Huge problem

[Shurp]

Yes, solar flares will cook your food a bit.  But it takes 5 days for the food to spoil and the flare only lasts one day so generally they're survivable.

Heat waves are a pain but unmanageable.  You may need three coolers to keep a 9x9 refrigerator below freezing.  But even if they go above freezing it's still refrigerated, so will take a while to spoil.

From what I can see you have a pretty large fridge with only one cooler.  Nope, that won't work, you need three!

[Veneke]

I've played around with heatwaves a bit more. I'm pretty sure that adding more freezers won't solve most people's problems. The issue isn't that the number of coolers can't handle the size of the freezer, but rather that the room is being exposed to hot air when the doors open.

Screenshots from my current game (you can't see the mouse but it's over the 9x11 freezer, not the smaller one with meals in it):

http://i.imgur.com/4qWcMzx.png <-- temperature at time of screenshot: 37c
http://i.imgur.com/AIA6lMo.png <-- temperature at time of screenshot: 25c

Once colonists start opening doors the temperature in the freezer begins to rise rapidly and has difficulty staying under 5c.

I think, design-wise, it's better to have smaller purpose-built freezers than one general-purpose freezer. So you could have a meals/booze freezer between the kitchen and the dining hall. As this doesn't have to be constantly frozen fluctuations in temperature aren't an issue. I have a small meatlocker for corpses (not in screenshot) which basically nobody goes into, so it stays under freezing irrespective of the temperature outside. You'll need a main freezer for the kitchen, but for example my setup above only has the cooks and the odd hauler from the greenhouse across the way go into it. Even that's still enough to cause the temperatures to skyrocket, which really highlights the ongoing impact if you were using a single main freezer that everybody used regularly.

I've not really experimented with airlocks but to me that seems an inferior solution, as it doesn't actually stop the problem of the freezer being constantly opened.

[Ectoplasm]

I've played around with heatwaves a bit more. I'm pretty sure that adding more freezers won't solve most people's problems. The issue isn't that the number of coolers can't handle the size of the freezer, but rather that the room is being exposed to hot air when the doors open.

Screenshots from my current game (you can't see the mouse but it's over the 9x11 freezer, not the smaller one with meals in it):

http://i.imgur.com/4qWcMzx.png <-- temperature at time of screenshot: 37c
http://i.imgur.com/AIA6lMo.png <-- temperature at time of screenshot: 25c

Once colonists start opening doors the temperature in the freezer begins to rise rapidly and has difficulty staying under 5c.

I think, design-wise, it's better to have smaller purpose-built freezers than one general-purpose freezer. So you could have a meals/booze freezer between the kitchen and the dining hall. As this doesn't have to be constantly frozen fluctuations in temperature aren't an issue. I have a small meatlocker for corpses (not in screenshot) which basically nobody goes into, so it stays under freezing irrespective of the temperature outside. You'll need a main freezer for the kitchen, but for example my setup above only has the cooks and the odd hauler from the greenhouse across the way go into it. Even that's still enough to cause the temperatures to skyrocket, which really highlights the ongoing impact if you were using a single main freezer that everybody used regularly.

I've not really experimented with airlocks but to me that seems an inferior solution, as it doesn't actually stop the problem of the freezer being constantly opened.

This is exactly my point! During a heatwave you can not maintain a freezers temperature below zero (clearly from your testing if you lock the doors you can, though starving your colonists isn't really an option!). I do hope that at some point in the future the way temperature is implemented gets tweaked.

For example, if I wanted to munch on ice cubes in the middle of Death Valley - I could. If I wanted to keep my chicken nuggets frozen in the center of the Lut Desert (just googled it - an average temperature of 70°C / 159°F) Then again, I could. We have the technology! In rimworld you can build geothermal generators and space ships, but can't keep a pot roast fresh? It's just silly. There's already enough ways in the game to shut down power supplies and throw a spanner in to the works, to have a system where you can't keep your food fresh as well is a little over the top. It just doesn't sit well with me. Additional research options to increase the efficiency of cooler/heating units could be a solution.

Another example, when you build a mountain base (and during a heatwave) Temperatures go nuts. Which isn't indicative of reality where cave systems generally have stable environments. Early humans lived in caves systems for this very reason. Of course it's shaky ground to start comparing reality with fantasy.. But it just seems unnatural the way temperature is currently implemented, and I do hope that it gets a little rework at some point.

As for airlocks, they do seem to help stabalise temperatures, and the smaller the freezer, the more noticeable it is. Temperatures just don't fluctuate as much when you add an airlock to the freezer, this is something I tested myself a while back. 

[Veneke]

This is exactly my point! During a heatwave you can not maintain a freezers temperature below zero (clearly from your testing if you lock the doors you can, though starving your colonists isn't really an option!). I do hope that at some point in the future the way temperature is implemented gets tweaked.

If temperature didn't immediately attempt to auto-balance then that would solve the problem, sure. Should that be tweaked though? A heatwave is supposedly a major event after all, so it should cause difficulties in keeping things frozen.

Honestly this feels like a pretty reasonable challenge posed by a heatwave, and given that you can mitigate most/all of the damage with good base design (eg using multiple small freezers for specific purposes or an airlock) and active player involvement (deciding when to lock down freezers to keep it frozen) this really doesn't seem to warrant an alteration to the general mechanics of how temperature works.

