The BEST Power Block in Space Engineers - Tier list & Comparison
Which power block is truly the best in Space Engineers? Is it the small reactor? The solar panel? The hydrogen engine? Which consumes more fuel, has the highest output, or is cheaper to build? In this video you will get your questions answered about all of the different power blocks in SE, for large grid. Now its time to find out which sits at the very top, and which belongs down in the trash compactor!
The ranking will be shown in a Tier List to give an easy overview as to which one sits on top, and which at the bottom. All whilst each segment about each block will have its own conclusion. There is even a comparison between Hydrogen and Uranium. So, which power block is truly the best in SE?
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IMPORTANT:
This is my own opinion based on a series of tests conducted in-game, and public information that can be found on the Space Engineers Wiki.
- spaceengineerswiki.com/Main_Page
- spaceengineers.fandom.com/wik...
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Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game set in space and on planets, developed and published by Czech independent developer Keen Software House. In 2013, the initial developmental release of the game joined the Steam early access program. During the following years of active development, Space Engineers sold over one million units. In total as of 2019 the game has sold over 3.5 million copies In May 2015, for approximately a year and a half, the game's source code was officially available and maintained by KSH to assist the modding community. On December 15, 2016, the game entered Beta and was later officially released on February 28, 2019.
The game is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive.
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Despite the large reactor not being the best on paper. It is however, the best block for power output relative to it's PCU cost. A single large reactor can power your entire ship in most cases. Which is very helpful on last-gen consoles since PCU is very limited. Because of that it's my go-to pick power generation
or on servers, where PCU really matters.
You two are absolutely right. PCU was something I forgot to cover and I do apologize. Luckily the list was still fairly representative in terms of PCU values (Lowest on top and biggest on the bottom), but its still something I should have covered more closely.
@@AliceDoesThings404 everyone forgets about PCU until they actually need to care about it. so don't feel too bad about it!
And you need 4 on each end of a Earth-Pertam Lazer antenna relay
Yes PCU is the reason why im using large reactors evryshere possible, specialy the official servers with 20k pcu limit is the 1 large reactor way to go for your base, mining ship and basicaly evrything with jump drives. I always swap to that so i can build bigger warship with remaining pcu
I think we need a new active power source. They need to add a treadmill we can run on to power our ship. Then we can make a battleship entirely powered by sla- willing volunteer labor.
If it's not the wheel of pain, it's not enough.
@@nazaxprime MOVE THOSE LEGS, ENGINEERS! LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT!
Imagine hunting down other players for their power value
Life is but a dream, eh?
What about those wheels where sla- I mean willing volunteers spin a wheel in a circular motion to generate power.
Point of Order: The Batteries don't produce power. They store power produced by one of the others for later use.
Batteries however do contribute to the overall efficiency of pretty much every power system in the game, since they store power that otherwise wouldnt be generated during times of low power consumption, which is why they are present on most craft and why they are ranked on top
I know I'm late, but for others and newcomers : In SE you can actually "generate" power with batteries. Though, not in the... conventional way. There is a known secret related to these power storing units, namely that they come with 30% energy, whenever they are newly built. If you build 3, set one to recharge, while the other 2 to discharge, you can almost fill 1 battery up. It costs you 160 power cells or 160 kg iron, 16 kg silicon and 32 kg nickel ingots. (I only meant here the "lost" components, which will turn into scraps.) So yeah, they don't "produce" the power, but you can get some out of them. If you are on an atmosphere-less moon, without ice and sun light for the next 10 minutes, with power in your base for about 7-8 minutes, you'll have to get creative and attach some in a clunky way, which you'll grind down after they filled your original batteries.
Worse than 'store'. They are loan sharks that charge you 20% of all power you produce to store the other 80%. Not a biggie when paired with renewable energy (solar/wind), but never use reactor power to power a battery, and then run off the battery on a long term basis.
@@jube8835Yes, but they should be kept turned off on such vessels, until the auxilliary power is needed. Sitting there just on auto, constantly recharging 1% to stay at max is just throwing power out the window.
@@jube8835Also, when it comes to the idea of extra power only at certain times, something else should be noted: power generators like reactors and such never produce power that isn't used. You could have a huge reactor and if all you run on it is a small light, then that is all the uranium it will burn. So, batteries aren't needed to supplement a power generator in emergencies if you are doing that because you imagine the extra power would otherwise go to waste if you had no batteries. But, in terms of weight/mass on your ship, or size/space, then the 'supplemental battery' approach might be useful.
FYI you can place the wind turbine slightly higher than 8 blocks high, and then have ones coming out from the sides of it so you have 5 total off each tier of blocks. That heavily increases their efficiency and they don't reduce eachother's efficiency. Put a single armor block at the base of each one so they stick out and then you can have them all around
Whilst that is true and a very valid point, that does also increase the sheer size of a tower with windturbines. In addition, you would have to build it quite high, so the wind turbines on the side don't lose any efficiency from being too close to the ground. But still a valid point.
and you can also put them underground if you have a space of 8 to 9 blocks away from the voxels and it still works, this combined with their cost in terms of materials, for me personally makes them S tier, at one of my bases I had about 103 wind turbines underground
That is very true, it is somewhat cheesing, though still a valid point. 👍 My main issue with that approach is how much of a performance cost it has. Having to dig a large hole, before then stuffing it with blocks that take computing power. So for me personally, just too much of a performance hog in that scenario.
@@AliceDoesThings404 Performance in SE? what a good joke, almost made me laugh, this game is not optimized at all, and the engine is very old, it's a game from 2013. and when it comes to resources used, I think it's much more efficient to build a mobile base that you convert into a station when you want to recharge the batteries
Im curious as to the 371kw mentioned for wind turbines. Mine are getting 426kw output. Optimal is still a range and a couple more blocks clearance helps. As I'm getting back into it after a long break, I have weather disabled so no boost there. I usually use 10-11 spacing as opposed to the usually recommended 8-9. I'd assume that is why, but it would change the power calculations.
