How do you fly a ship in the atmosphere?

[Catlas]

I've tried so many times to build a ship that can fly the same in a planet's atmosphere as it can normally in space, but everytime I finish a ship, as soon as I unlock the landing gear and apply thrust my ship just crashes straight to the ground and I have no control over it.

Ive tried both ion and atmospheric thrusters but I've had no success with either of them. I haven't tried hydrogen yet mostly because id like to avoid having the tank on the ship.

This is probably a terrible question, but ive searched for help and I just dont know how to do it.

any help is appreciated.

[DDRMANIAC007]

How big is the ship? Are you using enough down facing thrusters?

[Catlas]

Small ship, I usually have 1 or more large thrusters facing either down or forwards

[Ra - Ra - Rasputin]

I have no idea but perhaps the thruster is too large for your "small" ship

[Catlas]

If you were to build a small ship that doesn't leave the atmosphere, how would you do it?

[Sanginius]

I've been experimenting with this recently having just started playing again, and the first thing i would say is do you have enough power for your thrusters?

Ion dont work in atmosphere,
Atmosphericuse a stupid amount of power, 6 small reactors werent peoviding the power needed, so i built around a large small ship reactor, that lets me power 24 thrusters, 4 large, 2 up 2 down, and the rest small with 6 pointing front, 6 rear, 2 left 2 right 2 down and 4 up, thats enough to let a basic cargo hauler with a large cargo container a couple of turrets on top and 2 gyros run, however im currently having an issue where it randomly starts smoking, , i cant find any info on it yet, but best guess is that its speed related.

[Scruffy]

There are 3 types of vanilla game hrusters. Ion, Hydrogen, and Atmospheric. Are you aware of each ones specialties?

Read up on each on the Wiki:
http://www.spaceengineerswiki.com/Thruster

Ion

- For space flight, only 30% effective in high atmosphere environment.

Hydrogen

- Equally effective in any density of atmosphere (planet and space), consume Hydrogen, and almost no energy, requires a store of hydrogen, or many oxygen generators.

Atmospheric

- Entirely dependent on atmosphere to work. Most effective at planet surface, and less effective the higher you go from surface.
EDIT: Correction: Atmospheric thrusters require 'atomosphere', not oxygen to work.

http://www.spaceengineerswiki.com/images/2/28/Thrusters_Forcegraph.png
Image from the Wiki.

Knowing the above, when building a ship for use in both atmosphere and space, it is most effective to go either of 2 routes:
1. Use Ion and Atmospheric thrusters, switch to one or the other depending on level of atmosphere you're in.
2. Use purely Hydrogen thrusters, as they will work equally well in all conditions, and it's easier to specialize 1 type of thruster.

Now you need to know how much thrust you need to lift the weight you have. When you are in the flight seat of your ship, you can see it's Mass. Every thruster can lift a certain amount of mass. for atmospheric thrusters, on a large grid, you will need MORE THAN 1 Large Thruster for every 486,000 kg. (Recommend 1 Large Atmo for every 180,000 kgs)

Lift = Force (N) / Effectiveness (90% at planet surface) / Gravity Acceleration (9.81m/s, but lets call it 10)
Lift = ( 5,400,000 * 0.9 ) / 10
Lift = 486,000kg (at surface level)

As you rise in altitude, the "Effectiveness" reduces, to almost Zero at 10km above surface (and you need to travel 40km from surface to escape gravity). For example, you might reach only 30% effectiveness at say 7km from surface:

EG: Each Large atmospheric Thruster at 30% effectiveness can lift less than:
Lift = 5,400,000 * 0.3 / 10
Lift = 162,000 kg

So you need enough atmospheric thrusters to keep lifting the ships mass at low effectiveness. Or turn on Hydrogen/Ion thruster for more lift.

And you need a minimum power output for your thrusters to reach their highest output. When lifting off, keep an eye on your 'power usage'. If it is spiking past 60% usage when trying to lift off, you should add more power output. As you go up from planet surface, you have less and less gravity acting on you, and require less power to achieve lift, so you'll need less and less power as you ascend. For this reason, it can be a good idea to have a lot of batteries fully charged when you lift off, and set them to 'Discharge', so your thrusters are getting max power. Above 10-15km you won't need the extra batter power, so it doesn't' matter if they drain fast.

