Difference between storing inside vs outside

[nuschler22]

I haven't see this question answered but perhaps I've missed it.

Has anyone found the difference of deterioration between storing inside and outside, and also best temperatures to store certain things?

For example, I would assume storing clothes inside in a temperature between 60-75 or so degrees would be better than outside.  But what about medicine?  I've always stored it in the freezer, but does it matter?

I know eggs do best in the freezer. 

If I leave my artillery shells in a stockpile outside with the mortars, how much faster do they deteriorate?

Inquiring minds want to know!  I want to know!!!!

(Enjoy that 80's reference)

[RazorHed]

Its either indoors or outdoors.  Certain things deteriorate outside but not inside. Some things never deteriorate . Food and herbal medicine will spoil even if kept inside if not frozen

[Chibiabos]

It varies by item.  Many things will deteriorate over time outside -- they will lose hit points.

These things NEVER deteriorate outside on their own (but fire, explosions or getting hit by a stray bullet may deteriorate their hit points):

• Metals (Steel, Plasteel, Uranium, Gold, Silver) and Jade
• Mechanoid Corpses and AI core
• Stone Chunks, Slag Chunks and Stone Blocks
• Power generators and infrastructure (Fueled, Wind, Solar, Geothermal) and Power conduit -- batteries may short circuit and explode/start a fire if left outdoors in the rain, though
• Trade Beacons
• Workstations (Stove, stonecutting, research bench, etc.) -- but electrically-powered stations may short out and start a fire if exposed to rain
• Furniture (stools, chairs, tables, beds, animal sleeping spots/beds, equipment racks, etc.) -- but lamps may short out and start a fire if exposed to rain
• Security constructs (turrets, sandbags, deadfall traps, mortars -- BUT NOT SHELLS [shells do decay outdoors])
• All flooring (wood, steel, tile, etc.)
• All ship parts
• Walls, doors (regular or power), vents, coolers (but electrical heaters may short circuit and start a fire if exposed to rain), campfires
• Tool cabinets, graves and sarcophogi
• Joy constructs (horseshoes pin, chess table, billiards table)
• Body parts (odd, I know -- but whether bionic or an internal organ, I've not seen any lose HP if left outdoors)

These things deteriorate outside on their own, gradually losing hit points and disappearing if they reach zero:

• All food (all meals including Kibble and Survival meals), all raw vegetables including hay, all animal products including fertilized eggs, all raw meat, all animal and humanoid corpses (whether fresh, rotten or dessicated -- but they seem to deteriorate very slowly, dessicated corpses can take several years to reach 0 hit points and disappear on their own), hops [not considered a vegetable])
• Components
• Wood
• Cloth (other textiles don't seem to, oddly -- someone correct me here if I'm wrong?)
• Artillery shells
• All weapons
• All apparel
• All medicine

These things will 'spoil' if not kept frozen:

• All meals except Survival Meal and Kibble; if they exceed their 'fresh' lifespan they will disappear; they seem to deteriorate faster if left outdoors during a Toxic Fallout event
• All raw vegetables including hay, all animal products including fertilized eggs, all raw meat, and hops; if they exceed their 'fresh' lifespan they will disappear; they seem to deteriorate faster if left outdoors during a Toxic Fallout event; raw meat tends to have only a few days
• All fresh or rotten animal and humanoid corpses; if they exceed their lifespan they degrade from fresh to rotten to spoiled (nothing except humanoid and animal corpses seems to have states beyond fresh as of A13); they DEFINITELY deteriorate several times faster than normal if left outdoors during a Toxic Fallout event; even outside of Toxic Fallout, corpses only tend to last a few days as 'fresh' before spoiling to rotten and only a few days as 'rotten' before decaying into Dessicated; rotten corpses may not be butchered but animals that can feed on corpses can feed on them, so consider setting up a special small freezer near your animal bedding area for rotted corpses
• Herbal Medicine (other medicine do not seem to need refrigeration)

I am clueless as to whether Beer decays or needs refrigeration, as I always keep it indoors and don't have any handy with my current colony to test.  Could someone enlighten me and the OP on whether beer decays if left outdoors or needs refrigeration?  Thanks!

[GarettZriwin]

You can select item and go to info tab, you can see there how fast it will lose HP/day.
Rain causes it to deteriorate at double or even triple speed.

[mussi]

Basically what Chibiabos said before but with some corrections.

