Hydrogen engine question?

[Dyeshan]

Do they actually charge up batteries? or do they just provide a different power source similar to a battery?
Just trying to decide what parts to put on a ship...h2o gen for the ice conversion to power the thrusters and give me oxy.....do I need the gen? Or just use batteries and a solar panel maybe for smaller systems?

[Nacredem]

Its super strong for a short while. the large ship version outputs 5MW, and can charge a ship battery in 20 minutes, but it CHURRRRNNSSSSS through ice/hydrogen. roughly 1k ice every 20seconds from one h2/o2 generator. you'd need 2 to run it at full capacity without a full h2 tank however, so thats 2k per 20seconds. It seems great if you have accesss to a large ice supply and don't want to bother with slow turbines or uranium, but I'm using it as a back up emergency power. Uranium just hurts less

[Mannorot2015]

i use them only for filling the batteries in the time before i find uranium. They charge batteries very quickly but eat up the ice very fast. So dont use them as normal energy source. In space i found some asteroids completely out of ice so in the conclusion i start with hydrogen thruster, hydrogen tanks / oxygen tank, o2/h2 engine to convert ice to hydrogen/oxygen (at least 2 of them, they are slower than before the update) and one of the new hydrogen engines and at least one drill on the ship, so it can refuel itself. Mount 2 or 4 or even more batteries. Solar cells are not as effective but i add them additionally. Now your ship can refuel itself on a ice lake on planets and later on asteroids.

[Darkaiser]

What the others have said. Great for backup power, recharging batteries etc but lousy for normal use. One advantage (and this is a corner case) is if your vessel has ALMOST enough power from solar or your base is just a little bit short from wind turbines, the Hydrogen engine will only supply what's needed so it burns hydrogen slower.

[RoofCat]

Hydrogen used as gas in hydrogen thrusters provides you with 3.4 times more propulsion than used as electricity source and then sent to ion thrusters. Using it to fly ions would be the worst.

Fly hydrogen instead, use as backup power on large ships for whatever needs, ignore.

Don't keep ice onboard. It wastes a lot of your acceleration. Mine, convert to gas, store in tanks. Gas is weightless in SE. Large tank has 5mio liter volume. Which is made from 500 000 kg ice. And weights just a tiny fraction of that.

[Husky306]

Everything H2 related is too ice-expensive to use. Better avoid it when you can. And engine is also a headashe to try and understand how it works and how to connect it right. It takes a tank, it can't feed from H2 generator, it takes initial energy... And then you just put green stones in reactor and it works attached to a bug net. SE, I choose U! =P

[Timicro]

i ran 4 h2 engines on my rover for backup. but i also had 4 o2 gen and like 3 or 4mil ice

[krzosu18]

You prob should use those as a backup power source - or on bases with easy access to lots of ice nearby - imho they can be used as MAIN power source but that be kinda bothersome.

[Pounce]

Definitly an emergency power thingy.
No other use discovered by now.
Small one should be more efficient to run an rover i think and able to turn ice into gas by themself to make them great rover engines (feed it ice and it purrs)
The big ones are kinda ok as emergency power but kinda only on real big ships given that you need super big tanks and 2 o2 gens per engine and so on so kinda very limited use

[gerald2]

Originally posted by RoofCat:

Hydrogen used as gas in hydrogen thrusters provides you with 3.4 times more propulsion than used as electricity source and then sent to ion thrusters. Using it to fly ions would be the worst.

Fly hydrogen instead, use as backup power on large ships for whatever needs, ignore.

Don't keep ice onboard. It wastes a lot of your acceleration. Mine, convert to gas, store in tanks. Gas is weightless in SE. Large tank has 5mio liter volume. Which is made from 500 000 kg ice. And weights just a tiny fraction of that.

yep but taks take alot of space hehe something for something ;)

[Troubleshooter]

Originally posted by krzosu18:

You prob should use those as a backup power source - or on bases with easy access to lots of ice nearby - imho they can be used as MAIN power source but that be kinda bothersome.

You mean everyone doesn't just build bases on lakes?
Flat, fuel rich, easy to spot ore deposits, beautiful scenery?
If anything, Hydrogen engines are in the game to keep you from being buried in your extra ice.

[eMYNOCK]

hydrogen engines are a good option if you want to be stay mobile...

mine some ice.. charge your batteries until the engine is dry... move on until you need more ice to recharge the batteries.

though.. for bases they are inefficient... solars and wind turbines are a much more reliable energy source if one wants to settle down somewere on a Planet.

how ever... they are cheaper that the uranium reactor and you only need a small batterie and an o2h2 generator for a kickstart.

