Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

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Kenosos
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by Kenosos »

MBas wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 4:27 pm
T-nm wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 5:47 pm Interesting mechanics used there, do you mind sharing your bp of this ship?
There are couple of issues i need to fix first before I public something like that. I dont like sharing something which is not done :D

Neuclear support should have 2 steam tanks, not one. So one fuel is consumed into steam and much less is lost during coooling.
Did you ever manage to fix your issues? Your posts have been really helpful for making platforms but i've still been struggling to get to Aquilo and was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing yours so I can understand how it works from someone smarter than me haha. Thanks
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DragonRT
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by DragonRT »

This ship should get you to Aquillo (I can't be 100% sure because it was many game hours ago but I think it is the correct Blueprint)



It doesn't use the fuel regulation system.
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DragonRT
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by DragonRT »

This ship DOES use fuel regulation, a much later version of the previous ship :)

It makes it's own ammo and is pretty much self sufficient with the exception of the nuclear power cannisters needed.
It is still a bit of a work in progress.

NOTE: May contain spoilers of course.

It can get to Aquilo and back with no problem at all. It does use technologies from Aquillo tho.

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SuicideJunkie
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by SuicideJunkie »

I've just been using an extra tank and pumping when fluid < 180 (adjusted by constant for convenience).
The engines fill while the ship is idle so they get a hearty jump start on any transits, and then quickly ramp back to the natural flow restriction of the 180/25000 fluid level.
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bohant
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by bohant »

It took me a while to actually understand how the original BP from MBas works. It's pretty cool, I think it was pretty clever to only limit half of engines per respective fluid to save some space, I didn't think about it myself at all. In the process I came up with my own implementation that achieves the same result and with the same amount of combinators. Posting it here in case someone is interested and finds it easier to follow the logic inside.

The input parameters are basically the same.

Image

Also requires the green wire connection from the hub to any of the top 2 combinator inputs and having "moving from" and "moving to" checked. Has the same issue with the initial start.

Layout


Last edited by bohant on Wed Dec 25, 2024 3:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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davcrt
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by davcrt »

Hello,

tnx for this awesome design. I have a few questions on how to apply it properly to my platform. The platform in the screenshot has 5 stacks of 14 legendary engines, and I'm lost on what defines as a "engine wing" in this case?

Fuel is provided by 8 + 8 leg. pumps (7 is needed, but just in case) with total pumping speed of 24k/s per component. Due to the extreme length of the ship, I also require another set of pumps (4 + 4) between 3rd and 4th stack of engines, but this shouldn't mess with flow rate or?

So far, my best attempt at getting linear response in pumping speed from changing value C is to set E at 7 and actual pump. speed will be 3 times the value of signal C. (Is the correct value for E, roughly 2,3 ?) Is this the best way considering my setup or am I doing something horribly wrong?

[img][/427520_285.jpg]
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adam_bise
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by adam_bise »

Thanks for this. Clever design!
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ZlovreD
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by ZlovreD »

Just another tested concept...
изображение.png
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Speed: 275km/s
Weight: 925t
Trust: 1.4Gn

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MrFaul
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by MrFaul »

Uhm...
Just use a tank behind the pump to measure the fuel level.
Then set the pump(s if its a bigger ship, still only one tank to measure) to turn of at the desired % of 1k.
Then make a test flight to dial in offset for the sweet spot of your ship and your good to go.

This is a self regulating system due to how fluids work.
This will fill up the engines when parked which gives a nice initial kick when setting off to a new journey.
(If you don't want this use a combinator to only pump while speed > 0. You can make a "and condition" or add 1k fuel to the wire)


Absolutely no need to use any sort of combinator tomfoolery, that's overthinking it...
The strange German dude
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RocketSurgin
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by RocketSurgin »

Thanks for creating this, I've ben using it quite a bit and it seems to really help.

That being said, I've been trying to understand exactly how it works, mostly because I'm building a massive ship with 250+ thrusters and I'm trying to adapt this solution to work with it. One thing I've found particularly vexing is where the "F" constant is being used, because I don't see it being used anywhere at all, except for the declaration and assignment of it in the constant combinator. I do, however, see that one of the arithmetic combinators performs the operation T % 1.2k, and the 1.2k is set as a constant. I was thinking it's not a coincidence that the value of F for one common quality pump is also 1.2k, so I was thinking this is actually where the F value should be used, but for some reason it's not.

So, I was wondering if you could help me out with this, as my ship is going to have multiple thruster assemblies, but all of them will be connected to a single constant combinator which holds the values of E, C, and F, and I don't want to have to manually change the value in that arithmetic combinator for each assembly when needed.

Thanks!
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Zazinator
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by Zazinator »

LeeWhite187 wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2024 12:01 pm This is a genius design choice.
I was experimenting with engine count vs platform-mass to reduce consumption, but couldn't find a saddle-point.
But your idea to modulate fuel, is key for this game mechanic. Good job!
I've converted a long-hauler to leverage it, and am doing "sea-trials" before I find out if it's the missing ingredient to reach past the solar-edge.
Well done!
Here's my current hauler... bug me if anyone wants the blueprint to save time.
Image
Would you mind sending me the blueprint for this?
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Sente
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by Sente »

I made my own version of fuel consumption control that uses a similar PWM scheme, but does not use modulus. Instead, it decrements the clock once it turns nonnegative. Essentially the same thing as using modulus, but it does not suffer a rounding error due to overflow or underflow every however many hours. I was attempting to reduce the number of combinators as much as possible without losing the ease of setting parameters through a constant combinator. It ended up the same number of combinators as the OP's design.

