Edit: Have Coolers overnerfed

[Listy]

Edit: Changed the title.

I took a break for the first time since A6 or so last alpha and have only just gotten back into it.

Started a new colony, by the numbers, go. Made a few boobs with planning, but those were fixable. Then I got my freezer up and running... Or so I thought.

Its 26 deg inside the Freezer, with three coolers set to -9! Out side is 38 deg. So check list, all are correct and ticked:

• All vents are outside (unroofed chimney).
• There's an insulating corridor.
• The room is listed as "indoors".
• All the coolers are powered.
• The room isn't large (17x8).

What am I missing? Did coolers take a unbelievably massive nerf in the last patch or two? Or can you now only vent one cooler per square?

[MikeLemmer]

17x8 is an extremely large freezer. I need 2 coolers to reliably cool an 8x8 freezer.

[Listy]

17x8 is an extremely large freezer. I need 2 coolers to reliably cool an 8x8 freezer.

Four coolers can reliably keep the area of an orbital trade beacon cooled in previous games (I think I'll test that now). And its about the same size as my normal freezers, which were fine.

[Listy]

Just tested. Yeah coolers got smacked, and smacked VERY hard.

Before you'd need ~4 to keep a Orbital trade beacon frozen. Now eight won't even keep it below 0 deg, and that's on a 20 degree day.

Essentially meaning another bullet to the face for large colonies. As before, power was always an issue for towns. Now it seems insurmountable. I used to end up having to build ship power cores to get enough reliable constant power.

edit:
One also wonders how I'm meant to supply enough cooling for colonist rooms now? Before a few banks of Coolers could keep most colonist rooms, and even Hospital rooms at a comfortable temperature, to avoid the mood de-buffs for slept in the heat. After ten years on this rock and I'm now unable to climate control my settlement, but I can build a spaceship...?

[Listy]

17x8 is an extremely large freezer. I need 2 coolers to reliably cool an 8x8 freezer.

Just remodelled the base. Three coolers for an 8x8 room. 11 deg inside, 24 deg outside...

Here's the link to the files, so anyone can have a play.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gjpg9lspe2bfh9/Cooling%20problems.rar?dl=0

[Calahan]

I loaded your save file, and the problem is that the hot air from all four AC's are directing into the same 1x1 unroofed tile room. The temp of that tile room is ~115C, so that will have an adverse affect on the AC's ability to cool.

[carbon]

I was going to point that out as well. Heat-sink-chimneys were what was heavily nerfed recently. The coolers themselves seem to be operating more or less normally.

You're going to need a bigger heat sink. Something on the order of 10 or so unroofed tiles are now required to maintain outside temperature in a room. I find that a heat-sink-hallway in the middle of my base that's partly unroofed is a good way to go.

[Zhentar]

That 1x1 chimneys don't work is just a result of some rounding in the math. I don't think they were intentionally nerfed. An unroofed 2x1 room works as a perfect chimney.

[carbon]

Huh. Weird.

Unroofed and partially unroofed rooms no longer make any sense to me in this version. But that's a topic for another time.

[Zhentar]

Once more than 25% of the tiles (rounded up) are unroofed, the room temperature is fixed to the outdoor temperature. Otherwise, unroofed tiles conduct 14 times more heat than roofed tiles do.

[RazorHed]

Yeah a 1x1 no roof room might only work for 1 cooler , definitely not two or more. Also , and unfortunately I can't remember his name, but one of the forum guys did research and found that you need a cooler for each 60 squares if properly insulated with double walls. I've never had any troubles following that rule unless there's a heat wave

[mcgnarman]

You can built a "vent shaft" behind your line of rooms. With vents to each room and a cooler on the end venting to the outside. I've successfully temperature controlled 4 rooms with 1 cooler or Heater in that shaft. One end of the shaft has a door to service the equipment.

I'll try to remember to post a pic at another time.

[brcruchairman]

Yeah a 1x1 no roof room might only work for 1 cooler , definitely not two or more. Also , and unfortunately I can't remember his name, but one of the forum guys did research and found that you need a cooler for each 60 squares if properly insulated with double walls. I've never had any troubles following that rule unless there's a heat wave

I believe that was this thread: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25368.0

I gotta love those folk for their awesome research.  

[RazorHed]

No I don't believe so as it says nothing about 60 squares per cooler max , but that poster did a good job as well.

[Listy]

I loaded your save file, and the problem is that the hot air from all four AC's are directing into the same 1x1 unroofed tile room. The temp of that tile room is ~115C, so that will have an adverse affect on the AC's ability to cool.

And that's the change I was missing... Thanks.

Its also bloody silly. Two 1m Square coolers managing to output enough heat to raise a 1m square to boiling point. I've been on roofs with 18x 2x2m cooling units, and I didn't die!

edit:
Still feels appallingly hard to cool things now. Needing 5-6 coolers where as before you'd need three. This is due I suspect to the imperfect insulation.