Real world ion thrusters work by accelerating a gas through an electric field, ionizing it. Typically Xenon or Argon. This produces thrust by consuming a small amount of gas at very low levels of thrust and very high power demand.

Converting the game's thrust to power ratio, the small grid small ion thruster produces 72 Newtons of force per kilowatt. Real world versions of ion thrusters produce 50-60 Milli Newtons of thrust per kilowatt.

The game is making assumptions of technological advances far beyond anything ever dreamed of, leaping past physical limitations of space science to a degree so massive it is a magic thruster.

Hydrogen thrusters are in the same bucket, not using any energy at all nor any chemical reactions to achieve combustion, these are just gas jets that throw gas out the ass or use a really bad inefficient burn method that results in bad thrust.

Hydrogen thrust systems require an oxidizer to burn the fuel, otherwise the fuel will just float out into space. Lets assume we have that oxidizer and burn the fuel, lets check the game's efficiency! The game is burning roughly 7.17 grams per second of hydrogen, which is extremely efficient compared to a real rocket engine which would consume thousands of times more to achieve the same level of thrust. This comparison was done on the small grid small thruster.

There is no way this is possible by any real world physics now, or in the near future, or ever.


Solar Sails, a type of ship "propulsion" using energy only. No, this technically isn't true. This is more of a ship being pushed than the ship doing any propulsion. Nor is it something thats useful in deep space or getting to where you need to go unless its in a direct line away from the star and then there'd be no slowing down.

EM Drive, Yes, this is a technology that people have praised for being energy only propulsion. Its been extensively tested. No, its never yielded any reliable and provable results to be useful. Multiple false positive related results have proven this drive to be impossible. Science has now debunked it.

Nuclear Thermal Rocket, a theoretical rocket type that can use pure hydrogen by using nuclear reactor heat to heat the hydrogen and expel it through a nozzle. This would still require power, such as that granted by the nuclear reactor.


What if we used hydrogen gas in Ion?
Sure, we could add hydrogen gas to the ion thrusters requirements, however, xenon fuel is often used because of its high atomic mass. The higher the mass, the more you get out of expelling it. Hydrogen has a low atomic mass, thus the thrust you'd gain from it would be drastically lower. Maybe only a few millinewtons or less.

What if we added Xenon or Argon gas to the game?
This would certainly make it scientifically accurate, and adjusting thrust of thrusters in the game to use this and electricity could certainly bring them back in line with science. I'd love to do this, however there are two problems with this.

1) The game does not allow it. It forces either energy or gas thrust only, it is hard coded this way. There is no solution that the players can achieve as far as I know. This is something only the developers can change.

2) The thrust would have to be adjusted down several magnitudes. During my tests of low thrust capability, and the lack of proper orbit systems in the game, planetary gravity breaks all AI ships because even micro gravity is too much for ion thrusters. The solution to this is to disable ion thrust capability until you're in zero gravity.

Abbreviations: (Thrust Weight Ratio, Thrust Per Liter, Newton, Liters/s, Thrust Per Unit)
The math below for TWR and TPU/TPL was done by ChatGPT 4o. I'm not spending hours doing math for you people who claim I don't know science.
- Small Grid Small Ion Thruster 14,400 N weighing 121 kg using 0.2MW
(TWR 119.01) (TPU 72,000 N)
- Small Grid Large Ion Thruster 172,800 N weighing 721 kg using 2.4MW
(TWR 239.67) (TPU 72,000 N)
- Large Grid Small Ion Thruster 345,600 N weighing 4,380 kg using 3.36MW
(TWR 78.90) (TPU 102,857.14 N)
- Large Grid Large Ion Thruster 4,320,000 N weighing 43,200 kg using 33.6MW
(TWR 100.00) (TPU 128,571.43N)
Large Grid Large Thrust has the most thrust per MW.

- Small Grid Small Hydrogen Thruster 98,400 N weighing 334 kg using 80.33 L/s
(TWR 294.01) (TPL 1,225.36)
- Small Grid Large Hydrogen Thruster 1,080,000 N weighing 1,420 kg using 385.6 L/s
(TWR 760.56) (TPL 2,800.41)
- Large Grid Small Hydrogen Thruster 480,000 N weighing 1,222 kg using 803.34 L/s
(TWR 392.14) (TPL 597.48)
- Large Grid Large Hydrogen Thruster 7,200,000 N weighing 6940 kg using 4.82 kL/s
(TWR 1,037.05) (TPL 1,493.77)
Small Grid Large Thrust: Highest thrust per liter of fuel consumed.