Weather controller

Weather controller

An ultratech device for controlling weather. Using chemicals and exotic fields, it forces the weather into a particular configuration.

Base Stats

Type

Building – Mechanoid cluster

HP

1500

Flammability

0%

Building

Size

6 × 6

Placeable

False

Passability

impassable

Cover Effectiveness

75%

Blocks Wind

True

Destroy yield

60 + 1 + 10 + 4

Weather controllers are mechanoid cluster and quest condition causers that force a particular weather.

Summary

Weather controllers force a weather condition within a 10 world-tile radius. It has no impact on caravans, but affects every settled or player-visited tile in range. A weather controller inside your colony takes priority over a weather controller from the world map, and most recent in the case of multiples.

All in-game weather controllers and quests cause a 'bad' weather type; Fog, Foggy Rain, or Rainy Thunderstorm, but not Dry Thunderstorms.

Analysis

Since weather penalizes colonists and ranged enemies equally, Rainy weather controllers are one of the least harmful condition causers, and can be left indefinitely without much issue. Since it slows down colonists working outside, you may want to destroy them eventually. Forced fog controllers are a more hazardous weather and should be removed in most circumstances.

When outdoors, forced weather will reduce the accuracy of ranged weapons. If a shooter and their target are both under a roofed tile, then they are not affected by weather, no matter what's between them, including unroofed tiles. ^{[Do enemies prefer roofed paths?]} In addition, all forms of rain and snow reduce movement speed and give the −3 Soaking Wet moodlet.

Forced Rain will limit and automatically extinguish wildfires even from lightning, but it is suggested you roof over major walkways and killboxes to limit other negative effects, like unroofed electronics short circuiting and accelerated item decaying. Forced Fog prevents all rain, which typically results in uncontained fires growing indefinitely.

Melee colonies & Fog

Melee-focused colonies, such as for challenge runs or those relying on trained animals, mechanitor controlled scythers, or ghouls, can benefit significantly from weather controllers, with it up to halving the DPS of ranged enemies but having no effect on melee DPS. Fog or Foggy rain has the weather-maximum 50% reduction in ranged accuracy and is ideal for this purpose as it has no or minimal accompanying Move speed penalty, allowing your pawns to close the distance as fast as possible. Against melee enemies, Fog is the most dangerous forced weather for the same reasons.

Rainy Power generation

Weather controllers can significantly impact power generation. Stormy weather raises both the windspeed floor and the maximum and so increases both the reliability and output of power generation from wind turbines. At the new maximum, wind turbines produce 3450W - less consistent than, and not quite competitive with, geothermal generators but not limited in location or number by steam geysers. Moderately sized wind farms paired with the correct weather controller can provide sufficient power for even late game power hungry colonies, especially when outfitted with batteries and hidden conduits. Foggy conditions makes turbines less productive, but foggy rain might be more productive than variable weather depending on world tile average rainfall. ^{[How much?]}

Version history

• Royalty DLC Release - Added.