Room

This page was last verified for Vintage Story version 1.20.11.

Rooms are a type of structure players may create for staying warm and avoiding the consequences of harsh winter , or to use as cellars or greenhouses.

Shared Logic

An area must be fully enclosed within the interior dimension limits of 14x14x14 to be considered a room. All rooms additionally have a cooling score and a skylight score, which are used to determine cellar and greenhouse properties.

The game checks through each block in a room to determine the sunlight level of each of the blocks inside the room and the coolness level of each of the blocks making up the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. If it determines there are no open exits it will classify it as an enclosed room. A fully enclosed space is not considered a room if it is too large. Note that while the code that handles room detection considers "unenclosed rooms" with openings, these areas are not considered rooms for gameplay purposes.

If the player is in a room, or in an open area with a skylight score of less than 50% such as a cave,

• Heat from a heat source extends farther out into the room,
• Wind no longer reduces player body temperature,
• While sleeping, player body temperature will slowly adjust towards normal.

Additionally, when inside a room, the player does not incur the increased hunger rate of harsh winters .

Creation

Any fully-enclosed space with interior dimensions of 14x14x14 or smaller is considered a room if all sides of the room are made up of solid blocks with no gaps or holes.

Certain blocks have unique conditions for being counted as solid by the game. Leaded glass panes , doors that aren't crude, sleek, or ruined doors, and solid trapdoors (not grated) count as solid blocks, regardless of the position they are in or gaps they leave open.

Slabs are counted as solid on the side that is flush with other blocks but not on any others. If the flush side faces the outside instead of the inside of the room, the inner volume of the room will include the block containing the slab. Stone path blocks, slabs, and floors, are only solid on the bottom.

Farmland is considered solid on all sides and can be used for walls, floors, and ceilings. However, since the game uses the bottom of the player to detect rooms, standing on top of farmland will cause the player to be inside of a cellar.

Faces of chiseled blocks only need to be "almost solid", meaning that no more than 32 voxels are missing from that face in total, to count as solid. The block will be considered solid of at least 50% of the total volume of the block filled in with voxels and the inward or outward face is considered solid. As of 1.20.11, using a wrench to rotate a chiseled block does not update its insulation, but using a chisel does.

Protip: You can use the /debug rooms hi command to check if the room you’re standing in counts as a valid room. If the area is highlighted green, the area is a room. If it is red, the area is not considered a room. See the Troubleshooting section below. Use /debug rooms unhi to remove the highlighting!

Greenhouse

Greenhouses are structures intended to make farming crops possible in climates that drop below the pausing point of crops for part of the year. If built correctly, the farmland, fruit trees , berries , or beehives inside of the structure will behave as if the temperature inside is 5°C warmer than the current outside temperature, and the effect of +5°C will be visible as an additional line in the Block Info Overlay for tilled farmland and berry bushes.

Creation

The +5°C buff will appear inside a finished greenhouse

Greenhouses require a skylight score of at least 50%, meaning it is impossible to build one completely covered underground. Greenhouse detection occurs at the room level; They are never partially functional. However, regardless of sunlight level, any farmland set below sea level will incur a penalty of one sunlight level per block below sea level, which will reduce growing speed regardless of the light level unless underground farming is enabled in the world configuration settings.

When building a greenhouse, water blocks placed between farmland counts as part of the height of the allowable 14x14x14 area (see the room creation section above) - forgetting this can lead to the game not registering a newly-built greenhouse for being too large. This can be avoided by hiding water source blocks under the outer walls of the greenhouse, as the game will not count the corners as part of the room. A slab can also be placed in the upper half of the water block, which will cause it to be considered a solid floor without preventing hydration. Note that farmland itself never has this issue. It does not extend room size because it is considered a solid block.

Protip: Every block checks if it’s in a greenhouse after a maximum of 4 in-game hours, give or take a few seconds. Therefore, it might take a little time before the +5°C buff appears on the blocks inside of the structure, and not all blocks will be updated simultaneously.

Skylight Score

Any blocks inside the room that have at least as much sunlight as outside the room will count toward the skylight count. The total skylight score is determined by dividing the skylight count by the total volume of blocks inside the room. Player-created light sources , such as torches and lanterns, have no impact on skylight score. Common blocks used to allow in light include glass blocks and leaded glass panes .

