Heh, Straw floor killed my colony

[Gustuv Wynd]

I haven't played in a long time and thought I would give it a go with vanilla as there have been some updates. Saw the new to me straw floor and thought that was pretty cool so I put in my barn. I am not sure what happened, but it burst into flames. No conduits anywhere near by...only thing in there was a swamp cooler and animal sleeping spots in a cut out in a hill side I had mined out. My whole colony ran to put out the fire. I was watching and the first wasn't going out...they were stomping, but nothing. Then all of a sudden one dropped and that's when I noticed the temp was 1000°C. I put one rescuing the downed person and drafted the rest and tried to move them out. None made it to the door...and my goats and yaks died instantly when the fire started.

Is this straw floor a death trap? I suppose if I had researched the fire suppression foam and have a couple pods in there it would have been fine, but I was still trying to get geothermal power. I mean...it wasn't that big of a deal to be filth resistant or at least not for a danger like this. I don't think I will ever use it again.

[Azrak]

Next time when you encounter a fire in an enclosed space deconstruct a wall tile. It will make the area count as outdoors, removing the heat and enabling you to safely put out the fire.

[Gustuv Wynd]

I have had plenty of fires break out indoors, but my colonists just stomped it out. Though I was thinking of trying it again and remove the roof or something to let the heat out if there was a fire. That 1000° was rather intense.

[coyo7e]

This can happen to any room with flammable flooring or a lot of furniture, etc. A lot of the Ancient Ruins you discover via Ideology DLC, will have unstable fuel cells that start fires and if the room is full of junk it can go up REALLY fast.

Also, if you put walls and a roof up on a geothermal generator it'll get to like 1400-1500F, hot enough that it'll glow in the dark at night, and occasionally light itself or the door and walls on fire if they're flammable.

[Astasia]

Straw Matting has a flammability of 150% compared to the 22% of wood or 32% of carpet. It doesn't spontaneously burst into flames, it requires some sort of trigger like any other fire, but once it does catch fire it will very quickly turn the room into a hellish chamber of death if you don't pop a wall open.

[Gustuv Wynd]

Yeah, still not sure how the fire started...my goats breath fire apparently.

I can remember a few fires in the past where I lost a few tiles of carpet due to fire spreading, but my people still put the fire out without any injuries. The flames on this got so intense that I was squinting to look at the screen. I mean I am not mad or anything...just rather...shocked.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Azrak:

Next time when you encounter a fire in an enclosed space deconstruct a wall tile. It will make the area count as outdoors, removing the heat and enabling you to safely put out the fire.

Or at the very least, tell someone to hold the door open so a lot of the heat leaves through the open door.

[Kittenpox]

One of the things I've found useful is to make the room large enough that it requires a pillar to hold the roof up (like a 15x15 space), and then make the pillar out of wood. As soon as that pillar is gone, the place is now open to the outdoors and has a chimney to let the heat vent outwards.
Doesn't save the contents of the room, but does mean your firefighters don't instantly roast to death when they're doing the cleanup.

[Ville Valste]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Straw Matting has a flammability of 150% compared to the 22% of wood or 32% of carpet. It doesn't spontaneously burst into flames, it requires some sort of trigger like any other fire, but once it does catch fire it will very quickly turn the room into a hellish chamber of death if you don't pop a wall open.

So what you're saying is, I should make the lobby of my base an enclosed space with a straw floor and lots of flammable furniture, perhaps to top it off with a couple of fuel cells? Then when the enemies come, I just light it up and watch them turn into ash.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Ville Valste:

Originally posted by Astasia:

Straw Matting has a flammability of 150% compared to the 22% of wood or 32% of carpet. It doesn't spontaneously burst into flames, it requires some sort of trigger like any other fire, but once it does catch fire it will very quickly turn the room into a hellish chamber of death if you don't pop a wall open.

So what you're saying is, I should make the lobby of my base an enclosed space with a straw floor and lots of flammable furniture, perhaps to top it off with a couple of fuel cells? Then when the enemies come, I just light it up and watch them turn into ash.

