn't be a happy thing.

[aaron]

splitsie did a video about it.. think he found out that small grid the o2 gen is lighter, but large grid you need a tank.

not sure if anything has changed since he did the video tho.

[CZ_bpk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP9mddY3Xfw

[Mr B.]

Hydrogen is generally crap, and as soon as you can get away from it the better. It's only decent in use for lifting stuff out of atmo, and then you're far better off with tanks.

Anything military - i.e. which has to do a lot of fast movement and change of direction is generally better off without it entirely. I've made a couple of successful fighters with hydrogen only, but they have a severely limited flight time compared to their battery/reactor counter parts.

[Jack Schitt]

A tank is not absolutely necessary to have. Having one does add more power to the hydrogen thrusters though because it delivers h2 faster than the generator(s) can. Splitsie tested this in one of his videos and that was the result that there's more power to h2 thrusters when a tank is there so it's not necessary to have a tank but it's a significant help to have one for thruster force and efficiency. It's also helpful to have a tank because when the tank is full the generators shut off and only run as needed to produce the gas again to refill the tank so it helps with power efficiency to have a tank too. Without a tank the gens are going to run constantly.

[jafiwam]

Hydrogen tanks are like batteries. They are slow to load fast to output and if you add more it gives you more peak but not so much sustainable.

I use a mixture of both on my hydrogen vehicles.

Using O2/H2 generators is like using solar panels to directly power a space ship.

[random_01 [HUN]]

A bit off topic, but how do I refuel with hydrogen the docked small ship's hydrogen tank from the startion with the station's large hydrogen tank?

[Robosium]

Originally posted by a140610 HUN:

A bit off topic, but how do I refuel with hydrogen the docked small ship's hydrogen tank from the startion with the station's large hydrogen tank?

Make sure that both tanks are connected with conveyors and either set the small one tank to stockpile or put a sorter that forces hydrogen into the small ship or have an o2/h2 generator and some ice connected to the conveyor network.

[Buzzard]

Sorters aren't going to move your H2 gas. Just set the tank you need filled to 'Stockpile', and it will draw from any available sources until it is filled. A tank on Stockpile will NOT supply any gas to anything, for any reason (even if you're about to crash) until the Stockpile option is disabled again.

A good idea would be to put your tank, or group of tanks, on the hotbar for easy setting of Stockpile On/Off.