You can also combine multiple power sources . For example, wind and hydrogen, or solar and reactors. The nice things is the renewable power has the first priority to have power taken, which means it will be the first to supply energy. That allows you to not use fuel unless demand exceeds the renewables max power output
Personally have a 4 combo. Wind for renewable, hydrogen engine for when thats not enough, at late/end game having one or two small reactors all charging a battery network for when shit hits the fan xD
@@GamingPerks Since wind and solar are best used excusively on bases, I most often than not only use those as sources, possibly with 1 or 2 backup hydrogen generators. Otherwise I mainly leave hydro and nuclear as ship fuels, since it's the easiest to remain mobile with lol
there are scripts as well that makes it where reactors and engines only turn on when needed. i like having a mix of stuff. i aways have some batteries on stuff. if i can help it i use reactors as a jump start only
I add an event block and only have the hydrogen engines turn on if power is too low.
@GamingPerks 100%. I always make a battery bank in every base. Especially in early game when you're power consumption fluctuates a lot. Having that power stored up is really nice as a buffer
The only thing I felt was missing from this was further comparison of the net power output of the hydrogen engine and small reactor. You went to the effort to mine the same volume(? unclear) of each ore and compare those all the way through the process but left out the last bit of info to sum up the final gains and compare their efficiencies. For those curious: some math extrapolates that the net power production of the hydrogen engine was 809.28 kWh (90.9% efficiency from ore to power), and the net power production of the small reactor was 9753.83 kWh (98.3% efficiency from ore to power). But what about time? The O2/H2 generator takes almost as much time to refine the fuel as the engine takes to burn it, so that's easy to balance: one ice processor per engine. The refinery took less than half as long to refine the fuel as the reactor took to burn it, so one refinery can serve two reactors and still have a little bit of time leftover to do something else. Also, the rector took much longer to burn through the total mass of the fuel but produced much more power (more than 11x as much). If you stop the reactor once it's produced as much power as the hydrogen engine, you'll find that it only took 1/3rd the time and you still have 91% of your fuel remaining. This all means that for every 1 ship load of uranium ore collected, you'd have to collect 11.14 loads of ice to produce the same amount of power. 1.014 of those ice loads would be wasted producing power for the O2/H2 generators while only 0.017 loads of uranium ore would be wasted producing power for refineries. Uranium power is far more dense than hydrogen power and takes less time and effort to collect and produce once you know where the ore is to be found. Then you have to consider that refineries can have upgrade modules to further adjust fuel and/or time efficiency depending on need while the O2/H2 generators are fixed at their base speed and efficiency. If you stumble upon a uranium deposit, it makes sense to collect it immediately since it's objectively a much better fuel than ice when you have it. You'd have to spend roughly 12x as much time mining and refining ice to get the same power. And offsetting the refining costs with renewable energy is much easier. When ore availability is not an issue, the small reactor is far better than the hydrogen engine.
I did not notice that the custom controller had an always aim at sun option! Thank-you for this
It was added with the Automatons update, a handy feature!
I can't imagine why it wasn't available to begin with. It's the very first thing I wanted to do with custom turret controller. I think the devs don't actually play their own game.
I do agree it should have been there from the start, but I can understand why. Given it was added with the "warfare 2 update", they had enough other things to work on, so it probably just slipped their mind.
@@AliceDoesThings404yeah, generally when you say “turret” in a video game, people are thinking stationary guns. But there’s always another use for a tool that wasn’t immediately intended.
I prefer reactors to hydrogen engines, but it is worth pointing out that you will be producing oxygen at the same time you produce hydrogen which may be a resource you needed anyway.
Forgot to include that part actually, but it is definitely a valid point. Well spotted!
This is a serious problem though. It happened to me several times that I accidentally left the hydrogen engines running, they drained all ice on my ship and I later died of asphyxiation not being able to generate oxygen I needed. I find that they're more trouble than they're worth.
I usually combine both
@@Nethan2000 make sure you build an oxygen tank then lol
@@seushimarejikaze1337i dont remember who but a youtuber tested that 1 ice doesnt give you 2 hydrogen 1 oxygen, instead 1 ice produces either 1 oxygen or 2 hydrogen so even with tanks having an hydrogen engine will make you run out of oxygen faster
I’ve always liked the hydrogen engine, usually used as back up power since you can find ice pretty much everywhere
I have a massive rover with everything in it to process material and build things. Basically a rolling base. It has 4 large grid batteries, 3 large hydrogen tanks, and 2 hydrogen engines set up on my hotbar. That way when my batteries start to drain a bit, I just switch on the engines and I’m good to go. I also have 2 solar panels on top for passive charging. If I’m not processing ore, the range on that thing is insane with that setup. You’d have to be really careless and in the dark to be stuck without power. All that to say, I absolutely love hydrogen engines, especially with the supplemental trickle of power from solar panels and occasionally being hooked up to a station to offload.
Same here one of my first large plunge mining ships ive made uses like 14 or 16 of them with 8 h2/o2 generators and 4 batterys just so i could get a full cargo of Uranium as i got tired of doing runs with my small ship miners and now its one of my go tos for mining in space
I recently built a small grid hauler using atmospheric thrusters with a mixture of batteries and engines, the idea being the engines would allow the batteries to last longer. Works pretty alright, I did intentionally avoid hydrogen thrusters due to their big range of damage to grids, mainly with the design i went for too. Works well for ferrying goods between bases that are close by. Could be Way more better but its a fun experiment and giving different components adds to its beauty
With the modern update you can even automate the process of transporting materials
@@spaceengineeringempire4086 Yeah! And I am loving the update, I used to rely on the P.A.M. script to get these tasks done, but good that we can now make hauling done without relying on scripts!
Absolutely, the more power to create in vanilla, the better. 🙃
One thing severely lacking in SE for batteries is the ability to set discharge to specific blocks, like for instance if I have a small bank of railguns, I want to have batteries tied directly to them, so that I don't have to power the charge for them directly.
Workaround; Could use event controllers to turn on and off groupings of batteries. How many fully charged batteries to fire a rail gun? That group is OFF until said rail gun is fired upon which the group is turned on. Stays on until fully charged then turns back off until railgun is fired again. Would that achieve the same effect? When the batteries are off they can't be used by anything, retaining their charge. When turned on once fired they will discharge their energy to charge the rail gun. Recharge and then shut off until needed again.
