Anyway to manually refine small amount of uranium to kickstart generators in survival?

[Tikigod]

As title asks, is there a way? Was out mining uranium ore by hand and as I was heading back the generators supply ran out killing my ability to refine.

I tried splitting a small amount of Uranium away and using the grinder to break some apart to no luck, eventually having to suicide instantly turn off the recovery shuttles reactor and pull the uranium out of it, get out of the ship by breaking apart the door and using my jetpack to fly back to my starting platform using the 'stolen' refined uranium to kickstart my generator again to refine the uranium stored in the refinary.

Having to intentionally suicide to exploit the unlimited number of arrival shuttles the game hands you for free seems something I can't imagine the developers intended, so is there some other way to solve that situation?

[kaiyl_kariashi]

turning off the power when it's not needed helps A LOT.

The suggestion for adding an emergency solar-power battery thing got a lot of support after the leaked version of survival was able to be played around with, where as before a lot of people were like "What point would that serve?" and quickly changed to "OMG ♥♥♥♥ my previous statement, we need this ASAP".

[Tikigod]

Even a small built-in refining function in the generator would work well enough.

Make the refining process really inefficient compared to an actual refinary, but sufficient enough to be able to support a refinary long enough to properly generate more uranium ingots from the main reserve of uranium ore.

Though I suppose, the generators refiner would need power anyway....

[Jackass The Wise]

Nah,a small solar panel to run the refinery for some time would be more than enough.And really helpfull with station building.

[Tikigod]

Originally posted by Remalosofos:

Nah,a small solar panel to run the refinery for some time would be more than enough.And really helpfull with station building.

A solar array wouldn't run a refinery for "some time" though. It would either run it indefinitely, or not at all. The game isn't set on a planet or other body that has actual day/night cycles so solar array output would be pretty much constant.

So by introducing solar panels there would then be a device that generates enough near-constant output to run a refinary or anything else with equal or lesser requirements forever. I suppose the developers could introduce day/night cycles into the void of space which wouldn't really make any sense and would just extremely silly that or bastardise how solar energy actually works and just invent some new BS.

It almost sounds less like you're talking about solar arrays, and more about capacitors that store excess power from generators over time and serves as a temporary back-up reserve if/when the generators go down.

[Jackass The Wise]

Originally posted by Tikigod:

Originally posted by Remalosofos:

Nah,a small solar panel to run the refinery for some time would be more than enough.And really helpfull with station building.

A solar array wouldn't run a refinery for "some time" though. It would either run it indefinitely, or not at all. The game isn't set on a planet or other body that has actual day/night cycles so solar array output would be pretty much constant.

So either introducing solar panels would need to generate enough constant output to run a refinary or anything else with equal or lesser requirements forever, or the developers would need to introduce day/night cycles into the void of space which wouldn't really make any sense that or bastardise how solar energy actually works and just invent some new BS.

It almost sounds less like you're talking about solar arrays, and more about capacitors really.

Why go to such lengths?They could simply make it that a single solar panel will run the refinery but at a suboptimal efficiency.Making it so you actually need some amount to power the refinery,same goes for every machinery of course.That way if we want to power a station or big ship we would need a lot of them.

[aliengmr]

If you are doing the "crashed ship" scenario, plant the refinery on the ship use one reactor and shut EVERYTHING off except the refinery. Keep feeding it Uranium ore and you should easily last.

I did notice that when I used a small generator the refinery just killed it, so if you aren't doing "crashed ship", then I agree there needs to be something done about that.

[4onen]

Simple solution: Unrefined uranium can be used in a reactor for greatly decreased efficiency, but functionality. 1/64th normal output or so. Just enough to power that oh-so-critical refinery and get people back on their feet.
Any objections?

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Have the solar array be linked to a Battery that functions like a reactor but takes time to build up a charge and only stores a set amount energy at a time. Like it takes 20-30 minutes to top off a charge, and gives you enough power to run the refinery for a few cycles, or to help a small ship limp in direction of home or at least maintain the life support/beacons on a large/ship station until a rescue ship can be sent out.

[Subquake]

Solar panels isn't anything unusual and are more spread around the world than uranium powered reactors so I am all up for them to implement some form of solar power generating arrays. Kerbal space program has them, why can't Space Engineers have them as well? That would make more sense on building solar power generating stations, that could generate power for a new ingame item (if they decide to do it) such as energy cells (X3 games has solar power stations, that does that!). You could use that as an alternative to uranium to power all your reactors and if you would outfit your ship with some of those arrays, you could sustain some ammount of life support if you get lost in space without any other resource available around, especially uranium.

We could build stations like these:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=227328169

Also there should be a variant of small block solar panel for powering small ships with output proportionally smaller than the large ones

[Axiom]

I was thinking that a teir kinda thing would fit. A solar pannel produces alittle, reactor medium and a cold fusion reactor or somthing that doesnt run out but it hard to make

[Stromko]

Why does power need to be finite? It's space; build solar panels, orient towards the sun, keep them repaired, you've got power forever.

Civilian stuff should run off solar most of the time, so people can build up stocks of uranium for military operations or anything else requiring agile vessels and large power demands. Mining ships will need uranium for sure, to power the drills and for tunneling.

You might need a whole lot of solar panels to provide energy for things like gravity modules too, but this provides a goal to get a good solid production / support base going. It's like planting wheat in Minecraft, it takes time to set up but it means you aren't starving or wasting coal to keep fed. An important mechanic there, and an important mechanic here too.

[4onen]

Alright, I'll concede that panels could work well for low-power low-agilitiy systems.
If we implement solar panels though, I also want Heat Radiators implemented. Nuclear Reactors aren't exactly the coldest systems, even in space they'll need assistance ridding themselves of extra thermal energy.
Ideas anyone?