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Messages - Hans Lemurson

#496
You probably need more guns.  Pistols are cheap and effective at close range.  Survival rifles cost a bit more but give you important range.  Assault Rifles are great at wounding and weakening enemies as they approach, but are rather more expensive.

Fortifications and cover are helpful against enemies using ranged weapons, but can make it hard for your pawns to support each other when swarmed by tribesmen.

What I usually do is mass-produce pistols at my machining table until everybody has one, then give rifles to my best shooters, and a gladius to any brawler.  Pistols stand in a close group to support each other, rifles wound enemies at a distance and target/suppress enemy ranged units.  Brawlers target incoming melee, with pistol backup.

I'm not a pro at this game, but it seems to work reasonably well.
#497
I think the problem is basically that they aren't "hostile" until they hit a colony-member.
#498
General Discussion / Re: Thermodynamics 101
February 05, 2017, 02:25:25 AM
I think that the only reasonable explanation for the facts before us is that the plants on the RimWorlds must just be freakishly hyper-efficient at photosynthesis.  Trees reaching full maturity in 2 seasons?  Feeding a colonist on a 15 tiles of land?

The output from the Solar and Wind power are roughly correct for the dimensions depicted, so no problems there.
#499
You can however use doors that you "Hold Open" to connect two rooms whose identities you want to be separate, but where you don't want to slow people down or block heat transfer.
#500
General Discussion / Re: Thermodynamics 101
February 04, 2017, 06:35:37 PM
Quote from: travin on February 04, 2017, 05:42:31 PM
Quote from: Shurp on February 04, 2017, 08:26:08 AM
If a sun lamp uses as much power as 9 heaters, it should create as much heat as 9 heaters, right?

No. Equal electrical input does equal heat output, unless devices are 100% efficient at performing whatever task. Only a variable percentage would be converted to heat. For example, a copper wire coil of a motor will produce a different level of heat than a Nichrome coil of a heater, based on efficiency of that device and material the electricity is traveling through.

While on the subject, the coolers should produce roughly the same amount of heating (when reversed) as they do cooling, just like in real life. However, currently, they don't.
That's actually not true.  Creating heat is nearly always 100% efficient.  Heat is actually what most devices try to avoid creating, because that is what cuts their efficiency.  When a device suffers from energy inefficiency, then a portion of the energy input for the device is turned into heat, rather than the useful work that was intended. 

If you're trying to create heat, then your efficiency will be 100%.  The only thing that would bring down the efficiency is transmission losses to your device, which in truth just amount to heat being made elsewhere.

As for Air Conditioners, because it is impossible to create a 100% efficient heat-pump, some of the energy used to move heat from the inside to the outside gets converted into heat itself.  The total heat coming out of a Refrigeration Unit will actually exceed the heat being removed from its cooler.  If you feed an ACs hot stream back into the same room it's cooling, what you have created is a heater.
#501
General Discussion / Re: Thermodynamics 101
February 04, 2017, 05:38:26 PM
Quote from: milon on February 04, 2017, 04:47:01 PM
The difference comes from the inefficiency of our colonists' ability to create very bright light sufficient for growing :P
INefficiency?  Every power system in the game is ridiculously efficient!  1600 watts providing enough light to grow a whole field of crops?  My toaster-oven uses 1100 Watts to toast my bread (although only for a brief time). 

1600 watts using modern LED lamps will illuminate only ~50 square feet of crops (according to stats I read about growing cannabis smokeleaf indoors), and 1 tile in rimworld is closer to 10 square feet.

The heaters though...that's where the real craziness comes from.   175 Watts and you can make a whole room warm?  Gimme a break.  1750 watts irl will power a hair dryer.  Heat is incredibly energy-intensive to create, but is produced trivially in RimWorld.

Burning wood in a Fueled Generator to power a Heater will create more heat than burning the wood directly in a campfire.
#502
Well, my tribe just starved to death on an ice sheet waiting for potatoes to grow.  I underestimated how cold rooms get and how much the heat is diffused when you make them large.

I think I need to do some serious research into how Heat works in this game.
...
Ok, some important observations:
-Holes in the roof drain a LOT of heat!  Crazy, huh.
-Insulation helps some, but holes have the biggest impact.  Double-walling buys you a couple extra holes.
-Double-walling increases the temperature differential of a given heat source by 50%.  This is comparable to doubling the heat sources.
-Triple-walling gives no benefit over double-walling
-Campfires create a max room temperature of 28C, torches at 23C
-Campfires burn 10 wood per day, torches burn 2.2 wood/day
-It takes 6 torches to equal the heat output of 1 campfire (campfires win)
-1 Fueled Generator powering 5 Heaters generates over 2x as much heat as 2 campfires, for roughly the same wood/day.  Electricity FTW!!!

