Heat Distribution System

[DuskandDey]

Having watched EnterElysium's let's play of the seasons update (However one should refer to it), I thought I would make a suggestion to resolve an issue that was present there, namely distributing heat. Searching around I've seen a number of topics relating to this, but none appeared to detail how it would be properly implemented.

I see there being several options, but the one I find most likely to work well would involve a standalone heater/cooler that does not influence the area around it, but connects to heat pipes (similar to electric cables) that can be run throughout the base, connecting to Vents, which sit in the wall and point into an adjacent room.

The rooms connected by vents would, for temperature purposes, be considered the same room, though would still be effected by outside influences. Vents could perhaps be configured to only open whilst the connected room is above or below a certain temperature. That way, one could even connect parallel Heater and Cooler Networks so as to maintain the temperature more precisely, if you want to show off XP

A further application could be connecting Heat Pipes to Geothermal Generators, which makes perfect sense given the amount of heat they give out. Alternatively one could rely on one room being constantly heated by more conventional means and just connect an always open vent to that room, taking the heat from there and warming the connected rooms.

Another possibility would be underfloor Heat Dispersers that can be placed outside, under a field of plants for example, and allow the plants to grow for longer by keeping the soil directly above the pipes from freezing. The cost of each tile just for one growing tile would offset this nicely I feel, making it a good alternative to Hydroponics midgame, perhaps being similarly gated by research.

Do tell me what you think, I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on the matter.

[Drahkon]

I'd say the simplest way would be a 3 element system

One central power sucking 'heat pump' which actually does the heating/cooling.
'thermal conduit' layer for routing.
climate control units which go in each room, each with a set min/max desired temp. Also requires a set small amount of power.
heat pump power usage depends on heat moved.

The pump builds a 'buffer' from each unit they can draw against. Drawing on the buffer is cheap energy wise. IE 3 cooling units dumping heat that gets used by 5 units heating. Excess heat the pump has to draw/dump cost more, and is capped. IE all 8 units heating in winter.

Heat pumps themselves exhaust a set amount of heat +/-  heat pumped. (a heat pump doing a lot of heating would draw heat from the room it's in, cooling it)

Each local unit has a max on heat it can move, and each heat pump a maximum power usage it can handle.

Naturally something this solid would be a fairly big investment in research time and resource cost, No need for that kind on investment into a base unless it's intended for long term. Central air man.

Maybe a auxiliary unit which could be placed in a extremely hot/ cold location just to give the system someplace to cheaply pump heat to/from, or as an option on the control units.

Kinda wonder now just how much of it could be copied from the existing power systems, heh.
And wow that's long..

[TrashMan]

There's already a mod that adds vents, enabling you to heat multiple rooms with a single, big unit

[Drahkon]

There's already a mod that adds vents, enabling you to heat multiple rooms with a single, big unit

Which is nice, but

1 it's a mod
2 one wall down to a mortar hit and your whole extreme low temp climate colony is frosted over
3 no ability for different temperatures per area (I keep my greenhouse a fair bit warmer so when those eclipse/flare events hit it doesn't freeze my plants before the power comes back up)

[DuskandDey]

snip...

So... basically everything I just said? XP
Piping only Heater/Cooler, the vents would all hav temperature controllers, but perhaps without power requirement, as it'd likely be a small amount, though some need for power might help keep them from being spammed, but I think the cost in steel for the whole setup would be sufficient.

I would suggest agaunst too great an ambtraction with how the heating works, as the current system heaters and coolers use to maintain a temperature is perfectly workable, The heater/cooler treats the vent network as a room that it heats (Thus having too large a network would need more heaters/coolers), with vents acting like doors, 'opening' into adjacent rooms and allowing the heat/cold to radiate out into the room, like with any two adjacent rooms, with the added control of the climate control of the vent itself, to prevent freezing/overheating the room by closing the vent. How much heat it loses when closed could be a small research option.

On a side note, one neat idea would be that small animals such as boomrats could sneak into your vents when they're open, would add some drama to boomrat madness. And would make one weary of cheap cooling in winter by connecting a pent to the freezing outside.

[Mikhail Reign]

Nah I can make my own heating ducts. Just need a heating alternative version of the cooler (draws hot air warms target room to X temp) and a large heater/cooler. A 1 square wide corridor behind all my rooms which the heater draws from (and coolers exhaust into) and I'm set.

[DuskandDey]

Nah I can make my own heating ducts. Just need a heating alternative version of the cooler (draws hot air warms target room to X temp) and a large heater/cooler. A 1 square wide corridor behind all my rooms which the heater draws from (and coolers exhaust into) and I'm set.

Perhaps, yes, but that's still going to draw a hell of a lot of power, and require a lot of extra space, at least 3x3 tiles, plus the expense of the coolers/heaters, rather than cheaper vents and moderately costed heat piping., it's mostly an issue of versitility and convenience, along with a bit of lore-wise 'You can't put a simple hole in a wall but you can lay cabling from here to next week?'

[Cysterion]

An easy idea, albeit maybe overpowered and unfair, would be to make a wall type that is more expensive, but has heating pipes and will heat any room when you connect a radiator to the wall? Would be cheaper than a heater in every room, and would look better for organizations shape.

[Geertje123]

An easy idea, albeit maybe overpowered and unfair

This ^

I think it would make the game too easy. And to be honest, I don't see temperature control as an issue. I create my own vent shafts like this. (pic below)
All my room temperatures are always at a steady 16 degrees celcius.

In my opinion putting vent systems in the game takes away part of the challenge of doing climate control.

[Mikhail Reign]

Yup that's pretty much what I think. If we just had a similar item to the cooler that heated to X temp we could use that corridor for heat transfer as well.

[Argon]

A simple solution would be adding a vented wall that would allow temperatures to equalize,
be toggled shut if a breach occurs, and cost quite a bit of metal for balancing reasons. It would be fairly simple to add too.

-Argon