Mountain base temperature

[Pangaea]

Started a new save and figured I should finally try out this mountain base malarky. Attempted once before but never got going. The map I rolled looks nice with a protected pocket.



However, I'm really unsure how to go about the temperature control when placed inside the mountain? For those who play like this, how do you do it? Usually I play with open bases, where it's pretty easy.

Naturally I need a freezer somewhere, and the ability to heat up during winter, and cool down during summer. Do I need a long corridor that airs right into the open or something like that?

This is boosted to Savage so probably a good chance I die horribly early on, but yeah... it has to be tried, although I worry about the +60% threat power or so compared with Rough.

[B@R5uk]

I prefer temperature isolation, meaning there is gigantic cooler block to make inside of the base comfotable 21°C and anything else just work from this temperature. Saves a lot of trouble as even 60x12 mega-fridge needs only 2 coolers to keep it at -10°C. Got some heat wave during summer while on extreme desert biome? Just add coolers to the main cooler block! Well I do just fine with 9 for now.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Pangaea]

I prefer temperature isolation, meaning there is gigantic cooler block to make inside of the base comfotable 21°C and anything else just work from this temperature. Saves a lot of trouble as even 60x12 mega-fridge needs only 2 coolers to keep it at -10°C. Got some heat wave during summer while on extreme desert biome? Just add coolers to the main cooler block! Well I do just fine with 9 for now.

Thanks. That looks like a very interesting and easily workable approach. You don't need vents and stuff for the rooms either I suppose?

Looks like you have planned everything meticulously from the beginning. I have to do that too, I think, which has been the reason I've aborted such bases in the past. I like to expand as I go, depending on needs. But to build inside the mountain, I need to plan everything beforehand. But trying something else might be fun, and it will be sweet relief to no have to worry so much about sieges and drop attacks. Sappers can be a much bigger issue, I suppose, but hopefully manageable. Some of my starting guys actually turned out to be Undergrounders, so that will help with outdoors need.


Any other particular advice you have for somebody who haven't tried this approach before?

[B@R5uk]

You don't need vents and stuff for the rooms either I suppose?

As long as there is no thin or constructed roof there is no need. One-layer walls have enough heat conductivity to balance everythig out. The only exception is prison as a lot of people produce enough heat to get them "sleep in heat" debuff.

Looks like you have planned everything meticulously from the beginning.

Well, that is accumulated experience from a number of games (most of them is not even finished, as I just started anew with some new ideas). This is also transitional base layout (second out of three), as population grows there is need and means to dig a bigger base.

But to build inside the mountain, I need to plan everything beforehand.

Well, as I have some experience, beforehand I only check two things: if there is enough space under mountain for the last base layout and if there is roof holes in the mountain. The last thing requires to turn off the fog of war in the dev mode, and if there is holes I will just get a new map. Planning everything else is meaningless as most of the time you need gradual approch and every loophole you can find to save some work-hours (especially at the start). Many thing can change. I have my final layout in head but I'm still not sure if I need to modify it somehow.

...and it will be sweet relief to no have to worry so much about sieges and drop attacks. Sappers can be a much bigger issue, I suppose, but hopefully manageable.

Sieges can burn your ouside plantings and power supplies as it's difficult to run base only on fuel generators and hydroponics costs a lot. Best way to fool suppers is multilayered defence with many doors: while they dig you shoot and repair, while they shoot you hide. Well, I actually didn't refine this tactic yet.

Some of my starting guys actually turned out to be Undergrounders, so that will help with outdoors need.

Two-three telescopes ouside will solve this issue once and for all.

Any other particular advice you have for somebody who haven't tried this approach before?

Make sure you have two-three tough melee pawns and some heavy armor for them. Dig three-cells tunels and make choke points at the crossings. That way you can counter bugs:  melee pawn block choke point and fends off one or two enemies (no more can attack through choke point) while nine other pawns stay behind and shoot their asses off with shotguns and assault riffles. This approach will make short work of any bug infestation.

[B@R5uk]

Core of final base layout will be something like this I guess. Maybe a little bit more bedrooms. There is fridge up high, kitchen and meals-fridge in the middle, dinner/recriation room under them and bedrooms to the left and right. Workrooms will be somewhere around. This layout saves some travel time for pawns' daily needs.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Pangaea]

Thanks I've ended up playing until winter without going into the mountain yet, and we're up to 9 pawns without bedrooms, so it may be time to find the pickaxes  For some reason I always do this, play too long without planning anything.

I won't use dev tools to check, but hopefully the mountain is mostly intact (ideally with some ores of metal).