@@ender5817 This would only semi work, because though the event control could function in this way, you could also just group the batteries you wanted and turn them off and on as you fired the rail guns. The issue isn't really how the batteries are turned off, on, recharged, etc etc, it's their specific power usage. There isn't a way (at least as far as I am aware of) to isolate the power being transferred to the rail guns. The goal would be to have the rail guns only ever pull directly from a specific set of batteries. Unfortunately though, the rail guns are going to pull from every battery that's attached to the same grid it is. Turning some batteries on and off might save some time and power, but you're still gonna end up drawing from the batteries that you're trying to specifically NOT draw from. However thinking on it, you could I suppose have some event controllers with some timer blocks perhaps set up to power down the main batteries during the rail gun charge while only the rail gun batteries are on. Issue of course there is that the rest of the ships operations would still need power, and draw from the rail gun batteries. There might be an answer somewhere in that setup for this type of situation, but I get the feeling it would not still be what OP was looking for specifically. (That being a separated battery bank that is used solely to power the rail guns, while the other batteries only powered normal operations.)
I've always wanted more in-depth wiring in SE. Breaker boxes and the ability to put devices and rooms on different circuits. Now we can actually reroute the power.
@@DoubleJJizzlewith the weight and space used by those rail gun only batteries it seems to be a waste to have them off. With them on all batteries on your ship would just last longer. So, beside cool factor, what is the actual benefit to having a system as you describe?
@@inktitan as far as I am Aware of? Not a thing. There might be some arguments for stuff like having batteries specifically set aside for charging a jump drive, but for a railgun, I don't see one. It's mostly just a thought experiment on how you'd get a system to work like that. Real life of course does actually use these types of systems, usually isolating them for various reasons. Keeping redundant power supplies available for when they're needed incase main power is lost. Using power for specific systems that draw high/low amounts of wattage to keep strain off primary power sources. However this is a game and those kind of redundant systems aren't exactly efficient. Still could see an argument for jump drives though. Edit: In addition to Jump Drives, I would consider having additional batteries for other high draw blocks such as a refinery pretty useful. Normal standard operations would be essentially powered on all the time by a set of batteries. When you turn on some bigger power draining blocks, you turn on a second set of batteries/power generators. This would help keep your power drain and fuel usage to a minimum and be a bit more efficient during normal usage of a ship/station. While still giving you an option to push out more when needed. This would allow simpler power generators like solar panels and wind generators to have an easier time charging and keeping you operational, while you're basically not doing anything. However, even with all that, it still just seems like a lot of work, for something that's not really needed for a video game like this one. Considering power production is endless, resources are near infinite, and complicated builds aren't always what they're cracked up to be. Especially considering this would be a purely superficial upgrade to any build, that likely wouldn't anything of real hard value, but a few % points of efficiency.
I like solar panels because it's aesthetically pleasing to look out and see a giant solar farm surrounding your base. Also, a trick I learned is you can double stack the panels to generate 2x the output during the day. If you want to make the panels automatically track the sun they do require extra work and resources. Hydrogen overall is the best source of electricity early-mid game because as long as you have a ready supply of ice you print out free electricity,
Large grids that are parked with magnetic plates onto voxels can produce power with windmills without having to convert to station BTW.
True, but when parked with magnetic plates/landing gears, they are technically static 🤔
@@AliceDoesThings404 The term I always heard was "Voxel Locked." Calling voxel locked grids "Static" can be confusing because we can also go into the grid settings and set a grid type to static as well. Static grids (from the games perspective) aren't affected by things like gravity the way non-static grids are.
That's new
@@yamatokurusaki5790nope. The setting convert to ship/station has been around for years. It literally turns the grid into "voxsal" connected grid without touching any voxals
The wind turbine can be used on voxel locked subgrids, as well as static grids. This means you can put one on a vehicle, and then using rotors and pistons, deploy it. Simple designs just rotate the subgrid with the turbine and landing gear on it, and then lower vehicle suspension until locked. It's great for mobile drills, where you will be voxel locking to deploy a drill anyways.
The solar panels can be stacked in two layers. This is not known by most new engineers. Just flip it around when making your array and you'll be operating at 200% 😁
this^ is so huge and not talked about enougth
I don’t understand what you’re saying, “stacked in two layers”
@@BaliAgha when you put 2 solarpanels with the collectorsides above each other both get full power, or to explain it the other way around a single "layer" of a solarpanel can only harvest 50% of the incoming light with its collectors and the rest is let through
All of my solar usage takes advantage of the panel double up twice the power half the space
I know that you didn't cover mods. I just wanted to put this out there. A few years ago I was trying to find an alternative for power. It was right after they stole uranium from the planets. (How unrealistic!) So I found the Deuterium reactor mod. It uses stone and or ice to create deuterium containers for fuel (or both). There are large and small grid variants and they are POWERFUL. I do love the mod. There is also a positive thing about going to space. It's the only place to find pure deuterium deposits that is very rich when refined. So, the mod makes it very beneficial to go to space and has you actually looking to go there for that rich resource. Who doesn't want a 12GW reactor operating their base. All the power they would need FOREVER! OH! They are NOT cheap to build! You better be ready to mine a bunch of gold and other rare stuff to get the special components to build one. These things are a beast to build. The bigger they are the more expensive they will cost you to build. So, cost will depend on how much you are willing to go mine. It will be a grind just to build the low level one. I think one of the lower tier one take 2000 of the special components and it also requires like 500 or so superconductors also. Be ready to grind for some recourses. This mod does put in a really nice power gen option, but you are not going to get it easy. You WILL WORK FOR IT!
Ah yes i have that mod as well and i do agree that is by far the best reactor mod the mod is called Life Tech Energy pack.
Great work Alice! Love all the neat background builds!
very smooth video with cool cinematics and well made build to shocase, good stuff
2 things One H2 generator produces exactly as much hydrogen as one engine consumes so you could run engines on just h2 generators and skip the tanks Also imo the combination of reactors and engines works best as they reactors can take over the basic load and you can switch on the engine once the reactor runs out
Thank you for this video, it helps to see all the numbers. Cheers!
