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Am I wrong or are thruster components really that expensive?

Discussion in 'General' started by Mr.Truffles, Nov 23, 2015.

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  1. Mr.Truffles

    Mr.Truffles Trainee Engineer

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    I havent played Space Engineers for about 8 months now because i got a bit bored by building the same stuff over and over again. Came back to the game about a week ago because of the planets and so far i am in love again.

    I started a survival world and picked the Earth Planet Easy Start scenario because i wanted to have the pirate bases in it. However i deleted the starter base and all the ships and instead started with just one of the Atmospheric Landers.

    Took me quite a while to get the hang of it again because a lot has changed since i last played but i am having a blast so far. Just yesterday i made it off the planet and to space for the first time in a small ship shuttle and was planing to go to the Moon to leave some footprints and get some Platinum.

    However, when i checked the wiki to get an idea of how much Platinum i should get, my enthusiasm took quite a hit.
    According to the wiki, one large thruster for a large ship takes 960 thruster components. One of those components takes 0.4 Platinum ingots, so i would need 384 of those ingots.
    While reading further i discovered that 1000kg of Platinum ore refine to just 5 Platinum ingots which means i would have to get 76.800kg of Platinum ore just to build one large thruster for a large ship.

    Is this correct or am i reading something wrong here? Is the wiki maybe outdated or did i make some stupid mistake in my calculation?
    Because honestly i dont know how i should get that much Platinum considering it is pretty rare and usually buried in small veins deep underground from what i read so far.
    Even if i use my first few (hand mined) platinum ingots to build a small miner with ion thrusters (because using hydrogen is just ineffective for a mining ship), i would have to spend hours of searching and mining Platinum to build a large ship with just one large thruster in each direction (which would equal to 460.800kg of Platinum ore if my calculation above is correct).
    And a large ship with a jump drive seems to be pretty much mandatory now to get anywhere in space unless i am prepared to fly for something like half an hour every time i want to fly to the moon or back (which i am not to be honest...).

    Would be nice if some of you could help me out here...
     
  2. Scorpion00021

    Scorpion00021 Senior Engineer

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    1,411
    Yes, ion(space) thrusters are incredibly expensive to build. It has been this way for some time now. If you can find a deposit or two, maybe you should set the goal of building a small ship and working your way up :)
     
  3. Aiadel

    Aiadel Trainee Engineer

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    I agree that they are expensive , however consider that between cargo ships , pirates and random encounters , there are plenty of things to grind for components.
     
  4. Mr.Truffles

    Mr.Truffles Trainee Engineer

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    Well, thats a bummer...
    I like that Keen is making it more difficult to progress in survival and it might have been balanced in an asteroids-only-world where you could get a lot of the stuff by just driving a drill ship through a huge ore deposit.
    On planets however its a lot harder. Not sure if i like it THAT difficult.
    Almost seems like its going to be Space Mining Simulator instead of Space Engineers for me for the next few days now unless i go look for some asteroids or cargo ships then. We will see...
    Thanks for the quick replies!
     
  5. QuantumInc

    QuantumInc Trainee Engineer

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    I once found a website that could take space engineer blueprints and calculate not only the total number of components but the amount of ingots and even the amount of ore needed to build them, then displayed it in a pie chart. Using the big ships from the original easy start scenario and some of my designs I found that nearly HALF of the ore was needed for the ion engines. Roughly iron was a third of the ore of course, but platinum was roughly a quarter, and gold over a fifth of the charge. Other ore types are comparatively minor. Unfortunately the website is out of date, but the cost of ion engines are roughly the same.

    Of course hydrogen thrusters are far cheaper, but you will need to mine ice periodically to refuel, a lot more than the corresponding uranium for a reactor and ion thruster. Hydrogen thus is best for a ship that rarely moves, but can move quickly when it does. The second solution is of course just build a slow ship.

    The third is to rely on small ships. This can be combined with the above solutions, i.e. a mothership that is slow, or hydrogen based and rarely moves combined with a small but nimble ion ship. The mothership carries cargo, life essentials and other ships, using hydrogen to get from point A to point B in a straight line, resist the urge to adjust your position, and then stays still while the small ship does the work.

    Of course gravity drives still work!
     
  6. Vigo the Dudepathian

    Vigo the Dudepathian Trainee Engineer

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    It is easy to get millions of Pt. Now refining it...
     
  7. Mr.Truffles

    Mr.Truffles Trainee Engineer

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    Maybe if you already have a huge infrastructure with large mining ships etc.
    Not so much if you start with just a lander on a planet...
     
  8. Devon_v

    Devon_v Senior Engineer

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    1,602
    Two quick notes:
    Use small thrusters. That way you can get moving earlier and improve your speed over time.

