Tempshift Plate

A Tempshift Plate is a building that aggressively exchanges heat with the space around it, making it one of the most useful tools for shaping temperature in a colony. It affects a 3×3 area centered on itself, including its own tile, and rapidly pushes the temperature of that area toward equilibrium. Because of this, placing one can cause an immediate spike or drop in temperature around the build site. The exact rate of heat exchange depends on the material used to construct the plate.

Tempshift Plates exchange heat with a defined set of nearby objects and tiles: solid, liquid, and gas cells; most base-category tiles except Mesh Tiles and Airflow Tiles; closed Manual Airlocks, Mechanized Airlocks, and Bunker Doors; Transit Tube Crossings; Heavi-Watt Joint Plates and Heavi-Watt Conductive Joint Plates; Farm Tiles, Hydroponic Farms, Fish Releases, and Fish Feeders; Weight Plates; the solid tiles of gantries; and, when overlapping, the center tile of a Conduction Panel. They do not exchange heat with machines, other Tempshift Plates, open airlocks or bunker doors, Mesh Tiles, Airflow Tiles, Drywall, pipes, or debris.

Like Drywall, Tempshift Plates also prevent gases and liquids from being removed in the Space Biome. This makes them useful not only for temperature control, but also for preserving enclosed space-adjacent areas where gas or liquid loss would otherwise be a problem.

Material choice matters a great deal. Diamond is especially strong for general thermal use because of its high conductivity and limited alternative uses, while refined metals are best saved for cases where their other applications are not needed. For large coverage, a conductive raw mineral such as Granite is a practical choice. If the goal is thermal mass rather than rapid transfer, Ice and Dirt are both effective, and water tiles can provide even more mass, though solids are usually simpler to place and manage.

Common applications include:

• Cooling or heating a localized room by linking the surrounding tiles more strongly to a temperature source.
• Helping plants avoid stifling by improving temperature control around Farm Tiles and nearby farm areas.
• Boosting the effectiveness of systems such as the Anti Entropy Thermo-Nullifier when trying to cool buildings or fluids.
• Moving temperature through large masses cheaply, especially when using Granite or another available conductive mineral.
• Using Ice or Polluted Ice plates as a way to transfer temperature with Duplicants; these can be built into hot or cold areas and then allowed to change state for a fast thermal effect.

Because Tempshift Plates can be built from materials with very different thermal properties, they can serve either as fast heat exchangers or as heavy thermal buffers. Their behavior is local, strong, and highly predictable, which makes them a core building for controlled heating, controlled cooling, and precision temperature management.