Base design

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

Thank you... I was considering trying a compact and colonist friendly base (odd combo as the two usually don't work together) and I will try planning it

[MisterVertigo]

Be sure to share what you design. I'm always up for trying something new.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I will but I don't really have many ideas at the moment. If anything it would probably be the standard compact base but with a little more room for colonist (all one room though) and a rec room

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I came up with an idea and this is what it is
Top Left: storage (not made for the com dish but that's for space reasoning
Bottom Left: Barracks, Hospital, and dinning room.
Top Right: Rec room and growing area
Bottom Right: Production room, freezer, and prison cells
Far Right: Bed rooms
I designed this so that all the base that is right of when it stops curving is to be underground.
I will be testing it soon and will tell you guys how it went for colonist mood. if the colonist aren't very happy then i will consider this a flop and i am open to suggestions.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[dosemeter]

You can see I put a duct going all the way around the living quarters. This is to vent the heat from my two coolers. I can also add coolers to bedrooms if I want. I haven't quite figured out a way to cool my dining room yet.

Try placing a vent next to each door in the dining room, then put a cooler in the two hallways that dead end next to the freezer,  so they vent into the same duct as the freezer coolers. 

[MisterVertigo]

You can see I put a duct going all the way around the living quarters. This is to vent the heat from my two coolers. I can also add coolers to bedrooms if I want. I haven't quite figured out a way to cool my dining room yet.

I'll give that a shot!
Try placing a vent next to each door in the dining room, then put a cooler in the two hallways that dead end next to the freezer,  so they vent into the same duct as the freezer coolers.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

Air control is probably one of the biggest thing people have to over come with underground bases especially but pretty much any base. I wish there were things like fans that don't require an area to vent heat to another room or outside

[Too-DAMN-Much]

Air control is probably one of the biggest thing people have to over come with underground bases especially but pretty much any base. I wish there were things like fans that don't require an area to vent heat to another room or outside

honestly, is the air temp simulated well enough for circulation only to be worthwhile? plus you'd also have a tiny bit of heat from the motor.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

The fan would just help circulate air and would make things just a little cooler... They would probably be cheap though since they add only a little cooler air and they could probably research fans with the ability to cool the room down like an ac unit

[Lady Wolf]

This is a bit long, but covers the rough template I use to I build my base and what mods I for things like internal temperature regulation, etc..

I tend to build into the side of a mountain (or wall off both sides of a valley to turn it into a spacious interior) and then construct the colony around a series of 10x10 rooms as follows, with some variance on size/location depending on the over all layout of the map and how much space I have to work with.

Entry room:

This room starts off as my initial group bedroom, stockpile, & kitchen area, and later turns into the "ready room" for raid defense with shelving for weapons, embrasure firing ports, (using the enhanced defense mod) and a stone cutting table and crematorium (that way the gear off the cremated bodies dumps into an inside areas and doesn't rot away int he open before my colonists can haul it off to the stock pile.)

Main corridor:

this is a main (2 square wide) corridor running down from the main entry room that forms the "spine" of my colony, with rooms branching off on either side. Also down this corridor is various choke points with plasteel embrasures and doors (usually in the held open position by default.) that make for good fall back points in either direction should an interior breach become an issue.


Kitchen & freezer:

Moving down the main corridor to the left and right are the kitchen and freezer, a 10x10 kitchen with a professional cook stove, (courtesy of the bulk meals preparation mod.) butcher table, long dining table, 6 chairs, and usually a billiards  a chess table.

The freezer is a simple affair, an 8x8 with 2-4 coolers (depending on the climate) set to 24F and separate stockpile zones inside. (a small one near the door for cooked meals, a section to the back near the freezers second entrance for medical supplies (since herbs spoil.)


Right down below the kitchen and freezer are the stockpile and med bay

Stockpile:

A 10x10 room roughly, split up into smaller zones with areas for steel/uranium/plas steel and some for wood/stone blocks and a section for weapons & armor.


Medbay:

A 8x8 room with sterile tiles, 4 hospital beds + monitors connected to a power switch for easy turning off when no ones using it. (thanks to the power switch mod) Also in there I put the research bench since it benefits from the sterile environment. Of special note is the connecting door to the freezer for easy access to med supplies and feeding patients.

Further down is the prisoner room and central heating/cooling center.


Prison:

For the prisoner room I usually go with a 8x8 or 10x10 with 4 beds of good or better quality, a hospital bed, a small table with 4 chairs, and a chess table and probably a painting or two.

