Autodoor

Autodoor

Divides rooms. Powered operation allows people to move through the door without slowing them down.

Base Stats

Type

Structure – Door

Building

Size

1

Power

-50 W

Autodoors are powered doors that open and close a lot faster than regular doors of the same material.

The autodoor draws 50 W of power at all times. If not enough power is available, it behaves exactly like a regular door of the same material.

Contrarily to the in-game description, not all autodoors allow unimpeded movement. Actually, a powered autodoor opens at 400% speed. This means that all powered autodoors that are not made of stone indeed do not slow colonists down; walk speeds that would be high enough to have an effect in this case are not achievable in practice. Stone autodoors, however, open only slightly faster than regular wooden doors.

The below animation shows a comparison of different door types and materials (the animals all have the same movement speed of 5 c/s, comparable to a fast human pawn).

Opening speed of various doors. Door materials from top to bottom: stone (manual), no door, steel (auto), wood (auto), stone (auto), steel (manual), wood (manual)

Notes

• Work to build an autodoor is 130% the value of the corresponding regular door.
• Most other relevant stats (except opening/closing speed) are unchanged from regular doors of the same material.

Strategy

• Steel autodoors offer the best compromise of durability and speed. Even unpowered they are only slightly slower than wooden doors, but a lot less flammable.
• If fire immunity is required, a granite autodoor offers the highest durability of the stone doors (270 hit points). In practice, a Plasteel autodoor is probably the better choice (10% flammability and 450 hit points).
• Due to the non-trivial power and materials cost, most bases want to use autodoors only in select locations.
• Stone autodoors are risky to use, because in times of power failure they will slow down colonists tremendously. This is especially painful because a blackout situation is very often also an emergency situation, where free movement is important.
• Since autodoors not only open, but also close fast, they help when a pawn needs to flee from a threat. The door will more likely than a regular door close before the pursuer can step through or block the door.
• Stone autodoors being only slightly faster than wooden doors means they are not practical in most situations, except when fire immunity is absolutely required, and a failing autodoor would not pose a problem.

---

Architect

Structure

Animal flap • Autodoor • Bridge • Column • Door • Fence • Fence gate • Ornate door • Wall • Security door

Related

Roof