Smart Coolers

Barring some unfixable bug this update may make Smart Coolers the ultimate mod for Aquatuners and Thermo Regulators.

• Adjustable delta control with configurable range min/max
• Manual cool or heat output contents control
• Automatic Mode that uses adjustable target temperature controls with configurable range min/max
• Configuration to enable/disable power scaling.

There are new mod configuration options that enable additional user controls. You can find the options button on the mod pane next to the enable checkbox. More on this later.

By default, Smart Coolers (v2.0) operate nearly identical to vanilla Aquatuners/Regulators.

• Cool output by 14 degrees (Note: these are and always have been Kelvin degrees. The difference is 1.8 time larger in Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit users should be used to this by now.)
• Use 1,200 watts and 240 watts respectively.

Additionally, Smart Coolers v2.0 retains the two main aspects from Smart Coolers v1.0:

• Doesn’t change coolant temperature beyond its transition temperatures.
• Always circulates coolant. (A significant change was made in v2.0. When the building is broken, has no power cable, not enough power, has no foundation, or pipes not connected it will no longer circulate coolant.)

This option has 3 settings: DefaultControl, UserControlled, and AutoControlled.

• In Default mode, Smart Coolers operate as described above (very similar to vanilla)
• In User mode, players are given controls that allow you to set the building to cooling mode or heating mode. When set to cooling mode, nothing is different than default operation. When set to heating mode the heat transfer is reversed such that coolant is heated while the building is cooled.
• In Auto mode, players are given controls to set a desired output temperature. The building will automatically cool or heat the output (by default 14 degrees) towards the target temperature and will run continuously until the output is within 2 degrees.

This option simply sets the minimum boundary available to players for the controls enabled when in Auto mode. This setting is always in Kelvin. The: default is 12K, min is 1K. (only applicable for Auto mode)

This option simply sets the maximum boundary available to players for the controls enabled when in Auto mode. This setting is always in Kelvin. The: default is 873K, max is 9,999K. (only applicable for Auto mode)

This option enables controls allowing players to set a desired temperature delta. These controls work in all 3 Thermal Control Modes. The standard 14 degree delta can be adjusted to as low as 1 degree or by default as high as 100 degrees.

This option simply sets the maximum boundary available to players for the controls enabled by Scalable Delta Control. This setting is always in Kelvin. The: default is 14K, min is 2K, max is 9,999K.

A special note with this setting: while much care was given to proper thermal calculations and procedures; during my testing extreme delta has resulted in inaccurate heat transfer. For instance, by heating liquid uranium by a few thousand degrees a steel Aquatuner wasn’t cooled enough to compensate. The result is heat being created from nothing.

This option has no user controls but works in the background to linearly alter the power usage relative to the actual temperature delta produced. For instance, when cooling near an elements low temp transition the delta will automatically be reduced to avoid transitioning (and breaking pipes). Smart Coolers will reduce their power usage in this case. Conversely, when Scalable Delta Controls are enabled, if the delta is set higher than 14 degrees Smart Coolers will increase their power usage accordingly. This can overload even Heavy Conductive Wire if pushed to the extreme.

This mod is unlikely to be compatible with ANY other mod that configures Thermo Aquatuners or Thermo Regulators.

If not used in DefaultControl mode I think Smart Coolers v2.0 can be total overkill and cheaty; however, non-default modes allow for one fairly non game breaking use case that seems to have been planned for by Klei. There is partial code in the game already that seems to indicate they planned for a reverse heat transfer mode; it’s not fully developed though. In this mod, you can supply relatively normal heat (from something like a Liquid Tepidizer) to a Smart Cooler and transfer that heat to the coolant eventually reaching extreme temperatures. You can use this to melt metal…. say in a rocket habitat module if you wanted.

• This mod alters the way Thermo Regulators and Thermo Aquatuners operate.
• It may break existing setups…. For the better!

• No need for pipe bridges (jank). Coolant is always allowed to circulate. When disabled, without power, etc this effectively turns an Aquatuner into a 1,200 kilogram Steel liquid pipe bridge.
• Applies the default -14C temperature reduction to coolant until reaching the coolant’s Low Transition Temperature (LTT).
  1. Won’t break pipes with element transition (element’s aren’t cooled beyond transition point).
  2. Temperature reduction is reduced to the difference between current temperature and LTT.
  3. Power usage and heat production scale with temperature reduction.

• The absolute lowest cooling temp of the Regulator/Aquatuner is reduced to 0.01 degrees above absolute zero (down from 1 degree) mostly just because it can but also to help with creating liquid helium (for those of us who go to extremes). This can only be reached with Super Coolant and liquid Helium. Additionally, both the Regulator and Aquatuner use the lowest stable temperature of its coolant as their lowest cooling temperature.
• Coolant always circulates from input to output regardless of operability. Cooling is all that is affected by logic input, disable button, power, power cable, etc. Because of this change updates aren’t skipped when the building is inoperable. Updates are 1/second (1000ms) vs the original 5/second (200ms) and are more in line with piping update rates.