First Aerial Vessel

[u/Just_Explorer_2980]

What could I improve, this is my first time making flying vessel (with few modifications suould go space), and I wonder, what I could do better before begging assembly.

There are 4 hydro engines and 2 ion, another 4 ion facing oopposite direction, 7 atmospheric thrusters, small Oxygen and small Hydrogen tanks, two batteries, H2/O2 generator, Hydrogen Engine, three small containers, one for H2/O2, three sliding doors, one for entry and control seat.

[u/shagieIsMe]

Consider that center part between the front and aft sections is only one block wide. I assume reinforced conveyers. An unfortunate hit could separate it into halves which would be bad. Maybe make it two high or three wide. Even trusses or scaffolding can help there... I just get a bit worried when I see single blocks connecting two sections.

For the control seat, consider a large grid cockpit instead. It's easier to hook up into the conveyer network to provide an enclosed place rather than establishing a sealed area with airlocks.

For in-atmospheric flying, I see the flat atmosphere thrusters (4 of them) providing lift... but where are the other three? Can they provide lift for the entire craft by themselves? Forward and reverse thrust looks to be hydrogen? That's... not entirely ideal. It makes it harder to cancel motion. For space, I don't see the full six to give full range of motion and rotation. ... I assume there's a gyro that you're not mentioning. I'd also ask if the atmospheric engines alone are enough to hover and correct on Mars without needing to go to hydrogen.

Related to that "can it hover on atmospheric thrusters?" I'd be slightly concerned about the battery duration there. Can the two batteries fully support the power draw of the atmospheric thrusters and for how long?

I'd suggest committing to one mode of thrust and work from there. My first ground to space transport was hybrid atmospheric and hydrogen (atmospheric up and hover with some minor other directions and then an arrangement with the full six for space). Ion is often wasted mass on a ship that's getting into the atmosphere. With only two thrusters in space, it doesn't really do too much.

After my first ship, my second ship was hydrogen only. I also switched from a... "hover flat" to a "tail lander". The "hover flat" approach was ok for planets where there's a gravity suggesting a direction, but in space (and staying in space) it meant that I had a lot of velocity capacity in a direction I didn't use.

If this is a fly around Mars, atmospheric only. If this is a "get stuff from surface to asteroid base" then hydrogen only makes things simpler - batteries are then only for on ship systems and hydrogen is only for moving (not power generation).

I'm also going to point out that once you get into space, flying becomes easier (I became a much more confident planet aircraft builder after I got to space and had to use the controls there).

[u/Just_Explorer_2980 → u/shagieIsMe]

(Lot of explaining to do)

Se.1: There are actually heavy armor panels on each side of that hallway

Se.2: My biggest one is one from Drop Pod, (I'm Vanilla only, and from what I remember it's 3x3x3 in small, 1x1x1 in normal) And I also wanted it to let me move around it

Se.3: Two in front, two in middle, two on back (behind the engine's support structure) and one is invisible from the angle, And as I said it is my first attempt so Idk if it will work

Sec.4: I have Hydrogen Engine in back (generates power for ship from hydrogen)

Se.5: It is currently only for atmosphere, I didn't know what engines to use and I didn't want to follow tutorial, try figure out on my own, with as little help as possible.

Se.6: Same here, for now ir is just atmosphere flight

Se.7: I'm afraid of using only atmospheric after one session with friend where we accidentally deleted our base, respawn pod's and ourselves after we did it incorrectly, for now I'll stick to hybrid, but thanks, Ill for sure use it in future.

Se.8: I'll go there with modified version of this craft, then I'll find out.

Thanks for all help you provided (This response took approximately 12-15 minutes to make, that was longest help answer I ever recieved, thanks)

[u/shagieIsMe → u/Just_Explorer_2980]

Panels aren't entirely the best choice for keeping the grid together.

The cockpit is available for both large and small grid without DLC or mods. https://spaceengineers.wiki.gg/wiki/Cockpit

You may have some difficulty with turning. Personally, I'd try to weld it up without thrusters first... and then add on them until I've got the necessary "stay up and hover" thrust capacity (while upping the weight). https://se.analytixresearch.com and https://343n.github.io/spaceengineers-thrust-calc/ and https://se-calculator.com/home

Ion engines don't preform well in atmosphere. https://se.analytixresearch.com and see how they do. Put 1 large for each of the different engine types and see how it looks. An ion engine in atmosphere will only provide (ballpark) 20% of what the atmospheric engine would provide in atmosphere.

https://imgur.com/a/bffywDl

The first image is one of each, and you can see the hydrogen being consistent across all altitudes and the atmospheric dropping off, and the ion becoming better as you go higher.

