[1.0] Centralized Climate Control (v1.5.0 - 21st October '18)

Started by coldtoad, July 11, 2017, 06:50:20 AM

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coldtoad



About the mod:
Hi, This is my first mod ever. This mod, like the title, adds central air cooling/heating. I know there are some competitor mods, but I wanted to put out my idea for the same central cooling concept. While there are many alternate mods for Central Heating. This mod adds a new network-like resource (like electricity) air (Which is generated and consumed). The heating/cooling system you will build depends on the number of rooms and the heating/cooling capacity of your air networks.

Recommended: Steam Guide for Creating a Basic Setup

Buildings & Other stuff added
- Air Intake Fan: Fans to supply air to the system
- Air Climate Control System: Heat or Cool air to a target temperature
- Air Vents: Vent out the heated/cooled air
- Wall Mounted Air Vents
- Large Intakes & Air Climate Units


Features
Unified Heating/Cooling System
Heating and Cooling is done by 1 unit, so reduces the need to build coolers and heaters.

Outside (and Far away) Heat Exhaust:
The Heat Exhaust of the Climate Control units isn't located adjacent to rooms. They are located far away from your rooms, thus allowing you to make adjacent rooms to fridge rooms.

Air Network
There is a network-like resource (like electricity) which is generated and consumed which is further dictated by Efficiency of the Network.
1) Flow Efficiency
The rate at which your rooms will cool/heat or maintain heat due to changes in the room temps.
Value: 1 Intake Fan for 3 Rooms (for 100% Efficiency)

2) Thermal Efficiency
The rate at which your Climate Control units can heat the air. Sudden changes like Cold Snaps or Heat wave will inject very cold or very hot air into your system. Climate Control Units will take care that, but their rate is determined by this Efficiency unit.
Value: 1 Climate Control Unit for 3 Intake Fan (for 100% Efficiency)

You can always check efficiency of each network at the Vents.

Air Temperature inside Pipes
This mod also deals with the temperature of the air in the Pipe Network.

Can share air without Climate Control units
Intakes take note of the Air Temperature the take in. We can practically make Climate Control-less networks that share the same temperature.
For example:
Multiple Frigdes can be connected together, but only 1 is getting the cooling. The rest just share the air.

Bigger buildings for late game
Build larger Intakes and Climate Units which have about 5x more power than a regular machine.

Pipe Switches at Vents
If you have multiple pipes near your vent, You can force it to connect to a specific pipe.

More Details

Air Climate Unit:

- Responsible for Changing the Temperature of the Air in a Pipe Network.
- Capacity of holding 3 Regular Intake Fans (Beyond that Thermal Efficiency reduces below 100%)

Air Intake Fans:

- Takes in Outside Air (Average Temperature of each Outside Cell Highlighted)
- Defines the Intake Temperature of the System
- Capacity of holding 3 Vents (Beyond that Flow Efficiency reduces below 100%)
- Having Flow Efficiency reduce to below 100% doesnt affect much. However when it reaches below 30% you'll get some significant changes.

Air Vents:

- Takes the final Temperature of the Pipe System and dumps it into the room/environment.

Wallmounted Air Vents:

- Same as Regular Vents but they don't occupy a full Wall Space (useful for your forts & defences)

Large Air Climate Unit:

- 5x more power than the Regular Unit

Large Air Intake Fans:

- 5x more power than the Regular Unit


Authors & Contributors
- vasumahesh
- [B19 changes] Jdalt40   


Credits & Inspiration:
- carlgraves for "Central Heating"
- Redist Heat
- Dubs Hygiene Mod

Requirements:
- Hugs Lib


How to install:
Subscribe on Steam:
Steam Workshop Link

Manual way:
- Download from:
  - Github Releases
  - Google Drive
  - Nexus Mods
- Unzip the contents and place them in your RimWorld/Mods folder.
- Activate the mod in the mod menu in the game (Load HugsLib Before this Mod).


License
Free to use/modify wherever you want.


Feedback
Well, This is my first mod. Any feedback (positive/negative) is welcomed!

Known Issues
- For some Reason Reinstall doesn't work (Uninstall and Install work fine) on the machines
- The Climate Units don't release much heated air
- Compatibility Issues with Redist.Heat Mod

More Images (imgur)
Github Source Code

Canute

Nice !! Need to try out at the next colony !
1. suggestion when i see the picture, wallmounted intakes/vents. I rather would build 2 wallmounted with reduced flow each then 1 inside the room.

coldtoad

Thanks for the feedback. Yup you are right wall mounts are far better. After building the mod I checked out Redist.Heat had a similar option. I will put this up for consideration.  :)

Sirsim

#3
First of all thanks for the mod, since Redistheat had it's problems i am looking for a mod for cooling (as everybody).
But, omg ! I installed an intake , a heater and pipes and guess what. I got the NaNC temp for all my base !!!
It's a nightmare comes back. This bug troubled me for months to try override it and is here again !
I hope that now that this bug showed again, it will be easier to corner it. Wish you luck.... 