Just keep doing what you do, I love seeing a good bit of Q&A with the proper testing to prove/disprove the findings.. Wish Luca put as much effort into her videos when she makes a claim
Oh no Luca is a she! Been miss gendering her 😅
this is actually really helpful because i need to set up an outpost and i dont know where to start in terms of power production
Nuclear is absolutely king, especially when combined with a large battery chain. My main ship is a power hog, as it has 30, YES, THIRTY jump drives (I can enter a server in space, and in 8-10 hours straight, get the mats and weld it by hand, believe it or not). The ship has 62 batteries (2 for each JD, and 1 for general ship systems, and 1 backup battery set to recharge), and one large reactor. The power output is bonkers (measured in Gigawatts), but it means I can jump >40,000 KM in just 7 minutes 20 seconds if going full hog. It also eats uranium like a hobo wolfing down a ham sandwich, but I'm a jump addict, so it is what it is. The ship itself is actually propelled with H2 thrusters, and some small ions for docking procedures to save on H2. 4 large H2 tanks, along with 8 emergency small H2 tanks. The emergency tanks are to power 2 H2 engines long enough to get me to some ice, or, in a pinch, provide fuel for an emergency landing in high G, assuming the 3 parachute hatches are damaged, empty, or there's no atmosphere. The ship also has some solar panels, so you will never truly be dead in space when it comes to power. As long as you can find ice or uranium ore, the ship can process them into usable fuel. Every power generation system has its uses, but yeah, the battery is the greatest, and nuclear is the best for charging batteries quickly. A pro you missed about wind turbines is you can use them in underground caves, making them the best cheap power source for stealth bases on planets with atmosphere. BTW, if anyone is curious about the ship, the model a couple iterations behind my personal one (I'm on the Mk.VII) can be found here: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029694875 100% vanilla, with industrial smuggler theme. A mobile base among the stars.
Appreciate the vid. Two things. PCU vs out put may have been a good addition. I consider batteries energy storage not power generation
That is fair, I completely forgot about PCU, given for years not I have mostly used block-limits, and forgot it existed, I will remember that for next time. As for the batteries, I agree they aren't for power generation, they are in the power-blocks category in SE, meaning it fits into this power-blocks comparison 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404but what are you comparing? You're comparing apples with oranges
You'll have to be a bit more specific. I am comparing different aspects of different power sources to determine which one is the overall best. ALL of them are good in their own way, but some are better than others overall.
@@AliceDoesThings404 I would still say in terms of 'power blocks' batteries should be F-tier, as they have the biggest disadvantage of them all - they dont generate power.
This is an exceptional detail and explanation of things that have been confusing me.
Keep up the good work!
I try to use a mix of power sources never just 1 and if it is my base I tend to use all of them if I can. Just because I have a reactor doesn't mean I will get rid of my solar panels, I like the look of them with how I set them up
I like to use a main source and at least supplemental source. My main rover at the moment (large grid) runs on a couple of hydrogen engines that charge 4 batteries when they get low. However on top of the rover I have a couple solar panels that charge passively during daylight. Even if I’m stuck without power and without ice to make power, I can do whatever till daylight and get on the move to find ice or go to my fueling station. In other words, I agree. Combine them. Backups are a must.
maybe someone else put this out there, but you can put 2 solar stacked so in the same " space " you have more energy. the " problem" is that still is the same energy per block, but since you dont have to put anything in front of a solar panel or near the array its kinda "cheating" the math , cos you have double per "block" , i dont know if i explain it well but i think its oks eitherway just found you channel and its great keep doing it
great job on the opinions.
technicly the battery doesn't create energy, it only stores energy. not sure if you can count the basic charge as energy generation
Given that you construct the block, and recieve energy, it counts in the very technical sense. In addition to the fact that you can take apart the battery, make a new one, and get more charge. Though it was more a comparrison between power blocks, a category which the battery belongs. But you raise a valid point 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 ok, if you put it that way. but for me it'S stil more like the hydrogen tank for the hydrogen engine :)
Fair fair. Oh if only the tank came with 30% hydrogen when constructed, it would have been a dream! 😋
@@AliceDoesThings404 we need beans instead of clan cola, so at least the space suit will be filled with methane :D
keep in mind that there also is a way to create battery powergenerator by using a blueprint of a cross-setup of four batteries that are set on discharge while mounted on a rotor. the whole setup is quiet complex because you need some additional blocks Like timers, a welder and a grinder but at the end of the day it only consumes stone to generate power stored in batteries set on auto.
i like your spinning drill. i built one with a 1block spaceing between the drill heads. still, very nice.
I built this large grid mining rover with a drill in the middle that goes down on pistons. I just put 2 hydrogen engines on it and use the ice it mines to fuel it. Somehow it runs two large refineries while also powering 6 wheels to move it and the Mf 100000 kilos of ore. I need to add more batteries tho.
I haven't played in a long time, but I have a couple of mods to suggest that make the game much more enjoyable for me 1. I forget the name of the mod, but there is one that puts uranium back on the planet, not just on asteroids, as it used to be. I think its ridiculous to make it available only in space. It is still a rare resource, and often hard to find. 2. Water mod. If there is ice on a planet, it's only logical that there would be a water table. I put the water level far below the ground. So, you have to work to get to it, but its nice to have when you get there. This completely eliminates the need to find ice once you are able to drill down far enough.
I've always used a hybrid or combo of battery and hydrogen engine for rovers of small grid grouping for better detail and for being good for heavy cargo haul. I have been playing some travel and transporting Sims like American truck sim and snow runner and I'm a motor head for an engine sound in the background
As others mentioned, there'S easy tricks to minimize the impact of the windmills restrictions. It's pretty much an easy go to for bases on atmospheric planets. Providing ample power and for the occasional lull in the winds (or damage) a battery or two (more for bigger bases obviously) you quickly get to the point of not having to worry or think about anything. And that's kind of the biggest concern: being able to divert attention elsewhere. Some people have had bad experiences with H² Gens being forgotten and left running. Personally I never use it much, because running smaller things of batteries and planetary bases of windmills works very well. Solar panels are cheap enough to spam them (if you don't have to worry about PCU) nad theoretically, you've got enough room in space. but their low power output is a bit of a bummer. but once you're in space, transitioning to nuclear power is just a matter of time/luck finding the ores. Comparing uranium and Hydrogen as fuel, Uranium seems to be the one you could easier forget about. Considering how long making power cells takes (more than 5 min for a large grid battery in an assembler without speed modules) and how big they are, building batteries for power is a lot of a hassle, especially in the early game. I wonder how "efficient" a Setup with event controller/timer block, welder, grinder and projector would be, deconstructing the battery and building a new one, every time it runs out.
