After gathering the necessary data after the update the following formulas will determine if your ship will fly, hover, or fall, at specific altitudes for a given mass.

If you don't want to read all of the explaination, below are the final solutions,

For determining how much mass your ship can carry use this formula: (T/(%*g))*(1-(A/10000))) is equal to or greater than M

T is your total up thrust
A is your true altitude (not given in game, and not the same from the distance to the ground)
M is the total mass of your ship, including cargo
%*g is your current percent value of g, and g = 10m/s/s in this game world. i.e. % is the number, percent in decimal form, in front of g in game. i.e. 1.00 g, 0.65 g, 0.34 g. i.e. Multiply that number by g (10m/s/s)
NOTE: True earth value is ~9.8m/s/s at sea level


For determining how high your ship can fly it is just a rearrangement of the above formula: A = (1-(M*%*g)/(T))*10000

Now if you want to understand how to get the above formulas, read below. If not, it's ok, enjoy being able determine ahead of time what you need to lift a certain load.

FIRST, you need to know at what ALTITUDE you plan on hovering at. This is very important. Unfortunately, Keen does not give you a true altimeter, but just a system that tells you how far you are from the ORIGINAL ground. Even if you did a giant hole in the ground, the detection system, thus far, will still only give you the original distance from the ground before the hole. This is important, as it makes it difficult to determine at any given time what your true altitude is, and therefore, what your thrusters can currently handle.

Taking note of what I just stated, I gathered data for the maximum thrust I could achieve with the Large Atmospheric Thrusters at different distances from the ground. It was a linear relationship. It was so linear in fact that I could determine that by starting distance from the ground was approximately 1000 meter above sea level.

Given that with the update a large atmospheric thruster should have 408 KN of thrust at sea level I was able to determine the percent decrease in thrust per 100 meter of elevation. So, for every 100m up you go your thrusters will lose 1% of max thrust power. So basically at 10000m your atmospheric thrusters will no longer function at all.

From this, now we can truly determine whether your ship will hover.

The final formula for determining your ability to fly,hover, or fall is the following.

T*(1-(A/10000)) is equal to or greater than M*%*g,

Where T is your total up thrust at sea level, A is your current altitude, M is the total mass of your ship including cargo, and g is 10m/s/s is this world. I say %*g because you may be at a much lower value of g, say if you are on the moon. So, as the formula states, if your thrust at a specific altitude is greater than or equal to the mass of your ship, including cargo, multiplied by the current percent value of g, then your ship will hover and not fall.

Also, a little extra info for those of you who actually read the explaination. When determining whether or not your ship can handle a full cargo you need only 2 values. If you are hauling components, the multiply the total cargo hold volume by 6.7Kg/L, which is the density of steel plates. They are the most heavy component per volume. If you plan on hauling ore, multiply instead by 2.7Kg/L. All ore weighs the same. Remember that grinders, welders, and drills have a medium cargo hold value of 3375L, and you should add them to your total value. Also connectors and possibly your cockpit. Remember, you want to also be able to lift up your cargo, and not fall too quickly when dropping down to land. I suggest, at the minimum, a safety margin for your thrust of 1.5. i.e. you have an extra 50% thrust on top of what you need to carry your load.