Temperature - Venting Coolers to an "Outdoor Room."

[Morkonan]

So, here's the thing...

Long ago, I built one of my first bases and, being "noobie-level savvy" knew that I couldn't just stick coolers in rooms without planning on venting the hot air they generate to the Outside. "OK, fine," I thought. "I'll just wall of this section here and then the hot air will dump into this central area in my base and get vented up to the outside air, since there's no roof."

But, that's not what happened and everyone died... :) The coolers just superheated that area and then Rimworld happened and that was that.

Since then, I have never even tried to vent coolers into any sort of enclosed space that didn't have what amounts to a direct path to a map edge... Old Habits Die Hard and now I've got a sprawling base that houses about 15 colonists with rooms for rent for 20 or so+ "Visitors" from Hospitality mod and I'm starting to get a bit cramped.

Then, I read this: https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Temperature

OK, so, basically, the way that reads is that as long as there isn't a Roof, even if an area is enclosed by a wall, Heat will not build up and do Rimworld and slaughter my whole fire-engulfed base with space-monkey-bugs, right? IOW - I can vent a couple of coolers to a space of about four tiles or so and it will count as venting it outside as long as there is no roof there. Larger spaces might be able to be partially roofed and still do the same job, regardless of still qualifying as a "Room." (No roof, but walls and even a door = Outside Room)

Am I seeing that right and that the only slightly buggy thing there is that it will read an unadjusted temperature when the game is paused for that "Outdoor Room."

PS - Yes, I admit it. In the time I've played since that very early playthrough I haven't tried venting to an outside room again. I know the Temperature mechanics an' stuff... I've been playing quite awhile. Not necessarily playing intelligently, but you get what you gets... But, I practically cooked my entire colony by doing that the first time I tried it, long ago, and the screams have haunted me ever since.

[desrtfox071]

In my experience, any enclosed area becomes a room, and as such has a temperature that is dependent on many things. The "outdoors" is not a room of any sort, and thus there is only a single temperature associated with the "outdoors". In that case, you can vent freely. In the case of an "outdoor room", what you really have is a indoor space, and thus it has temperature variance, with a certain amount of venting available. that venting is dependent an a few things, the amount, or lack thereof, of a roof is one of them. So, yes, you certainly could vent your coolers to an "outdoor room" depending on a ton of variable like amount of cooling, size of "outdoor room", amount of unroofed venting space, presence of doors, frequency of doors opened, etc. So, I believe your assertions to be correct, but you will need to monitor that room to make sure that you aren't still superheating that area.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

I typically vent my freezer to an enclosed room. I set it up with 6 open tiles for 3 coolers. Meaning 2 open to the sky tiles per cooler. Never have any issues with that setup.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

.. So, I believe your assertions to be correct, but you will need to monitor that room to make sure that you aren't still superheating that area.

Well, considering that I sort of don't want to kill everybody... Yeah, I'm certainly going to have to monitor it. :) But, the wiki entry seems to basically say, after all is said and done, that equalization is fairly instantaneous for "Outdoor" areas, which are basically anything without a Roof tile. Maxwell's demon will still only work so quickly and I'm not quite sure how to predict the needs for xx coolers venting into xx "Outdoor" space. But, either way, it looks, at least from what my tired old brain can see, that I shouldn't need much room for a couple of coolers to equalize temp with the ambient outdoor temperature.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

OK, so, basically, the way that reads is that as long as there isn't a Roof, even if an area is enclosed by a wall, Heat will not build up and do Rimworld and slaughter my whole fire-engulfed base with space-monkey-bugs, right?

Heat builds up depending on the amount of unroofed tiles. It only takes a few unroofed tiles to completely vent a pretty large room.

Originally posted by Morkonan:

IOW - I can vent a couple of coolers to a space of about four tiles or so and it will count as venting it outside as long as there is no roof there.

You can successfully vent 4 coolers into the same single unroofed tile, the so-called chimney design.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by AlP:

You can successfully vent 4 coolers into the same single unroofed tile, the so-called chimney design.

This, I did not know. Thanks for this information.

[elipod]

Last time I tried it, with more than 10% of room tiles being unroofed, game drops any calculations and simply set that room's temp equal to outside.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by elipod:

Last time I tried it, with more than 10% of room tiles being unroofed, game drops any calculations and simply set that room's temp equal to outside.

This is also good to know. I was aware that there was some threshold, but never bothered to actually run such a test. that's why I suggested the OP would have to monitor.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by AlP:

...You can successfully vent 4 coolers into the same single unroofed tile, the so-called chimney design.

Thanks. I'll try this out. So many bases built on "Avoid PTSD" principles... Just one of those design habits I got into the habit of... designing. :)

Originally posted by elipod:

Last time I tried it, with more than 10% of room tiles being unroofed, game drops any calculations and simply set that room's temp equal to outside.

Considering the difference in behaviors, this looks like it's what it's supposed to do. ie: Paused and Running give two different results, with the game enforcing an auto-resolve due to "Outside" every game tick... or something like that. (Hopefully, it won't cause lag... :) )

[Astasia]

Basically if it says "outdoors" then the room is always going to be perfectly equalized with the map and nothing you do to it will effect the temperature. If it says "unroofed (#)" then temperature effects you pump into the room will have some effect depending on the percent of tiles that are unroofed and the size of the room.

There is a difference between a room that is listed as "outdoors" in terms of roofing, and the outdoor/outside room type though. If you stick a table in a room and the table classifies it as an outdoors room, that just means it's too large to get any room related bonuses, but the room could still be roofed over and "indoors" in relation to temperature control.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Basically if it says "outdoors" then the room is always going to be perfectly equalized with the map and nothing you do to it will effect the temperature. If it says "unroofed (#)" then temperature effects you pump into the room will have some effect depending on the percent of tiles that are unroofed and the size of the room.

There is a difference between a room that is listed as "outdoors" in terms of roofing, and the outdoor/outside room type though. If you stick a table in a room and the table classifies it as an outdoors room, that just means it's too large to get any room related bonuses, but the room could still be roofed over and "indoors" in relation to temperature control.

Ahh...

So, basically the tool-tip display is going to tell me exactly what to expect, more or less, by telling me the class of the enclosed space? Then, that makes it pretty easy to predict the results as you've laid out. As long as I don't enter into the realm of "ridiculously large enclosed and roofed spaces" (like a covered sports arena) that put it in the "game barely understands what you did, there" category, then I should be good-to-go with being able to rely on the tooltip for the true enclosed-space class, it seems.

[Hades]

For my food freezer area I vent 3 coolers into a 4x4 enclosed space which has a door access.

During summer the area is unroofed and the door forbidden. Heat vents safely.

During winter I roof the area and leave the door open (Y key) and my adjacent kitchen and dining room get heat and save electricity.

Hope this helps.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Storm:

For my food freezer area I vent 3 coolers into a 4x4 enclosed space which has a door access.

During summer the area is unroofed and the door forbidden. Heat vents safely.

During winter I roof the area and leave the door open (Y key) and my adjacent kitchen and dining room get heat and save electricity.

Hope this helps.

Knowing the space will take that number of heaters does help. I generally try to avoid using exhaust from freezer areas for heating. When I have, I've usually used Vents and a sort of stone duct system, one leading inside, the other outside, switched as necessary.

Should be able to test all this out tonight. The area where I'm going to duct all this too is where my mortars are... with shell shelves... It'd be nice if it didn't get too hot, there. Less interesting, though... :)