solar pannel facing towards sun is so awesome to see :)
I disagree with the ranking of the Wind Turbine vs the Solar Panel, if only because the Wind Turbine shines in early game while the Solar Panel shines in mid game. My power block recommendation would be: Wind power in the early game. This would provide most, if not all, of your early game power, and I would personally not exceed a total of three Wind Turbines. Once you outgrow those, I would recommend switching to solar arrays for the scalability. Space flight eventually necessitates the use of hydrogen for fuel anyway, so in space it can be very useful to generate power using hydrogen as well. The switch to Uranium, I would personally only ever conduct with large grids, as it seems to rare of a fuel source to use it on small grids. All of these would naturally be amplified by using batteries for power storage. But that's my idea of it.
That is very valid and I completely agree. The only reason the wind turbine really fell behind, was because its not usable on all the planets/moons, nor in space. As well as the differing performance depending on weather. Other than that, completely agree 👍
Please do a video about small-grid power generation, too!
The wind turine blocks separation can be solved by condnsing a star of 5 wind turbine on top of a pole. One straght up and 4 on it's sides, one block lower, all around the pole
Thanks for making this. This is an excellent video. Liked and subscribed. A few things that could be added in the next iteration. Solar panels can be double stacked and still function. Even though the panels are touching, they all still work at full capacity. This method does take up extra block space, but it has the benefit of doubling the output of a solar array. Wind turbines can be placed 10 blocks high and then you can add one turbine to each side at the 8 block level to increase power output without the turbines negatively effecting each other. It looks ugly and takes up a lot of space in the sky but the power output is usually worth it. Weather can can have positive effects on wind (which is mentioned), but weather can also have negative effects. Foggy weather is horrible for wind generation. The large reactor takes fewer resources than spamming 27 small reactors in the same amount of space, but the output of the 27 small reactors in that space will be more than the large reactor.
Thank you for the feedback, and you are right. There are some things that were forgotten and that should have been mentioned. Though I was not aware that the wind turbines could be affected negatively by certain weather, interesting. And as for the reactors, the 27 small reactors make 405MW, which is only 105 more than the large reactor. So sadly not double, but 1/3rd more. Either way, thank you for the support and the advice! 🙃
@@AliceDoesThings404 Haha. Math is hard. I'll fix my comment.
No worries, easy mistake to make, easy to fix 🙃
Personally i end up using these power options pretty much every game: Ground bases: Solar Panels + Batteries for nomal running and Hydrogen Engines as Boosters (when producing or generally using a lot of energy) Tiny working ships: Batteries and maybe a few solar pannels as range extenders or to recharge in an emergency Small ships: Batteries for power, hydrogen for trust. Medium/Large Ships (anything with a jumpdrive pretty much): Batteries for normal running, small nuclear reactors for recharging batteries and jumdrives. I find uranium to difficult to find and refine to make it my main power source. Using ground stations with hydrogen engines being able to recharge docking ships tends to be a really good option.
I would argue that "the best power block" depends on what you're using it for, what you need it to do. That said, good video!
Absolutely, and that was one of the conclusions made. Thank you!
I love hydro's. 💕 💕 The sound of them is like a honking great diesel engine and when you get a room full its music to me.
One 'con' I'd like to add about batteries is that on auto mode they charge from other power sources while discharging to power power-using blocks.. unless they fixed that. (Didn't play SE recently..) I've always struggled with achieving a setup that - only charges batteries with excess wind and solar energy; and - to have all other power blocks not charge batteries. I did look at some mods for it, but didn't find anything to my liking yet. Would be great to have power prio settings options that fit these needs.. or some wiring/ logic possibilities to make this happen automatically, to waste less energy through batteries (as they have what.. 80% efficiency? And solar & wind energy already don't provide much power compared to resource-using power sources..)
I make almost everything with batteries as they are available from the start and can be charged through any power source. Only downside is how many can be required to power everything without overloading the grid and the added weight as a result.
the wind tubine can scale quite well if you take into account that it only checks in 8 directions for obstructions.
I almost always stick a bunch of solar panels on whatever i build, simply for its looks. From structure to texture, it works well for almost every kind of structure and vehicle.
Cool video. Thank you. An extra con for the battery would be that it doesn't charge with 100% efficiency. I think it's 80%, which means that if you use a reactor or hydrogen engine to charge it, 20% of your fuel is wasted. It's only worth using batteries with solar and wind, otherwise it's always more efficient to just run directly from the reactor or engine. This reduces the battery's versatility a great deal in my opinion, and precludes it being given S rank in my own rankings.
Don't think I would put the battery on its own, but always put it as an option for passive power (ie Solar and wind), as the active power supplies will always give you power regardless of external factors such as darkness or wind drop. Nice Video, but please the 'unfocussed' cam was a bit overused.
As someone from beta, the solar panels setup you are talking about did exist with a programmable block and a timer without using the turret control or camera. Yes more expensive, but it did exist.
I know it existed back then, and it was very useful too. I'm just glad it can finally be done in vanilla, meaning everyone can do it, not just servers/worlds with scripts turned on 🙃
I quite like what you made as a showcase here 9:12 and 1:34 there. Do you mind uploading these on the workshop?
Thank you very much, and I appriciate it! As for uploading them to the workshop, I might make some imroved variants that I then upload, but we will have to see.
