Please be as explicit as you can, so I don't have to make a thousand questions

A (maybe overly simple solution) that is balanced would be to make the pipes connect the rooms as if nothing was between them.

The more develop-heavy approach I can think of uses some for of fluid mechanics. Machines, intakes and outlets add or detract "heat" (or negative "heat") from the system. For heaters and coolers the limit to which they can add or detract is the temperature they're set to. The amount they add or detract over time is dependent on how quickly they would heat a room of the same volume as the pipe.
Perhaps a way to easily adapt is to make the pipes behave like a well-insulated room with "vents" wherever the in- and outlets are. This way you would also simulate heat loss in long pipes. This way you can take the space-intensity away of the airconditioning systems built by people in vanilla, but keep the same mechanics.

Honestly the old way was pretty good. simple and did what it needed to do without being code intensive, or CPU intensive for tht matter. Also, isn't the above exactly that? what we already have? The "pipes work as a room and heat is added/deducted from it"?

EDIT: Do you HAVE to change it?

yea keeping it essentially the same would be fabulous.

the idea to have the coolers go directly to the network is great, but without AC's generating flow themselves you still have to do it the old way (pump into room THEN use intakes to network then pump to room)

instead of pump into network [via heater/cooler] then pump into room.

also we're not pumping liquid nitrogen here (or lava for that matter) so i'd say set a max/min temp for the networks so you can't just use the ducts to incinerate/freeze whatever unfortunate creature decides to sneak into your base

Don't know if it's possible but my suggestion would be to scrap the current net temp system if possible and use a flow system instead, whereby air is drawn in and follows the piping linearly. For example if air is drawn from a room and the duct splits with one side going straight to the destination and the other going through a heater then the air coming into the destination will only be slightly warmed whereas if the duct didn't split and only went through the heater then the air would be warmed as much as possible.

The ducts should either have limitless capacity and use temperature as a limiting factor, or have a small duct with limited (but still large) capacity and a large but more costly duct with limitless capacity. Allowing for a sort of trunk and branch system.

The heaters/coolers would have a limit as to how much air could be warmed in case of capacity based system or a maximum net temperature change in case of simpler system temperature based system.

The heater/cooler should also be capable of producing flow in and of itself by drawing air from the room it's in.

The only other thing I can think of would be to include a climate control device capable of both heating and cooling but to a lesser degree than either industrial heaters or coolers but still more efficient than individual heaters and coolers in each room and allows temperature control with fewer ducts, just on line to draw air and one line to dump it back in.

This system would mean that an efficient system would draw air from the room it's manipulating. For example drawing air from the rooms to be heated heating it and pushing it back in, creating a feedback and therefore making it more efficient to control the temperature.

Thats all I can think of for now. Thanks for a great mod.

I did change it because people was complaining of the lack of power of the duct network in general, and the fact that it misbehaves when the network grows big.

Also in my mind it did't make sense that an outlet that is pushing hot air in a room would push cold air in the network, it's not what they do in real life.

Luckily I didn't delete the old code, it's just commented, so going back it's allways a posibility.

i think i liked the old version more. rightnow, it seems impossible to cool anything. you need duct intakes, which unless the outdoor air is cool, has to get it from a indoor room, which isnt that much cooler, and i tried putting in intakes in my freezer but the freezers temp skyrocketed too 25C from -3C, which is wierd, and even with 5 multipurpose coolers and 1 industrial cooler with 5 exhaust ports, and 3 intakes intaking air at 23c, i cant cool it too below -0C !! i think the temperature of a room or outdoors shoul have less effect of the net temperature when its being intaked through the intakes.

now, somehow, theres 121C in my network temp. i dont evne have any intakes going that high, all i ahve are coolers and intakes which intake air from a indoor 5x5 room, and yet its still hot, and it isnt even cooling down fast, with 2 industrial coolers, 1 with 5 exhaust ports and another with 6. this new system is strange and confusing and seems difficult too use,.

actually, i think i had the exhaust ports connected too network, does that increas the network temp ?

i finally managed to get it working by setting the exhausts too room and the coolers too network. now i can manage just about -4c in the network if i disable some of the outlets

what if ducts worked just like vents but for long distances? ei they just more or less equalize the temprature across connected rooms. if you have too many rooms conncected (determined by area as if all connected rooms are one big room) then the heater can no longer keep this giant room heated and you must instal another one or disconnect specific rooms. use the existing vents and active vents as inlets/outlets connecting ductwork to rooms (possibly add one that can be manually set or add this feature to the simple vent). The simpler the code the fewer bugs right?

Ok this weekend I will try to revert back to the old version

I like being able to connect the cooler and heaters to the network =( it means i dont have to create sub rooms. maybe make a sub mod. one with the flow mechanic and one without?

Once i figured out the system i liked it although i would change a couple of things like up the oulet to the same as the inlet. and maybe rethink the balance of the industrial cooler as the cooler with the ports takes a lot of energy and resources and i am not sure if its balanced.

The heaters and coolers will continue been able to connect to the network, It's just the flow mechanic the one that its going to go away until I balance it