Seriously worried about heating my base!

[Another Mother's Son]

This is the longest I've ever survived in PZ. It's early December and it's getting cold, even in my house. There's enough scrub trees and twigs to keep a fire going in the front yard, but it's down to 43F inside! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2916932320 As much as I love that my character automatically warms his hands when I sit down, I'm starting to get worried about how to survive the winter. I assumed the house was heated by some system that a generator would keep going. I've never seen anything about Natural Gas or Petroleum Oil, so what is actually heating (or not heating) my base?!

Also, new Top 5 Wishlist item: Electric baseboard or oil heaters.

[Colemn]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2877732496

[Another Mother's Son]

Originally posted by Colemn:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2877732496

Love that this is a thing, but in vanilla is there any rhyme or reason to how houses work? I'm guessing, since there are no radiators or thermostats (those mercury switches would make for great IDE triggers), there are no furnaces... Maybe when basements are a thing?

[BurlsoL]

Scout around for an antique wood stove. This will cook as well as produce heat without lighting everything on fire. You can pick this up and drop it into the seat of a car then bring it to some enclosed part of your base.

[Armagenesis]

If you wear layered clothing you shouldn't have to worry much about the cold. Padded jacket and padded pants are especially good to deal with cold.

For indoor heating, try finding antique stove.

As an alternative, turn on the heater in your car to warm up.

[Another Mother's Son]

Originally posted by BurlsoL:

Scout around for an antique wood stove.

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

For indoor heating, try finding antique stove.

Thanks, these are things I know. I guess I'm digging more into the gameplay mechanics here. If the only recourse is to scavenge the potbelly stove or hang out in your car, it means there is no active heat in the building. But the game doesn't indicate anything at all.

You can flip a light witch or a water tap on and off to test whether it is working, but seems to be currently no in-game indicator of house heat or energy supply to whatever heats the house.

[BurlsoL]

Originally posted by Another Mother's Son:

You can flip a light witch or a water tap on and off to test whether it is working, but seems to be currently no in-game indicator of house heat or energy supply to whatever heats the house.

It's Kentucky in the early 90's. Most homes didn't have central heating or AC. Winters were typically fairly mild, so not much real call for much more than thick clothing and maybe a space heater. A normal house would retain a decent amount of heat as long as it is closed up and there was activity inside.

Can't imagine the game justifying much more than what is found in real life.

[V-Bro - The Titan's Driver]

Originally posted by BurlsoL:

It's Kentucky in the early 90's. Most homes didn't have central heating or AC. Winters were typically fairly mild, so not much real call for much more than thick clothing and maybe a space heater. A normal house would retain a decent amount of heat as long as it is closed up and there was activity inside.

Can't imagine the game justifying much more than what is found in real life.

Well, while it isn't Dakota or Canada, Kentucky winters can get cold enough. It went down to 0 degrees (Fahrenheit) just last month.

[Black Jack]

You could move to house that has a fireplace,

[Bert-Person]

I've played with a winter start for a while and there's 2 ways to deal with the cold:
1. Clothing. Get as many layers of clothes you can get with a good insulation and check the temperature tab. There's dedicated winter clothing (padded jackets/pants, winter hats), but regular clothing should do the trick too.
2. As mentioned, get an antique oven. They can be found in some remote houses and rarely garages, but your best bet is a warehouse.

There are also few houses with a build in fireplace as well. All you need is enough wood to keep it going.

[fractalgem]

Winter really isn't that cold in the game by default.

Just pile on some more clothes, look for the warmest in slot you can get. If you REALLY want to get warm and have the spare carry weight, keep an eye out for things like shell suit jacket/short sleeve tshirt; they don't insulate very much, BUT those are the only things in their slot, making them "free" extra insulation. Swap out socks for long socks, and so on. It's actually pretty easy to get uncomfortably warm.

Cold is RARELY an actual problem unless you let yourself stay cold enough you catch, well, a cold. Just wearing your usual "armor" will probably let you be comfy or chilly and avoid one, especially if you have outdoorsman. Once you GET one you iirc need to warm up past chilly, but you can do that by heading inside and using...pretty much any fire source at all even on a cold day (campfire or grill will work fine, even if antique oven's the best), and if you REALLY need to get that cold gone ASAP, get well fed and do about half an hour of excercise, you'll easily overheat way more than you wanted to.

Note: getting well fed is optional here. getting warm is the key.

[Death]

Originally posted by Another Mother's Son:

Originally posted by BurlsoL:

Scout around for an antique wood stove.

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

For indoor heating, try finding antique stove.

Thanks, these are things I know. I guess I'm digging more into the gameplay mechanics here. If the only recourse is to scavenge the potbelly stove or hang out in your car, it means there is no active heat in the building. But the game doesn't indicate anything at all.

You can flip a light witch or a water tap on and off to test whether it is working, but seems to be currently no in-game indicator of house heat or energy supply to whatever heats the house.

Pretty sure the heat goes out with the power. I'd have to double check that though.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by Death:

Originally posted by Another Mother's Son:

Thanks, these are things I know. I guess I'm digging more into the gameplay mechanics here. If the only recourse is to scavenge the potbelly stove or hang out in your car, it means there is no active heat in the building. But the game doesn't indicate anything at all.

You can flip a light witch or a water tap on and off to test whether it is working, but seems to be currently no in-game indicator of house heat or energy supply to whatever heats the house.

Pretty sure the heat goes out with the power. I'd have to double check that though.

Houses are always a "comfier" temperature, power or no power. The amount might be different with/without power, but they're still comfier regardless.

[Death]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Originally posted by Death:

Pretty sure the heat goes out with the power. I'd have to double check that though.

Houses are always a "comfier" temperature, power or no power. The amount might be different with/without power, but they're still comfier regardless.

Well sure, but once it actually gets colder, heating your base does become much more important, because it does get cold enough in there to start causing negative effects.

When I have some time I'll start a new game in winter and do a test of this. I'm just not sure about it, because I never start immediately in the winter, so power is always out by the time winter hits.

[fractalgem]

I did a number of CDDA runs (which start in winter). On one of them I was able to get enough clothes to recover from my cold in the barn, not even to the farmhouse proper, from like 3-5 zombies, and was frequently getting slightly overheated by the time I wandered my way to the river. Generally if I made it TO the barn or the farmhouse, I was no longer going to be hypothermic with whatever clothes I snaggd from zombies, and there was maybe all of ONE run where I made it into the farmhouse and still wasn't able to recover from the cold cause I wasn't warm enough.

Just kill 10 zombies and check every single bit of clothing for being a unique layer or an upgrade to an existing layer.

So..yeah.

Dedicated Heaters are completely unnecessary in default settings, provided you have the spare carry capacity for MOAR LAYERS. And as heaters won't help you stay warm OUTSIDE your base anyways, which is where those debuffs you mentionwill actually MATTER...well. not sure what your argument is?


TLDR winter is EZ on default settings if you simply pile on the layers.

[Another Mother's Son]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Originally posted by Death:

Pretty sure the heat goes out with the power. I'd have to double check that though.

Houses are always a "comfier" temperature, power or no power. The amount might be different with/without power, but they're still comfier regardless.

Does it make a difference that I have a couple broken windows? Do sheets over the windows add any insulation properties?