Space Engineers – Wind Turbine Power Output

Wind Turbine

Note: Credit goes to Freak_Gene

Wind Turbines might seem mysterious and finicky. However I shall explain to you how they work exactly when calculating their power output.

Wind Turbines have 9 obstruction checking raycasts (think laser lines).

• 8 or the raycasts are fanned off the center of the block aligned with its base (see pictures). These check roughly 20m out for any obstructions.

• The last raycast is oriented with the planets gravity for roughly 25m and only is looking for voxels.

Grid’s calculate their max wind speed from the planet’s air density at the grid’s center of mass location on the planet, and multiply it by the planet’s max wind speed (which all of the default planets are 80 except the moon which is 0).

The wind turbine’s max power output is then calculated like so (W/80) * 400 with W being the grid’s current wind speed. Wind turbines then decrease their output based off their own raycasts and if they have any obstructions. The further out one of the raycasts gets blocked the less impact it has on the output.

While turbines are 3x3x3, you can still place them in a line with a distance change of 1,2 or 2,1 blocks to get them close together and not have them block each other’s raycasts.