Space Engineers

Space Engineers

No More Free Energy!
145 Comments
CheapFrag 24 Jul @ 3:18pm 
honestly, I think this should be added to the vanilla game as an option in the world settings like "realistic sounds"
keyspace  [author] 3 Jun @ 3:05pm 
@Dragon-Raptor

Have not tested that. Prototech should not be affected. If it is, that's a bug with the mod.
Space Ace 1 Jun @ 7:45am 
@Dragon_Raptor this mod fixes imbalances with burning hydrogen, whereas the fusion reactor is using it as nuclear fuel and isnt subject to the same downsides
Dragon-Raptor 31 May @ 10:33pm 
So... given the last few comments, I'm assuming this won't effect the new Prototech Fusion Reactor, which in the .sbc is built (code wise) as a hydrogen engine?

It's fine if not. Can tweak the reactor on it's own. Either way, love the mod, makes a ton of sense. Add it to every world now :)
Space Ace 15 May @ 12:41pm 
Excellent. Thank you for your continued support!
keyspace  [author] 15 May @ 11:28am 
@Space Ace

Just did, and thank you for pinging! I don't play SE often to notice there are new relevant blocks.
Space Ace 14 May @ 3:08pm 
@keyspace Do you plan on adding support for those? This mod is a must-have for me and some others so it would be much appreciated!
keyspace  [author] 14 May @ 2:09pm 
@Space Ace No, if those are new block definitions.
Space Ace 9 May @ 10:29am 
Will this automatically apply to the new Lab O2/H2 gen?
The Screw-Up Team 19 Apr @ 5:03am 
Dear @keyspace,
That's a great mod based on solid physics understanding! Thanks!
The thing that also breaks physics laws is hydrogen thrusters. They're fine (kind of) on the planets with dense atmosphere; however, in space or just a low oxygen atmosphere... y'know they should require oxygen to actually burn hydrogen. And, surprisingly, otherwise these thrusters can't operate!
But in the current game logic, you need oxygen for only one thing - to breathe, which makes it the most useless resource in a game, considering how much of it the O2/H2 generator produces.
I'd love to see this flaw also fixed in this mod, if possible.
Thanks!
Unmade 12 Apr @ 4:41pm 
@raz334

Upon some thought, the water is 'ice' and it is in a 0 Kelvin environment in space.

Heating it up to 'water', for it then to be electrolysed, will require substantially more power than a 9V battery.

Here opens another can of worms of this immersion issue however. We can mine and refine ice out in space or on Earth-like, which will imply different power requirements for the O2/H2 generators, and plenty of other blocks come to further think of it.
Terro 28 Jan @ 9:10am 
@frogmaster
It's a game, if you want to simulate not having fun, stop playing it. If someone else wants to have immersion, GET OVER IT, it's a game.
raz334 29 Nov, 2024 @ 9:37pm 
LoL,

Water when applied with electricity (which it requires very little like a 9 volt battery ) You can divide the hydrogen and oxygen, * warning don't do it * You can seriously get hurt, don't.
The point is. it does in fact take very little power to separate the gases your entire argument for this mod is flawed.
-------------
If you wanted to balance this, the most "realistic" way would have been to vastly decrease the power produced by the engine and also increase it's efficiency because it burns through those gases at INSANITY speeds in vanilla. That is where the real laws concerning energy are violated.
IF we compare it to a fossil fuel engine which runs on the same concepts as your proposal then the power output would be quite small. If we do actual research on hydrogen powered vehicle ideas we see they would have been substantially more fuel efficient. ( but with more explodey problems )
---------------
Frogmaster 21 Nov, 2024 @ 10:26am 
It is a game, If you want to simulate reality, stop playing games and get a job? Really is annoying when people say, in a game, "but in the real world..." get over it, it's a GAME, It's not real.
Dziwo 14 Oct, 2024 @ 12:30am 
Absolute banger for playing with Water mod. Makes hydro both very useful and still not a cheat that it becomes with water.
Revale08 12 Jun, 2024 @ 6:55am 
Is there a way to see what the script actually sets the sbc's too? I would like to apply No More Free Energy on the top of a tiered mod pack im using, but the scrtipt is only applying to the base battery. If i could somehow see what the script is setting the sbc values to, i could apply them to the next tier of battery / engine etc. PS. i'm personally using your preferred settings. Thanks in advance
ErikV70 27 Apr, 2024 @ 12:04pm 
This is really good and exactly what I wanted.
I created some hydrogen from Ice and then used that to recharge my battery with the hydrogen engine. It seemed as if about 30% was lost. Perfect: Conversion should cost energy.
Thank you for this nod!
Angelus Mortis 26 Mar, 2024 @ 10:18pm 
someone put this mod as part of a modpack... i need to know how to disable it... this mod is horrid and a waste of time so id prefer it not be in my fictional game set in a fictional future where they may have perfected the use of hydrogen...
8Bit M3dic 4 Mar, 2024 @ 11:26am 
Hello! Really like you're mod. I just had a question about it interacting with another mod:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2118214855&searchtext=upgradable+h2
Basically it creates a large upgradable H2/O2 generator that is better than the normal ones.
While this mod affects the normal generators, it doesn't appear to affect the upgradeable one. Is there anyway to manually adjust the output of this block or have it be compatible with this mod? Or is it always working as intended and it's not displaying correctly?
Thanks for any help you can provide!
keyspace  [author] 15 Jan, 2024 @ 8:06pm 
Witness Klang! Do not be victim.
Space Ace 15 Jan, 2024 @ 1:01pm 
Ive gotten rid of my old comments, as after a closer inspection i believe the IO rebalance is the same as yours, because now the engine input to run a generation machine is exactly what the generator outputs, making hydrogen more as a fuel cell/energy storage system. Working as intended!
keyspace  [author] 8 Jan, 2024 @ 4:39pm 
@Space Ace

