How to build a freezer?

[Furry Eskimo]

Hello,
I’ve been a bit confused regarding freezer designs, wondering if I’m missing something obvious. You see, I have what seems to be a Massive freezer, but still sometimes run out of food.

It needs five cooling units to keep it at the desired temperature, and I think four roof supports. The walls are double layered, and I use double doors to try and keep the cold inside.

I toss most food items into this main freezer, and it fills up with meats, plants, meals, etc. I used to keep animal feed in there too, but the food consumption seems to spike a lot in the winter, and things get, tricky. It seems like I either have way too much, or far too little.

How large are most freezers?
I suspect my farm animals are to blame, but anything I breed needs to be fed in the winter, right? I’ve been opting to let the animals breed all summer, then perform a mass slaughter in the fall/winter, but I get one dated with resources, and the whole thing’s a bit, hard to balance.

[VitaKaninen]

There are several ways to avoid the need for a massive freezer. You can use the deep storage mod and ogrestacks so that you have tons of storage space for corpses and food. Also, you can raise turkeys and farm hay to make kibble and this will provide a constant source of food so storage is not an issue.

I have stopped double walling my freezer since electricity is practically free, and instead just crank the temperature down low enough that it will never have time to thaw out if a solar flare hits.

I have animals being slaughtered every day so there is a constant source of meat, and I don't even need a freezer, if I didn't want to have one. I just don't like to hear the notification that meat and meals have rotted away in storage.

In my last playthrough, I have just been building my pens indoors around my hydroponics and letting the animals eat the hay from there.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190893351
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190892000
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190896754

[MadArtillery]

Why stick plants in there? If you look at how long rice or corn lasts you'll quickly realize how small a freezer you actually need.

[marcusaddamsson]

When I used to keep lotsa animals, I most definitely had a second freezer for hay. And if I had to feed the animals, I would try to feed them kibble.

Regarding freezers... double walls helps. But what you really wanna have is 'mountain roof' if you want the best insulation. There's a 'house' icon in the lower right that will show roof types; you want the dark green stuff.

That said... eventually I just stopped caring for animals. Now the last thing I wanna do is tell you how to have fun, but IMHO animals just aren't worth the effort. I would put in a ton of effort to keep them safe/fed/etc. But at some point, you really need to look at what you're getting for all the effort/time.

[VitaKaninen]

I like to keep lots of animals just for the fun of it. I like to keep deer, elk, caribou, etc because I think they are pretty and add to the decor of my base.

I don't keep the grain/herbal medicine in the freezer because I am worried about it spoiling, I do it so that the freshness numbers all match. OCD, or whatever.

[Furry Eskimo]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
My current freezer is partially in a hill, but the area didn’t have many mountains.

I haven’t used many mods, but good to know. I was curious if there were storage shelves I’d overlooked..

Kibble and bay definitely take up a lot of space, but they don’t last, and it seems like I waste a lot of time making it..

And no offense, animals definitely are, taxing.. They require a lot of boring micromanagement.. It seems more fitting to only have a few animal types, but there are so many to chose from!! I have a few of anything that wonders through my territory. I’ve been told animals like chickens are great, but somehow haven’t encountered any..

Most of my money comes from medicine, which is apparently weird? I grow a field of it every summer, then pack it away. It seems for a ton, and I like backing a lot to spare. I ended up tiling my floor with silver because I didn’t really know what to do with it..

[marcusaddamsson]

Didn't know what to do with *silver*? :)

The one animal I highly recommend is a horse. A small herd of horses is easy to keep, and they're dynamite for sending out micro-caravans. Send one guy with a few horses, bunch of silver and head to the closest 'purple' village. Buy stuff, get alliance points, instead of a pile of silver that just increasing raid size. The horse-borne caravan can get there and back in a few days, especially when your starting location is picked for proximity to said purple town. And be sure to schedule your next caravan after the market resets.

Oh and ♥♥♥♥ chickens. I've had 'em. Aside from the lag... nothing worse than your coop getting damaged, and you got a ton of chickens running around the map after you just went thru a nasty raid.

[pauloandrade224]

Originally posted by VitaKaninen:

There are several ways to avoid the need for a massive freezer. You can use the deep storage mod and ogrestacks so that you have tons of storage space for corpses and food. Also, you can raise turkeys and farm hay to make kibble and this will provide a constant source of food so storage is not an issue.

I have stopped double walling my freezer since electricity is practically free, and instead just crank the temperature down low enough that it will never have time to thaw out if a solar flare hits.

I have animals being slaughtered every day so there is a constant source of meat, and I don't even need a freezer, if I didn't want to have one. I just don't like to hear the notification that meat and meals have rotted away in storage.

In my last playthrough, I have just been building my pens indoors around my hydroponics and letting the animals eat the hay from there.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190893351
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190892000
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190896754

WOW u can feed like 10 armies with that and probably an actual irl city too combined!!!!!!!

