Temperature Control

[mecandbuttons]

I have a incubation room that has 11 AC's in it. I use it to incubate non wyvern eggs. It works as intended. The problem I have (on scorthed earth) is that when a heat wave hits it kills the egg health of my quetz eggs at a certain temp. My room is never more than 1 degree off from the outside temperature every time I compare. how do I keep this room at 20 C? I thought with 11 AC's it's supposed to make that room colder than the outside or am I missing how this works?

[DarthaNyan]

ACs dont change temp of the area they are in, they add insulation to everything around, the further away you are from AC - the less they give. Every 50 points of insulation increase threshold by 3°C. So you want to keep ACs tightly packed for your hatching room.
For example:

Quetzal's egg hatches at 5-6°C without any insulation
"indoor" buff provides 112 hypo- and 56 hyperthermal insulation,
that means that Quetzal egg's hatch range will change to: -1°C - 9°C just with indoor buff.

To be able to make Quetzal's egg withstand and hatch at 50-60°C heat, you'll need to make a place in your base with at least 900 hyperthermal insulation.

[Ranger1]

In other words, AC actually work in a way that is somewhat the opposite of how you think they should work. 

By that I mean that instead of actually raising or lowering the temperature in their area of effect, they instead offer better protection against adverse temps to everything/everyone in their area of effect.  An insulating effect, if you will, to keep the temperature extreme from affecting you.

Now that I think about it, they use basically the same mechanic as putting on a coat or slipping into cooling desert gear.  The coat doesn't change the temperature around you, it simply provides insulation from it's effects.

[Moriquendi32]

29 minutes ago, Ranger1 said:

In other words, AC actually work in a way that is somewhat the opposite of how you think they should work. 

By that I mean that instead of actually raising or lowering the temperature in their area of effect, they instead offer better protection against adverse temps to everything/everyone in their area of effect.  An insulating effect, if you will, to keep the temperature extreme from affecting you.

Now that I think about it, they use basically the same mechanic as putting on a coat or slipping into cooling desert gear.  The coat doesn't change the temperature around you, it simply provides insulation from it's effects.

Thanks.  Your post and DarthNyan's are the clearest explanations I've seen.  Is the impact of AC units strictly additive?  As it seems the usefulness of the AC unit is dependant on it's range does the size of the structure they are in matter at all?

[DarthaNyan]

13 minutes ago, Moriquendi32 said:

Thanks.  Your post and DarthNyan's are the clearest explanations I've seen.  Is the impact of AC units strictly additive?  As it seems the usefulness of the AC unit is dependant on it's range does the size of the structure they are in matter at all?

Structure size shouldn't matter as long as it is not too big to lose "Indoors" buff. But that doesn't mean that AC unit will affect every corner of an enclosed building equally - the further you are from it the less effect you get.
Although on SE Metal buildings will reduce your hyperthermal insulation unless you have an additional Adobe layer to protect yourself.

[mecandbuttons]

Is there a way to see the hypothermal amount of where the egg is or I have to just do the math?

[DarthaNyan]

46 minutes ago, mecandbuttons said:

Is there a way to see the hypothermal amount of where the egg is or I have to just do the math?

crouch/crawl in the place you put an egg and check the your character's insulation numbers. Then check your character's insulation outside the base without any interference from ACs and other stuff, it is also better to keep oneself away from other dinos as they can provide bonus insulation just by being near them.

The difference between the 2 will be the insulation your egg gets.

Also:
hypothermal insulation - protection from cold, increasing this parameter pushes lower limit of the comfortable zone
hyperthermal insulation - protection against heat, increasing this parameter pushes upper limit of the comfortable zone

In most cases on SE you want to improve hyperthermal insulation. The exception would be Wyverns that need to be in hot area to be hatched and normal temperatures are "too cold" for them thus you want to increase area's cold insulation (hypothermal).

[mecandbuttons]

ok thanks a lot!!!!!

[DeweyDecimal]

On 09/03/2018 at 8:54 AM, Moriquendi32 said:

Thanks.  Your post and DarthNyan's are the clearest explanations I've seen.  Is the impact of AC units strictly additive?  As it seems the usefulness of the AC unit is dependant on it's range does the size of the structure they are in matter at all?

The effective range of an AC is about two foundations. 

[Nelevon]

I have 21 acs might be overkill

[Moriquendi32]

6 hours ago, DeweyDecimal said:

The effective range of an AC is about two foundations. 

So rows two foundations apart would be most effective?  Is it height dependant?  What about rows two foundations apart and vertically stacked one foundation height apart?

[TheDrizzle404]

34 minutes ago, Moriquendi32 said:

So rows two foundations apart would be most effective?  Is it height dependant?  What about rows two foundations apart and vertically stacked one foundation height apart?

I don't know about most effective, but I found the easiest (and most aesthetic imo) is a 3x3 square of foundations or ceilings, then you organize the air conditioners in a compact 3x3 square (9 total) in the center. I believe 21 is required to cover every temperature range, so you add 12 around the outside of this 3x3 square (3 per side) for that total. You can then build a single wall height over them to place the eggs in the center above them. Here's how it looks.

You should also build an enclosure around that so people don't steal your eggs. Mine's a work in progress.

[DeweyDecimal]

3 hours ago, Moriquendi32 said:

So rows two foundations apart would be most effective?  Is it height dependant?  What about rows two foundations apart and vertically stacked one foundation height apart?

You could, theoretically, place two rows of AC's four foundations apart, but the areas of effect may not overlap as well that way. 3 foundations gives you a 'max effect zone' on the center foundation.

As TheDrizzle404 said above, you can also place ceilings over your AC's, but fear of babies hatching through the ceilings keeps me from doing it that way

[Moriquendi32]

20 hours ago, DeweyDecimal said:

You could, theoretically, place two rows of AC's four foundations apart, but the areas of effect may not overlap as well that way. 3 foundations gives you a 'max effect zone' on the center foundation.

As TheDrizzle404 said above, you can also place ceilings over your AC's, but fear of babies hatching through the ceilings keeps me from doing it that way

I like the design and avoided clutter of having the AC's on a dedicated level.  How likely is it that eggs would hatch through the ceiling?  I spawn into the game stuck in the floor, or on the wrong floor, quite often (until the game catches up).  I'm finally at the point where I have a generator running full time so it's almost time to set up a hatching area with AC units.