Hydrogen storage query

[Maszo Pok]

I saw that the hydrogen engine had limited hydrogen storage, so I wanted to use a hydrogen engine as an alternative to the giant hydrogen tank you would normally use. However I found that the thrusters wouldn’t pull out of the engine’s storage, Is this a bug or just how it works?

I’d really like to use at as storage for its size alternatively a smaller tank for both large and small grids would be nice.

edit: changed title to fit new conversation

[krzosu18]

And thats exactly why it doesn't work - the hydro that is in the hydro enigne is meant to be used only BY the hydro engine - so no that wont work (although i was thinking of using it in the same manner :P).

Imho we should get hydro tank of the size of the normal large O2 tank for large grids in the vanilla game. that would help a lot.

[Maszo Pok]

I am down for smaller size tanks I don't like having to build around the tanks when I am making a fighter. I'd just like the engines storage to be available, imagine being out of hydrogen and seeing that you cant get the hydrogen in the engine.

[Botji]

Smaller tanks might be nice but what would they actually be used for?

A large grid ship will usually want at least one large hydrogen tank, anything less and you run out very quickly. Small grid ships and esp fighters needs like 2-4 tanks to not run out of hydrogen mid fight(2 tanks still leaves you with a very short range fighter, 4 tanks is imo barely enough for moving outside your own back yard).

Fighters dont use their thrusters lightly, they burn hydrogen very quickly and almost constantly to move away from bullets. A fighter with new smaller tanks would be more like a guided missile attack than a fighter because once you turn on the H2 thrusters you wont have enough fuel to stop :D

The only real use I see for smaller tanks would be small drones sent down to planets from space, with just enough fuel to make the landing... or custom built rocket/missiles using hydrogen.

[Nightwing]

What's the o2 tank capacity, and what's the h2 tank capacity?
Because if you do it right, you could fit about 13 1x1x2 o2 tanks into the same space as one of the 3x3x3 h2 tanks, even if you'd need to fiddle with the conveyor piping a bit. Depending on the relative capacity between the two types of tanks, it might be more space-efficient to use smaller 1x1x2 h2 tanks, so long as they have a similar capacity.

[eMYNOCK]

What's the o2 tank capacity, and what's the h2 tank capacity?

O2 Tank, no Idea.

H2 Tank, 5 Million Liters of the finest Jetpack and Engine Fuel.


I have to say... the Hydrogen Engines burns Hydrogen even if it is idle... same way like Hydrogen Thrusters.

Worst thing possible... just try to run a Hydrogen Engine with Ice and an attached O2/H2 Generator... it will eat the Ice like a Small Uranium Reactor on 100%.


also.. if one really just wants a smaller H2 Tank on a large Grid... hows about the advanced Rotor with a small Head and a small H2 Tank?

[Darkaiser]

I think that we need large and small sizes of everything in the game TBH. I would support a smaller hydrogen tank the size of an O2 tank if only for emergencies.

[Maszo Pok]

Originally posted by Botji:

Smaller tanks might be nice but what would they actually be used for?

A large grid ship will usually want at least one large hydrogen tank, anything less and you run out very quickly. Small grid ships and esp fighters needs like 2-4 tanks to not run out of hydrogen mid fight(2 tanks still leaves you with a very short range fighter, 4 tanks is imo barely enough for moving outside your own back yard).

Fighters dont use their thrusters lightly, they burn hydrogen very quickly and almost constantly to move away from bullets. A fighter with new smaller tanks would be more like a guided missile attack than a fighter because once you turn on the H2 thrusters you wont have enough fuel to stop :D

The only real use I see for smaller tanks would be small drones sent down to planets from space, with just enough fuel to make the landing... or custom built rocket/missiles using hydrogen.

The small O2/H generator can be used itself to power a small ship with ice inside it, the ice last a good couple of minutes. I've seen some workshop ships that just use that, in little cheap micro fighters. In a similar fashion to the small battery I am just interested in a downsize for smaller ships. You could argue that the small battery is useless and doesn't hold any power compared to the normal battery but its found its use.

[krzosu18]

Originally posted by Botji:

Smaller tanks might be nice but what would they actually be used for?

A large grid ship will usually want at least one large hydrogen tank, anything less and you run out very quickly. Small grid ships and esp fighters needs like 2-4 tanks to not run out of hydrogen mid fight(2 tanks still leaves you with a very short range fighter, 4 tanks is imo barely enough for moving outside your own back yard).

Fighters dont use their thrusters lightly, they burn hydrogen very quickly and almost constantly to move away from bullets. A fighter with new smaller tanks would be more like a guided missile attack than a fighter because once you turn on the H2 thrusters you wont have enough fuel to stop :D

The only real use I see for smaller tanks would be small drones sent down to planets from space, with just enough fuel to make the landing... or custom built rocket/missiles using hydrogen.

The small tank - well i would use one as a buffer - so engines would be able to get short FULL powet boosts - atm my designs tend to need more oxy gens to meed the demand and that can lead to some shall we say under performance ? The smaller tank would make the design more flexible but still not bulky at the same time.