There are some ways to mitigate the solar panel's downsides a little further. If you're using them as cheap and reliable power for a zero atmosphere base, such as on the moon, build at or near one of the poles. A solar array with some elevation can produce maximum power 24/7 while only draining with a turret controller and one rotor. Because ai solar arrays following the sun use their actuators even at night, cutting back on one actuator and never powering actuators that aren't bringing power back in, really means a lot to your base's power grid. I don't know if it can provide more power for it's floor plan footprint than turbines when inside an atmosphere, but polar solar is always the best solar. As always, use some batteries for storage and the extra output when it's needed. I don't know if oxygen farms care about their angle to the sun, but you can stick those on your rotating solar pole too, so long as you use an advanced rotor and conveyors. Last but not least, whatever you do, DO NOT FORGET TO INSTALL METEOR COUNTERMEASURES, regardless of however you set up your ai solar arrays on the moon. It's one thing to have an impact on a static, cheapo standing array, and another to have a more expensive smart array get hit and potentially fall on something else, especially early on when you aren't set up for hydrogen power. Thankfully an inexpensive interior turret or two will be cheap enough to fire using whatever magnesium the meteors bring you, and help you maintain your foothold until hydrogen is logistically reliable, or maintain a hands-free power supply so hydrogen and ice mining aren't as necessary in the first place.
I made a smal reactor and 12 bateries and it charge in almost 20 minutos lol, so i turn off to not wast uranium. Good video
Should be noted the refinery can be equipped with yield, speed and power modules, which can either increase the speed by a large margin, increase the amount refined creating more fuel, or save more power refining the ore itself,
but, refineries are expensive, you can plop 10+ H2O2 generators for the cost of one refinery....
You missed some really important points: - All theses blocks have PCU, and this figures is really important on keen's vanilla official servers for instance. - Batteries have an efficiency coefficient of 80%. Meaning when you charge them with 1MWh you only get 800kWh of power stored. This really degrades them as the "ultimate" energy solution. - Your side by side comparison of H2 vs Uranium ingots production is biased as you can add power efficiency or yield modules to the refinery. Uranium is also more convenient to transport and transfer form grid to grid (you can even do this by hand). - The weight comparison between those two is also biased as the H2 Engine will also need tanks (and possibly H2/O2 generators and storage for ice) to be efficient. In the other hand, a lot of Uranium can be stored inside nuclear reactors. Another big issue with the H2 energy is .. the O2 production ! If you need to get a constant H2/O2 generation on your grid and you use a cryo pod for your AFK, the small O2 consumption will constantly drain your Ice storage only to refill your tanks at 100%. Problem is that its not really efficient unless you use the (new) event block to regulate the H2/O2 generators. The "rare fuel issue" of uranium is not a real problem once you reached space. You can find it quite easily once this is achieved. Myself I still consider the large nuclear reactor as king of energy production. No question asked !
All of these points are very valid, and I did forget about PCU, since most people usually talk about block limits instead of PCU limits. I am also not a math major unfortunately, so there is a lot of calculations I simply have not been able to do. As for if the comparison between H2 and Uranium is biased, no it is not. I am well aware that you can add modules to the refinery, but in a way, you can call that DLC. I was comparing the base produkts, and did not take extras into account. For instance, I could have also decided to fill the same space the refinery uses with more O2H2 gens, because then they use the same space. So the biased argument, is simply false. Also because I mentioned and even showed that a hydrogen tank was needed, and throughout the hydrogen engine ranking, I mentioned tanks several times. So not biased. Either way, thank you for raising these points of discussion. 👍
I typically use solar power (and wind when in atmosphere) for general power generation and have my Hydrogen Engines and Reactors activate when power consumption reaches a specific threshold to prevent my batteries from being drained dry. This method works pretty well when I'm doing a space start and make a giant mining ship.
How do you get your engines & generators to automatically switch on on that threshold and not have them recharge batteries?
@@BPunlimited1337 Manually
I think the battery grinding strat is still worth it tbh, the battery components can be made with only stone, so they're a lot more renewable that hydrogen engines or reactors
Honestly, you can still technically use the battery in the same way as before, you just have to spend iron, nickel and silicon to do so. Which, of course, can be produced literally anywhere where there's stone.
Nice Video
Hydrogen engine is the king, one thing you didnt mention is the COST of refineries vs H2O2 generators, refineries are EXPENSIVE, generators are practically given away. You can chuck 4+ H2O2 gennies on your ship for far less than the cost of one reactor, so your ships can practically carry ice as feul rather than hydrogen, and mine more feul on the go. I usually place 20+ H2O2 gennies on my main base so ships that dock can get their tanks topped of quickly - MUCH quicker than waiting ages for batteries to charge if you are using ion/atmosfear engines.
Solar panels can be layered to increase power output without a significant increase in collision grid. Uranium can also be found in meteor crator's aand like H2 be purchased at sone trading station's.
Having an ice mining operation/refuel port and a tanker ship is a great way to roll play in SE.
its actually more space and weight efficient to store your hydrogen as ice and generate the H2 as you burn it. you can store vast amounts of power this way. though the power per block stat drops by 33%. but since you'd otherwise be wasting dozens of blocks on tanks the net power/block is higher.
Been playing on a server and I can tell you that while uranium is hard to find at the start, by the time you found it once, you're basically set for life. Reactors are so fuel-efficient that you can basically run a production-heavy ship that regularly jumps around for DAYS before the thought of your uranium running out even comes to mind, while hydrogen has the tendency to run out a lot quicker. And it doesn't help that H2O2 generators are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow. So is processing uranium, admittedly, but uranium lasts for a lot longer than hydrogen does. The large reactor personally I suggest only for huge production bases or true warships that you will expect to be jumping around and firing railguns a lot - all activities that drink a LOT of power for short bursts. Another major vulnerability of the large reactor is that it's one big block - if it is taken out, that's a huge cut out of your ship's power, while small reactors, while more expensive overall, allow for more redundancy. All in all, I consider small reactors to be the true backbone of any good ship, solars to be a great mid to late game passive power generation tool for civilian ships and bases to integrate existing power consumption, and large reactors a specialized tool for the biggest, power hungriest battleships.
