Are Insulated Tiles useless?

[marcjhune22]

Since abyssalite has almost no thermal conductivity, wouldn't it make sense that to build a normal tiles using abyssalite than to build insulated tile with other minerals available?

[Kasuha]

At present the main point of making insulated tiles is their aesthetic value. And by that I mean for player, since dupes find them ugly.

That may change in the future, though. Devs may remove abyssalite from list of materials available for normal tiles, for instance. Or change abyssalite thermal conductivity (though I'd hate that).

Normal tiles act like thin sheet of metal with regards to heat transfer. Temperature propagates about as fast through them as between adjacent tiles of gas. So if you don't mind some heat propagation but don't want it that fast, you may choose to use insulated tiles.

[Masterpintsman]

I repeatedly voiced that the insulated variants should be lowered in material cost to the normal one, but made abyssalite (which should be removed from the normal variant) only.

While the devs are busy modifying ingredient lists: all metals should be added to the gas and water pipes, also the mass miscalculations these have in their thermal transmission model need to be fixed.

[Nidhoggur]

14 hours ago, Kasuha said:

And by that I mean for player, since dupes find them ugly.

I find them quite ugly as well
what are those pink bubbles anyway?

[Masterpintsman]

The pink bubbles might be vacuum foam insulation.

[BlueLance]

I dont know if my game is just broken or not, but if i build insulated wall tiles out of abyssalite, it retains the temperature I mined it at, I mines abyssalite that was about 48 degrees and when I built walls using it the walls were the same temperature. 

So i avoid using abyssalite as a tile all together haha

[Masterpintsman]

You get it wrong, they don't change temperature as they (for practical uses) don't interact with their surroundings and you don't want your isolated walls to change temperature (else they wouldn't isolate).

[marcjhune22]

on a sidenote, i built an insulated tile made of sandstone. totally useless in terms of insulating hahaha

[CodingKitteh]

1 hour ago, marcjhune22 said:

on a sidenote, i built an insulated tile made of sandstone. totally useless in terms of insulating hahaha

They are useless, they inherit the same stats as the original tiles (maybe a decor difference as someone mentioned). The worst is granite insulated tile with 3.39 W/m*K thermal conductivity, ironically conducting a lot of heat.

Don't build with insulated abyssalite because the list price is 400 kg rather than 200 kg for the regular abysallite. They're are pretty much the same

[BlueLance]

45 minutes ago, CodingKitteh said:

They are useless, they inherit the same stats as the original tiles (maybe a decor difference as someone mentioned). The worst is granite insulated tile with 3.39 W/m*K thermal conductivity, ironically conducting a lot of heat.

Don't build with insulated abyssalite because the list price is 400 kg rather than 200 kg for the regular abysallite. They're are pretty much the same

Ok something must be wrong with my game, my insulated tiles are made out of sandstone and the room was the only warm room in my base. 

[CodingKitteh]

You can choose the type of material to use when you select an item. (Bottom left area)

[BlueLance]

Yeah I know that haha, i just always use sandstone for everything, heat has never been an issue and I just have hundreds of thousands worth of it.

[caffeinated21]

Has anyone confirmed if there is actually any difference between the insulated and regular tiles in terms of heat transfer? I recall that they used to just reflect the underlying material properties...

[Kasuha]

50 minutes ago, caffeinated21 said:

Has anyone confirmed if there is actually any difference between the insulated and regular tiles in terms of heat transfer? I recall that they used to just reflect the underlying material properties...

Yes there is. The thermal capacity of either is the same, but conductivity is smaller on insulated wall. Unfortunately the Details panel does not reflect properties of the building but just properties of the material.

Edit: evidence: granite wall above, insulated granite wall below. water 1000 kg per tile on the right, temperature difference 90 C. Initial state and after a while.

[w0lfshad3]

On 6/14/2017 at 6:20 PM, Kasuha said:

At present the main point of making insulated tiles is their aesthetic value

 

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Insulated_Tile
" Insulated tiles have a hidden modifier that makes them transmit heat at only 5% of the usual rate. "

[Kasuha]

5 hours ago, w0lfshad3 said:

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Insulated_Tile
" Insulated tiles have a hidden modifier that makes them transmit heat at only 5% of the usual rate. "

5% of nothing is still nothing.

[w0lfshad3]

I don't have enough abyssalite and time to mine enough, so I'm using other materials which is why the insulated tile reduction to 5% is useful to me

[Kasuha]

Well yeah, no problem. I too use insulated tiles in the early game as temporary measure. But when you get to play longer and realize that the heat is seeping to your base through that wall even though it's made out of insulated tiles, you'll just replace them with abyssalite and never look back.

[Buldric]

On 8/8/2017 at 3:56 PM, w0lfshad3 said:

I don't have enough abyssalite and time to mine enough, so I'm using other materials which is why the insulated tile reduction to 5% is useful to me

But insulated tile takes so long to build that you'd be better off spending the time mining out abyssalite.

I use abyssalite veins as exploration tunnels early-game. It's a 2-for-1: explore without exposing your dupes to the elements, and build up a huge stockpile of abyssalite.

On 6/15/2017 at 4:40 AM, BlueLance said:

I dont know if my game is just broken or not, but if i build insulated wall tiles out of abyssalite, it retains the temperature I mined it at

That's because it's not transferring any heat to its surroundings. That's what you want.