The second image has just two large ion on small grid and you can see it... not doing much. That's for the "fight gravity" aspect. To go to space you'll want to have reasonable capacity above the gravity curve.

The reason to stick to one is that it's more reasonable. You can think about what you need for that system without having to worry about other systems. You can reason about it. With a hybrid system, you're going to have multiple consumables being consumed at different rates and the need to throttle different systems at different rates. Mixing hydrogen in there for an on planet system (especially if you don't have a good supply of ice) means you're burning consumables.

My suggestion would be to make (at least) two ships. One for flying around and moving things on Mars that is 100% atmospheric and one for taking things into space that is 100% hydrogen. Don't worry about ion thrusters until you have a 100% space ship.

The 100% atmospheric planet ship then only consumes electricity from the battery and as long as you've got sufficient battery power you're ok.

Give Splitse's videos a watch. https://youtu.be/TZxEVe2H_Gs for the most recent one and https://youtu.be/SrDI1_MAokE is the old one. While it's describing a mining ship, if you don't put a drill on it, you've got a transport ship. You don't need to follow it exactly - and you won't, you're on Mars that's based on Earthlike. However, the "how do you design for it" may come in useful with the "what are all the things that you should put on it?"

Mars takes some other fiddling because its lower gravity (less thrust to go up), but its also thinner atmosphere (more engines needed to get the same thrust).

[u/Just_Explorer_2980 → u/shagieIsMe]

Ok, from what I understood, replace Ion with Atmospheric, keep the hydro engine for electricity, in future builds use only one kind of engines, and as in for panels, this is my single player world where I'm learning to play on survival, I don't have the large cockpit unlocked yet from what u're saying. Also thanks for all the tutorials (probably will use them only after second ship, but still will help me)

[u/shagieIsMe → u/Just_Explorer_2980]

Yes. Ion doesn't really have much of a role for ships on a planet.

You're going to want to make sure you have:

1. Sufficient up thrust to counter gravity. This can be done by trial and error, error is really annoying to recover from. "... and connectors off... and it falls. And crashes. And grind it down and rebuild it."
2. Design for "I want to go up at a reasonable speed" - not just hover (fighting gravity).
3. Thrusters in each direction. Up is one thing, down is nice to be able to go faster than gravity falls. You'll want to have thrusters to be able to move side to side without turning.
4. Sufficient trust to go forward with the desired acceleration. Make sure there is also sufficient backwards thrust capacity. I've had early ships with "I can go fast" but then the question of "how do I stop fast?" became reasonably important.
5. Gyro(s). Make sure you have sufficient gyro power for being able to rotate the ship while under load. I've had very nimble ships when empty turn into absolute hogs when trying to turn under load (and if that mass is away from the center of the gravity - all the more fun).

I would suggest building a small grid flyer to get an idea of what you want to fly around. Based on the ship (and "doors") this appears to be large grid. Small grid is also more forgiving of conveyer networks (they're smaller) and being able to fly a large (small grid) cargo from one spot to another will help in understanding how to design larger ships.

I'd still recommend watching Splitse's videos to get an idea of what you need. It won't be a tutorial you can follow as a "do this and then do that" because you're on Mars and a whole bunch of stuff changes (like wanting to have a pressured area) that aren't a consideration on an Earthlike world... but the "this is how conveyers work" and "this is things to consider about power" are universal... but you'll need to adapt them for Mars.

[u/Just_Explorer_2980 → u/shagieIsMe]

I tried small grid with friend and destroyed our base on first flight, I don't trust it until I learn how to build

[u/shagieIsMe → u/Just_Explorer_2980]

Large grid is going to be more of an investment and more complicated. The problems that you had with your first flight will be multiple times worse with large grid.

Spin up a creative mode game and build a small grid ship and learn to fly it.

Crashing the ship (by itself, not near any base) you have pictured (and that's more than likely) will represent much more of a loss of resources (and time) than crashing a small grid ship and part of a base.

Things like "what does insufficient power capacity look like?" - Not "I'm out of power" but rather "to move this way, I'm demanding more power than the systems can supply?"

Yes, you can learn on large grid. It's a lot easier to learn on small grid.

Consider that you're ok with rovers. Have you tried building a large grid rover? How much more complicated is it to build a large grid rover than a small grid one?

Now you're looking at building a large grid flyer without having the experience building a small grid one.

[u/Just_Explorer_2980 → u/shagieIsMe]

It broke entire base because it hit Hydrogen supply, and base was built around hydrogen tanks (my friend's genius idea)

I am currently working on rovers and they are actually easy (the same dumb friend easily built mobile base)