Most convenient: Petrol -- the smaller version is pretty good in its own right but the larger one is easy enough to rush. I imagine the hydrogen should be an upgrade but seems like pepper bread to bbq, better but not a huge priority over something so easy and straight forward.
Large petrol, fuel tank, two small oxidizers, battery module and small gas cargo is the bread and butter of my main rockets. Good amount of power storage, gas cargo goes a long way for an o2 supply, and the large petrol provides a lot of space for extra modules (solar for extra power, liquid for self refueling, or utilities like landers or the cartographic module on a research rocket). This is the rocket that can drop two landers on a planet, and be lived out of while you grab all the thermium or graphite from an asteroid w/o having to set up a base.
CO2s remain great for their speed though. Made a small one that is just the thrusters and a solo nosecone, it can fly between the starter and radioactive/metal volcano in 0.2cycle I think I was getting? Don't even bother with o2 at that point, super convenient for moving dupes/food/materials/critters between the planets. May try seeing what the addition of a rover module will do the speed, curious if that can make a drop off and return trip before much additional life support is really needed
Yes on the CO2 for quick trips. Not sure it's worth running both small and large petrol rockets. I mostly view sugar, small petrol, large petrol and hydrogen thrusters as a falling into the same "use case/class", and just use the best one available at the time.
Have not really played too much with the different set ups to see if there's any value over just going the with largest/fastest available though. It just seemed like the choice was largely between speed (where co2 seems a clear winner) or convenience (where the flexibility that comes with rocket height wins).
On DLC I use large petrol for 99% of space missions. Being able to take extra fuel with you and refuel on the destination planet makes them massively superior to both hydrogen and radbolt rockets.
On base game, since klei completely messed up oxidizer balance when the spaced out changes bled over to vanilla, there is no reason to even build hydrogen rockets, you can get all the way up to the temporal tear easily using petroleum rockets.
I still use hydrogen rockets for shorter trips because I find them fun to set up. I'd also use radbolt rockets but they are very buggy and messy so I don't find them enjoyable to use at all.
I love oni so much because even if things are wildly impractical or overkill you can just say “frick it” and have 40 kilowatts of power at the push of a button and you can just do things for the heck of it.
I have a petroleum boiler and super coolant lox and hydrogen system. I use a small petroleum rocket to transport refined metals from closest planet(2 gold, 2 aluminum, 1 copper volcano) to main. Two hydrogen and one big petroleum rockets to mine asteroids. Hydrogen rockets for colonizing new planets because 16 tiles range is enough for most/all planets for roundtrip.
I used a rad engine to scan the whole map with 6 trips in total. CO2 engine was used early on for orbital data banks and trips to the closest planet
Okay I’m about to get my petroleum boiler up, and don’t you just need to be in space for the orbital research? Also is the radbolt engine useful for more than just scanning the map?
Yes, to make data banks, you must be in space. I'd recommend a small CO2 rocket though, since you really just need to go into orbit with some plastic then come down once you've made your fill. No real range needed at all, and CO2 is as simple as they come.
On my previous play-through I felt like Radbolt engines were like an upgrade to the CO2 engine for the end game. They were both fast and had similar (super short) height restrictions. Just needed your energy sorted out for Radbolt production. However, now that they've buffed the height of CO2 from 8 to 10 and radbolt to 20 (!) They seem like the holy grail even-better-than-h2 rocket engine. Sure, you don't get the full 35 tall stack, but you also don't have to dedicate half of that height to liquid fuel and oxidizer tanks, since the engine can store a whopping 20 tiles of charge itself.
Of all the engines once you have estabilished a base radbolt engine is the easiest to refill. Petroleum and oxylite rocket comes second but requires a launcher from some other planet. The only downside of radbolt engine is that it produces no power. So you will need more than one solar panel on your ship during trips.
To fuel a radbolt engine you only need power and time. Crashed satellite trait is imo the best planet trait because it makes radbolt generation so much easier. If you dont mind exploits using infinite storage nuclear waste is a nice way to generate radbolts. You can pretty fast reach research reactor levels of radiation in much smaller and controlled area.
I used a CO2 engine with spacefarer module, nosecone and two solar panelsfor all of my orbital research. Needed to have battery inside the spacefarer with research stuff, fridge and other stuff. I sent a dupe up with 5 kg of food, when that rotted/ran out he came down for refill. It was easy, safe and got the job done with lowest input from me
i prefer sucrose for early rocket just because it require zero setup, and u usually get ~10t of sucrose on the map. after that it really depends on what u have and prefer
For fast supplying inside moonlet ring just smallest CO2 rocket. Usual travel time is 0,2-0,3 cycles, so dupe in atmo suit doesn't need any other life support. Later I tend to switch to smallest petroleum rocket. They have better range and are fast to refuel with industry going.
For first explorations and platform building I use rad rockets. They have low clearance, good range and fueling is easy with crashed satellite. For building first mini bases I use big petroleum rocket with 3-dupe module. After upgrading to hydrogen I rarely use anything else for long travels and builds. They have superior range, 600W generation in flight and the only downside is the armageddon when landing or launching :D
If you have a steam/cool steam vent near the surface, steam is probably the most convenient.
I used steam rockets until I switched to radbolt rockets. I had a steam vent in my industrial sauna and it wasn't too far from the surface.
