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Ice Blocks

This mod is an update and enhancement of Sovereign's Simple Ice Blocks mod for Rimworld 1.3. The original mod added craftable Ice Blocks which could then be used to build all sorts of things, namely buildings. The original mod had a focus on being a simple XML mod. For my update, I wanted to enhance building with ice by adding a challenge: ice melting. This made the mod less “simple” by introducing C# code, but I think it's a good change that encourages Sovereign's goal of Ice only being used in frozen biomes like Ice Sheets and Sea Ice.

The goal of this mod is to add a new resource that can be easily obtained on Ice Sheets and Sea Ice. Given that these are intended to be difficult biomes to build a colony in, this resource is intentionally designed to be the weakest choice of them all for general construction. It's fragile, can only be obtained in these biomes, and can simply melt away if it gets even somewhat warm causing problems for the colony. However, it does provide a building resource that could be useful when there are no other options, especially on sea ice colonies.


Ice Cutting Spot
- A spot marked on the ground for cutting ice blocks out of the ground. Must be placed on top of ice.
- No research required.
- Like a crafting spot, this can be instantly placed and deconstructed for free, but is slower than an Ice Cutting Table.

Ice Cutting Table
- A table with saws and chisels for cutting ice blocks out of the ground. Must be placed on top of ice.
- Unlocked with Stonecutting.
- Requires 30 steel and 75 Metallic or Woody stuff to build.

Ice Blocks
- Created at an Ice Cutting Spot or Ice Cutting Table in batches of 20 or 100.
- Requires no resources to make, just work. The idea is that ice is cut out of the ground the workstation is placed on.
- Considered to be a new "Icy" material and can be used to make most anything that can be made of the "Stony" material (stone blocks).
- Compared to stone, ice is fragile but beautiful.

Ice Melts (mechanic)
- Ice blocks and buildings created from ice blocks will melt if its too hot.
- For ice blocks, the melting process is the same as food rotting. It takes about 1 day at 10C for them to melt.
- For buildings made of ice, the time to melt will depend on the HP of the building. At 10C, a building will lose 50 HP a day. Buildings can be repaired by pawns assigned to construction to undo damage caused by melting.
- The temperature used by an ice building for melt rate calculations is an average of the surrounding 8 tile's temperatures.

Mod Options
- Ice melting can be toggled on or off, defaults to on.
- The rate of ice melting can be increased (melts faster) or decreased (melts slower) in settings. Defaults to 100% (standard rates described above).


- None currently.


Q: Can I remove this from a save?
A: Probably not.

Q: Can I replace Soverign's Simple Ice Blocks mod with this one in an ongoing save?
A: No, internal IDs have changed.

Q: Is this compatible with combat extended?
A: I have no idea. If I had to guess, I'd say no because you can make clubs from ice.

Q: Will items made from ice like clubs, beads, or minified ice buildings melt?
A: Not at this time, I was not able to figure out a good way to make this happen.

Q: Will you add X?
A: I'm open to suggestions but I make no promises about adding anything.

Q: How much of this mod is your work and how much is Soverign's?
A: The graphics for the ice blocks item as well as portions of the XML for the ice blocks item and crafting bills for ice blocks are from Soverign's Simple Ice Blocks mod. All other XML and all of the C# code is my own creation. The Ice Cutting Table graphics were created for me by a friend who was watching me create the mod.

Q: How much of an impact does this mod have on performance?
A: The mod uses a MapComponent to process ice buildings melting to avoid lag. Some analysis with Dub's Performance Analyzer and a map full of ice buildings didn't reveal any slowdown caused by this mod. If issues do appear, I'm open to suggestions for improvements.

Q: What language's are supported?
A: Just english currently, but the mod is setup so it can easily be translated. I just need translations for other languages for the content found in the languages folder.


If your having an issue with the mod, please describe the issue you are having in detail and include a log file. If you don't describe the issue you are having and provide a log, I may not have enough information to fix the issue. You can easily create a log file by using the Hugs Lib Log Publisher or Hugs Lib itself.