If you've mined out huge areas of a mountain, how do you seal it up?

[ReichLivesMatter]

Have a map where large parts of it were mountain that I had a horde of prisoners mine out. Now that its basically a gigantic empty area of nothingness, I'm worried about infestations, especially for how large that area is.

How do you usually seal these areas up? I was thinking multiple rows of walls closing up the 'entrance' which is the only way out to the surface, but wouldn't the insects attack those and eventually come through?

[Astasia]

If there aren't any buildings (like walls/doors) within 30 tiles of it, then you don't have to do anything, infestations wont be able to spawn there. If you do have walls nearby, like it's right near your base, the best bet is to just fill in every overhead mountain tile with a wall, though technically you could make a checkerboard pattern of walls to save some stone, but that's a headache to construct without getting colonists trapped.

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Infestation

My advice is to just not worry about it, infestations are a "major threat" and storytellers will only send one of those at you at a time, infestations tend to be a lot easier to deal with than pirates as long as you go take them out right away. You don't get any extra attacks by having infestations, it's like getting a manhunter pack instead of a raid. So bottom line is having infestation points on your map usually makes the game slightly easier, getting an infestation is a "win" and you get some valuable jelly and a lot of free meat. The only time it should really be a concern is if the spawn location is inside of your base, as they can spawn and destroy furniture and workbenches before you can deal with them later in the game which is costly.

[TechFlame75]

If you click the roof symbol in the bottom right of your screen you will be able to see the different types of roofs. Insects can spawn in the dark green areas if you build walls in all the dark green areas they can't spawn. Otherwise, if you just block the exit they might break down the wall or mine and make a new exit then attack you.

There are many ways to deal with them without preventing spawns like creating a heat trap or turning the area into a huge freezer as well. But I am not too sure about how to do that.

[The Blind One]

I have a large emptied out mountain right next to my main base. There's like a 99% chance that an if an infestation spawns, it spawns there.

I have it completely closed off with double or triple walls with a large empty interior space where the bugs will spawn in. I have a bunch of incendiary mines rigged up with lots of burnable columns of wood around them in that space.

When the infestation spawns, one of the insects is bound to step on an incendiary mine, setting off a cascading trap of other mines and wooden structures going up in flames causing an instant cookout where they all get burned and turned to crisp inside the mountain.

It's basically an automated infestation cooking system. As soon as an insects triggers the trap they will all be burned to death in the mountain cooker.

This basically means every time a big threat event takes place and rolls an infestation, I basically can just relax and take a few extra days off in the game as the bugs will die by themselves.

I think the game has spawned a big infestation in the same mountain like 10x in a row by now lol

[Cat®]

You could fill it in entirely. Wooden core with hard stone outer shell. Or just wall it all off, maybe with an alternate exit that funnels away from your base. The most important thing is just that if infestations do spawn there that the terrain favours your counterattack. Focus on that and you wont go wrong.

[MortVent]

I tried this once... build wooden support pillars and mine out everything under the heavy roof... hay floors and lit it on fire. The supports burned out and it all collapsed solving the problem

[Doom Sayer]

I believe its possible to freeze it low enough that your safe. That point its a question of economics and space. For me im thinking of closing it up and deploying a passive cooler to observe how easily i can control temp. I believe I read that some people deck out everyone in best cold temp gear and just freeze everything at insanely low temps.

EDIT: Tested it there is not the slightest chance of freezing a mountain.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Doom Sayer:

passive cooler

That's your problem. Passive coolers have a minimum temperature that they can lower to. That minimum temperature isn't even cold enough to refrigerate, let alone freeze a mountain solid.

[4FCG]

Set up a massive amount of campfires so you can turn the place into an oven if need be.

[Big [REDACTED] Marty]

Originally posted by Cat®:

You could fill it in entirely. Wooden core with hard stone outer shell. Or just wall it all off, maybe with an alternate exit that funnels away from your base. The most important thing is just that if infestations do spawn there that the terrain favours your counterattack. Focus on that and you wont go wrong.

especially with a wooden core? fire would be very effective

[Astasia]

Originally posted by 4FCG:

Set up a massive amount of campfires so you can turn the place into an oven if need be.

Campfires can only heat a room up to 28C max. Similar to how Passive Coolers can only cool down to 17C. If you want to push temperatures outside the comfortable ranges you need powered heating/cooling, or just set things on fire.

[Playzr 🐵]

I may get shouted at but I would probably eventually use the command that removes the mountain roof and make it something useful like a field for crops. Or you could make it into a mountain base. You could use it for storage. I guess this question is more about infestations and dealing with those. You could edit the story teller so you don't get infestations. I mean why play with infestations on if you don't want infestations to happen so you can fight them? I don't like the idea of hordes of spiders appearing in a mountain that don't yield any useful items or meat.

[Balm]

Originally posted by Рlαγζr 🐵:

I may get shouted at but I would probably eventually use the command that removes the mountain roof and make it something useful like a field for crops. Or you could make it into a mountain base. You could use it for storage. I guess this question is more about infestations and dealing with those. You could edit the story teller so you don't get infestations. I mean why play with infestations on if you don't want infestations to happen so you can fight them? I don't like the idea of hordes of spiders appearing in a mountain that don't yield any useful items or meat.

Use a mod that gives you chitin from insects, and craft a bunch of valuable armor from it to sell?

Even without a mod, they are free kibble for your livestock, and free target practice to train shooters with.

[Playzr 🐵]

Without some centralised hive where I can go and kill the ant queen once and for good and stop this evil from spreading I'd prefer to pretend I already did that and disable insect infestations.
I wouldn't want to make armour out of spider corpses then wear it or to feed the slimy insect meat to my animals, which I then consume the meat of. The spiders must be destroyed.

[Balm]

Originally posted by Рlαγζr 🐵:

Without some centralised hive where I can go and kill the ant queen once and for good and stop this evil from spreading I'd prefer to pretend I already did that and disable insect infestations.
I wouldn't want to make armour out of spider corpses then wear it or to feed the slimy insect meat to my animals, which I then consume the meat of. The spiders must be destroyed.

I do agree that there should be some hive system that you can purge to end infestations on your map. That would make for a great mod since it would add a gameplay goal that affects the sustainability of your colony.

Insect detector device, finds the main hive in your surrounding hexes, then you deploy troops to take it out? Sounds cool.

Anyways IMO the game would be a little dull without some sort of internal threat to mountainside colonies, since they are so durable. They can't be drop-podded into, so I think the insect threat is meant to offset that.

[Doom Sayer]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Doom Sayer:

passive cooler

That's your problem. Passive coolers have a minimum temperature that they can lower to. That minimum temperature isn't even cold enough to refrigerate, let alone freeze a mountain solid.

I meant to test I had like 10 coolers and they didnt even get close to temp to counter infestations. Only infestation counter is filling in the mountains or using combat.