Not likely, not by me.

I've seen it in Kanajashi's series, where it was used together with this mod. (S03?.. the one with water and boats.) So there's probably some combination of settings that's playable.

I've never tried the mod myself, and don't know what's changed since that would make things incompatible.
roypai 3 Jan, 2024 @ 4:53pm 
I'll do a vanilla windows dedicated server test through steam with only this mod and report back
Takamiki 2 Jan, 2024 @ 12:56am 
The config mod would of worked if it was split into multiple mods each focused on a group of related settings and people could of picked and choosed which they wanted that wouldn't conflict with other mods. All i wanted to do was reduce the oxygen levels of planetary atmospheres and remove oxygen generation from h2/o2 generators. This is so that you have to rely more on external vents to collect oxygen and make oxygen farms more useful. Currently in SE oxygen is way too easy to get from ice, and you don't require alot of oxygen at all to keep you alive.
keyspace  [author] 1 Jan, 2024 @ 5:05pm 
@roypai A few more questions, totally guesswork:

Is this for all players on the server?
Does this include newly placed blocks, pasted grids, existing grids?
Are there other mods that replace/modify the same blocks? I.e. is this a mod load order issue?

There's a lot to debug, that's why I never got to testing on multiplayer properly, dedicated server or not.
keyspace  [author] 1 Jan, 2024 @ 4:52pm 
@Takamiki Yup! Guess no dice then. :( At least not in a fast and easy way.
Takamiki 1 Jan, 2024 @ 4:18pm 
You talking about this one? https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2422592854&searchtext=Config
I stopped using this cause it was conflicting with other mods due to how much this mod covered
keyspace  [author] 1 Jan, 2024 @ 2:39pm 
@Takamiki

I've seen a mod somewhere that tries to modify any parameters of any blocks - that could be a neat replacement for this here mod. Forget what it's called, though. :/
keyspace  [author] 1 Jan, 2024 @ 2:37pm 
@Takamiki

Nope, it just modifies existing Keen blocks haven't looked if anything got broken for the last few updates, too.
keyspace  [author] 1 Jan, 2024 @ 2:35pm 
@roypai Yeah, dedicated server setups are really untested/unreported. :(

How do you launch it? Through steam or stand-alone? Windows or Linux? Any other details, or server setup guide?..

Not sure I'll have the time to debug this any time soon, though. :/
Takamiki 1 Jan, 2024 @ 11:45am 
does this mod effect other mods that add blocks that also produce gasses like this one? https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2118214855
roypai 25 Dec, 2023 @ 1:19pm 
My dedicated server seems to be consistently loading the default configuration in spite of the Keen log showing 'Loaded config.xml.' - any ideas out there?
Balex55 24 May, 2023 @ 4:15am 
Quality Mod :dragonseal:
mLJ 23 May, 2023 @ 9:16am 
As far as I understand, the immersion-breaking part is that refining the ice into usable fuel takes less energy than burning that fuel, essentially allowing you to power an ice refinery with itself. I do understand why it works this way in the vanilla game, but i think this mod provides a far more interesting experience for survival.
in-tension 22 May, 2023 @ 10:30pm 
Okay, some I'm probably just being dumb, but I don't understand what the issue is, it's not like you get energy from nothing, you need ice which has chemical energy and that gets used up. What am I missing?
Rümmler 3 May, 2023 @ 1:01pm 
I uploaded a blueprint of a ship which I probably would not have designed if not for this mod:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2970980081

Feels like playing "gas station delivery man" :D
keyspace  [author] 26 Apr, 2023 @ 12:07pm 
@Rümmler.363VD Thanks for the info! That is good to hear. I still haven't gotten non-lazy time to check post-update.

