Tips for Slush

[Soulwind]

So, I've recently begun working with the Spaced Out maps (my long-term Classic map finally reached a point where I want to try something new).

On these SO maps, it looks as if the Cool Slush (Polluted) and Cool Slush (Salt/Brine) geysers are always present.

I'm still relatively in the early to mid stages and have run into a problem.

I don't have nearly enough heat sources to handle the cold !!   I need water, not polluted water or salt water.  But I can't sieve or distill the cold slush since the clean water it outputs is below 0 c and freezes/breaks the pipes instantly. 

And the raw forms are so cold that I can't even use them as polluted or salt water either for any kind of irrigation purposes.

I'm used to mitigating heat build-up.  I am NOT used to handling things being so cold.  So how do you all use the slush geysers as a water source?

 

[meekay]

In my bases I usually have a clean water pond that eventually becomes a Pacu aquarium. On the cold worlds I start it out with a Liquid Tepidizer at the bottom. It eats up 960 W while it's running but if you connect it to a Temperature Sensor then once you get past the initial heat-up it will only have to kick in for a few seconds at a time. You do need to make sure to keep it always immersed so you may want to shape your tank with a sump at the bottom.

Build your Water Sieve and Desalinator with a Liquid Pipe Thermo Sensor on the incoming pipe next to the input, and set it to only activate the device if the incoming liquid is > -2° C. If it's less than that, the output will instantly freeze and burst your pipes. Once you get the required research and materials make that pipe segment a radiant pipe as well, to help exchange heat with the room.

You can also build your Sieve, Desalinator, Filters, and Transformers out of Gold Amalgam which has a very low specific heat capacity (SHC) of 0.15, so every unit of waste heat will result in 6.66°C of temperature rise divided by the mass. The Desalinator is also very easy to snake the incoming pipe behind in order to pre-heat the contents.

Line the edges of your base with Insulated Tiles, and clean up debris from areas you're trying to keep warm, otherwise any heat you generate inside you'll just lose to the accumulated cold mass. If there are cold spots in your base where pipes keep freezing, replace them with Insulated Pipes to try to conserve the heat.

The real race on the cold maps is warming things up to a point where you can farm. You may need to pick a single room to focus on, insulate it, and install a Space Heater in the center just to get Mealwood or Bog Jelly to grow. Like the Tepidizer you'll want to hook it up to a Temperature Sensor to act as a thermostat. But the Space Heater will not be nearly as efficient as the other mechanisms listed above.

Spoiler

The sieve in my water treatment plant only runs if (incoming temp >2°C AND (clean water tank GREEN OR NOT (pee-water tank GREEN))). The sieve is reversed so water flows from right to left. I use the signals from those tanks to regulate other suppliers as well. I also keep three Shine Bugs in the room to sterilize everything with radiation.

 

 

[Sasza22]

I usually take a similar approach but not as refined. I make a small (1 tile high) pool with a teptizer and a temp sensor that keeps it reasonably above zero. Then i run a radiant pipe through that so it heats up the insides. Sometimes i add a tempshift plate for good measure. It can work with regular pipes but would likely need a valve to reduce flow so it heats up in time.

[Gurgel]

On 11/16/2022 at 8:05 PM, Soulwind said:

I don't have nearly enough heat sources to handle the cold !!   I need water, not polluted water or salt water.  But I can't sieve or distill the cold slush since the clean water it outputs is below 0 c and freezes/breaks the pipes instantly. 

The Liquid Tepidizer is a very good solution for this. Make a small heating chamber, say 3Hx4W and place a tepidizer and temperature sensor for the target temperature in there. Fill up with water of some kind. Then pipe whatever liquid you want to heat up through there in an S-shape using radiant pipes. This takes relatively little energy and works very well. 

[ZombieDupe]

Just put a Liquid Tepidizer with a Thermo Sensor, connect both via automation wire in the pool and you're done, very easy, just requires a little power every now and then. Set the Thermo Sensor to if it's below, say, 5C or maybe higher if you don't want a chill base, maybe 20C or so? But with 5C you have a buffer to not have the water be frozen more than likely and still have plenty options to cool some other things, like a metal refinery's liquid output so you can refine more metals and make steel more efficiently. Then you can pump that temperate/chill water to electrolyzers, which you can cool a little too before the water is consumed (along with some other things like the hydrogen generators, shutoffs/filters, batteries and transformers). Think for most players you wouldn't even need this explained, it's pretty simple and obvious compared to what you would need to cool your base instead if you didn't have the slush geysers as an option, surprised you didn't pick up on that.

[village_idiot]

Agree with the others, liquid tepedizer is the way to go. It needs power, but not an insane amount in order to bring the water to the point where you can successfully filter it without freezing. I’d recommend making the PW tank small, to reduce the duty cycle on the tepedizer. 
 

The other obvious choice is to find a source of heat, and snake the cold water behind it in radiant pipes to soak up some heat. The best option to me would be the output of a SPOM which will be 70C in your case. Build an insulated brick of metal tiles and radiant liquid/gas pipes behind it. That way you can temperature control your gas and pre heat your slush to the point where it will filter without freezing. 

[fluxpinner]

Sometimes I just run the slush into a liquid tank before the water sieve/desalinator and then set up a loop that goes to a metal refinery.  It only takes a few loads of steel to bring the entire tank above freezing, allowing you to safely refine it into water. If you get fancy,  you can use automation to make sure nothing slips by, but I'm usually doing this earlier in the game.

[fullerfamily]

On 12/7/2022 at 12:08 PM, fluxpinner said:

Sometimes I just run the slush into a liquid tank before the water sieve/desalinator and then set up a loop that goes to a metal refinery.  It only takes a few loads of steel to bring the entire tank above freezing, allowing you to safely refine it into water. If you get fancy,  you can use automation to make sure nothing slips by, but I'm usually doing this earlier in the game.

This. Tepedizer turns energy into heat. Refinery turns energy into heat.....and spits out refined metal.