[Pounce]

I think one thing bothers me, you can liquify hydrogen so why are we forced to use friggin big tanks for it, they should be 2 blocks big grid like 02

[Troubleshooter]

Originally posted by pounce:

I think one thing bothers me, you can liquify hydrogen so why are we forced to use friggin big tanks for it, they should be 2 blocks big grid like 02

I'm sure small liquid-hydrogen tanks will be the next $4 DLC

[RoofCat]

Originally posted by pounce:

I think one thing bothers me, you can liquify hydrogen so why are we forced to use friggin big tanks for it, they should be 2 blocks big grid like 02

because SE is full of shet. Hydrogen fuel should have 10x the energy density of electric battery.
On the other hand there is no way to generate hydrogen from ice while making 400% extra energy (-100kW H2 gen, +500-1kW for engine). That's perpetum mobile level bs :D
It's quite the opposite - you lose like 50% electricity in this process in best case. And actually don't use ice. There are serious corrosion issues with water to hydrogen setup. With some special salts that can be avoided and there are more advanced methods, but still - hydrogen is mostly made from methane (natural gas) as that is much cheaper and efficient.

SE has nothing to do with reality or real physics. The only quite accurate rule is mass inertia impact on travel. F=ma. And even that one gets broken with heavy ships having low propulsion. It's a mess. It's a completely fictional world and sandbox.

[Pounce]

Originally posted by RoofCat:

because SE is full of shet. Hydrogen fuel should have 10x the energy density of electric battery.
On the other hand there is no way to generate hydrogen from ice while making 400% extra energy (-100kW H2 gen, +500-1kW for engine). That's perpetum mobile level bs :D

I am not that iffy about "realism" in that
-it is kinda Sifi ish so making hydrogen straight from ice ok i guess.
-conversion rates are kinda gameplay issue too (you have to balance it with time neded to do stuff therefore we have jump drives and do not wait 4 years to reach mars... and ion thrusters are powerfull...

What i think is an issue is fine tuning the whole thing to be as real as possible (without sitting 4 years in front of your computer to reach mars)

So like energy output Hydrogen is leveld in balance with other sources of energy, someway realistic but in a way that is still fun.

My idea is we would have

-Solar, moderate investment once, together with batteries an cheap but not very potent energy source plus no fuels to aquire.

-Hydrogen fueled thrust/energy source high investment, needs fuels (ice) need infrastructure to turn it into hydrogen but provides solid potent energy ressource (like good for peak need in thrust/electrical needs

-Nuclear high investment high output needs rare fuel and lot of bother turning rare ore into fuel, maybe extra expensive refinery but reactors are lighter than hydrogen fusion

-Hydrogen fusion kinda nuclearish, high investment into reactor, plenty of fuel, easier to refine than nuclear, potent energy source but heavier reactors , more an big ship/base thing

-Wind energy someway potent energy source but not as reliable as the others (make the winmills randomly change "windspeed" they can script it self, no need to develop an weather engine for planets. but moderate nvestment and good output, just need like solar lots of batteries.

Every energy source is someway realistic then, each has its pro and cons, each has its primary uses.

I build an Ice mining rig i can strip an lake of ice easily, so i would have an base nearby that processes the ice into hydrogen/hydrogen fusion fuel using solar power/windpower/hydrogen engine for emergencies.

In space there would be uranium too for fighters/light drones that need long term dense fuel supply for ion so no batteries, but uranium reactor

Big space ships go for hydrogen fusion, small cargo lifters use hydrogen for powerfull thrust and hydrogen engine to supplemnt electricity to run systhems so no need for heavy batteries.

Ice/hydrogenfusion/nuclear fuel production would be an planetary thing maybe due to the expansive machinery needed, or lategame space thing when you can build that behemoth of an industrial spaceship

That gives reasons to use planets aside from mining enough to reach space.


And uranium back on planets and way less on asteroids, but deep in the crust on planets so mining it is an challenge.

Energy sources should be tiered like

t1 wind/solar

t2 hydrogen

t3 uranfission

t4 hydrogen fusion

with specialised refineries that are like 6x12x12 big blocks for t3 and t4

Maybe be fancy and add T5 with antimatter production with massive solar arrays and CERN like infrastructure, but light potent generators that have an output of several gigawat and then burn out and need to be replaced complete.

All kinda realistic ish and fun!