[Nightwing]

I like that idea of using the smaller tanks as buffers for heavy maneuvering. All you have to do, is ensure that your h2 production exceeds your normal usage, however little the difference is, and the buffer tanks should passively fill up. I've seen reactor/battery hybrid ships that do something similar, where the reactors are the primary power source, with the batteries (set to auto) only discharging when maneuvering increases power demands.

[Mr B.]

A hydrogen fighter just isn't really feasible given consumption and storage values in SE.

You might be able to make one with some hydrogen thrusters as a secondary boost over atmo/ion, but that's short lived.

I've tried a few times, and in every scenario using just atmo or ion only is vastly better. Weight to mass means hydrogen makes for a less agile ship. Hybrid ships always need two main power sources. That's power, which is a large block either way (reactor or normal sized battery), plus hydrogen which is at least one O2 generator. Or of course, a stupidly big tank.

You could of course make a large one with tanks, thrusters everywhere but by the time you've done that you may as well have gone large grid.

I've even got a fighter which can enter and leave atmosphere without using hydrogen, and it's still more agile than most fighters on the workshop.

I do have to point out that I discount any ships which can't last more than a few mins in a combat scenario. A ship needs to be able to get there, fight, and get back!

[Maszo Pok]

Originally posted by Mr B.:

A hydrogen fighter just isn't really feasible given consumption and storage values in SE.

You might be able to make one with some hydrogen thrusters as a secondary boost over atmo/ion, but that's short lived.

I've tried a few times, and in every scenario using just atmo or ion only is vastly better. Weight to mass means hydrogen makes for a less agile ship. Hybrid ships always need two main power sources. That's power, which is a large block either way (reactor or normal sized battery), plus hydrogen which is at least one O2 generator. Or of course, a stupidly big tank.

You could of course make a large one with tanks, thrusters everywhere but by the time you've done that you may as well have gone large grid.

I've even got a fighter which can enter and leave atmosphere without using hydrogen, and it's still more agile than most fighters on the workshop.

I do have to point out that I discount any ships which can't last more than a few mins in a combat scenario. A ship needs to be able to get there, fight, and get back!

Super cool that you figured out what fighters you like and how you build them, but does that really diminish the need/want for smaller storage options for hydrogen? Was that anything but your opinions on hydrogen fighters?

[Mr B.]

Not sure why your back is up.

Through simple experimentation.

With dogfighting, simply having large thrust in one direction puts you at a disadvantage. With hydrogen, you need to be able to connect all of the thrusters up. That's extra mass right there.

In addition, how long is your fuel/ice going to last? That also takes mass to take that along.

And, when going in multiple vectors, such as turning so using say 2 axis, perhaps even 3, can the storage/supply keep up with that? Not like batteries or uranium can, trust me.

In all my experiments both hydrogen and ice burned through waay too fast.

And yes, I'm well aware of cubes being the best.but that's stupid,while people favour different designs, I could build a cube with internal thrusters, cockpit etc and it'd be the most functional, but little bothered with blueprint on the ws.

Dunno why people are getting spiky.my opinion is just that, for a pure fighter, hydrogen just doesn't lend itself well.

If you bother to view my ships, you'll see they are very well designed and gone through literally hours of testing.

I wasn't aware we were excluding uranium, or on about building gargantuan 'fighters' with mahoosive fuel tanks.

This thread was started with smaller tanks in mind. While I would love that, they will be almost useless for fighters (not other ships), due to high consumption and small storage.

So unless they increase the capacity or change consumption, they wouldn't be much use in a small, high consumption ship like a fighter.but that's just my opinion and doesn't need to be treated as gospel before anyone gets shirty.

[Botji]

Originally posted by Maszo Pok:

The small O2/H generator can be used itself to power a small ship with ice inside it, the ice last a good couple of minutes. I've seen some workshop ships that just use that, in little cheap micro fighters. In a similar fashion to the small battery I am just interested in a downsize for smaller ships. You could argue that the small battery is useless and doesn't hold any power compared to the normal battery but its found its use.

I mean sure.. that would be a fighter that has like 8 O2/H2 generators, a ton of ice and still only enough hydrogen to fuel the bare minimum thrusters to move itself. Instead of using a bunch of generators and tons of ice you could use the hydrogen tanks and have a fighter that can at least use its thrusters for a few minutes.

Originally posted by krzosu18:

The small tank - well i would use one as a buffer - so engines would be able to get short FULL powet boosts - atm my designs tend to need more oxy gens to meed the demand and that can lead to some shall we say under performance ? The smaller tank would make the design more flexible but still not bulky at the same time.

A smaller hydrogen tank would let the engines go at 100% for a little while but then when it runs out(because it would quickly do that) you either have enough O2/H2 gens to keep the engines at 100% or you dont and suddenly you are carrying a bunch of engines that are not only worthless but also adds to your mass that you have to drag around.

