Isn't it weird that thrusters use electricity to produce force, even in space? What is being thrusted?
I'd suspect some futuristic technology that changes the electricity to light (photons), then the photon to a particle in an energy->matter conversion at high speed, ejecting that matter out the engine. Total speculation.
Maybe the promethium actually burns and we get thrust that way. This is science fantasy, no need to supply your own oxygen
Actually... the notion of propellant-less thrust may be more science fact than fantasy. In recent years, NASA, aerospace companies, and other countries (like China) have been researching the "EmDrive" or RF resonant cavity thruster. This type of propulsion uses absolutely no propellant whatsoever. Instead, it uses microwaves in a resonant cavity. Granted, these drives only produce minute amounts of thrust - only enough to (maybe) give minor course corrections to a satellite. But, they have been refining the design and getting more thrust. Some are even predicting that these or something like them could one day be developed enough to provide lift for vehicles in planetary gravity. Granted, these drives are controversial because - at first - they seemed to fly in the face of known science and because nobody seemed to be able to explain exactly how they worked. Recently, three different theories have been proposed to explain how they work. So far, these theories have held up to scrutiny. You'd have to watch someone explain these theories, but they do make sense. They have to do with quantum mechanics (radiation pressure, vacuum energy, and quantized inertia). I'm reminded of the fictional inertial dampers ala Star Trek.
I was not saying that propellant-less drives were an impossability, quite the contrary. I was just saying that maybe those in Empyrion are actually conventional. With an efficient fuel supply that would not be far fetched.
Well it is great to know that I am not the only science nerd playing Empyrion! Play on friends, play on!
I seem to remember something about SV/CV in planet use double the energy. Don't quote me on that though. Energy use has always been wonky in this game though, it has never gotten a balancing pass that I can remember either. Someone using my ship. They must have changed that, the larger thrusters used to be more efficient, which was why I used them. Now the Demeter (which is a early-mid game replacement for the Artemis that is in trials right now) I had to cut the thrusters (and everything else with power coils FTW) and I noticed the same thing; getting off planet took over half a tank of fuel. Don't remember it taking so much with the Artemis (which is much heavier and still much faster) in A6.
Okay some quick and dirty test results. For this test I played in creative mode. All tests used exactly the same CV configuration. A 1.04KT block of combat steel with 1 core, 1cockpit, 4 small generators 4 small fuel tanks and 1 small thruster. This was done so the ship had no hope of taking off ensuing that the thruster was using the maximum amount of power when possible (All but 0.00 gravity test). Omicron orbit regular gravity (0.00) At rest: 13kw Burn: 251kw Thruster consumption: 238kw Omicron orbit 1.00 gravity (Yup, you can do that, ship falls thru space, nifty) At rest: 13kw Burn: 251kw Thruster consumption: 238kw Akua regular gravity (0.84) At rest: 13kw Burn: 515kw Thruster consumption: 502kw Akua 1.0 gravity At rest: 13kw Burn: 515kw Thruster consumption: 502kw Omicron regular gravity (1.00) At rest: 13kw Burn: 779kw Thruster consumption: 766kw Omicron 2.0 gravity At rest: 13kw Burn: 779kw Thruster consumption: 766kw Conclusions. Thrusters can use more than the listed amount of power. In Omicron's case more than 6X the listed amount but gravity itself seems to have no actual bearing on it. Next tests atmosphere density (tomorow most likely) Cheers.
Could not help myself, ran a very quick test. Omicron 1.0 gravity (normal) but 3.2 atmosphere density (double the usual 1.6) all other test parameters the same as above. Omicron regular gravity (1.00), 3.2 density At rest: 13kw Burn: 1.55mw Thruster consumption: 1.54mw Conclusion: Very speculative with only one test. Atmosphere density directly affects power usage of thrusters in a linear fashion. More testing in different environments required. Can you make one small CV thruster use 0kw or 100mw)? Is the 120kw base usage at 0 atmosphere density? If you set a negative atmospheric density (interesting concept really) can a thruster generate fuel? Fun stuff!
That... is just messed up. Drew the same conclusion from your results... but it makes absolutely no sense at all. Gravity should be the issue, not atmo
Lift should be less on high gravity planets and acceleration should be slower on a planet with higher atmosphere density.
I think from a game mechanic point of view this system is a placeholder. The devs intend to have a mechanic which affects power usage of thrusters but the exact system is not in place yet. They programmed all the thruster mechanics correctly to avoid having to redo it later and just pointed them to the atmospheric density value for the moment. It is easier to change the variable used in the equation than to redo thrust mechanics from the ground up later. Just a guess of course. As for atmospheric density there is some merit to it affecting flight. From my understanding the denser the atmosphere the more it resists the exhaust of any conventional propellant thruster. The expelled matter which provides you thrust has to fight the atmosphere producing less thrust per unit of fuel (edit: The actual thrust produced is the same but but some is used in just fighting the environment, my apologies English is not my first language so I struggle to explain things at times). This in effect means that you either wind up with less acceleration or have to use more energy to generate more thrust to maintain the same acceleration. This would only really impact maximum acceleration and fuel efficiency but hey it is the straw I will grasp at for now Cheers,
Heh... yeah, it's a bit of a straw. Density modifying thrust velocity is true, but a) it's far less of an issue than gravity and b) I'm not sure how the thrusters work in the first place- because while we have a cool little blue jet, we don't seem to be using any reaction mass Would have made far more sense to point that hypothetical value to gravity as the variable vs density is all I'm saying
We agree on that but I will allow myself the suspension of disbeleif and trust them to figure it out later. Once it leaves early access though it is free for all for physics warriors! Toodles for now, vet appointment.
Is this still going on? And we still must not use ANY zasc or ere? Not even as low as 32? Had no issuse getting that few in omicron space.. Just asking.
It ended a while ago, but if you want to submit a ship I will take a look at it and provide feedback.
I was rather hoping that you'd start a new, similar but different challenge sometime in the near future.
In this regard thank you, and here go: Workshop: Features: Warp Drive 2 Turrets Gravity 9 Plots Full Medbay (incl med station) Room for offline protection 2 Passenger seats