Here is a parameterized blueprint of just the combinators:


This is an example blueprint of using it with 3 engines:
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Tertius
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by Tertius »

Sente wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 10:21 am Essentially the same thing as using modulus, but it does not suffer a rounding error due to overflow or underflow every however many hours.
Using modulus is exact, because (if implemented correctly in the combinators) it keeps the remainder and the remainder is the start value for the next counting turn. No rounding whatsoever takes place.

Example (loosely derived from a forum thread from 1.5 years ago where thruster throttling was discussed in depth):
Increment is T(green) = 290, previous counter T(red) = 750, next value=(750+290) mod 1200 = 1040. As output in the screenshot is still the previous value of 750.
The denominator is 1200, because this is a control for 1 pump, which has 1200/s maximum throughput. The increment is 290, so we want a total throughput of 290/s, distributed over 5 thrusters so every thruster will get 290/5=58.
04-15-2026, 16-43-27.png
04-15-2026, 16-43-27.png (38.92 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
Pumps are being activated if counter T(green) < increment T(red) [images are from different ticks]
Current counter T(green)=800, increment T(red)=290). Wires are swapped in color.
Pumps are activated if counter is below increment and disabled if counter is above, so it's a 290/1200 ratio.
04-15-2026, 16-46-09.png
04-15-2026, 16-46-09.png (201.55 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
The platform has 5 thrusters, so it's 290/5 = 58. The screenshot resembles this roughly:
04-15-2026, 16-56-08.png
04-15-2026, 16-56-08.png (62.49 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
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Sente
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by Sente »

Tertius wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 2:58 pm
Sente wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 10:21 am Essentially the same thing as using modulus, but it does not suffer a rounding error due to overflow or underflow every however many hours.
Using modulus is exact, because (if implemented correctly in the combinators) it keeps the remainder and the remainder is the start value for the next counting turn. No rounding whatsoever takes place.
My method also keeps the remainder. So, it is still exact. When it resets the clock, it only decrements by the max amount of fluid flow. The exact same factor as using modulus. I made the comment about rounding error every however many hours because the OP's blueprint actually resets the clock when it goes over a certain integer. So, there is a rounding error possible depending on the clock rate whenever it gets to that amount (for only one tick, after however many hours). However, the design I created does not have that rounding error. Extremely minor and doesn't actually really matter.

My design uses the desired flow rate as a clock rate, and increments the clock every tick by that amount. When it meets or exceeds the max fluid flow, it turns on the pump for that tick, then decrements the clock by the max fluid flow. Essentially the same as modulus.
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MBas
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by MBas »

Sente wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 10:21 am Instead, it decrements the clock once it turns nonnegative.
This is indeed possible. Just a small note: I really see no difference in A) add/sub value when turnt non/negative B) do a modulo. This is pretty much same operation.

The rounding error we are talking here about is practically none. Just to be clear there are two rounding problems

1. The fact that open ratio does not correspond to ANY_INTEGER / 60. This is indeed convinient to adress.
2. Some occasional overflow of signal into very high arbitrary value (like billion in my case). This couses no practical issues, it is just matter of ellegance of final solution.

And just to be clear, we are talking about 2 right now (am I correct?). In fact I already found a suitable solution when the reset value is not something arbitrary high but just a result of value = increment * modulus.

Long story short: I actually plan to update an original post. It was made long time ago and it is followd by (surprisingly long -- in a good way) many other suggestions. So my plan is to review them and do an update (with proper mentions of people who found some improvement of the original). And it seems you will be one of the winner becouse according to my update, yours is one combinator chepaer. But I still need to look much closer into this ;)
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babyB2ues
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by babyB2ues »

LeeWhite187 wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2024 12:01 pm This is a genius design choice.
I was experimenting with engine count vs platform-mass to reduce consumption, but couldn't find a saddle-point.
But your idea to modulate fuel, is key for this game mechanic. Good job!
I've converted a long-hauler to leverage it, and am doing "sea-trials" before I find out if it's the missing ingredient to reach past the solar-edge.
Well done!
Here's my current hauler... bug me if anyone wants the blueprint to save time.
Image
Any chance you still have this blue print? I've tried copying by the photo, but something doesn't seem to be quite right because iron is not being smelted properly
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MrFaul
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Re: Fuel consumption control for thrusters in Space Age

Post by MrFaul »

This is with 2.1 now largely irrelevant.
You can now directly read the "fill percentage" from a single pipe behind the pump since they don't have a separate "buffer" fluid box anymore.
What's in the pipe, is the percentage in all thrusters.

All you have to do is calculate the desired fill percentage once set the pump to pump when less that and your done.
The strange German dude
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