It's pretty luxurious for a prison I admit, but I mostly use it for broken colonists and only capture people I want to recruit for my colony so the happier I can make them the sooner they'll join me.


Climate Control

The central heating cooling chamber is a 6x6 room where my central AC & heater unit is (thanks for the LT redistribute heat mod) with ducts running to all my important colony rooms and smart vents for environmental control. I set the Ac about 2-4 degrees higher than the heater, and the base is generally a stable 68F all year round. This is also the room I stick the battery bank for my colony and fuses. (Thanks to RTs fusebox mod)

Down below that is the power room and hydroponics

Power room

The power room is usually where the thermal generator/s are put (thanks to the enhanced defense mod giving the ability to use a laser drill to dig thermal vents where ever you want, if you have enough uranium for it anyway.) Mostly I make the room big enough so there's 1 square of space along the perimeter of the generators for ease of repair access.


Hydroponics

I generally build this next to the thermal generator room so I can use the heat to keep it warm without wasting power on a bunch of heaters, several trays of med herbs, a few of potatoes and some of hay (thanks to the hydroponic hay mod)


Below this is the last room of the colony, the panic room.

Panic Room

This room is usually a 10x10 built with plas steel walls, with an inner ring of plas steel embrasures, 2-4 gun turrets, a few weapon lockers with charge rifles or other heavy weapons, a cooler/heater set, and a stack of 50 or so prepackaged survival meals. (or mini freezer with some fine meals on ice) a couple hospital beds and some glitter world meds and several batteries behind some walls to keep everything running for a while if need be..

The main idea is this is the room the colonists do a fighting retreat down the spinal corridor to in the event the colony is being over run and they're about done for.

It's proven a lifesaver against 50+ raider attacks that breach the outer defenses, and mechanoid invasions, and even decent protection against sappers since the plas steel walls and inner embrasures slow any entry sufficiently to defend against it. (and is usually deep enough under the mountain to be safe from mortars so colonists can heal up for a counter strike against a siege.

More recently in A 12 I've taken to adding in a small barn on the exterior of the colony (with duct work for climate control on extremely hot/cold maps) with chickens, pigs, cows, or some other meat farmable animal, and designating the panic room as a "raid defense" animal zone to secure pets into when raids happen so they don't get killed in the opening volleys of the battle.

[RoboticManiac]

The only trend in all my designs is to keep the kitchen/ freezers/ hydroponics (If applicable) and dining area in close vicinity- After that, it's a lovely mess.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

I like to keep my bases so that they are like shotgun houses (houses that have one downstairs hallway that can be used to fire a shotgun from the back of the house to the front door) except outside. It makes life easier as I can use building as cover in a pinch and can place turrets up and down the main outside walk way (this is for my outside design usually)

[Too-DAMN-Much]

honestly the way i design my base a lot of the time the main entrance and exits have both interior and exterior turrets, still not sure how heavily to have turrets indoors though, like one to a room almost seems too many for some rooms.

[Simon_The_Space_Engineer]

It all depends on the size (that's a given) but also how important the room is. If it's a crucial area for holing up more is better

[b0rsuk]

Before I post my bases and my thoughts, I want comment on the screenshots.

This base makes me uncomfortable. Yes, it looks nice and friendly, but how do you defend against a manhunter attack ? Bedroom exits are mostly in one place, and there are no alternate paths for taking pot shots and distraction.

I would never use wood as a wall construction material in 5503. And I'm not even complaining against fire. If a plain mortar shell falls in the wrong place, it's going to collapse like a house of cards. Your batteries are also in a wooden room, batteries sometimes explode.

Your sunlamps are in a single room, but presense of heaters indicates a cold winter. While your hothouse has sturdy stone walls, I just don't feel comfortable building like that. A single hole can instakill all your plants. If fire somehow finds its way there, you may have a big trouble.

Your hospital is quite close to the frontline. I guess the upside is the hurt are sooner in bed. But when a serious attack happens, your most capable soldiers will be in the most danger. I try to put my hospital in one of the safest places, preferably under an overhead mountain. The beds are expensive to rebuild, too. Almost everyone else can move away.

I like to protect geothermal generator with a wall and paved tiles so it doesn't catch fire easily. It's 400 steel.

The left side is vulnerable to sappers. They'll be there quicker than your guys.

Coolers are a security hole. 100 HP hole in a 400+ stone wall. And they catch fire. You can build a wall around a small unroofed pocket to prevent that.