Is it worth heating your entire base?

[Llama]

Some rooms you want heated to avoid debuffs like sleeping the cold but what about for your entire base? It takes a lot of energy in cold biomes to heat your entire base and I don't know if it's worth it. Is it just better to heat some rooms and leave the rest of your base cold?

[Bryan=0101]

I've used climate control mods that give you like this indust heating infrastructure but in my experiences if you build your base right and make walls thick. Even if you only heat a few rooms, the rest of the base should be above outside temps within an acceptable margin.

[Stormsong]

I climate control workshops, the kitchen, bedrooms, the hospital and the greenhouse. Otherwise, give folks a jacket, or parka if it's real cold, and on to the next concern. And typically at least some of these rooms will share walls and I'll run a vent through them so I can save on individual heaters/coolers

[gachi is manly]

I heat the bedrooms and eventually rooms that pawns spend a lot of time working in/hydroponic area..

It helps to have the most important rooms heated when you can afford to do it. Workstations in suboptimal temperatures suffer a loss of productivity. Plus a long cold snap can have everyone freezing even when they're indoors depending on how cold the biome is. Double walling outside walls helps cut down on the amount of heaters you need by adding an extra layer of insulation.

[Astasia]

Depends on how cold it gets. If the map is -100C then heating most of the base makes sense, not everyone, or everything, in your base is going to be able to survive that. You might have quest guests without dusters/parkas, pets, prisoners, or rescued NPCs that you generally don't want to freeze to death. You don't need to get it all the way up to 20C though if energy is a concern, just to something safe.

If the map only drops to like -10C in the winter, then you probably only need to heat the bedrooms and hospital, maybe the prison if you like to strip them and don't want to get them anything warm to wear.

Basically you just want most of your base survivable, it doesn't need to be comfortable. Only bedrooms and hospitals need to be comfortable for mood benefits.

[gimmethegepgun]

Bedrooms, hospital, prison, greenhouse, and anything that has a work station should be kept to a reasonable temperature. Bedrooms, hospital, and prison to avoid mood penalties and to ensure the safety of prisoners or guests that may not have cold weather gear, greenhouse because plants need to be kinda warm to grow, and work stations because they get a work speed penalty if it's too cold.

[MortVent]

Depends on the environment, at first.. but eventually yes

In super cold or hot areas I heat/cool the majority of the base. Otherwise I keep the living/work areas comfortable (labs, workshops, rooms/medical/prison) and let warehouses just be (though I do tend to eventually get them under climate controlled temps too)

[Punyrock]

Originally posted by Llama:

Some rooms you want heated to avoid debuffs like sleeping the cold but what about for your entire base? It takes a lot of energy in cold biomes to heat your entire base and I don't know if it's worth it. Is it just better to heat some rooms and leave the rest of your base cold?

It's most efficient to heat areas where temperate matters. Workspaces, bedrooms, hospitals, prisons, greenhouses. Maybe a few more types of rooms.

I find it more fun to heat everything, and make things as comfortable as possible for my pawns.
Living the high life!

[Pizzazz]

Unmodded, no. No it's not. Modded? Depends on your needs. Bedrooms, commonplace work spaces, really small shelters dotting the landscape aren't resource intensive & keeps colonists alive on outer map salvage operations in the arctic.

[MagnusCerebrum]

I like to keep my colonists warm, snug and comfy in my base so I usually heat the entire base if I can afford to.

[Hoki]

Originally posted by Astasia:

If the map only drops to like -10C in the winter, [...]maybe the prison if you like to strip them and don't want to get them anything warm to wear.

worth mentioning here as well though: if you want to recruit prisoners give them a comfy temperature.
temperature has an effect on mood if its not to their liking and mood on the other hand has an impact on recruitability (including breaking resistance).

so entire base - only if the outside temperature are harmful or affordable.
otherwise greenhouses ofc, bedrooms (to prevent 'slept in cold'); prisons as well
then all other rooms pawns spend time in

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Llama:

Some rooms you want heated to avoid debuffs like sleeping the cold but what about for your entire base? It takes a lot of energy in cold biomes to heat your entire base and I don't know if it's worth it. Is it just better to heat some rooms and leave the rest of your base cold?

There's not going to be one correct answer to this, but a lot of correct answers depending on the biome, your base's construction, your available resources, difficulty level, how many pawns you have that are about to break, how developed your playthrough is, etc...

I generally end up heating everything but hallways. But, I also always build double-thick exterior walls and, in general, my base ends up being a... blob. "Blob" bases, like ever-growing masses of tumors, are well-insulated just as part of one of their attributes. (Basically, starting from a central core and just building on more and more rooms surrounding it.)

If you have the power, there's no reason not to heat all the living spaces. If it's exceptionally cold and you have some troublesome pawns and not many sources of wool/fur/warm clothing, you may want to consider heating main hallways just so long as you go ahead and airlock them in that case.