    Set your refinery up with Effectiveness modules on every port, maxed out it will double your platinum yield which is huge with rare ores.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  9. Vintorez

    Vintorez Trainee Engineer

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    Remember to use modules on your refinery to increase both the speed and conversion rate of ore to ingots.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  10. Dax23333

    Dax23333 Junior Engineer

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    I once built a large ship in a 1x lone survivor world. Yes, they are that expensive. So much so that this ship was only slightly better equipped than the yellow respawn ship, with less thrusters. Jump drives are not as expensive as you might think so it uses that to get around. I had 3 refineries with 1 productivity and 3 effectiveness modules each (I think) and refieing the ore took ages. To obtain the ore I used a 7 drill small ship mining drone with 4 large cargo containers. Fully loaded it could take about 160,000kg of ore. Automating mining to some extent is definatly the way to go for getting lots of platinium, getting it to drill through the asteroid then stop is not too hard.

    They are expensive, but what feels off to me is that they are so easy to get from cargo ships but so hard to make yourself.
     
  11. dustnbone

    dustnbone Trainee Engineer

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    I don't think large ship large thrusters are intended to be built in the early game. Once you're established with a decent small miner, a few upgraded refineries and the means to power them, getting a few hundred thousand platinum ore refined isn't as large of a job as it will seem right off the hop.

    My early game bases are usually tethered to an asteroid with the intention of eventually being able to build thrusters and such and eventually cutting it free.
     
  12. Xakthos

    Xakthos Apprentice Engineer

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    The costs of some of the blocks like that seem inconsistently high really. I'm not sure they've done any real balance passes on the component costs.
     
  13. Dreokor

    Dreokor Senior Engineer

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    1,606
    I have to agree, the large ship large ion thruster cost is a bit insane, specially with how rare platinum is now, It's practically a tier 2 or 3 ore.

    They do need rebalance.
     
  14. mhalpern

    mhalpern Senior Engineer

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    2,119
    though, if you get just enough to forgo just using hydrogen, you could get more fairly easily, you can even eventually forgo hydrogen in escaping gravity, making ion engines really powerful from a balance perspective, also makes planets really powerful from a strategic vantage point, hydrogen and atmospheric thrusters are cheap comparatively to ion, on the flip side of that coin they are very limited in range, however, if you take heavy losses defending a planet AND are successful, the ion thrusters alone could amount to a harder recovery for the aggressor, most of cost in spacecraft being in thrusters, atmospheric craft and hydrogen powered missiles are just more expendable. heck you could even have hydrogen based fighters ride and guide the missiles, sure they'll have limited delta v, but they don't need a lot as they just need to target thrusters
     
  15. Dreokor

    Dreokor Senior Engineer

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    1,606
    If there's no aggressor, there's no Ion thrusters, the game doesnt play only in MP. With cargo ships currently disabled in planet scenarios the only way to get it is mining it.

    I guess the only way to move around is to use Hydrogen thrusters as boosters and small ion thrusters for general use.
     
  16. mhalpern

    mhalpern Senior Engineer

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    2,119
    true, however, there is the fact that it has to be balanced for as many play environments as possible, MP and SP, in SP it is a challenge component- but the moon should have it- if you're lucky enough to have it in your night sky, and you could use the planets gravity to save on fuel if your smart, both for slowing down and adjusting your trajectory, if you make as many of your burns in gravity as possible you can actually capitalize on your fuel, if you launch towards a moon, even easier, as moons are supposed to have more platinum, at least the one based on Earth's moon is, like lunar shipyards being the way to go sort of amount of platinum.
     
  17. mhalpern

    mhalpern Senior Engineer

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    Also I'm sure the Cargo ship thing is that they don't want space oriented cargo ships randomly crashing into planets. space craft stay in space, and planets will get their own brand of cargo ships.
     
  18. Dreokor

    Dreokor Senior Engineer

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    1,606
    I dont know what the talk about getting to the moon has anything to do with Large Ion thrusters being expensive. The moon has platinum, that's was proven in the code however the problem does not lie in getting platinum, it lies in the ammount of platinum needed to make thruster components for a single large ship ion thruster, which is 960.

    In the mean time they can introduce a temporal rebalance, then they can change it back if they want when we have other sources for thruster components.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2015
  19. thatguywithahammer

    thatguywithahammer Apprentice Engineer

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    It is a bit ridiculous. I can live with mining lots of ore, but the agonizingly slow refining process is what keeps me from ever manufacturing thruster components if I can help it. If it's supposed to be a trade-off for the efficiency and versatility of the blue engines, then it's only effective in worlds without NPC ships since an Argentavis or mining carriage is a veritable pinata of thruster components.

