Cooling/heating bases, do walls have an insulation rating?

[Vas]

What determines how heat moves through walls into the next room?  Is there a rating of insulation between walls and the materials they are made of?  For example, if I build a freezer out of wood, will it leak more cold air into the kitchen if the only thing separating it is a little wooden wall?  What if I make it out of the hardest most dense stone that spawns?  Will less of the temp leak through into the next room?  What if I make the walls double thick?  Will the doors become the weak point and let the temp leak through?  Or will the temp still leak through the double layered walls?

If walls have an insulation value, and it is separated based on the material they are made of, then I might consider making a mod that lets you have "insulated walls" so you can better protect your base against changes in weather and keep room temps easier, so the temp indoors stays longer.  Rock walls from the mountains don't seem to help that much in keeping a temp for long either so I'm not sure how this works right now.

[leax256]

i don't think the material used makes a difference, only wall thickness does. if you can somehow make more insulated walls that'd be awesome

[Mystic]

Insulation effectiveness could be determined by the material with which walls are made, before even allowing for the addition of actual insulation, as the OP suggests.  Real world case in point: wood walls don't insulate all that well unless separate insulation is added, while stone (i.e., brick) walls do a noticeably better job of insulating on their own.  I can testify to this, as I used to live in houses with the former, but now own a house with the latter.

I've never lived in a place with steel walls (hehe), but I suppose they wouldn't innately be all that good in this respect either, since metal in general conducts heat.

[Xanting]

Looking at the Buildings_Structure ThingDefs there doesn't seem to be a definition or category for insulation. From what I can see heat from two sides of a wall try to equalize in temperature with bigger differences in temperature equalizing faster. I'm guessing that thicker walls help because it creates a buffer zone of heat that is between the temperature of the room and outside, also known as insulation. So no there isn't a specific definition or thing that is insulation but you can create a structure with thick walls that will act like insulation.

[Euzio]

Gonna hijack this threat a little since we're on the subject of cooling/heating bases.

But does anyone have a clear data on how Vents work in conjunction with Heaters? The description is that Vents equalize the temperature between 2 rooms but when you have a heater in one, it doesn't seem to effectively equalize all that much.

I did a set up in which I had my heater in a narrow hallway (2 blocks wide only and closed off via doors at both ends) and all my rooms linked to it with a vent. I then placed the heater in the hallway hoping that it would be enough to provide heating for all my rooms to make it comfortable during a cold snap or winter. Did not work though... half my colonists ended up with hypothermia and I had to install a heater in every room to ensure they don't freeze.

Another set up I did was where I had 3 rooms in a row, all connected via vents. I then put the heater in the middle room. It ended up being barely enough but still suffered a little during cold snaps. Quite often, it would be the case of the room with the heater being at a the temperature of which the heater is at but the room connected to it via the vent would often be alot lower (as much as 50% or more lower).

Therefore I guess I'm wondering how much is a heater capable of heating or the range. And also with vents, do they effectively transfer the heat between rooms or its only more for heat waves rather than cold snaps?

[nmid]

I have a cooler with the exhaust vent going into a 1 cell closed off space.



The enclosed space has a temp of 127-130*C.
The room next to it, which is 1 wall thickness away (and is being cooled with an active vent set to 21C) is at 31C.
The other rooms in the same setup are between 25-28C

[Euzio]

Alright. This is not a conclusive test so I can't be absolutely certain. But I think I kinda figured out how Heaters work now in heating up a base with vents. From what I gather, each heater is capable of heating up to a certain area size. After which it starts to lose its effectiveness unless we add more heaters.

In conjunction with vents, the heater will heat up the room it is designated in first and foremost and then subsequently will attempt to heat up the areas it is connected to via vents. However, if the area connected to it via the vent is too large to heat efficiently on its own, the heater will prioritise heating up the room its in. Hence why we get situations whereby the heater can maintain the temperature its set at in the room its in but the others connected to it via the vents are lower in temperature.

Therefore, what I've done for my base is that I've made it such that each and ever room and area is connected via vents. I then put heaters sporadically here and there in each part of the base. Some rooms have it, some don't. I've thus managed to just about maintain an equilibrium temperature throughout my base. There is a variation of like 2 or 3 degrees at most in certain parts but by and large, most areas are maintained at the temperature I've set it to be.
(PS: Will post a snapshot of my base as soon as I can to show what I've done. Though I probably could still afford to reduce the amount of heaters set up).

[_alphaBeta_]

Much like the last post, all bedrooms in my bases have vents to the common areas and their own heater. Assuming all bedrooms are set to the same temperature, the common areas are usually a few degrees behind. This also ensures that sleeping areas have heating priority during crisis weather.

[mechi00]

In the gurrent stage of the game why you even need to heat the whole base? Parka + touge is enough even in very cold biomes (ice sheet not included). It's necessery only for the prison and the farms. Anyway, when I have enough power my setup is like 2 last posts.

[Kegereneku]

Parka have a -10 or 20% work speed.
That aside... I suppose you are right, our colonist are happy to eat, sleep, work in Parka.

[mechi00]

Parka have a -10 or 20% work speed.
That aside... I suppose you are right, our colonist are happy to eat, sleep, work in Parka.

Yes, parkas have -20% work speed thats why I use them only in a very cold biomes. Normaly an exelent muffalo's duster +  a touge do the job. The point is heating is not nessesery when pawns dont strip inside.

[Jimyoda]

At the risk of oversimplifying...
Walls leak (equalize) temperature and vents are just walls that leak (equalize) more.

I observed that the more vents you place along a wall the more temperature equalizes. However, a vent is 6 times the cost of a steel wall, so you can make your own observations about that idea's value and effectiveness.

The vent is in the wiki now:
http://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Vent

[milon]

Therefore, what I've done for my base is that I've made it such that each and ever room and area is connected via vents. I then put heaters sporadically here and there in each part of the base. Some rooms have it, some don't. I've thus managed to just about maintain an equilibrium temperature throughout my base. There is a variation of like 2 or 3 degrees at most in certain parts but by and large, most areas are maintained at the temperature I've set it to be.
(PS: Will post a snapshot of my base as soon as I can to show what I've done. Though I probably could still afford to reduce the amount of heaters set up).

To save on power, just change the heat setting.  Have some set at 20'C, some at 21'C, some at 19'C, etc.  That way they won't ALL kick in when the heat dips a little.  That actually saves a LOT of power.

[_alphaBeta_]

To save on power, just change the heat setting.  Have some set at 20'C, some at 21'C, some at 19'C, etc.  That way they won't ALL kick in when the heat dips a little.  That actually saves a LOT of power.

I've often wondered about this without personally doing any experimentation with the game mechanics. Have you experimented with the numbers in a controlled test? Context is purely Rimworld's simulation, and not what makes sense IRL (though they may be the same).

I usually have at least three coolers side-by-side on my freezer all set to the same temperature. I used to stagger them when the temperature system first came online, but I think I stopped somewhere when the temperature equalization was still being tweaked. Never went back. It's really the cost of powering all three briefly vs. having them come on staggered with one usually always running. Another factor is the number of ticks it takes to equalize vs. the number of ticks the coolers are running at high power (i.e. how often you really avoid the second or third unit from coming on to high power).

[Regret]

That is an interesting tactics, I will have to try that.