Ion engine usage?

[Rutabaga22]

I want to do realistic probes and have tried Ion engines, but no matter what I do my EC runs out incredibly fast,  pls help.

[king of nowhere]

it's normal, ion engine drains lots of electricity. You have two options:

1) add more solar panels/RTGs

2) use them ion engines at low thrust.

if you pick 2), i recommend the persistent thrust mod, that will let you use your engines during time warp. it's a real time saver.

[swjr-swis]

There's a third option: use fuel cells powered by LFO (you won't need much). You could even combine things..

[Blaarkies]

You can also use lots of batteries instead. Look at the total EC drain on all the engines combined, use that to determine what the longest possible burn time is. How big are the burns you are planning compared to that?

A single tiny solar panel can mostly charge up huge batterbanks on a probe since you generally timewarp days/months with it until the next burn. It is best to compare those by mass, because many solar panels will be able to extend your charge during the burn. Find the sweet spot between amount of batteries vs solar panels to get the job done