32.6% (approximately) increase in weight to power ratio for the 27 Small Reactor configuration. The fringe benefit of which would be that it doesn't require any Gold to achieve a 405MW output in the same space as the large reactor. The weight difference of 57,116kg is roughly an additional 79% the weight of a Large reactor, so I can see how only gaining the additional 105MW output (34% Approximate) increase for almost 80% the weight of a second Large reactor may seem like a major flaw overall. However, as stated earlier, it doesn't require Gold and its weight/mass is a negligible factor outside of planetary gravity. Given you will likely be in space by this stage, it's an acceptable trade-off if Gold proves difficult to procure or would be better used elsewhere. The PCU factor is likely the more pressing issue for such a Small reactor configuration, practically speaking. What would be nice is a larger battery array, similarly scaled to the Small and Large reactors. A Large Battery bank block, like a single 3x3x3 Battery block or other configuration that takes up the same Volume, with a higher storage and output capacity scaled similarly to the reactors would be a nice addition to the power options. Simply considering the PCU factor, having exponentially increased power to PCU "bulk" blocks would help with a lot of issues. Much like adding tiered or purpose built (as in high acceleration, high efficiency etc with drawbacks) Thrusters and ship tools would help alleviate many issues as well.
normal output for wind turbine is around 427kwh and its perfekt for early stations to charge your ships or rovers it belongs to B or higher just for how easy it is to build.
Did they fix the solar panels where you could double stack them and the ones on the under side still got sunlight?
One thing you should've touched on, I think, is online multiplayer and PCU limitations. On the official Keen servers, as one example, we get 20,000 PCU per person. Given that, in the moderate to long term, resources are not the constriction, but PCU is, that changes everything. For example, batteries are 15PCU each, reactors and hydrogen engine blocks are 25PCU, and wind and solar are 55PCU ( ! ), that changes things even more. Wind and solar are completely inefficient in starting sense, and late game, well. Unless youŕe using hydrogen for propulsion, it doesn´t make sense to use hydrogen engines. PCU is used up creating the H2 infrastructure. Reactors, however, will use your currently existing refineries. A single large reactor with batteries for "burst" power needs is seemingly the optimal way to go.
PCU was something I forgot to touch on. I rarely hear people talking about PCU, but rather stuff like block limits instead. I completely agree with you, I should have looked into PCU limitations as well, and I do apologize. Though from the looks of the PCU values, each of the blocks did score pretty accurately in the ranking. With batteries having the lowest and being ontop, with wind turbine and solar having the most, and landing on the bottom. So its fortunate in that sense. But that is something I will take into account next time, thank you! 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 Regrettably, the limits are low enough, on official servers anyway, that a lot of fun things are impractical or impossible. Custom designed guided missiles? Even small ones can go over a thousand PCU, and any decent target will have enough turret to shoot them down, so you´d need a swarm, which means you´d have missiles and nothing else. Small thrusters are pointless, given the large are the same PCU. And custom turrets like the ball turrets? Too expensive! I understand the PCU limits are meant to keep server impact low and to promote fast network play, but that just highlights the lack of optimization, even after all of this time.
Yeah I can fully understand that, and its honestly a shame. Especially for those who go on youtube or reddit, even the workshop, and see people with these massive ships, that they can never build. I truly hope that Vrage 3 will be a much more optimized engine, if they choose to either make a sequal or port the game over. Either that, or they find more ways to optimize the game. I mean, it has come a long way since its first release, but it should have gotten even farther. Its always so saddening when someones creativity, is limited by artificial limits..
@@AliceDoesThings404 I just keep in mind how things went during the SE / ME years.
My ships often don't have enough power to run at max load. Instead, I substitute one of the interior walls with batteries to decrease the size of my power room. In combat ships, these batteries can be spaced out as well to increase the durability, and using a large reactor as the core, it can run a terrifying amount of firepower (or shields/jumps) for an extended duration.
Hydrogen engines are my go too for power when on a world with plentiful amounts of ice. I even made a semi truck that is hydrogen powered, with only one small grid large battery for backup power. It also has two small grid small hydrogen tanks for some basic hydrogen storage. I usually rely on a trailer to hold large amounts of hydrogen. I also only run the engine when the battery is low. I like the truck because i can build a trailer for anything. Im going to make a generator trailer at some point.
Other than the already mentioned PCU cost, another advantage of reactors over hydrogen engine is the lower fuel weight. uranium has a much higher energy/weight ratio than ice/hydrogen
The great thing about battery is, they can double function as an armor during combat. Battery is SSS tier
Battery? I think you misspelled "Nickel Reactor" lol.
For those who use the watermod and don't know yet, you can get infinit hydrogen by putting a collector in the water. Slap three or four hydrogen engines in your base and that will run pretty much everything you will want.
Not as an objective measure, but subjective. I hate batteries the most and prefer Hydrogen engines the most. Often using the water mod and can set up bases with water scoops to readily get hydrogen. Since my preferred thing to build are rovers. It gives me the most enjoyment for my time in the game.
I wish u will make morę video's ile this itssss f amazing!
Im playing on the steamdeck and ingame scripts are not available. I wasnt aware the turrent controller could be used to solar alignment. Thank goodness isys script isnt my only option anymore
1 detail about hydrogen generators that has not been mentioned in the video or the comments, they need a jump start. If you place an empty Hydro gen attached to an empty h2o2 gen it will do nothing, even full of ice. You either need a power or hydrogen source to get the system working.
The number you really need when comparing the nuclear reactor to hydrogen is the energy gained from the fuel, minus energy spent for refining, divided by the volume of voxels mined to get that fuel. It is also generally weird to put these on a tier list when they are all meant for certain situations.
An important thing to consider is pcu cost. And in this case the large nuclear reactor is only 25 pcu and produces 300MW. But if you are playing solo then pcu doesn't matter.
Do You happen to have a link to that ion powered miner you briefly show?
Its my own design, and will be released soon 👍
@@AliceDoesThings404 Excellent!
Well you *could* consider batteries to be power generation. If you grind them down when they're depleted and reweld them back up, they effectively act as reactors that convert 720 kg of iron, 80kg of silicon, and 160 kg of nickel into 900 kWh of energy. And, of course, iron, silicon, and nickel are much easier to get than uranium - you could run it entirely on stone, if you wanted.