Im all for a smaller hydrogen tank but I think you guys are really optimistic if you think it would be able to replace the current tank on a fighter design. Imo the problem with hydrogen fighters isnt that the hydrogen tank is too large, its that hydrogen thrusters use so much hydrogen that even 2 tanks is kinda not enough... I dont see how putting even less hydrogen would solve it.

Smaller hydrogen tanks would be amazing for drones, small space-to-planet stuff and player built missiles/torps, cheap and great thrust to weight ratio.

[Maszo Pok]

Originally posted by Botji:

I mean sure.. that would be a fighter that has like 8 O2/H2 generators, a ton of ice and still only enough hydrogen to fuel the bare minimum thrusters to move itself. Instead of using a bunch of generators and tons of ice you could use the hydrogen tanks and have a fighter that can at least use its thrusters for a few minutes.

I've been getting away with just one generator, I know that for a fighter you would need more but I was just making a micro fighter. Just like in Roofcat's Barebone design thats all you really need, and that works fine. I liked his idea that having more smaller tanks means you wouldn't be disabled when your large tank gets knocked out, as well as your cheap drone/missile.
I don't care about the meta of my spaceship, I am more interested in the addition of variety to the game.

[Mr B.]

Originally posted by RoofCat:

Originally posted by Mr B.:

ice - snip - ice

you never ever use ice on battle ships. Actually on none ship flying. Get ice, refuel tanks, burn down extra in power generator ("engine") or throw away. Fighters don't even need H2 generators. Nor significant batteries.

Plumbing is overrated. Many parts have nice connections. Use them wisely.

Here is the most barebone fighter base.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1704808938
Is it really that hard to cover it in armor? Cockpit is as large as that tank. Nobody complains about that one.
There are just 2 pieces of plumbing.
Each thruster has 98.4kN. Which is plenty for this size. Now compare that to ion and to useless 698kg atmospheric one in space with 1040kg battery.
You need almost zero batteries. Antenna only and then like 5kW for gyro or whatever. Two charged small batteries will be enough for 20h fight. Have you ever fought for as long with small ship?
You don't need hydrogen generator, this is fighter. Recharge while docked at base or capital ship. And only the least experienced designers with no clue about math and physics will ever load ice in a fighter besides like 100kg if you still have H2 generator - for breathing. And even there bottles are better option for fighter pilot. Cockpit has plenty of storage. Have you seen fighter planes with oxygen masks in real life? Maybe there is a reason they don't have air conditioning? And don't tell me you mine ice while your fighter does autopilot defence tricks :)

The main issue is people creating some crap which has nothing to do with fighter concept and then complaining it is not fighter enough. Sure, you've created it that way.

Ok, firstly, that's a hideous ship. We are on about engineering here, and just having something as barebones as that is by all accounts, cheating for the point of this discussion.

Here's why....

The storage/production of hydrogen is the problem, and for small grids, increases exponentially with size.

What you've done there, is bypass all the issues of hydrogen by making a crap, albiet functional ship. Even then, your figures are not including hydrogen times!

I made an even more barebones ship than you, basically a tank, thrusters, cockpit, gyro and battery (small). Flew it around, and in a dogfight - i.e. constant acceleration and turning - hydrogen from a single tank lasts a few minutes.

And this is a barebones ship. If you add at least a little design in there, not to mention armour, you will need a few more thrusters, or it starts to get unweildy.

And this is where the huge consumption rate of hydrogen comes in. Your fuel is depleted in a minute or 2 of combat. And while small ships don't tend to last longer than that, it's a silly limitation that allows for incredibly small travel time to and from an engagement.

I'll conceed you can make an exceptionally basic space based inteceptor with a short range and limited combat time, but it's not something I'd entertain. Perhaps we are getting into semantics here, but I don't class that as saying hydrogen tanks are much good for the term 'fighter'. But like I said, semantics.

As for atmo - nooo way. Hydrogen doesn't last long enough at all for that. A small grid ship which can dogfight well, that's not unweildy? Nope, just not happening.

As a side note, you seem to think I'm some sort of rubbish designer. Been playing SE since before mirroring, and like I said, my ships are tested to the nth degree - hence why I don't entertain hydrogen as something usable for fighters. And yes I use oxy bottles for pilots, bar one of my ships which is suitable for various roles, including long patrol. That has a tank, mainly for easy refill when going back to base so it can go straight back out. If you think I'm a bad designer, look at my items on the WS and see how much work as gone into them to make them practical.

For example, my generation ship which has fold out panels, has measures built in so that you can't cut off the arms by accidently pressing the wrong button when they are deployed. My tiny one man shuttle can make it to and from a planet/moon multiple times on a single charge. I know this because I spent the time testing it in each environment.

All that aside, I fully support having smaller hydrogen tanks, especially for small grids. It'd make build easier, and what you said about ice is wrong - if you've got an O2 generator for air, you might as well have the option for a hydrogen 'boost' - some thrusters perhaps in one direction for a burst of speed, or maybe for breaking orbit. That to me, makes more sense than a hydrogen only small ship.