Skylit wood-heated arctic tree farms seem do-able, but I don't think campfires are up to the task.

One major challenge with skylight farms is that the temperature is near its lowest when the daylight begins and the plants wake up, so you stand to miss out on a lot of growing-time if your heat source can't handle the lows.
#503
General Discussion / Re: My Dream Endgame, let's discuss.
February 03, 2017, 12:47:55 PM
Maybe you can start at one patch, then have to leave because of some unspoken disaster, and so you set off in search of the one remaining patch of life on the frozen rock.  The patches might be too close together for that to make a good story, though.
#504
General Discussion / Re: Rimworld solar systems
February 02, 2017, 10:10:02 PM
Or maybe the world IS a moon around a gas giant.

That said, it is true that our earth calendar is totally inappropriate for exoplanets.  I even call into question dividing the day into 24 hours, except that 24 is a nice number and a likely division of the day regardless of how long.

What's actually more miraculous is that Rimworld's years are exactly 60 "days" long!
#505
Potatoes are good, but can you grow trees fast enough to refuel the fires?

Given that gravel only appears in thin strips around the rocky outcrops, walling them in involves the construction of quite the perimeter.  Expensive in both materials, time, and heat-loss.  Do you know how much heat you lose from exposed rock walls?
#506
Hope she comes along with a trading caravan and arrest her?

Send a caravan of your own to the tribe and hope they will sell her into slavery?

Send raiders of your own?  It would make a dramatic tale for Mr. Wilkinson to mount a "rescue mission" to get his wife back from the "savages" who surely must have kidnapped her.
#507
Quote from: Limdood on February 02, 2017, 11:01:15 AM
just a thought.  It kind of flies in the CONCEPT of the challenge, but might deliver a better result.

Due to the way heat and unroofed mechanics work, it would be possible to set up an outdoor tree farm even with no "growing season."

build a 12x11 room (optionally, add an extra recessed 2x2 area in it for the generator, since they give heat).  set up 25 individual 1x1 growing zones for trees.  Set those 25 squares ONLY to be unroofed.  Build your fueled generator and however many heaters you need in order to keep the room warmed enough for growing.  Since there are only 25 unroofed squares out of 132 (or 136) there will be heat loss, but it won't be locked to the outdoor temp.  You can now save 1600 power on a sunlamp, since you get natural light.  Optionally, make the room as long as necessary to optimize the heat....1 generator can power 5 heaters AND gives off heat on it's own.
Hmm...I had heard that small holes in the roof didn't lock you to outside temp, and had considered experimenting with this.  I wasn't sure about the massive heating bill it would entail, but given that you can power 6-7 Heaters continuously for the same Power cost as a "battery-buffered off-at-night Sun lamp", it may just be comparable.

It's a different sort of challenge than generating energy from a closed-loop system, but it presents its own unique puzzles and opportunities.  It also makes me wonder about putting hydroponic tables beneath open sky-lights for farming in all sort of hostile environments.  Depending on the temperatures being dealt with, it could be more energy efficient than sun-lamps, but I wonder whether it could work for gravel-farms on polar ice-sheets or if the heating costs would simply be too extreme.

It would be quite the achievement to create an all wood-powered base in the frozen north, even if it's not self-illuminating.  I wonder how much wood would be required to boot-strap your operation.  I will also need to study the wood efficiency of other heat sources like torches and campfires.  I don't think it will be as powerful as a Fueled Generator + 5-6 Heaters, but this can certainly be tested.
#508
Help / Re: Leather Recipe: Noob modder help
February 02, 2017, 03:42:04 PM
Thanks for the help guys.  I'll take a look at everything and try my hand at my own mod before being lazy and just downloading a pre-existing one.  :)
#509
Help / Leather Recipe: Noob modder help
February 02, 2017, 05:16:06 AM
I want to create a mod for myself where I can consolidate the little scraps of rat, squirrel, and yorkie hide into a new material that can actually be used.  Patchwork leather?  Reconsolidated hide?  Defragmented skin?  I'll think of a name later.  The important thing is that I have no idea how to start.

--I need to create a new type of Leather, but I don't know what file that would go in, or even what template to copy.

--I need to create a new recipe (probably for the crafting spot), but again I don't know where to put the file or what info I need to specify.

Lastly, (and this is minor) I'd like to actually create recipes that would be able to consolidate the warmer furs separately from stuff like emu or iguana leather.  I don't want to have to specify each leather type individually though, and I'd like this to somehow play nice with other mods that might introduce new animals and skins.
#510
Powering my tree-farms with something other than their own wood?!!!  :o  HERESY.