Heat in space

[smithdl]

The idea is to make space a more usable and realistic component to the game in relation to heat.  The idea would be to not change game mechanics or the base calculations of the game, but make space more...  "Real"?   

For the first tile in contact with space horizontally, (imagine a line from the top of the map that goes until it hits a tile) create a hidden object from the user that has a mass to it.  This object could be "Space radiation - Day" or whatever.  The user wouldn't see this "object", he/she would still see vacuum and all other mechanics would work the same.  However, this object that invisibly sits on the tile would be for heat transfer only.  

You would then create a "day" and "night" cycle.  The moons is 14 earth days, so you could definitely use your imagination or play around with it.  But during the day it would be a very hot object.  Like I said, call it "Space Radiation - Day".  Then the tile would increase in heat, simulating radiation heat from the sun.  Then during the dark cycle, put "Space Radiation - Night" on the top of the tile.  This would simulate the surface of the asteroid radiating all its heat into space.

The cool part about this is that you could create two options for you scanners.  One would be driven by asteroids, the other by day and night.  So if you wanted to cool something, you could open your blast doors only at "night" or dark cycle to cool, and close them again during day.  Just keep in mind how powerful radiation is.  The moon cools to -173 during dark cycle and up to 127 during the day or light cycle.  It's a powerful reality of space that we could really use to "delete" heat in a way that makes sense and is intuitive to new users and old alike.

[DraconicSiege]

12 minutes ago, smithdl said:

The cool part about this is that you could create two options for you scanners.  One would be driven by asteroids, the other by day and night.  So if you wanted to cool something, you could open your blast doors only at "night" or dark cycle to cool, and close them again during day. 

We already have a clock sensor that is in sync with the rotation of the asteroid, so we don't need scanners to do the same thing.

Other than that I like the idea of varying temperature of the surface. Instead of creating an invisible object, it might be easier to heat tiles up by them considering the amount of "Lux" they are exposed to. Then the amount of heat gained throughout the day would be a parabolic function, similar to real life. Then any block that "sees the sky" could have a fixed heat loss to radiation.

[smithdl]

4 minutes ago, DraconicSiege said:

We already have a clock sensor that is in sync with the rotation of the asteroid, so we don't need scanners to do the same thing.

No, your missing the point.  We have timers set to a sleep cycle, or the dupes cycle.  This would be different, a different timeframe.  When you reread my post, focus on the part where I talk about the moon.  

[DraconicSiege]

Currently the day/night cycle that dupes follow by default is also the day/night cycle of the asteroid they are on. I see now that you were indicating that they would change this with your idea, but personally I don't agree that they should change it. 

[Sasza22]

We can use the clock sensor to open the doors at night but i`d like to have a light sensor as well. I can see a few uses for it.

As for radiation in space we need some kind of mechanic to adress the heat. If we add heating up from the sun though we would probably need additional mechanics like albedo and an greenhouse effect.
Albedo would determine the heat transfer from space to the object (but not the other way). I imagine regolith could reflect most of the solar rays so it doesn`t heat up too much but some of the machines could get heated a lot more.
Greenhouse effect would affect gasses and liquids that block sunlight. A tile that absorbs a certain amount of light should heat up accordingly.