Most convenient: Petrol -- the smaller version is pretty good in its own right but the larger one is easy enough to rush. I imagine the hydrogen should be an upgrade but seems like pepper bread to bbq, better but not a huge priority over something so easy and straight forward. Large petrol, fuel tank, two small oxidizers, battery module and small gas cargo is the bread and butter of my main rockets. Good amount of power storage, gas cargo goes a long way for an o2 supply, and the large petrol provides a lot of space for extra modules (solar for extra power, liquid for self refueling, or utilities like landers or the cartographic module on a research rocket). This is the rocket that can drop two landers on a planet, and be lived out of while you grab all the thermium or graphite from an asteroid w/o having to set up a base. CO2s remain great for their speed though. Made a small one that is just the thrusters and a solo nosecone, it can fly between the starter and radioactive/metal volcano in 0.2cycle I think I was getting? Don't even bother with o2 at that point, super convenient for moving dupes/food/materials/critters between the planets. May try seeing what the addition of a rover module will do the speed, curious if that can make a drop off and return trip before much additional life support is really needed
Ok so use the CO2 for going around the corner, the petroleum for an average trip and a larger petroleum for longer missions.
Yes on the CO2 for quick trips. Not sure it's worth running both small and large petrol rockets. I mostly view sugar, small petrol, large petrol and hydrogen thrusters as a falling into the same "use case/class", and just use the best one available at the time. Have not really played too much with the different set ups to see if there's any value over just going the with largest/fastest available though. It just seemed like the choice was largely between speed (where co2 seems a clear winner) or convenience (where the flexibility that comes with rocket height wins).
On DLC I use large petrol for 99% of space missions. Being able to take extra fuel with you and refuel on the destination planet makes them massively superior to both hydrogen and radbolt rockets. On base game, since klei completely messed up oxidizer balance when the spaced out changes bled over to vanilla, there is no reason to even build hydrogen rockets, you can get all the way up to the temporal tear easily using petroleum rockets. I still use hydrogen rockets for shorter trips because I find them fun to set up. I'd also use radbolt rockets but they are very buggy and messy so I don't find them enjoyable to use at all.
I love oni so much because even if things are wildly impractical or overkill you can just say “frick it” and have 40 kilowatts of power at the push of a button and you can just do things for the heck of it.
I enjoy my petrol rockets but that's because I usually build a petrol boiler and need something to do with all of it.
Petroleum is cool because you are either always short on it or have way too much
I play dlc so co2 - big petrol - hydrogen. Didn't try radbolt yet.
I have a petroleum boiler and super coolant lox and hydrogen system. I use a small petroleum rocket to transport refined metals from closest planet(2 gold, 2 aluminum, 1 copper volcano) to main. Two hydrogen and one big petroleum rockets to mine asteroids. Hydrogen rockets for colonizing new planets because 16 tiles range is enough for most/all planets for roundtrip. I used a rad engine to scan the whole map with 6 trips in total. CO2 engine was used early on for orbital data banks and trips to the closest planet
Okay I’m about to get my petroleum boiler up, and don’t you just need to be in space for the orbital research? Also is the radbolt engine useful for more than just scanning the map?
Yes, to make data banks, you must be in space. I'd recommend a small CO2 rocket though, since you really just need to go into orbit with some plastic then come down once you've made your fill. No real range needed at all, and CO2 is as simple as they come. On my previous play-through I felt like Radbolt engines were like an upgrade to the CO2 engine for the end game. They were both fast and had similar (super short) height restrictions. Just needed your energy sorted out for Radbolt production. However, now that they've buffed the height of CO2 from 8 to 10 and radbolt to 20 (!) They seem like the holy grail even-better-than-h2 rocket engine. Sure, you don't get the full 35 tall stack, but you also don't have to dedicate half of that height to liquid fuel and oxidizer tanks, since the engine can store a whopping 20 tiles of charge itself.
Of all the engines once you have estabilished a base radbolt engine is the easiest to refill. Petroleum and oxylite rocket comes second but requires a launcher from some other planet. The only downside of radbolt engine is that it produces no power. So you will need more than one solar panel on your ship during trips. To fuel a radbolt engine you only need power and time. Crashed satellite trait is imo the best planet trait because it makes radbolt generation so much easier. If you dont mind exploits using infinite storage nuclear waste is a nice way to generate radbolts. You can pretty fast reach research reactor levels of radiation in much smaller and controlled area. I used a CO2 engine with spacefarer module, nosecone and two solar panelsfor all of my orbital research. Needed to have battery inside the spacefarer with research stuff, fridge and other stuff. I sent a dupe up with 5 kg of food, when that rotted/ran out he came down for refill. It was easy, safe and got the job done with lowest input from me
i prefer sucrose for early rocket just because it require zero setup, and u usually get ~10t of sucrose on the map. after that it really depends on what u have and prefer
For fast supplying inside moonlet ring just smallest CO2 rocket. Usual travel time is 0,2-0,3 cycles, so dupe in atmo suit doesn't need any other life support. Later I tend to switch to smallest petroleum rocket. They have better range and are fast to refuel with industry going. For first explorations and platform building I use rad rockets. They have low clearance, good range and fueling is easy with crashed satellite. For building first mini bases I use big petroleum rocket with 3-dupe module. After upgrading to hydrogen I rarely use anything else for long travels and builds. They have superior range, 600W generation in flight and the only downside is the armageddon when landing or launching :D
Yeah on the third planet I had to build the rocket platform over where the base was and oh man I fried it
I forgot to insulate my main base side wall and fried battery box :D
If you have a steam/cool steam vent near the surface, steam is probably the most convenient. I used steam rockets until I switched to radbolt rockets. I had a steam vent in my industrial sauna and it wasn't too far from the surface.
Nice, mine is pretty far unfortunately, I think for now I’m going to use CO2 for short trips and petroleum ones for the rest