    I, too, slowly assembled a ship in a 1x survival world. It went very well at first. The welding was no problem since it was self-building. Gathering materials for hundreds of heavy armor blocks wasn't bad. Most of the required parts were already in storage. Then I tried to manufacture the thrusters from scratch to see how long it would take... It was horrible. I think it needed upwards of 3 metric tons of platinum. Even with about 12 refineries it was incredibly slow.
     
  20. tankmayvin

    tankmayvin Senior Engineer

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    2,864
    It's certainly incongruent with all other block costs. If H2 tanks didn't last seconds it would be less of an issue. They really need some sort of intermediate hydrocarbon fuel that actually grants endurance.

    But really, the issue is planetary mining. The ore is arranged in small pockets all over the place so its meant to be mined like you'd mine roids (massive roid ore deposits exempt). Problem is that planetary mining plays nothing like space mining. And so ore veins should be arranged differently. Very dispersed (so you need to prospect a lot) but large enough that you can set up a real mining operation.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  21. tachyon

    tachyon Trainee Engineer

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    Don't forget that you will need a large reactor as well to efficiently power your large ion thrusters. These are quite expensive as well...
     
  22. rittstar

    rittstar Trainee Engineer

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    could be nice if some of them crashing into the planet, to look for the treasury :) its than like random encounters

    imagine you see a fast burning thing in the sky falling towards the planets surface (well if we have atmospheric physic effects like drag and reentry heat) and then you going to explore the wreckage
     
  23. fourthquantum

    fourthquantum Senior Engineer

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    1,286
    I guess this makes capturing other ships to get the precious platinum more worthwhile.
     
  24. Repo Mann

    Repo Mann Apprentice Engineer

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    Well, you always can go old way, OP.
    Just make some hydrogen thrusters, fill them up, make a couple of small ion thrusters for manuevering, add some materials for additional small mining ship, launch yourself towards the moon, turn off ALL engines and dampeners, wait about an hour till you get to the moon, safely land on it and begin your mining! As soon as you mine enough platinum you can add more engines to your current ship and then go back to home planet fully stocked with platinum. Do not forget - moon has it's own gravity, this means that ion thrusters on it are useless. Same for planets.
     
  25. mhalpern

    mhalpern Senior Engineer

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    2,119
    moon I believe has low enough gravity that they aren't that bad (ion thrusters only go down to 30% effectiveness at lowest decrease starts at .4g) don't forget gravity can be used to maximize your fuel efficiency. Also don't use hydrogen when already at max speed, cut engines and do it in bursts.
     
  26. fourthquantum

    fourthquantum Senior Engineer

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    1,286
    I thought ion thrusters were only nerfed in an atmosphere not because of gravity
     
  27. Clunas

    Clunas Junior Engineer

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    That's the idea, but I'm pretty sure they tied it to the grav field instead
     
  28. Mr.Truffles

    Mr.Truffles Trainee Engineer

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    Dont know if its tied to gravity or atmosphere, but they do not feel nerfed on the moon. Just started a Moon Easy Start scenario in creative to see if the ion thrusters are usefull for anything but space travel. Tried a few of my old blueprints and they seem to work perfectly on the Moon with ion thrusters.

    Nevertheless i think i am going to try to use nothing but hydrogen thrusters for anything outside the atmosphere and stay away from ion thrusters completely for the moment (unless i find an asteroid with Pt in the near future). Should be a small challenge as well in its own way, but one that can be overcome by engineering around it instead of spending hours in some hole on the moon while mining Pt. Seems more fun to me...

    Btw, does anyone know if there is a pirate base on the Moon as well in the Star System scenario? Because if there is, i might build a small base on the Moon to shoot down their drones and then build and program a ship to collect their wrecks and throw them into a grinder pit to get the resources.
    That way i could get my thruster components without having to collect tons of Pt and instead have a reason to get a bit more into the programing thing.
     
  29. Clunas

    Clunas Junior Engineer

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    You should be able to track down exploration ships (easier with mods that find them for you) to get plenty of thruster components. Could take a while to get to them though
     
  30. Mr.Truffles

    Mr.Truffles Trainee Engineer

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    True. However, searching for exploration ships with the help of a mod just to grind the thruster components feels a bit cheaty to me. Getting them from pirate drones would at least require me to build a some kind of infrastructure on the moon and program a ship to collect the wrecks.

    But the price of the ion thrusters is not a big deal for me anymore anyway. Was just a bit shocked at first when i saw the resource requirements, considering how hard it is to mine on a planet.
    But now i kind of like the idea of using only hydrogen thrusters (and jump drives) for my large ships. Should be interesting to set up a functioning network of mining- and transport drones as well as fuel depots etc. And ice seems to be almost as easy to get as stone on planets, so i should be able to mostly automate it without too many problems.
    I also found a few asteroids with huge Platinum deposits today, so if i wanted i could get tons of it pretty easy now i think...
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
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