Core of final base layout will be something like this I guess. Maybe a little bit more bedrooms. There is fridge up high, kitchen and meals-fridge in the middle, dinner/recriation room under them and bedrooms to the left and right. Workrooms will be somewhere around. This layout saves some travel time for pawns' daily needs.

Yikes, that looks colossal! Is that giant rectangle in the back/top of the image the freezer? You could fit all the animals in the known universe in there 

Certainly food for thought. Will try to bake some of that into my design, though I probably won't have that much room to play around in, even if the mountain is fully intact. Am thinking hospital and some prison cells in the front for easier reach after combat. I was then thinking of freezer + eating/rec room centrally-ish. Getting the freezer that far back will take a lot of mining.

I'll plot down something and see how it turns out. I need room for about 15 pawns. Think that is Cassandra's upper limit.

Also read somewhere that vents don't work how I expected. So far, in the open layout bases, I've used a "block" of bedrooms, with vents between all of them, and heaters and coolers in a few of the rooms. But I read that vents can only transfer heat/cold once. Which means my setup largely doesn't work very well. The corridor setup with vents into the room is probably more effective. I just haven't like the look of it, so went with basically a block of 2x4 bedrooms without hallways, and vents everywhere.

Maybe that information I read isn't correct, but in any case I did notice that some of the rooms were oddly cold or warm, so at some point I had to place more heaters and coolers than expected.

[Pangaea]

Errr, this is going to hell in a handbasket. Are Savage sieges preposterously more precise or something?

I kid you not, they keep HEADSHOTTING my guys with artillery. First this one, then another a few shots later. This is the second siege in short succession. The first one burned down everything.



Looks like I'm going to have to start over pretty soon 

[Canute]

Yeah the mountain temperature work's like mortar magnet ! :-)

Normaly you don't get so early a siege, if you play Random Randy's it is prolly his vault but still untypical.
Unless you got a mountain base, my tactic are to intercept and attack them once their building materials are droped.
You can attack the raider or just only the mortar's. They will attack your base once you destroy the mortars and you can retreat to your base.

[B@R5uk]

Too much walls and too much goods. You should start to eat into rock right from the start. No stone walls, especially no stone floors!!! That is useless weath which is punishable even more so on hardcore difficulty. Mountain base is nice because all the rock walls have zero wealth.

Also, make sure your stuff is under mountain, not thin roof.

Yeah the mountain base work's like mortar magnet!

Never got this feeling during all the time I had ever played under mountain.

[Pangaea]

Yeah the mountain temperature work's like mortar magnet ! :-)

Normaly you don't get so early a siege, if you play Random Randy's it is prolly his vault but still untypical.
Unless you got a mountain base, my tactic are to intercept and attack them once their building materials are droped.
You can attack the raider or just only the mortar's. They will attack your base once you destroy the mortars and you can retreat to your base.

Usually I attacked sieges directly too, and actually tried that on the first one, despite it being winter and the siege being very far away due to the mountain curves. But they hit directly at the base, and the one pawn I had back there to take care of any fires got a mental breakdown right away, so didn't do jack. Just about everything burned, although I managed to salvage some food and bits and pieces in between getting burns from the extremely hot rooms. I tried to remove some roof, but it didn't appear to do anything.

We're still healing up and several were badly injured, and then another siege occurs even further away. Impossible to take on that. They headshot three of my guys, the only useful animal (the pig), and the iguana started attacking everybody because his master exploded. 5 of the 9 pawns died, most others wounded. They finally attack. We sort of beat them, but everybody are downed (but without getting kidnapped, lucky timing perhaps). Man in Black appears. He patches up most of the wounds, but then goes catatonic because he was depressive. All 6 pawns are now downed. Wealth reduced by about 75%. At this point I simply give up. All the good pawns are dead, 2 others on the brink of death, and there is simply no coming back.

Too much walls and too much goods. You should start to eat into rock right from the start. No stone walls, especially no stone floors!!! That is useless weath which is punishable even more so on hardcore difficulty. Mountain base is nice because all the rock walls have zero wealth.

Also, make sure your stuff is under mountain, not thin roof.

Yeah the mountain base work's like mortar magnet!

Never got this feeling during all the time I had ever played under mountain.

When you say that, do you refer to the screenshot with the 8 bedrooms? That is from a different save, it was just an example.

But we got totally slayed, so I started over. Not as nice a start and worse pawns, but with time I started to like it more. Spent a lot of time to plot down plans, but then a gigantic hole in the mountain opened up. Nice to be able to farm there, I suppose, although drop attacks can obviously be dangerous. Have dug a decent chunk into the mountain by now, but I need to redo a lot of plans. No colony destroying year 1 sieges as of yet, thankfully, so here's hoping. Feels a bit messy and we're always behind on priorities, but we survived a 3-person malaria, summer heatwave. Very sadly my perhaps best pawn got Alzheimer at 40, so that's a big kick in the teeth.