See my problem with rating Solar over Wind is that Wind is far more consistent with Solar only working during the day and if you want to keep going during the night which unless your in Space is 50% of your day you *have* to pair it with batteries. Plus it can be hard to realize you've expanded beyond your power generation if you only use Solar and Battery because you can slowly bleed power from recharging during the day and losing more at night than what you made during the day and not realize that is whats happening until your getting close to or have ran out of power
I think my ranking would be almost completely opposite in all ways and I would leave off the battery because it only stores power, not generating. It's useful only in combination with other methods. But I use the mod that preservs power cells at the cost of batteries having 0 stored energy at creation. I have not made it to end game mode yet after months and months of playing, so don't have much experience with reactors. I do know that finding uranium in space can be a royal PITA.
Honestly with event control you can prevent most anything part which is draining most of your hygiene tanks dry
hydrogen is my favorite, i use it for land vehicles and fuel for ship thrusters and ice is really abundant in atmosphere and space ^^
So. I would like you to consider the small grid large battery. However I would like you to assess it as an active power source. The fuel being power cells. I think you will find it is a SS Ranked power.
I would rank the solar on the last place then comes the reactors bcause the fuel issue then the hydrogen engine bcause the high consumption and then the wind turbine at first if we doesnt compare the ability to generate energy on nonstatic grids or outer atmosphere the wind is the best use at start and up to endgame bcause the "6-way-cross-setup) that setup allowed u to automatical build the turbines far enough and it will never get no power so the safest way to generate power is wind bcause thats ever there . in combination of one or 2 batteries it will be very strong
Very nice video. And I would go even further and say that you're pretty much left with no other option than large reactors, when going capital. Those jump drives are hungry af. :)
That is very true, though it depends on how big someones capital ship is. If all they need is a single jumpdrive, it can run off of batteries just fine 🙃
There is this idea I have been thinking about, but I don't know how feasible it is. You have a massive solar array and batteries out in space at all your main jump points. You have a MASSIVE shell ship filled with nothing but batteries, minimal thrusters, and jump drives that you attach your capital ship to. You leave the shell ship attached to the solar array at your end point to recharge and fly off on your capital ship. A sort of jump gate system. Not good in all situations, but a fun idea if you don't want the energy drain/output burden of jump drives on your main ship.
@@njnjco I did something like that. When you are at this point of going to space and back to the planets surface, but not having enough platinum/uranium yet for a capital ship: I made a jump attachment like Obi-Wan used with his little fighter. Basically some jumpdrives with solar panels and a connector. Dock with the small ship and jump wherever you need to got. Then leave the Jump section in orbit to recharge.
You forgot a huge downside of the battery: It "loses" 20% of the power put into it. That is, if you put in 1 MWh of power, it only stores 0.8 MWh of power. This is really bad if you're charging batteries off of fuel sources like H2 or U.
That is something I did not know, and is a huge downside indeed. Thank you for notifying me 👍
i wouldn't consider the battery a "power block" for ranking as the whole point is to determine which one PRODUCES the most energy vs its size and components. Batteries do not generate electricity, they just store and conduct electricity. It is related, but not the same. However, you NEED batteries to fly around in your ship. if you need to maneuver and all your thrusters starts engaging, you typically have bursts of power costs far exceeding what any of those generators could readily provide without the buffer of stored energy from batteries.
well batteries are best for power redundancy anyway. if you have a jump drive on your ship, it's best to have that battery bank to supplement your power generation so that each use of the drive won't overtax your systems.
My killer problem is that hydrogen on vanilla sucks up too much hydrogen on one small tank. Yes, I got the mod to put an end to that but still. 15 gallon of gas will give me what about 8 hours of driving time in a car. A real hydrongen does about the same. Then again it is a 12-cylinder. Still, the hydrogen needs to use a little less gas.
Battery power is not free, you had to take energy from somewhere and make the battery. The amount of power consumed should be factored in with the cost of the individual power generation blocks.
If I start on a planet I skip solar, I just plant a base next to ice with enough wind turbines and go directly to H2 engine and batteries. If I start on space(which I prefer) solar and batteries are about the only way to go, until you hit a jackpot and get uranium, ice in space is far more important to staying alive than generating energy. Anyway good list.
I wouldn't really put batteries in because they don't actually generate juice; they really just distribute it. That said, they can store and distribute a LOT of power for a time and they do only really require stone to build.
It is still a power source though if you have support infrastructure. Yo don't have to launch with the power production line on your ship or rover itself.
@@tinonoman5831This is true, though you are then limited by pure battery life. If it works and fits for your plans, no one can stop you. I just feel like batteries deserve separate consideration from actual power generators since they cannot create more power than it started with.
In my opinion, the best choice is situational. You definitely do not want reactor power on planetary bases and rovers, at least as primary power, because there is no uranium there and you will have to supply it from off-world. Bases, ideally, should be powered entirely by unlimited energy sources so you do not have to constantly maintain them. Rovers, on the other hand, should be powered primarily by a combination of hydrogen engine and battery, with a single reactor for emergency use only (hydrogen-powered vehicles cannot start themselves up if fully depleted, since they require energy to turn ice into hydrogen). Rovers not intended to go far from base can use purely battery power, however. How I like to set up my rovers is with a power management script (typically a slightly modified version of Isy's Solar Alignment Script). The hydrogen engine(s) will charge the batteries, then automatically shut off. They will reengage only when battery power reaches critical level or exceeds power output needs. The reactor is excluded and only set up for manual start, as you will need it to get the rover going again if you accidentally mess up and fully drain it.
I place 9 blocks up and then on that pole i can place 3 wind turbines 😊 For combat vehicles i use reactors rest usually get hydrogen engines.
I hope space engineers 2 (if ever created) will feature liquids so we can have steam engines and perhaps even various oils for atmospheric travel options
Great content though, because there has been a spike in to stuff as far as ships and mods so you continue where others stopped is good stuff keep it up new players need to know also... if you really wanna get more people because I've yet to find someone who does this idea for Console but there's a youtuber who plays on PC but he only rates PC based ships if you do Console based ship ratings and tour for new ships that are cool and stand out more than others you'll get more viewers this I promise
"reactors", uranium fuel is also pretty common on the "economy market". Often i won't get into space but i will still get reactors by buy uranium from outposts. Commonly i'll trade magnesium for uranium.
Hydrogen tank is technically a warhead within your grid. A destroyed H2 tank can split your ship in half or blow up a chunk of your base. That's one of the flaw of hydrogen power.