[pauloandrade224]

Originally posted by marcusaddamsson:

Didn't know what to do with *silver*? :)

The one animal I highly recommend is a horse. A small herd of horses is easy to keep, and they're dynamite for sending out micro-caravans. Send one guy with a few horses, bunch of silver and head to the closest 'purple' village. Buy stuff, get alliance points, instead of a pile of silver that just increasing raid size. The horse-borne caravan can get there and back in a few days, especially when your starting location is picked for proximity to said purple town. And be sure to schedule your next caravan after the market resets.

Oh and ♥♥♥♥ chickens. I've had 'em. Aside from the lag... nothing worse than your coop getting damaged, and you got a ton of chickens running around the map after you just went thru a nasty raid.

At least the chickens are realistic hahahaah

[pauloandrade224]

Originally posted by Furry Eskimo:

Thanks for all the suggestions.
My current freezer is partially in a hill, but the area didn’t have many mountains.

I haven’t used many mods, but good to know. I was curious if there were storage shelves I’d overlooked..

Kibble and bay definitely take up a lot of space, but they don’t last, and it seems like I waste a lot of time making it..

And no offense, animals definitely are, taxing.. They require a lot of boring micromanagement.. It seems more fitting to only have a few animal types, but there are so many to chose from!! I have a few of anything that wonders through my territory. I’ve been told animals like chickens are great, but somehow haven’t encountered any..

Most of my money comes from medicine, which is apparently weird? I grow a field of it every summer, then pack it away. It seems for a ton, and I like backing a lot to spare. I ended up tiling my floor with silver because I didn’t really know what to do with it..

chickens are from traders they arent wild animals after all.

And medicine is legal drugs always remember that

[pauloandrade224]

Originally posted by VitaKaninen:

There are several ways to avoid the need for a massive freezer. You can use the deep storage mod and ogrestacks so that you have tons of storage space for corpses and food. Also, you can raise turkeys and farm hay to make kibble and this will provide a constant source of food so storage is not an issue.

I have stopped double walling my freezer since electricity is practically free, and instead just crank the temperature down low enough that it will never have time to thaw out if a solar flare hits.

I have animals being slaughtered every day so there is a constant source of meat, and I don't even need a freezer, if I didn't want to have one. I just don't like to hear the notification that meat and meals have rotted away in storage.

In my last playthrough, I have just been building my pens indoors around my hydroponics and letting the animals eat the hay from there.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190893351
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190892000
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3190896754

genuine question how does ur pc handle so many pawns in the same map? is it that op?

[VitaKaninen]

This is a relatively small number of colonists for me. It looks like more than it is because I am also housing refugees at the moment.

It runs fine at 1x speed. The most I have had at once was around 200 and my pc had a hard time with that amount mostly from the number of animals and crops needed to feed them all.

[The Blind One]

Impressed by the sheer space efficiency you got going there VitaKaninen

Now if the goal is to just produce the ultimate freezer. I recommend people read this guide:

https://old.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/ynlhgu/a_definitive_guide_to_efficient_freezers_14/

You can abuse some of the rimworld mechanics to get insanely powerful freezers for the cheap by doing some trickery.

The best standard freezer you can probably build in the vanilla unmodded game is the 'Open Airlock Chimney' variant.

[Furry Eskimo]

I'll be sure to read the guide, and do you buy eggs to get chickens, or live adult chickens?

As I recall, I had a lot of random animals, like llamas, pigs, guinea pigs, and some larger animals too. I vaguely recall attempting to taim one of those really aggressive animals with a lighting hold horn. I think I had an inspired handler, but don't recall if they were skilled enough to maintain the creature once taimed.

I think I let the pigs eat dead bodies due to a lack of food..
The guinea pigs went on a 100+ hour binge because I brewed beer in the stables.. I need d someplace temperature controlled and I didn't realize the beer was being dropped on the floor and stolen but the animals.
The llamas and other animals produced fit and milk which I used to make sandbags and to prevent starvation.
Etc.

The creature I had the most of by Far, were polar bears.. I had over one per colonist. They made a huge mess of my floors and dormitories, but they could move items, which was a lifesaver.. That was their main function for me. It freed up humans to do production work, and sweeping floors.. They also made excellent bullet sponges during raids, because I could lose a bear and simply train a new one. Eventually I had tooany to reliably train.

I also had some sort of giant pack animal, and while they could haul a lotz I suspect they're eating too much.

[VitaKaninen]

You can buy chickens from settlements or orbital traders. In the base game without mods, I don't think they sell fertilized eggs.

Taming wild turkeys is a better solution in my opinion, since you get bird leather when you slaughter them, so you get a lot more money and crafting materials.

I use a mod that makes Thrumbos clean for indoors, so I use them for my hauling as well as riding.

Here is a guide that compares the profitability of the different animal types with a nice spreadsheet.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/p92wwt/13_animals_guide/

[Veylox]

You either use mods that increase stack size to reduce the freezer's size, or you just spam shelves in your freezer.

And yeah ranching is the problem if you run out of food in winter. Either play on eternal summer maps, OR overproduce food by a ton before winter comes, OR be ready to just kill your animals midwinter when you realize they'll bring you to starvation