But I'll continue and see how this one pans out. Advice welcome





Edit: Hahaha, I fired up the old save to see how our existence would end, while wolfing down a pizza. Thought the next raid would do it, but it never came, maybe because we lost too many guys so it was postponed.

One guy succumbed to an infection. Another guy beat it by an absolute shade (infection was listed at 100%). He later died to malnutrition. Same with the other 4 people.

One did come to and dragged himself towards a simple meal. Then instantly went berserk and decided it was better to punch a muffalo. One bite later and he's out cold. Died to malnutrition.

Man in Black never came back from the catatonic state, which surprised me (3 days and counting). It was the last one to die, but he too died to starvation.

And just for kicks and giggles, Cassandra, the evil she-devil, threw a plague at the self-tamed megasloth, which is how he died. And just before the curtains went down, Cassandra threw a zzzzt even in the battery room, which set that thing on fire. Didn't feel like going out with a bang, though, as everybody silently died.

Surprised the injured muffalo didn't get up and eat. He was injured, but not badly, but he just stayed in 'bed' and got more and more malnourished. Enjoy free reign of the colony for half a day, buddy.

RIP.

[Pangaea]

Changed the plans due to the rather big hole in the middle of the mountain and started digging. Suddenly I hear the sound of roof getting erected, and sure enough. More holes, and other sections with thin rock roof. Is this actually rather common? In that case I understand why people check the cheese mode for stuff like this. Kinda throws everything off kilter when what looks like a giant mountain is more like passages of rock.




Since I've "only" played one year, it's a little tempting to start over and check for this, like you said, so I can genuinely try out this mountain base approach 

Funny thing, or possible exploit, I came across during winter. A river separates our base, and I never put a bridge + wall there. Figured it would be a great spot to assault raiders as they come wading up the river. True enough, it has been. They're slow.

Made some kibble and it was lying by the butcher table outside. Suddenly I see every rat, hare and muffalo running up the river for a bite. Free meat 

[Limdood]

yes, it is quite common.  The game rarely lets "huge" square areas of mountain exist.  Often, if you see a gigantic bulge in the mountain line, thinking "that'd be a great place to locate my base since there's so much area without having to make my base long and thin!" - you end up with at least a few large open expanses that were hidden in the mountain.

In my opinion, it is often more consistent to make a long base down the length of one of the "mountain blocked" sides of the map, digging into the mountain until about 2-3 blocks buffer towards the "no build zone" and expanding along the edges.

[B@R5uk]

Made some kibble and it was lying by the butcher table outside. Suddenly I see every rat, hare and muffalo running up the river for a bite. Free meat

I should try this out. Unfortunately, my biome is hot and there is always some grass around to chew. Not sue if free food will attract animals when there is other things to eat.

[Canute]

Yep, free food (veggies,meat,corpse,kibble) will attrackt animals if they don't have any food at their area! :-)

[Pangaea]

yes, it is quite common.  The game rarely lets "huge" square areas of mountain exist.  Often, if you see a gigantic bulge in the mountain line, thinking "that'd be a great place to locate my base since there's so much area without having to make my base long and thin!" - you end up with at least a few large open expanses that were hidden in the mountain.

In my opinion, it is often more consistent to make a long base down the length of one of the "mountain blocked" sides of the map, digging into the mountain until about 2-3 blocks buffer towards the "no build zone" and expanding along the edges.

Cheers. Ended up restarting -- third time's the charm? Briefly checked the map and it appeared good, apart from a huge opening north of our current living quarters, which I roughly marked off.



Plans aren't carved in stone yet, heh, but we're getting there. A section of thin roof didn't unfortunately appear where the Lab is intended, but we'll just have to live with that. Recently recruited a few people, not very good, but 1-2 of them can mine -- which I desperately needed. Now the first ship has landed, which is always a dreadful worry. Especially on Savage, which I'm not comfortable with in truth.

As for the temperature: from what I have seen so far the approach works pretty well, with heating up the whole base, more or less, as one area. Hope to survive long enough here to actually mine out more and move fully into the mountain. Then I'll see how things play out, and whether I need to rebuild the outside all the time if I'm unable to take on sieges and the like. It was brutal beyond belief in the save that opened this thread.

It feels pretty strange to *not* craft more stuff, there is so much stuff laying about now, but I'm trying to restrict building up wealth. Such a sad way to manage things, but it is what it is. If the game gets more patches, I hope Tynan does something about that.