Ceiling Fan Fixtures

[DraconicSiege]

I was thinking that it would be nice if there was a better way to equalize the heat in a base without relying on super expensive tempshift plates everywhere. Currently tempshift plates affect liquids, solids, buildings, and air tiles.  I think having something like a ceiling fan that only affected air tiles would be quite useful. My vision of what it would be is a 3 tile wide, 1 unit tall structure that is mounted on a ceiling.  It would include a light source with a similar lit area to the ceiling lamp. The fan would require 15 W of energy and produce 5 W of heat making it more expensive to power than the ceiling lamp. Its area of effect would be 5 units wide and 5 units tall, top of the AoE aligning with the top of the fan itself. It would equalize the heat in this area only while powered and only affecting the air tiles that it can "see". It could be unlocked with the home luxuries research, require plastic and refined metal, and have a small decorative bonus. This would assist in maintaining an even temperature in greenhouses, barracks, etc. ensuring comfort for your duplicants, critters, and plants. 

Thoughts? Ideas? Improvements?

[Smuch]

I like it. It make sense and be a nice mix of decoration and utility object.

 

Maybe make it rotable as well so you can put in ceiling and walls . It'd  Need electricity but disperse temperature (note destroy tho, just disperse and the fan itself would gain heat as it works that would likely be radiated in the back) continuously while working and maybe push away gases in a column/row three or four blocks in front of it.

   

Maybe two different version of the fan, a less powerful 'luxury' one needing plastic but smaller and with the decoration bonus and a big 'industrial' one, uglier but more efficient.

 

It would give a nice upgrade to the hydrofan who takes a lot of place, water requires duplicant labor and his generally horribly inefficient. It'd be balanced by the fact of requiring electricity so having to be hooked). Would also be a way to move heavy gases short distance without having to ressort immediately to a pump/filter combo or gravity.

 

[FullMetalArthur]

That give the an idea of having air extractors. Like air flow tiles, powered by a small rotor that helps push air in one direction, like the ones some small bathrooms have, air extractors. It would be amazing instead of buildings pumps, gas pipes and vents to the other side of wall. It would consume lets say 120 w and would requiere refined metals.

But im off-topic. A way to move gases and heat could be very useful, but also tricky to use. Fun.

[ImpalerWrG]

It's a fine idea, but the 5x5 zone doesn't make any sense.  Fans draw air in a particular direction(I would recommend making this a toggle options much like a wash station) and so long as the air is able to flow they have an unlimited 'reach'.  All the Fan needs to do is be able to maintain a mild pressure difference of say a few 100's of grams.  The surrounding gasses then simply move via their normal pressure induced behavior, the gas on the suction side sees the fans area as if it were lower pressure then it really is, and the air on the 'blow' side sees the fan as being higher pressure.

[DraconicSiege]

My idea was not to actually move air tiles around. My idea was for a ceiling fan like what you might have in your house. The intent for those is not to move an industrious quantity of air in a given direction, but to move it around and mix it up in a given room (the 5x5 area in the case of my idea) in order to equalize its temperature and provide a refreshing airflow. Having fans that move air around would definitely be fun, interesting and useful, but I worry that it may be too many calculations and be difficult to code with the games current physics. I was simply aiming for a low calculation, low material cost way of equalizing heat in the living area of a base. I attached an image that I thought would help explain my rationale for the 5x5 area under the fan.

[ImpalerWrG]

Yes I figured that was what you were thinking, but it is the walls of the room that create that pattern of circulation, not the fan.  The fan is just moving air in one direction by creating a high and low pressure zone on each side of itself and then the walls redirect the flow as the air seeks to equalize the pressure.  The overall air flow will be determined by the overall shape of area it is in.  For example in loop shaped room you can get a wind tunnel.

In general I advise people to never worry about the physics calculations and programming in their suggestions.  First if you don't have a programming background you can't evaluate the computational costs with any accuracy.  It's the job of developers to figure out an optimal implementation and if that cost in development time and cpu cycles is worth it.  So focus on the gameplay implications and maximizing their impact.

My understanding of the game is that creating localized pressure (gas density) differences at the fan will be computationally trivial because ALL the gas in game is constantly undergoing the calculations related to pressure induced movement.  It's also simply better for game-play because the players has more flexibility in how to use the fan.

 

 

[Kabrute]

weezeworts do that, only upside down, and have the cooling effect, suggest they let us build weezies upside down on the roof