These things deteriorate outside on their own, gradually losing hit points and disappearing if they reach zero:

• All food (all meals including Kibble and Survival meals), all raw vegetables including hay, all animal products including fertilized eggs, all raw meat, all animal and humanoid corpses (whether fresh, rotten or dessicated -- but they seem to deteriorate very slowly, dessicated corpses can take several years to reach 0 hit points and disappear on their own), hops [not considered a vegetable])
• Components
• Wood
• Cloth (other textiles don't seem to, oddly -- someone correct me here if I'm wrong?)
• Artillery shells
• All weapons
• All apparel
• All medicine

Most of this things can be left outside but need to be under a roof, just think like if it rains on them they will deteriorate.

Components, leathers, skins, furs, hyperweave, glitterworld medicine and beer can be left unroofed/in the rain.

Wood, cloth, wools, synthread, devilstrand, weapons, artillery shells, apparel, medicine, chocolate, kibble, survival meals, insect jelly and fertilized eggs can be outside but under a roof.

Meats (and corpses I guess) can be unroofed/in the rain but must be frozen.

Equipment racks act as roofed, but you can store only shells, weapons and apparel in them.

[Chibiabos]

Most of this things can be left outside but need to be under a roof, just think like if it rains on them they will deteriorate.

Components, leathers, skins, furs, hyperweave, glitterworld medicine and beer can be left unroofed/in the rain.

Wood, cloth, wools, synthread, devilstrand, weapons, artillery shells, apparel, medicine, chocolate, kibble, survival meals, insect jelly and fertilized eggs can be outside but under a roof.

Meats (and corpses I guess) can be unroofed/in the rain but must be frozen.

Equipment racks act as roofed, but you can store only shells, weapons and apparel in them.

Components definitely decay if left out and get rained on, I've seen that happen several times so I wait to deconstruct ship chunks or mine compacted machinery until I've got haulers ready.  Meats and corpses do decay in the rain, losing HP (but meats will tend to lose fresh status first).  Corpses will rot and become dessicated if not frozen, they take a long time but gradually do lose HP.  Cloth (harvested cotton) decays in the rain kinda quickly.

[mussi]

Components definitely decay if left out and get rained on, I've seen that happen several times so I wait to deconstruct ship chunks or mine compacted machinery until I've got haulers ready.  Meats and corpses do decay in the rain, losing HP (but meats will tend to lose fresh status first).  Corpses will rot and become dessicated if not frozen, they take a long time but gradually do lose HP.  Cloth (harvested cotton) decays in the rain kinda quickly.

Those components must have been damaged from explosions, fire, bullets or lightning, but they don't deteriorate if unroofed/in the rain. All things can lose HP from damage.
Deterioration is different from rotting, so meats and corpses decay only if unfrozen because of the rotting and not because weather (in the game of course).

Look at the Stats tab in the View information panel of the item you're interested in and if it has Deterioration rate then it will decay when unroofed/in the rain.
Components, meats and corpses don't have that stat. Beer has it but is zero.

Easy way of testing is using Dev mode. Spawn the items you need, outside without roof and under roof, and then change the weather to rain, switch to fast forward, wait and see how it goes. 

[cultist]

Components definitely decay if left out and get rained on, I've seen that happen several times so I wait to deconstruct ship chunks or mine compacted machinery until I've got haulers ready.

That's simply not true. You are either playing a modded game or the components took damage from something else. I always leave components outside with the steel and other building materials, and the stack(s) have never lost a single hitpoint.

That's not to say I don't think they should take damage from being outside - but that's not how it currently works.

Essentially the only things you should leave outside are resources that are plentiful and are not damage by weather. To me, this generally means only steel and components. Plasteel too, but I tend not to have too much of it. You can leave anything from the raw resource category (except hops) outside without fear of them deteriorating, but do you really want your gold, silver and jade lying around outside and possibly getting lost in a freak fire?

Pretty much every other item should be stored indoors. All textiles decay outside except for leather. Cloth decays fast, about as quickly as vegetables. However, the decay on a stack has little purpose. As long as it doesn't reach zero hitpoints, nothing bad happens. Because spoilage is not the same as deterioration, you can have a 1 HP stack of potatoes and they won't be immediately destroyed if they become unfreezed.

[nuschler22]

Thank you for all the help.  Excellent information.

[mussi]

You can leave anything from the raw resource category (except hops) outside without fear of them deteriorating, but do you really want your gold, silver and jade lying around outside and possibly getting lost in a freak fire?

Well, guess what? Steel, plasteel, gold, silver and all the stone blocks (not chunks) are indestructible. Jade and uranium are destructible.

I wasn't aware of that until now, when I did some testing in Dev mode (explosions and lightning strikes). So if an item has no HP bar (those x number / x number under the name) then it's indestructible. 

[Thane]

Leathers also decay if you leave them out for a season or two. It's just very slow.

[Robovski]

Also anything can be destroyed by a roof collapse - if it was in that tile where the rocks are afterwards it is gone.