I haven't done a mountain base in ages, but temperature does get wonky in very small rooms so that could very well need to be looked at and adjusted.

[Listen1]

The solution for that is additional coolers, double insulation and airlocks.

Even if the temperature is 50°C outside, if you have enough coolers it will maintain your temperature inside below 0°C.

Which wouldn't happen in real life, unless you use a cooling tower or a heat exchanger with water to dissipate part of the heat.

[Veneke]

Even if the temperature is 50°C outside, if you have enough coolers it will maintain your temperature inside below 0°C.

I just checked this to get some actual numbers: 4 coolers (set to -20 degrees) will keep a 9x11 wood room at -10 to -15 degrees even with an outside daytime temperature of 50ish degrees. It needed that fourth cooler though. Without an airlock you get a pretty rapid rise in temperatures, but with an airlock there's hardly any temperature change when the doors open and close.

[NuclearNate]

The solution for that is additional coolers, double insulation and airlocks.
Which wouldn't happen in real life, unless you use a cooling tower or a heat exchanger with water to dissipate part of the heat.

All electric coolers use heat exchangers based on the carnot cycle.  What did you think the ones in RW use?

[Ectoplasm]

I just checked this to get some actual numbers: 4 coolers (set to -20 degrees) will keep a 9x11 wood room at -10 to -15 degrees even with an outside daytime temperature of 50ish degrees. It needed that fourth cooler though. Without an airlock you get a pretty rapid rise in temperatures, but with an airlock there's hardly any temperature change when the doors open and close.

I'll have to turn back on heatwaves then, I clearly didn't try hard enough or just add enough coolers...

[Listen1]

The solution for that is additional coolers, double insulation and airlocks.
Which wouldn't happen in real life, unless you use a cooling tower or a heat exchanger with water to dissipate part of the heat.

All electric coolers use heat exchangers based on the carnot cycle.  What did you think the ones in RW use?

I believe that they use the same system as the eletric coolers. Since you have a standalone cooler that can only condensate the gas with a fan or air-cooler. For it's efficiency, the local temperature and the wet bulb themperture must be bellow the condensation temperature, that is usually around 35°C to 40°C.

If room or ambient temperature is above condensation temperature, you will never have the full condensation. Leading to alot of problems. In RL you would need use cooling tower (not sure if it would work, since it's based in the air cooler, but with water together) or a plate/tube heat exchanger with water at a lower temperature passing through.

[mumblemumble]

Insulation would be huge. Honestly id have the freezer WITHIN a larger structure,  and have that structure cooled for comfort. Also using denser materials than wood, wood is very bad insulator,  so all the outside heat is effecting the freezer far more,  since 1, its surrounded by baking sun on all sides and 2, wood walls do terrible jobs of keeping cold in / heat out.

Easiest fix would be wrapping a 2nd wall around it, having the freezer in a 2ndary structure so the heat has a "dampening"  zone. Even in the shade stuff cools down a bit,  so you might not even need more coolers for the extra room.

And upgrade from wood,  at least mine into a cave wall for the freezer,  rock insulates much better.

In the end,  no amount of heating / cooling matters if there isn't enough insulation.

[Veneke]

In the end,  no amount of heating / cooling matters if there isn't enough insulation.

I'm not in a position to test atm but insulation doesn't seem to matter all that much. The large wood walled freezer that I talked about above managed 50 degrees plus just fine with the four coolers. It's controlling how often the room is exposed to outside air that's the major factor in whether the freezer can handle a heatwave. You might be able to get away with fewer coolers with better insulation though, that's probably true.

[mumblemumble]

Its not just having thicker walls,  but staggered heat zones. Having a main base at say,  70 with ac during heat wave,  drastically helps the freezer,  since the heat outside is much less to heat the freezer,  compared to thicker walls but much higher heat.

I don't know exactly how the math works,  but something like rooms exchange heat with nearby ones and try to eventually level out,  while thicker walls reduce the transfer rate.

Point is, a buffer zone which is 70 or even 90 would do better than having it be 120 something directly outside,  and would also mean less heating when doors are opened,  as  it needs to heat up the buffer before the freezer.

[muffins]

I did some testing.



1 - Default Freezer (granite)

2 - With Airlock

3 - With double cooler

4 - Default with wooden walls

5 - With thick walls (granite)

6 - With thick walls, airlock and double cooler

All freezers were set to -20C. There was some variation during the day/night (look at the results for 6). Here were the results.

At 45C

1    0C
2   -6C
3   -17C
4    1C
5   -10C
6   -20C

At 50C

1    5C
2   -4C
3   -14C
4    6C
5   -5C
6   -17C

At 60C

1   12C
2    4C
3   -3C
4   13C
5    4C
6   -20C

[Praeses]

I did some testing.



<snip>

Thanks for this! Always wondered whether my double walls and airlock were really doing anything!

My fridge is normally directly connected to the kitchen area and then also to the outdoor farm. I put an airlock at the farm door and I keep my kitchen at 15C, tends to work quite well even during heatwaves

[Praeses]

.....Viagra.

Huh?

Wha?...

OH! I mean, i tho...

I mean, "huge problem" i was like...

Ehh, nevermind...

*teleporting away*

I can easily get a hold of a flyer for a Sangoma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_healers_of_South_Africa) that promises to fix such problems...