The main problems with attempting this approach are that the enemy will often smash their way in, which will make it outdoors and so the giant oven doesn't work, and that leaving a door open so that they don't do that significantly blunts the temperature (and it's difficult to get back around and close the door to lock them in)

[Dreagon]

Originally posted by coyo7e:

Also, if you put walls and a roof up on a geothermal generator it'll get to like 1400-1500F, hot enough that it'll glow in the dark at night, and occasionally light itself or the door and walls on fire if they're flammable.

Only if you leave no space at all. Don't build 8x8 walls around it, build 8x9 walls around it. That way temperatures max out around 150 degrees. Sure, that's hot and your pawns get heatstroke fairly quickly inside but nothing combusts.

[Gustuv Wynd]

Originally posted by Dreagon:

Originally posted by coyo7e:

Also, if you put walls and a roof up on a geothermal generator it'll get to like 1400-1500F, hot enough that it'll glow in the dark at night, and occasionally light itself or the door and walls on fire if they're flammable.

Only if you leave no space at all. Don't build 8x8 walls around it, build 8x9 walls around it. That way temperatures max out around 150 degrees. Sure, that's hot and your pawns get heatstroke fairly quickly inside but nothing combusts.

I typically put a sun light in there and use it to grow year round. If I forget to open the exterior vent in the summer it will only be 40° in there. So yeah...just give it some space.

[coyo7e]

Originally posted by Ville Valste:

So what you're saying is, I should make the lobby of my base an enclosed space with a straw floor and lots of flammable furniture, perhaps to top it off with a couple of fuel cells? Then when the enemies come, I just light it up and watch them turn into ash.

This used to be a really common strategy in 1.1 and maybe 1.2, people would line their killzone entranceway with wooden floors and then light it when they got raided, or simply because a burnt wooden floor" tile would slow movement to something like 30% of base or something absurd..!

Burnt wooden floors' movement rate got "fixed" because of this. They still burn quickly but won't "trap" pawns on the tile when it's destroyed by slowing them a huge huge amount.

[Gedsaro]

Start of 1.3 I lost a colony (not all the people, just the ENTIRE Base complex i made)
Due to combo of being too cheap to use something other than wood to build most things out of, and using straw matting as neat looking doormats on all my many entrances...

One day there was a psycic pulse or something, which sent all the BOOMalopes on the map into manhunter mode, of which there was a whole pack, killed them all, but having around 6 of those explode and start fires around 3 parts of yourwood base while downing a colonist or two, and having a few in bed from previous injuries leads to lots of fire, focused on saving the store house, only to look over at the otherside of the base to see it half gone...

Tried to fight the fire, but the best that could be done is save a couple valuable items, and watch as the entire thing burred down. It was neat.

[Qweesdy]

The simple solution is simple: Don't use straw floors.

They have poor flammability (the worse of any kind of floor), poor beauty (and no way to improve it with other materials), and bad movement speed (93% movement when every other constructed floor is 100%).

If you're trying to minimize wealth (the size of raids), or don't have resources for anything good; just leave the floor as bare dirt or smoothed stone.

The only sane reason to ever consider straw is to reduce the game's "animal filth" nagging (which is easy to ignore and can be modded out).

[Gustuv Wynd]

Originally posted by Qweesdy:

The simple solution is simple: Don't use straw floors.

They have poor flammability (the worse of any kind of floor), poor beauty (and no way to improve it with other materials), and bad movement speed (93% movement when every other constructed floor is 100%).

If you're trying to minimize wealth (the size of raids), or don't have resources for anything good; just leave the floor as bare dirt or smoothed stone.

The only sane reason to ever consider straw is to reduce the game's "animal filth" nagging (which is easy to ignore and can be modded out).

It was only in my barn where the animals slept/took cover during raids, but yeah...I doubt I will ever use it again. It wasn't worth it.