[MOD] (Alpha 8) Central Heating (includes vents)

Started by carlgraves, December 22, 2014, 04:46:40 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

carlgraves

After playing a bunch of alpha 8 I'm starting to feel like the heat/cold system that currently exists in the game is almost too easy to manage. I also found it really limiting.

There wasn't really an ideal way to setup your bases to efficiently use/keep/reduce heat and cooling during the warmer and colder months. Once every room had a heater you'd lose near ridiculous levels of power simply maintaining the base's ideal temperature. So I dug around with the game files a bit to try to hack in some more interesting ways to heat/chill my bases.

Basically my only real idea was 'Vents'. A really cheap way for temperature to be shared between adjacent rooms. Yall probably noticed that you gain the "shared room" debuff if you simply punch holes in the ways the vents are an easy way to maintain privacy and individual rooms while only investing in a few centralized heaters.

DOWNLOAD: http://www.nexusmods.com/rimworld/mods/65/?





Version 0.9b (pre-release)
Revisions:
- Vents now have multi-texture support, and run more efficiently. Fixed PlaceWorkers.
- Industrial Heaters are much more powerful. Have additional functionality to work better with the vent system compared to normal heaters. New Graphics. New steam effects.


Version 0.9 (pre-release)
Additions:
- Vents: Allows heat to be shared between rooms while maintaining colonist privacy.
- Industrial Heather: A larger heater, can efficiently heat large rooms and bases.




WIP
Want to add:
- Research.
- Air ducts (not too sure where to start with this).
- Powered Vents, fans allow 1-way transfer of heat, can be locked.
- Smart Vents, a really low power "passive" heater/cooler. Opens at night too cool down, closes during day to stay cool.
- Water-cooled coolers/freezers, connect to a water source to efficiently cool down your bases
- Uranium powered/infinite heatsource



I've never made a Rimworld mod before, so if you have issues please don't hesitate to let me know.


Troubleshooting:
- Install like any other mod.
- Place vents in walls between rooms you want to split heat between. The vents will allow heat to freely pass between them.
- For best results keep heating/cool centralized. The more vents you need to force through the less heat will reach the destination.
- The industrial heaters are larger but more cost effective and have a better power->heat ratio.
- You can also use vents to cool your rooms during the summer, as outside temperatures tend to be cooler than indoor temperatures.

Vaperius

Lovely mod: Refine it more and I will definitely download it. Remember its central heating AND cooling because these system generally allow for you to heat and cool rooms as needed. This is important for their use in very hot or cold places.
I remain Vigilant.

NetoGod

Looks astonishing, def will download and reply, epic potential and will keep visiting regularly checking for updates, keep up the good work!! :)

TheOcean

AWESOME! I write topic in suggestions about this. Thx dude.

Mechanoid Hivemind

Ill download after this world and it gets some more updates to it i love it already lmao keep it up ( i haven't even downloaded it yet and i love it ;) )
The individual is obsolete. When you and your kind are extinct, we will cleanse our collective memory of the stain of your existence.

Killaim

suddenly - Event

a alien springs out from a vent! "how? !" noone knows they just live in vents! quick nuke it from orbit!

general222291

#6
Doesn't work for me, even with other mods disabled, but its your first mod and i'm not complaining, good idea and keep up the great work!

EDIT - Never mind, just took a few restarts :3 Great mod!!!
Mods:
Wandering Caravans [A15]

Mechanoid Hivemind

Quote from: Killaim on December 22, 2014, 06:50:45 AM
suddenly - Event

a alien springs out from a vent! "how? !" noone knows they just live in vents! quick nuke it from orbit!
That was SOOO funny i just got done playing that game >-< lmao
The individual is obsolete. When you and your kind are extinct, we will cleanse our collective memory of the stain of your existence.

Everteal

Its a nice mod but I believe I speak for a ton of people when I say that every time I see the vanilla cooler(which looks nearly the same as your vents) I get irritated that it doesn't link together with the walls...  :-\

I suggest linking them together with walls if you can and also implement vents partially made out of "stuff" they would match the color of the walls. Same for vanilla coolers.

Think you could do that? :)

Evul


hyprformnce

sweet idea! the vents actually change the way i build my bases and, therefore, change the game

Ruin

Very cool.  I used to create corridors leading from my main areas to bedrooms.  Then I just started chaining bedrooms to eliminate the wasted space of the corridors.  I guess I am now back to corridors to minimize chaining vents.  Funny how strategies change. :)

bigbobbear

is the industry heater sopost to be as weak as it is? it seems to only be around 20-30% more powerful then the normal heater yet take up 4x the space and 50% more power. for my base i have to use around 9 to keep it just at 60 and its not that large of a base

konst

Quote from: bigbobbear on December 22, 2014, 03:11:12 PM
is the industry heater sopost to be as weak as it is? it seems to only be around 20-30% more powerful then the normal heater yet take up 4x the space and 50% more power. for my base i have to use around 9 to keep it just at 60 and its not that large of a base

Yes! Would it be possible to make it stronger? Cause it is really weak. And the ability to rotate it would great, cause it looks really nice!
Mu! Mu! Muuuu!

carlgraves

Hey yall, thanks for supporting the mod in it's early days.

As for the industrial heater; Yeah its more efficient, but not much more "powerful". Its roughly equivalent to 2 heaters for 25% less power. I do have some plans to fix this.

The main issue is there's not much I can do without rewriting the base heater/cooler functionality.  It can maintain a single room's temp fine, but has trouble with vents. The vents operate at a faster tick so the heaters/coolers can't keep up. I'm looking at making the industrial heaters/coolers a little smarter; like tracking the rate of change as well as the current temp. Ideally, it'll function closer to the thermostat in a real house.

For the in-term,
-  just crank that sucker upto like 60 degrees. The bigger the temp diff between rooms the more heat is pushed between rooms.

- Don't chain large rooms together. Run the heating parallel to the rooms the less vents it has to travel through the faster the equalization process.

- Use auto-doors instead of slow shitty ones. As long as the doors are open you are venting your heat/cold outside.