In my most recent play, I ended up having to use campfires for heating and stockpiling a boatload of wood for awhile. Worked out fine, no problems, and everyone stayed warm. When it got too hot, I'd just leave the doors open... :)

Note: I just updated to 1.2 recently. Didn't they change that so that heaters don't require a Component, now, just more Steel? (Or, maybe that's Vents, instead?) If so, there's doubly no reason not to heat (or Vent) as much as you can if you have the power and ongoing sources of Steel. One of the bigger considerations used to be that when adding many coolers and heaters you could end up in a bad way when you were low on Components, couldn't make any, couldn't buy any, then couldn't build/research your way to being able to make them since you didn't have the Components due to constant "repairs."


Added Notes:

1) Things not to "heat" -

Large Storage areas.

A Dedicated Comms Room. (Nobody will be in there for very long.)

Short Hallways leading to the outside. (Or "Airlock Spaces.")

Most Animal Sleeping areas (Barns) won't need heating unless you buy out-of-biome animals or are in a particularly clod environment subject to Cold Snaps. (At that point, good luck if you're already having heating issues....)

Any interior smaller storage space where pawns aren't going to do more than pickup/drop-off items.

Smelting areas - They produce a good bit of heat, themselves, so you may need to even keep the door open or put in a vent if they're a proper room. (Door closed when not in use, Smelter turned "Off," door open to outside when during use is my normal ops for up to relatively cool environments. If you had the power to keep them on all the time, you've already got enough heat. :))

Depending on the biome temps, you can usually get away with one heater for every two bedrooms using a Vent. That depends on how big your individual Bedrooms are, of course, among other things. I temperate regions with the occasional Cold Snap, it's 1:3 or so. (I don't use "Barracks" past a few days into the start of the game. You can save a bit of heating resources there, though, if you choose to use them for longer than that and double-wall them.)

2) Heating Helpers

Cooler Exhaust can be used, but take care it doesn't build up too much. One thing that can be done is to vent cooler exhaust to a good number of rooms in a cold environment using Vents and long narrow corridors. An exterior door leading to that network (or Vent) can be used to emergency vent the exhaust if it's too much. Alternatively, one can balance Roof Tiles vs Exhaust Needs. A couple of coolers feeding into a space that only has a couple of unroofed tiles will build up a bit of heat. If only one tile, it'll get pretty hot. Balance as needed. Typically, though, these are Freezer located coolers since they're running all the time, providing that constant heat, and you don't want hot areas next to your Freezer and these coolers - Coolers insulate the same as one wall tile.)

Steam Generators give "intermittent heat." They are not constant sources of heat. They can be partially blocked to provide a bit of heat. (I don't think that's changed in 1.2+.) One can use them to help heat "Greenhouses" in cold biomes with some balancing provided by a heater or two.

Wood/Chemfuel generators give off a bit of heat, too.

Airlock as many entrances as possible into your base in a cold environment. It's worth the effort and component expense for at least one auto-door in that setup, depending on how long the hall is between doors.

In any area where you're using heating helpers, like coolers/steam generators/etc, always have some way to immediately release that heat "just in case," like a door or vent.

WARM CLOTHING - If you're really concerned, get some animal wool producers as fast as you can. Rush to make some parkas out of patch-leather if you have to, as well.

[brian_va]

Assuming you can get the components to build power sources and storage, there's really no good reason not to heat or cool all the living/work spaces.

[Hoki]

Originally posted by brian_va:

Assuming you can get the components to build power sources and storage, there's really no good reason not to heat or cool all the living/work spaces.

depending on difficulty/situation: its a matter of materials and time.

if you lack one of those you heat/cool just the things that definitly need it.

if you have both you can go ahead and cover all areas.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Llama:

Some rooms you want heated to avoid debuffs like sleeping the cold but what about for your entire base? It takes a lot of energy in cold biomes to heat your entire base and I don't know if it's worth it. Is it just better to heat some rooms and leave the rest of your base cold?

AFAIK (please correct me if wrong), you still get the “bad temperature” workspeed slowdown even if the pawn is comfortable at that temperature, right?

As mentioned in Morkonen’s extensive guide, AC units can be used effectively to slightly warm areas with their exhaust if you design the chimney correctly (have them vent into an unroofed central chimney in the summer, then roof the chimney and open a vent to another room in the winter). That said, it’s erratic because the exhaust only exists while the AC unit is running and the chimney room will draw heat out of the adjacent room through the vent when it’s not running, so it’s better to use for keeping some heat in an otherwise unheated room to lessen transfer from heated areas.

If you’re playing Royalty the solar pinhole psycast is quite helpful. Level one, cheap to buy, and doesn’t require much focus. I don’t think it raises the temp a lot but you can put a bunch of them around the base.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by ichifish:

AFAIK (please correct me if wrong), you still get the “bad temperature” workspeed slowdown even if the pawn is comfortable at that temperature, right?

Correct. The workspeed penalty is on the work station itself, and is based on the temperature of the room, not the pawn's comfort in that room.