Air conditioner "waste"

[VegasGoat]

What is the air conditioner "waste" output? If I hook this up to my gas filtering system like I do with my furnace output, the air conditioner doesn't seem to work to heat the air in a room and basically just sucks all the air out of the room into the filtering system. If I just stick a single piece of pipe that goes nowhere, then everything seems to work fine. That pipe ends up with a pressure somewhere between the input and output, but the gas in there is really cold even when I'm heating the room. I don't really understand why it works like that.

[Subjekt-Henning]

The "waste" port is only to dump the heat. The AC cools the air and transfers the heat via the waste port so you should connect a pressurized pipe and cool it with radiators outside of your base.

[VegasGoat]

OK so it basically adds or removes heat to that pipe. In this case I was heating the room so it was making the contents of the pipe really cold. If I was cooling the room, that pipe would get really hot. I think I get it now, thanks. I'll have to look into the radiator.

[silent1]

It's like the condensor behind your fridge, in a way. Fill it with coolant (X is perfect) and make the other end get out in vacuum, with radiators if needed.

[Art1985]

Originally posted by silent1:

It's like the condensor behind your fridge, in a way. Fill it with coolant (X is perfect) and make the other end get out in vacuum, with radiators if needed.

Do you mean system where pipes with X inside going to rooms where you need to regulate temperature? And on the pipes put radiators inside those rooms for better conductivity (with Oxygen inside room for example?)?

[Fridge Lord]

What about a situation when the AC needs to heat the air? Is the solution still a pressurized pipe with radiators to the outside? Does it just work in the same way?

[VegasGoat]

Originally posted by BS Fridge Lord:

What about a situation when the AC needs to heat the air? Is the solution still a pressurized pipe with radiators to the outside? Does it just work in the same way?

That's what prompted me to start this discussion because I was actually using it as a heater and it was working with that pipe going nowhere. There was air in the pipe (must have been put there by the AC unit) and it got really really cold in the pipe, like -300 degrees which is definitely not right (below absolute zero). I suspect that maybe the AC unit is not supposed to do any heating at all and it might be a bug that it does.

[delerium76]

are we talking the wall cooler or the portable air conditioner? I didn't know the portable one had places to hook a pipe, but for the wall cooler, it's just for cooling. Use a wall heater to heat up a room.

[hackaphreaka]

It's the Air Conditioner you can build from the Atmospherics Kit. The other option rather than the filter.

[delerium76]

oh I just use the wall units set up with logic.

[Fridge Lord]

Originally posted by VegasGoat:

That's what prompted me to start this discussion because I was actually using it as a heater and it was working with that pipe going nowhere. There was air in the pipe (must have been put there by the AC unit) and it got really really cold in the pipe, like -300 degrees which is definitely not right (below absolute zero).

Hahaha, that's hilarious. Yeah I spent hours recently messing with air systems and temperature because it's a part of the game I haven't explored yet. I have a wall cooler that took me hours to set up to where it wouldn't flash an error. This stuff can be a little confusing and counterintuitive to be honest.

I was thinking last night that "That pipe's temperature will stop changing once it hits absolute zero, right?" Wrong. -300C? Ok.. :) Did you know then when molecules drop below absolute zero, they break the temperature barrier, which results in a loud noise called a.. temperature boom? :)

Some of these systems, if you're trying to learn by hand, you observe the behavior and start creating a logic in your head for how the system works. But so many of these fiddly devices seem to have unusual rules and behaviors that break the logic you establish, so it's hard to get a handle on how the game actually handles certain concepts- temperature, pressure, etc.

[Subjekt-Henning]

AC units are not for heating! Only cooling! You need a wall heater for this (easiest option at least). AC units cool down your station or base and heating up is something you only need in rare circumstances. And an advise: "Draught Mode" never worked well for me, because I got pressure jams everytime. I use it this way and this is working like a charm:

Passive Vent -> Filter = AC -> Active Vent (out) -> Passive Vent

Active Vent is only for getting a little flow but not important for my setup. If you have 100kPa atmosphere in your station, the input is always filled because of the passive vent so both AC and filter unit will work. The output of both units creates the pressure to release the it to the room through the second passive vent. Both units must work parallel or you´ll get jams again!

[delerium76]

I just use a wall cooler with a long empty tube stretching into empty space, and a wall heater. For automation I made one gas sensor hooked up to a logic reader that reads the ambient temperature, two memory cards to set my low temp and high temp that I want to maintain, a compare unit that compares the ambient temp to the high temp memory card, sending that to a logic writer that turns on and off the wall cooler, and a duplicate compare unit that compares the ambient temp to low temp memory card, with a logic writer to turn on and off the wall heater.

edit: had the high temp and low temp swapped. fixed.

[Qybat]

That could actually be a good use for X - make it a gas with very high thermal capacity.

For added fun, have breached pipes turn into passive vents. Now when your coolant pipes rupture you get to contend not only with overheating equipment, but a station getting flooded with toxic gas too. Or you can play it safe and use nitrogen, but then your system can't handle sudden temperature surges so well.

[Fridge Lord]

Delerium and Subject Henning, these are good solutions!

Originally posted by Qybat:

That could actually be a good use for X - make it a gas with very high thermal capacity. (...) Or you can play it safe and use nitrogen, but then your system can't handle sudden temperature surges so well.

Is this true that thermal capacities are programmed into the game, and different for different gas mediums?

If so, that would mean that water would be the best coolant, as its specific heat (thermal capacity more or less) is the highest.

Reference: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/spht.html

[GD]

I wonder as well, if "Stationeers" did the same as "Oxygen Not Included" and included the "Thermal Conductivity" and "Thermal Capacity" properties of each type of material into their thermodynamics calculations. If not I would suggest have a look at it and decide for yourself if that would be something for this game or not or how much of it.