Edit 1:
I realized that i have Redistheat installed without having build any stuff from it though, but probably this is the problem. I will uninstall Redistheat, build again and see what happen.

Edit 2:
I uninstalled Redistheat which by the way is the latest version and your mod works fine (without even start new game just uninstalling RedistHeat ). Sorry for the false alarm and thanks again for the mod.
True self and happiness lies in the space between two thoughts.

coldtoad

#4
Hi,

I was able to get NaNC only when I built the heater (with power) 1st. I will make a patch fix soon. Apart from that Any Combination of Vent, Heater and Intake building order placement will not get NaNC.

EDIT 1:
Glad you got it working! There was indeed a bug (even if you didn't trigger it xD), but it was a very odd case bug. The heater started working with 0 flow in the pipe network :) Now its resolved.

Thanks!

Sirsim

Quote from: coldtoad on July 11, 2017, 10:31:19 AM
Hi,

I was able to get NaNC only when I built the heater (with power) 1st. I will make a patch fix soon. Apart from that Any Combination of Vent, Heater and Intake building order placement will not get NaNC.

EDIT 1:
Glad you got it working! There was indeed a bug (even if you didn't trigger it xD), but it was a very odd case bug. The heater started working with 0 flow in the pipe network :) Now its resolved.

Thanks!

Thank god i didn't triggered it after i uninstalled RedistHeat cause i don't know if i could have handle it ... mentally i mean xD. Thanks again.
True self and happiness lies in the space between two thoughts.

coldtoad

Quote from: Canute on July 11, 2017, 09:18:27 AM
Nice !! Need to try out at the next colony !
1. suggestion when i see the picture, wallmounted intakes/vents. I rather would build 2 wallmounted with reduced flow each then 1 inside the room.

Wall mounted vents added :)

Canute

I just notice at all the release zip,
you miss the mod folder. Inside the .zip are the modfiles, would be nice if you could add the mod folder there too for further releases.
So people just need to unzip into mods without creating a mod folder there.


coldtoad

Quote from: Canute on July 15, 2017, 06:25:34 AM
I just notice at all the release zip,
you miss the mod folder. Inside the .zip are the modfiles, would be nice if you could add the mod folder there too for further releases.
So people just need to unzip into mods without creating a mod folder there.

Oh yeah. My build script does that. I ll change it. Thanks for letting me know!

Canute

Ok, finaly a new colony.
And at the first try i need to say it is more powerful than standard ones.
On Desert biomes i needed 4 cooler previously to keep the room at the target -10C (600-800W).
With your setup, i used 1 climate control, 1 intake fan, 3 wall mounted vents and got the same target -10C with just 250W.
I think this need some tweaking. Like the intake should need 200W too. Or the vents 50W and the intake 100W.

Large climate control need the same resources like the  other one.
Wall mounted intakes would be nice too with just 50/100 cc/s.

The climate control got a buildin exhaust, would be nice if you could connect that to another exhaust.

Some logical issues,
at the pic you see the wall vents would blow the air straight into the intake and the rest of the room wouldn't get cooled much (in RL).
I think you should add 3x1 exhaust fan area to the vents. And these fan area's shouldn't be inside the intake area. That isn't a big deal, i just need to build the intake a bit to the side.

And i think you should seperate the climate control into heater/cooler. Technical it is possible to have both in one device, but it is either not very effective (peltierelements) or need double material/space because it got heater/cooler in the same device.



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coldtoad

Thanks for the feedback :D

QuoteAnd at the first try i need to say it is more powerful than standard ones.
Yes, I agree they are a bit OP at the moment. Glad that someone else spotted it too. This needs tweaking. I have planned an update this week.

QuoteThe climate control got a buildin exhaust, would be nice if you could connect that to another exhaust.
Can you explain that a bit? Does it mean the Climate control's heat exhaust be piped somewhere outside?

Quoteat the pic you see the wall vents would blow the air straight into the intake and the rest of the room wouldn't get cooled much (in RL).
Dunno If I understood this (correct me if i'm wrong). But the flow of air starts at the Intake (like electricity - Intake generates air in the pipes). So say you set that room to -10C (In Climate unit), then the Intake will take your current room air, say 20C. After that, your climate unit will convert it slowly. The vents will dump the air into the same room, much cooler. As weird as it may sound xD, it should increase the cooling rate as The intake will now take much cooler air inside the system. IRL, the intake should also exhaust some heat to stop this.

