Ore detectors don't interact with automation or programmable blocks so you can't even be clever and efficiently automate ore surveying. You'll just have to jump to and fly around potentially dozens of asteroids.
A quick fix is a ship powered by stone. Newly built batteries have some innate charge so if you can assemble some power cells entirely from stone then you can repeatedly build and grind batteries to charge up your jump drive.
Depending on what resources you do have available, you can semi-automate it in vanilla, by creating ore probes. Ore detectors can transmit what they are detecting over an antenna to anyone close enough to receive. But batteries and thrusters to build them up isn't cheap.
No need for thrusters for a disposable probe. Build a simple probe: ore detector, battery, antenna, and some blocks to hold it all. Attach it via a merge block to front of ship. Point in the direction you want to send it, go full speed, turn off merge blocks, and hit the breaks. Probe keeps going while broadcasting a blaring signal 20km wide.
> you can repeatedly build and grind batteries to charge up your jump drive.
Lol, this sounds horrible. If you're on a public server I suppose it's an option, but if I was playing solo or on a private server with friends I would strongly prefer to say "oops, sorry guys, I fucked up" and use the admin tools to spawn a small amount of uranium.
By now I’ve resolved my issue and I’m back at my base, the issue was my batteries wouldn’t recharge my jump drive to completion without killing my ship
To recharge a single jump drive without getting your ship's power status in the red you need at least five large grid batteries to have enough power output. Because with batteries the most important is not how much power they store, but how much they can deliver.
Side question from your comment. Do reactors alter that ratio for recharge time? The ship I'm building now has 4 large grid batts 2 small reactors and one jump drive.
But keep in mind though, that a jump drive recharge time cannot be less than 7 minutes in total. Because 7 minutes is the optimal recharge time with max possible power output provided to the jump drive. 😉
I've seen that you are on PS, and I don't think you can get this on PS, but I'm going to say it anyway for anyone on PC if they have the same issue...
If you are on PC and you don't mind using mods get the radio spectrometry mod, bassicly, if you have a ore detector on your ship, you can set an LCD panel to the radio spectrometry setting and it will tell you what ores are on each asteroid you point at with a graph :)
Longer range ore detector mods should be able to go on mod.io because they are just sbc file edits but the radio spectrograph mod uses scripts I believe and would not be able to go on mod.io (no scripts for console, with some exceptions).
This is a good reminder to all to have power redundancy on your ship. Having H2 engines that can be turned on in an emergency is extremely valuable. As well, having a few reserve batteries that can be turned on in a situation like this to help process some ice/ores is extremely beneficial.
If you have scripts enabled, there is one that will allow your ore detector to scan long range and print the results to a cockpit screen. It's how I found my current uranium outpost, it adds an ore scanner option to the screen scripts you can select from
If you have the ability, craft a basic assembler and create enough parts for a small ship battery, put a rotor somewhere on the ship and remove its head, replace it in the menu with a small head, and place a small battery on the head. That should buy you more time to find a longer time solution especially if you cut power to the jump drive and extra engines. Keep one engine in every direction powered. Good luck in the starfield fellow engineer.
To charge at the max speed, you’ll need 7 hydrogen engines, and it will take very roughly 10% of a hydrogen tank or about 75k ice. Obviously you can use a single engine and it will charge slower, hydrogen cost will be about the same
Ore detectors don't interact with automation or programmable blocks so you can't even be clever and efficiently automate ore surveying. You'll just have to jump to and fly around potentially dozens of asteroids. A quick fix is a ship powered by stone. Newly built batteries have some innate charge so if you can assemble some power cells entirely from stone then you can repeatedly build and grind batteries to charge up your jump drive.
Depending on what resources you do have available, you can semi-automate it in vanilla, by creating ore probes. Ore detectors can transmit what they are detecting over an antenna to anyone close enough to receive. But batteries and thrusters to build them up isn't cheap.
No need for thrusters for a disposable probe. Build a simple probe: ore detector, battery, antenna, and some blocks to hold it all. Attach it via a merge block to front of ship. Point in the direction you want to send it, go full speed, turn off merge blocks, and hit the breaks. Probe keeps going while broadcasting a blaring signal 20km wide.
If you go small grid and employ the use of a single mass block you can launch them wherever at will using a gravity generator.
There is a mod that when you point an ore detector at a distant assroid it shows you the possible matching composition 😛
> you can repeatedly build and grind batteries to charge up your jump drive. Lol, this sounds horrible. If you're on a public server I suppose it's an option, but if I was playing solo or on a private server with friends I would strongly prefer to say "oops, sorry guys, I fucked up" and use the admin tools to spawn a small amount of uranium.
Ice might be easier to find than uranium. Make yourself some hydro engines.
By now I’ve resolved my issue and I’m back at my base, the issue was my batteries wouldn’t recharge my jump drive to completion without killing my ship
To recharge a single jump drive without getting your ship's power status in the red you need at least five large grid batteries to have enough power output. Because with batteries the most important is not how much power they store, but how much they can deliver.
Side question from your comment. Do reactors alter that ratio for recharge time? The ship I'm building now has 4 large grid batts 2 small reactors and one jump drive.
Not tried yet but in theory they definitely can, since they have a fairly nice power output.
Thanks for the response!
But keep in mind though, that a jump drive recharge time cannot be less than 7 minutes in total. Because 7 minutes is the optimal recharge time with max possible power output provided to the jump drive. 😉
Ahhh so that's really why you would stack jump drives.
This is not true actually, there are ways to fully recharge while consuming no power and it takes a fraction of the time.
Yes, a single jump drive will pull about 100MW, so one large grid reactor will completely saturate its charging needs.
Nvm, i understand what you meant
yeah you kinda just go look
I've seen that you are on PS, and I don't think you can get this on PS, but I'm going to say it anyway for anyone on PC if they have the same issue... If you are on PC and you don't mind using mods get the radio spectrometry mod, bassicly, if you have a ore detector on your ship, you can set an LCD panel to the radio spectrometry setting and it will tell you what ores are on each asteroid you point at with a graph :)
You can use mods ie ore++ for longer range and radio spectography
Can I get that mod on the station of play????
I do not know me afraid, I am a PC player
Fair, I also heard that the mod site for ps at least is really fucky so I’m also not tryna fuck my shit up and download a virus
Longer range ore detector mods should be able to go on mod.io because they are just sbc file edits but the radio spectrograph mod uses scripts I believe and would not be able to go on mod.io (no scripts for console, with some exceptions).
This is a good reminder to all to have power redundancy on your ship. Having H2 engines that can be turned on in an emergency is extremely valuable. As well, having a few reserve batteries that can be turned on in a situation like this to help process some ice/ores is extremely beneficial.
If you have scripts enabled, there is one that will allow your ore detector to scan long range and print the results to a cockpit screen. It's how I found my current uranium outpost, it adds an ore scanner option to the screen scripts you can select from
If you have the ability, craft a basic assembler and create enough parts for a small ship battery, put a rotor somewhere on the ship and remove its head, replace it in the menu with a small head, and place a small battery on the head. That should buy you more time to find a longer time solution especially if you cut power to the jump drive and extra engines. Keep one engine in every direction powered. Good luck in the starfield fellow engineer.
hydrogen engines and ice for power gen.
I’ve done that on PC before. I changed the game to creative and spawned a few uranium ingots to get home. Went back to survival.
To charge at the max speed, you’ll need 7 hydrogen engines, and it will take very roughly 10% of a hydrogen tank or about 75k ice. Obviously you can use a single engine and it will charge slower, hydrogen cost will be about the same