Not effective hydrogen engine in EU public Test

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Small big grid ship, with energy backup: hydrogen engine.

120t of Ice,

2x H2 convertor

1x hydrogen engine motor

1x small hydrogen tank, Stockpile On

8x hydrogen thrusters, Off

4 x Battery

2x gyroscope, ship is not move, just stay close of Ice asteroid.

Ore detector is Off, Lights Off, Basic Assembler and Basic refinery OFF.

Ship is in self-parking mode.

Ship is parking in space a 2 day, when I not on line.

1. Mine Ice ore 120t with 1 ship drill = cca 1,5 hour

2. 120t not too much for Recharge battery

3. After a day or 2 days, is Ice gone, battery stored total minimum cca 120kW x 4

4. Info is Time for recharge cca 3h.

5. I'm stuck nearby Ice asteroid in space a week. it's not very fun.

Replies (4)

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Hi,

Can you provide us blueprint for that ship?

Thanks

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Thanks

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I agree about having the hydrogen engine more efficient, especially now with weather, I'm on Triton, and ice seemed to be the best alternative... once I discovered how inefficient was, I couldn't even fully charge the batteries and a whole large grid small tank was gone.

Considered the effort to mine ice, it should really be more efficient, either by burning less hydrogen or higher energy output.

Also 50 years in the future, we hoped to see fusion power/drives...

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I would agree to be honest. The engine still is simply not a viable machine. It uses way to much fuel for so little power.


With early cars and basic planetary bases, its still a nice thing to have. But seriously. 100L/s burn? Are you kidding? I dont see how that math adds up in the slightest. Not to mention the fuel efficiency is horrid. You are honestly telling me that engine, can burn 6000 litres of hydrogen gas in a single minute of running? Can we honestly take 2 seconds and actually picture in our heads what that would look like if it was liters of water?


With the new wheels and planet coming, hydrogen engines seriously need some more balancing. There is nothing "early game" about it. They are an absolute pain and waste of time.


Sadly, because i really do like the idea and aesthetic,

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They made an update last year which included a welcomed hydrogen rebalance:

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/announcement/update-1-197-planet-pertam-new-features-blocks-wasteland-pack


  • Improved the balance of hydrogen fuel production/consumption and storage
  • Improved the balance of components->health of hydrogen tanks
  • In other words:

    capacities increased for all tanks and reduced for all engines


    O2/H2 Generators now use 1/2 the amount of ice per second (and produce twice as much hydrogen per unit of ice). So for 1 kg of ice, we get 4x the amount of energy, but the engine still consumes 100L/s/MW


    However, despite the rebalance, I still find it hard to justify using an engine+tank vs just using two batteries


    For small grid example (e.g. rovers)

    engine: 1000 kg

    tank: 1600 kg

    total mass: 2600 kg

    Stored energy: 1.4 MWh = 505,000 L / (100L/MW) / 3600s/h

    efficiency: 0.54 kWh/kg


    2x batteries: 2080 kg

    Stored energy: 2.0 MWh

    efficiency: 0.96 kWh/kg


    So, with two batteries I get:

    • less weight
    • more energy
    • overall twice the energy per weight
    • recharging from free renewable (solar or wind)

    What's the use case for using the hydrogen engine? The only advantage is a much faster refuel (instance vs 15 minutes for batteries)

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