E2150 - Temperature
Temperature is one of the object's parameters, just like HP or electricity. The current temperature of the object, in relation to its maximum temperature is displayed on unit's selection bar (if enabled in game settings). The more temperature the object has, the further the temperature bar progresses, and the more red its textures become. Upon reaching the maximum temperature, the object explodes. The only way to increase object's temperature is by using laser weapons (this includes "catching" unit with LC laser wall) or being exposed to higher environment temperature. The object's temperature slowly decays to the "neutral" value equal to the current environment temperature.
Environment temperature
Each season/terrain type available in the game, provides different temperature values at night and at day (see E2150 - Weather). The day and night temperatures are as follows:
Season | Day temperature | Night temperature |
---|---|---|
Winter | -27°C | -45°C |
Early spring | 5°C | -5°C |
Spring | 12°C | 5°C |
Summer | 30°C | 15°C |
Desert | 55°C | 30°C |
Volcanoes | 75°C | 55°C |
Lava pits | 100°C | 60°C |
Moon | 0°C | -45°C |
Objects' temperature, environment temperature and lasers
Each object explodes upon reaching the temperature of 300°C. The value displayed on the temperature bar is the progress from the minimum value (-45°C) towards the maximum value (300°C). Objects have different calorific capacity, which by design is related to their mass, what makes it harder to heat up larger objects such as buildings. The impact of environment temperature means, that for example at levels with Lava pits terrain it is easier by some 30-42% to kill a unit/building with lasers than on a level with Winter terrain. The value could be reduced by shields, and due to various values of calorific capacity the objects have, it is not possible to universally tell how much the environment affects laser efficiency. For example (The Moon Project 2.2 stats): a Crater m1 (200 Calorific capacity) with the highest LC Shield (2000 PSU) would have a total Laser HP of 2200. The difference in "base temperature" between Winter night (0 /2200) and Lava pits day (84/2200, since 42% * 200 = 84) isn't that significant - it is easier by 3,8% to kill such Crater. However, in case of a Jaguar (1500 calorific capacity) and maximum UCS shield (1800 PSU), it becomes 0/3300 (Winter night) vs 675/3300 (lava pits day), what makes killing such Jaguar 20,5% easier. The difference becomes larger, the more calorific capacity the object has and is 22,1% for Grizzlies and 39,2% for most of the buildings.
Counterintuitively, objects do not cool down faster while the difference between their current temperature and base temperature is larger. The cool down pace is constant and reduces unit's "heat points" by 1 every 0,5s. This also means that lighter objects will cool down faster, while heavier objects will hold heat for longer. A fully heated Crater would cool down from 200 to 0 in 1 min 40s, while a Jaguar would need 12,5 minutes.