Dealing with heat in this game is not fun, in my opinion.
It's never been fun for me. In the base game, I avoided it entirely just by playing on the ice world. That was the best solution I could find, because every other map just made me frustrated and confused. The ice map was fun for me, because heat problems didn't exist. I do think it did make the game a bit too easy, but at least I could play the game to the end.
There have never been enough tools to deal with heat. The small-scale tools that exist are clunky, and the large-scale are complicated and confusing to my dumb brain. I'm a casual player, yes. I don't want to play the game by copying youtube video designs, or looking up how to 'delete heat' through hacky mechanics that make no logical sense.
The fact those hacky mechanics (like filtering water so it output at a set temperature) were so common just reinforces my opinion that the existing tools are inadequate.
The DLC right now has no starting ice-biome. And even if it did, that's not going to be a 'solution' anymore to the lacking tools in the game, because the DLC is designed around multi-colonies in different biomes. I love the idea, and I want to love the DLC and play it fully, but heat needs more tools.
Playing in this beta is leaving me in the same position as the base game regular maps, because there are still no better options for heat management.
I love the base game (on the ice-biome) but I don't think I will buy the DLC unless something about heat management is improved.
I know this post will get a ton of "git gud" and other nonsense trying to teach me how wrong and dumb I am. I don't care.
The only thing that matters to me: IT'S NOT FUN.