(Also - nice how there's now another option to writing up scripts for power management...)
Rümmler 24 Apr, 2023 @ 10:22am 
btw Keyspace thanks for this mod. I am running a hydrogen themed orbiter factory thanks to it and the new event controller allows for efficient vanilla base power management. Really cool to have hydrogen as a viable energy storage and once I got more infrastructure running, I will set up my ressource node outposts with hydrogen engines and tanks. Shows how much a few numbers can change the gameplay!
Rümmler 24 Apr, 2023 @ 10:20am 
Works fine for me @Athunc

Had a creative world test, only build vision and build info in. Some random grid, circa 230ml per second on a large grid engine.
Saved, quit, added the mod. Checking again: circa 43 ml per second.

I haven't tested it with other mods.
Darian Stephens 21 Apr, 2023 @ 10:14pm 
It might, actually, since this applies its changes via script instead of editing the block definitions directly.
mLJ 21 Apr, 2023 @ 12:47pm 
So uhhh.. I assume this mod isn't working as of the automatons update? Shame, as I love the idea of it. By the way, I have to give you props for how you do your mod descriptions - this is pretty much the perfect way to write one.
Athunc 24 Mar, 2023 @ 8:15am 
I tested it in an empty world without other mods (except buildinfo to confirm my suspicions) I have run other mods in the past, but unless something is really wrong they shouldn't affect this save

I just tested it again, using a large grid engine, small largegrid H2 tank, and two Ion thrusters to draw power. The engine generates 5MW and the H2 tank loses about 100 litres each second. When I used build-vision, it also showed those stats.
keyspace  [author] 24 Mar, 2023 @ 7:58am 
@Athunc

Argh! That's sad to hear, guess I'll have to find the time to test it again. Perhaps even record a video to compare procedures.

You're not running the beta, are you?.. Any other mods?..
keyspace  [author] 24 Mar, 2023 @ 7:53am 
@IceHeart 162

It's the O2/H2 generator, not the hydrogen engine, that is 30 times _slower_. That is, it'll take 30 times longer to consume the same amount of ice and produce the same amount of gas as vanilla. So yes, powering the gas-making process using the gas being produced is no longer sustainable. As in, more kWh goes in than comes out. (Or it least that should be the case if the mod is not broken or misconfigured.)

As @PepperJack said, the idea is that other power sources are to be used to get the fast-recharge fuel.

As to the hydrogen engine, its fuel efficiency has been increased 5 times. You can now power 5 times more with a single engine, or run one with the same load 5 times longer. (That's with the default settings.)
Athunc 16 Mar, 2023 @ 3:31am 
With testing, I find that the the intended increase in hydrogen engine fuel efficiency isn't working at all, anyone know whether an update broke this feature?
The Hydrogen Engine still uses 100 Litres of H2 per second to generate 5 MW as normal :(
PepperJack 14 Mar, 2023 @ 1:33pm 
you can fill the tank from you station and power your rover with hydrogen
OozeMoose 7 Mar, 2023 @ 11:10am 
just curious here, not interested in the mod itself but the idea of this. You made a mod that makes the hydrogen engine 30 times less effective and h2o2 gen 2 times slower? So can the engine even feed the h2o2 gen anymore? As in, how much can you power with the engine then? Like what can you even use the engine for after this mod?
keyspace  [author] 23 Feb, 2023 @ 2:35pm 
@1antonioorlo1:

As to renaming the block - yes, sounds like a totally valid mod. I'd also suggest you change the sound to something other than a diesel cat purr. :)
keyspace  [author] 23 Feb, 2023 @ 2:35pm 
@1antonioorlo1:

Yup. "It's not a bug, it's a feature" - of the base game.

A couple years ago (2020?..) Keen released an update that lowered the frequency at which the game checks grid/block states. This improved performance, especially on Dedicated Servers - unless the power-cycling exploit you describe is used. (Don't do that on your favourite servers.)

With this power-cycling, the brief tick that the generator is "on" turns the whole grid "on", and the gas gens can produce a little until being turned off on the next tick due to lack of power.

To clarify: it's always been there, it's just the switching is less annoying now.

That same update removed similar behaviour for a wind turbine + assembler combo (used to work previously). Haven't delved into the internals, but I'd guess Keen re-arranged checks by block type in that update, among other things.
1antonioorlo1 23 Feb, 2023 @ 1:24pm 
Bug still available. With 1 engine and 5 O2/H2 generators (without batteris and etc.) at one grid you can produce gas for free.
I think there is only one way to fix this - rename the hydrogen engine to Hydrogen Fusion Engine and adjust it to an efficiency slightly greater than 1