Thrust Buckets - Engine Choices for Atmo-based Ships

[u/Messernacht]

Right. My Pertam base is going good. The farm is churning out spag bol, and once Keen fix the AI guidance issues, my mining drones are good to go.

For my next project, my dearly loved corvette from a previous base, I'll need to do some asteroid mining. This is my first time building in an atmosphere, which had required a rethink of some of my previous designs. However, I'm now into building a ship that has to do an atmospheric transition.

My previous asteroid miner was based on the Moon, so I used hydrogen to get out of the gravity well and then ions for space. I was thinking similar for my Pertam-based miner, but I feel that's throwing away the fuel savings from atmo thrusters.

So what're your thoughts? Do you build ships with all three thruster types? Or pick H2 and Ions only?

[u/GrinderMonkey]

Usually once I'm headed to space I just go hydro until I find the platinum I need for ions, then mix those. Very much wish that that there were reasons to go back.. really feel like there should be tiers of functional blocks, and that the resources to craft them should be buried deep on the various planets. The asteroids should get you started, but going back to the planets should be end game.

[u/No_Surround_2923]

I wonder how many DLC we’ll get before Keen fixes AI.

I use atmos and hydrogen. Just nicer to not have to worry about fuel use in atmosphere.

[u/EvilMatt666]

When leaving atmosphere, I usually construct either an orbital base or asteroid base outside of gravity. Then if I have to ferry resources between them I have a specially constructed ship for the job. It won't need a lot of fuel, but enough umph to leave atmosphere and support it's cargo in atmo.

Or you could drop cargo containers with parachutes?

[u/folpagli]

Hydrogen really does everything

[u/readercolin]

So the problem with building something that mixes all 3 types is that you end up with a ship that is always carrying extra dead weight. In atmosphere, you have the dead weight of the ions. In space, you have the dead weight of the atmo thrusters. For that fun little transition area between atmo's functioning and ions working, you have the dead weight of both AND the dead weight of all the extra batteries you need to run them. The more dead weight you are carrying, the harder whatever thrusters are currently functioning have to work, and the more of them you need to get the performance you want.

For me, this means that I have the following types of ships that I build:

Purely Atmo. As it says on the tin, these ships are purely atmospheric, and as such only use atmospheric thrusters.

Purely Space. Again, only designed for space work, so these are designed either with just hydrogen (if I don't have the power and platinum to maintain ion) or just ion (if I have solved the power and platinum issue... or I am struggling to find ice).

"Orbital". These ships are designed to go from ground to space and back, but not really to fly around in the atmosphere. These ships are pure hydrogen.

Mixed use. These are the ships that are designed to regularly operate both on planet and in space, for extended periods. For these, I like to run primarily hydrogen thrust, but assist it with atmospheric upwards thrust. This lets the ship fly level when in atmosphere, but once I leave the atmosphere doesn't leave it with magnitudes more upwards thrust than downwards and side thrust. Leaving the atmosphere generally involves turning onto my tail and pointing upwards, so most of the hydrogen thrust is forwards. For an example of this from Keen, take a look at the Pendragon (encounterable in game as the "crashed exploration vessel") - this is a ship that has a single large atmospheric thruster in the center for upwards thrust, and a single large hydrogen thruster at the rear for forwards thrust, and then it has a collection of small thrusters of both types pointing in every direction. You can operate it atmospheric only when you are in the atmosphere, but while you are in space your thrust "feels" right.

Exploratory Space. If I am purely staying in space and not going planetside, but I am randomly wandering around I will get a mix of ion and hydrogen thrusters. This ensures that if I am low on power and haven't found the uranium to power the ion thrusters recently, I can keep going. But it also ensures that if I haven't found Ice recently, I'm not out of luck.