QuoteI think you should add 3x1 exhaust fan area to the vents.
I felt a 1x1 square would be enough as a larger area would be cumbersome for keeping it open. Plus you wont be able to put vents on the corners, right?

Quotei think you should seperate the climate control into heater/cooler
I think I want to keep it as is. Maybe increase the costs compared to native heater/cooler. When I'm playing in sandbox, building heater and a cooler every time and 4-5 coolers per fridge becomes hectic. Having a unified cooler/heater makes it simple, just build 1 and forget about heating/cooling as long as you have a vent in your buildings. And once you have more rooms & vents, you ll need to manage the airflow instead of temperature. (Maybe i'm picky on this a little, but I think this mod tries to shift the attention from temperature to air flow)

PS: havent fixed the zip files yet. Will be fixed when the next update comes :)

Canute

Quote
Quote
    The climate control got a buildin exhaust, would be nice if you could connect that to another exhaust.
Can you explain that a bit? Does it mean the Climate control's heat exhaust be piped somewhere outside?
Yes.

QuoteDunno If I understood this (correct me if i'm wrong). But the flow of air starts at the Intake (like electricity - Intake generates air in the pipes). So say you set that room to -10C (In Climate unit), then the Intake will take your current room air, say 20C. After that, your climate unit will convert it slowly. The vents will dump the air into the same room, much cooler. As weird as it may sound xD, it should increase the cooling rate as The intake will now take much cooler air inside the system. IRL, the intake should also exhaust some heat to stop this.
No the cycle of the air is ok and it is working ingame.
The problem i got is, the vent are right next to the intake, they blow the cold air right into the intake, the rest of the room wouldn't barely get any cold air. An RL aircondition technican would place intake and outtake at different sides of the room.
The intake allready got an area with need to be free, the 3x3 area around it.
The exhaust vent got a 1x1 area. Both area's shouldnt be overlap. And i think the vent should got a 1x3 area. The 3 tiles in blow direction.

Quote
Quote


    i think you should seperate the climate control into heater/cooler
I think I want to keep it as is.
Ok, i just need to check how its works if i want different temp zones. If this is possible with just 1 or 2 controls at the same network.
Since i don't have smart vent, i need to regulate the temperatur with the controls.
At the freezer i set the control to some -10C, and basicly i could use the heat from it, but i have no way to push the heat over other pipes.
And i can't use the same control to cool other rooms to +20C, because no smart vents, they would either cool to -10C or so far the flow let them.

Edit:
I just placed 1 wall mounted vent connected to my -10C freezer room at my 23x23 work room, (1 intake 3 wall vents total) and it cools the room far to much. We need smart vents that stop working, or cheaper control units which are just heater/cooler.
Or you need to explain how you would solve it :-)

coldtoad

Ah, I see your point on the area overlap (that is an issue so will put it up in the list).
For the vents, maybe a 1x2 will also suffice. Since people build rooms small or large depending on the game.

For the 2nd part. I think you ll need two climate networks with this mod. There isn't any heat transfer mechanism as such. Dunno if i should add it or not, I will check out Redist.Heat a bit more. The ideally for this mod you ll need 2 networks one at -10C and one at 25C. So fridge networks are different from the room networks. Also the 3rd Pipe is just an add-on, In case you want another network with a different temperature. (Like someone on steam suggested to build furnaces for the enemies lol)

coldtoad

QuoteI just placed 1 wall mounted vent connected to my -10C freezer room at my 23x23 work room, (1 intake 3 wall vents total) and it cools the room far to much. We need smart vents that stop working, or cheaper control units which are just heater/cooler.

Far too much as in? It went beyond -10C? Or the rate of change of temp is too high?

The rate at which it changes the temperature per tick needs changing. Needs some balance. (This is scheduled for this weekend)

Canute

Yep, the 3. pipe system is ok.
Btw. how does the items know what network they should access if i placed all 3 pipes at the same tile ?

With HCSK i got once a mountain base when i needed 3 temps.
- freezer -10C
- other room to heat (ice biome) 20C
- other room to cool (in case of indoor fire). 25C
Since HCSK use redist heat, and they got smart outlets i could use the freezer system to cool other rooms.

I just wait for your next update :-) 

I think the placeable vents should have the same stats like a regular heater/cooler. Wall mounted ones should have 1/3 or 1/2 of that.
Btw. did i mention wall mounted intakes ? They should have just 1/3 or 1/2 of the standoff one.