Sun umbrella: Space layer cooling/heating

[bobucles]

The sun umbrella offers a mid-late game cooling solution for colonies with access to the space layer. It's a high level machine that essentially blocks the sun and radiates heat into the void. The sun umbrella competes with other structures for surface space and thus players have to choose between solar power, rockets or cooling from their space biome.

Mechanics:

- A liquid coolant is pumped through the sun umbrella. The liquid temperature will exchange heat with the device, effectively being heated or cooled depending on the sun umbrella's temperature. If the liquid can not be successfully cooled the machine may shut down.

- Sky line is not visible: Building is disabled and can not function. The upper sky of the map must be visible and reasonably unobstructed.

- There are two major modes for the sky umbrella, cold mode and hot mode. The modes may be changed with automation.

In cold mode:

- Daytime: Building cools down depending on time of day. When the sun is out, the machine will freely radiate heat into space and cool down to the local asteroid's solar temperature (~270C, may be map dependent). If the device is too cold it will deploy a sun barrier and shield itself, becoming effectively disabled.

- Nighttime: During night the lower threshold for temperature dramatically drops (~0-10K). The machine will rapidly cool and extremely low temperatures become possible.

With ordinary steel the sun umbrella only has an upper temperature limit near 270C. It will not be able to work during the day time and thus its cooling potential is limited to short night time hours. With higher tier materials the structure's heat limit can go well over 270C, allowing cooling potential during the day time as well. Of course the liquid coolant will only go down to ~270C, but that may be useful enough for some things. Renewable cooling.

In hot mode:

- Day time: The umbrella flips around, acting as a solar collector. The solar energy is concentrated towards a single hot point. Some heat transfers to the building, but most goes into the liquid. The kDTU rate depends on sun, and there is a much hotter heat cap as the solar energy pushes temperatures well over 270C, perhaps up to 1000C or more. Useful for generating extreme temperatures, if not necessarily the best raw kDTU output.

- Night time: The building can not collect heat energy and shuts down.

Two great temperature control features, one building. Players are likely to choose only one of the modes, but it is not impossible to harness both the heating and cooling functions at the same time with some clever automation.

[TG pro]

don't forget suncream!