Atmosphere thrusters

[Virulent]

Anyone else thinking atmo thrusters absolutely blow? I mean sure they get you around and slow down any descent upon the planet but making any DECENT utility craft with out 6,000 atmo thrusters is damn near impossible. Just saying some of us love our compact designs.

[BRRM]

i agree they need a bit more power. theyre already limited to atmospheres so i dont see problems in this.

[Virulent]

Thank you.

[Voice From Beyond]

I'm sure you know there is a large and small version. Have you looked on the Workshop? I know there are modded ion engines, but don't know about atmospheric or hydrogen.

[Astasia]

I think they are terrible by design. My testing shows ion thrusters are better in atmosphere than atmospheric thrusters (in terms of weight to thrust, power to thrust, and resource cost to thrust). It might be the first sign of gameplay progression. There's no platinum on planets, so early on you are pretty much forced to use the garbage thrusters, then as motivation to leave the planet there are all-around "better" thrusters you need to find platinum to create. I am OK with that.

[Ages]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I think they are terrible by design. My testing shows ion thrusters are better in atmosphere than atmospheric thrusters (in terms of weight to thrust, power to thrust, and resource cost to thrust). It might be the first sign of gameplay progression. There's no platinum on planets, so early on you are pretty much forced to use the garbage thrusters, then as motivation to leave the planet there are all-around "better" thrusters you need to find platinum to create. I am OK with that.

You really get more thrust out of iron then out of atmo thrusters?

[Twelve]

granted planet ships are more thruster than their space counterparts but its not so bad, i find a medium cargo container need only 2 large down and a couple small in each other direction, obviously you aint going to pulling many g's but it works.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Ages:

You really get more thrust out of iron then out of atmo thrusters?

One atmo thruster provides more thrust on a planet than one ion thruster, but if you compare their power use, resource cost, and weight, having multiple ion thrusters to match the amount of thrust generated by a number of atmo thrusters is better. I believe. I did some testing with them in creative, I don't have the numbers or math done to prove that, but i am fairly confident it is the case.

[Caca]

Did a little test, the ion thrusters only use about 5% of there effective thrust to get you off the ground in 1g natural grav,

Had my 20000Kg small ship
took me 4 small atmosphere thrusters to come off the ground,
while it took me 50 small ion thruster to get the same results.

[Astasia]

In my testing I was able to get a 5000 kg ship off the ground quite easily (it could move up very fast) with 6 downward ion thrusters, and with a couple ion thrusters pointed in every other direction I had a very light and quick "taxi" style ship powered by just 2 small reactors.

The same ship would require two downward atmos thrusters and an atmo thruster in every other direction, and the power draw from that would require a battery or large reactor, which might add enough weight to require a 3rd downward atmo thruster.

Edit:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=559711739

[Caca]

Originally posted by Astasia:

In my testing I was able to get a 5000 kg ship off the ground quite easily (it could move up very fast) with 6 downward ion thrusters, and with a couple ion thrusters pointed in every other direction I had a very light and quick "taxi" style ship powered by just 2 small reactors.

The same ship would require two downward atmos thrusters and an atmo thruster in every other direction, and the power draw from that would require a battery or large reactor, which might add enough weight to require a 3rd downward atmo thruster.

Edit:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=559711739

When your ship is that light, and natural G barely effect's it at all yer it probly would, but when you start's getting heavier, atmosphere thruster's probly your best bet.

[Cadet]

It seems like the Atmos just cost too much power.

[Astasia]

The things is, I believe 20 small ion thrusters are cheaper and lighter than 2 small atmo thrusters, and use less power. It doesn't really matter how heavy the ship gets, ion thrusters would still be better. You might need a lot of them, but they are very light, very cheap, and use virtually no power compared to atmo thrusters.

[Caca]

Power to run maybe, cheaper not really as you need alot of iron, gold, cobalt and platinum and platinum is the slowest processed material, as for the atmo thruster's you need just iron and nickel which is easy stuff, as for weight 20 ion thrusters is heavier then 2 atmo's.

[Astasia]

A small ion thruster uses about 1/6 the iron of a small atmospheric, and similar amounts of cobalt (metal grid), I feel like the gold and platinum in the ion thruster are trivial amounts once you have a source, just a fraction of a kg each.

Atmospheric thruster:
18 motors: 24 kg each = 432kg
1 large steel tube : 25 kg
3 steel plates: 20 kg each = 60 kg
1 metal grid: 6 kg
2 construction materials: 8kg each = 16 kg

539 kg total

Small Ion thruster:
1 thruster component: 40 kg
1 large steel tube: 25 kg
1 steel plate: 20 kg
1 construction material: 8 kg

93 kg total

So it's not 20 to 1, I forgot what thruster components weighed, but 6 to 1 is still a huge difference, and I'm still fairly sure 6 ion thrusters in the atmosphere have more lift than 1 atmo thruster. At the very least if you factor in the weight you save on directional thrust and power systems I have found it better to have an ion thrust ship in atmosphere than a atmo thrust ship.

[Taurec]

But before you can use ion thrusters, you must have platinum. And platinum do not exist on planets. So first the atmospheric thrusters are necessary.