If you started on the planet, then you won't have access to Platinum Ore, required for building Ion thrusters. Which means you are limited to using Hydrogen thrusters to get past 10km height from surface. Which means you need Hydrogen tanks, and possibly oxygen generators with ample Ice. You can actually lift off using purely hydrogen thrusters. And you won't have to worry about carrying bulky useless atmospheric thrusters in space.

Suggested Method: Use AT LEAST 1 Large Atmospheric thruster and 1 Large Hydrogen thruster for every 300,000 kg of Mass. Plus as many small hydrogen thrusters needed to stabilize and move other directions. And take with you 100-200k kg's of Ice to refill Hydrogen Tank.

- Step 1: Turn dampeners off and start with all thrusters off, set upwards thruster override to maximum. Set all batteries to Discharge for maximum power output.
- Step 2: Turn all thrusters on except upwards hydrogen thrusters (save them for later).
- Step 3: Use only Atmospheric thrusters to ascend the first 7km, then turn on hydrogen thrusters (NB: Both are still using max override setting). NB2: If the atmospheric thrusters aren't letting to keep max speed, turn on hydrogen thrusters.
- Step 4: Turn all atmospheric thrusters off after 10km from surface, and keep hydrogen thrusters at enough 'override' to maintain max speed. You will break free of gravity around 40km from surface (at 0.04g).
- Step 5: Your dampeners are still turned off, so once you break natural gravity, you can turn off all engines, or reduce override to zero, and your ship will keep traveling forward at max speed until your activate dampeners, or use thrusters again.

Check the Workshop for examples of planet to space ships, there are lots. Subscribe to it, start a new world in creative mode. Spawn the ship it using F10 to get to blueprints, select the BP, and press CTRL-V and click to place the ship. Then use it.. see how it works.

[Catlas]

Thanks everyone for the help, I will experiment a bit in the next couple of days and get back to you on my findings. :)

[Thalyn]

A small correction on Scruffy's list there: Atmospheric thrusters are only dependent on atmosphere. The presence (or absence) of oxygen is completely irrelevant. One of the default planets has low oxygen but a thick atmosphere, and atmospheric thrusters are more effective there than on the Earthlike (which has a thinner atmosphere and more oxygen).

[Scruffy]

Originally posted by Thalyn:

A small correction on Scruffy's list there: Atmospheric thrusters are only dependent on atmosphere. The presence (or absence) of oxygen is completely irrelevant. One of the default planets has low oxygen but a thick atmosphere, and atmospheric thrusters are more effective there than on the Earthlike (which has a thinner atmosphere and more oxygen).

Yea, lol no idea why i said oxygen... I have corrected it thanks.

[Homer G. Adams]

... and each atmo thruster needs a max power consumption.
On a small ship this is for 1 small thruster 701 KW !!!
i.e your ships weight 10.000 kg. A small atmo thruster is able to thrust a maximum of 80 KN, or ~8 tons. So you know you need at least 2 small atmo thruster at sea level for lifting your vehicle.

Next is the power consumption of both thrusters at max. This is 701KW x 2.
A small reactor produces a max of (guess it was) 500KW.
So just to bring a maximum thrust of 100%, you need at least 3 small reactors, to power hte thrusters.

Your ship needs also side thrust, forward and backward thrust and a (optional in atmospheric) down thrust for more stability. All thrusters need to get enough power from the reactors, which doesn´t mean you need to multiplicate all thruster x 701kw / 500kw, cause you never will all thruster bring to its max at once.
Depending on your flightstyle, you use the forward, up and side as a maximum of thrust.
So if calculate all these thrusters and make sure you provide the power, you should be fine in any situation.

But be carefull. Each module, cargo plus, or item, you put inside your ship (i.e. cargoships, miningships), will cause a plus on mass and therefor a greater needed maximum thrust by chance.
Also the sealevel is important to know. Flying above the ground with a stable ship, doesn´t mean you get enough thrust at a height of 4000m (i.e. flying over hills).

Build, think, TEST, have fun !
Homer

[tomkrist]

Just remember, both in space or planet: You need to have engines on every direction of the ship(up,down, forward,backward,right and left). In most case on planet you want more engines pointing downward as it req lift to compensate for the gravity.

[DDRMANIAC007]

Originally posted by tomkrist:

Just remember, both in space or planet: You need to have engines on every direction of the ship(up,down, forward,backward,right and left). In most case on planet you want more engines pointing downward as it req lift to compensate for the gravity.

If it's a planet only ship, you can skip up facing thrusters.