Protip: While more complicated layouts will work, the simplest way to ensure you get a skylight score of at least 50% is to make it so at least half of the blocks in your ceiling allow sunlight through. Even glass slabs will work as long as the solid sides close all gaps or holes. Even glacier ice allows light in, although maybe not as much as glass!

Cellar

An example of a player-made cellar.

Cellars are used to store any goods that will spoil at a much slower spoil rate compared to non-cellar rooms, or outdoors.

Creation

When detecting a room the game will make extra checks to see if the room is small enough to be a cellar. Normally this is anything within a 7x7x7 cube, but it is possible to build up to 9 blocks wide in a single direction so long as the total volume of all the blocks inside the cellar is no more than 150.

Cellars do not need to be underground to work, however since sunlight levels can affect cellar effectiveness, it may be easier to dig an underground cellar than to create an above-ground one.

Protip: When building a cellar you can check if your chiseled blocks will count as insulating parts of a solid wall in-game by pointing at the block face on the chiseled block to see if it says "Insulating Block Face"!

Cooling Score

Any blocks may be used to create a cellar, but different blocks have different insulation values. Blocks in the stone , soil , ceramic , or ore classes are the best insulators, and will each add 1 to the cooling block total. The one exception being farmland which gives 3 to the non-cooling block total, as do trapdoors. Airtight doors add 3 per block of space they occupy when open and 1 per block when closed to the non-cooling block total. The game creates the cooling score by dividing the non-cooling block total by the cooling block total and capping the number at 1, for 100%.

Protip: Because of the way the game searches for insulating walls, any blocks built inside the cellar that have a full face and that aren’t insulating will lower your score! So make sure that if you’re going to build walls, platforms, or shelving to hold things like barrels and vessels that you build them out of insulating materials, or you use the chisel to make them no longer count as solid walls! Open doors count against your score more than any other kind of block as well so make sure to use doors sparingly and to keep them closed whenever possible.

As a result, the most effective cellars are made of highly insulating blocks (stone, soil, ceramic or brick, ore) and are closed with airtight doors. It doesn't matter if the stone is natural or cobblestone/brick. No type of stone block is more effective than any other stone block, unless you've chiseled away too much of it.

Food Preservation

Typical layout of a cellar filled with crocks on shelves, storage vessels, chests and 2 barrels of pickled food.

The main use of cellars is for food preservation, however cellars reduce the rate of spoilage for any good stored inside whether it is a food or not. This reduced rate of spoilage stacks with container types , so placing storage vessels and sealed crocks into a cellar can drastically extend the shelf-life of any food inside them.

When calculating how fast food will spoil in a cellar, the game first creates a cellar effectiveness score, which starts at 100% (the least efficient cellar). Up to 40% can be deducted based on the skylight score (that is, the amount of sunlight the cellar receives), and up to 50% can be deducted based on the cellar's cooling score.
In total: 100% - 40% - 50% = 30% spoil rate for the most efficient cellar.

The air temperature inside the cellar will never be greater than the air temperature outside. When the effectiveness of the cellar is 100%, the air temperature will cap at 5°C. Otherwise the game will calculate air temperature inside the cellar based on the effectiveness score and skylight score, in addition to how much sunlight is in the container block being affected.

Protip: Because there is no minimum size for a cellar, burying a vessel in a cube of soil is an extremely effective way of preserving food early-game. Just dig out the top block or a side block to access it, then replace it to seal it again. Make sure the vessel is surrounded on every side by a cooling block and never build with anything transparent or you won’t get the full bonus!

Shelves and chests don't count against the cooling score. Clay storage vessels give an additional benefit to vegetables and grains, but are no better than chests for storing protein, fruit, or dairy.

Cheese Ripening

Ripening cheese requires a shelf with a perish speed of 0.5x or lower, indicated by the "Suitable spot for food ripening" tooltip. If the shelf is inside a room (a cellar is not required) or has a sunlight level of at least 2, the cheese will ripen into cheddar cheese . If the shelf is not in a room and has a sunlight level less than 2, the cheese will ripen into blue cheese instead. Both conditions must be met to create blue cheese; missing either one will result in cheddar instead. See the table below.

The 5°C temperature cap of a well-constructed cellar makes it suitable for ripening cheddar cheese year-round, regardless of the outside temperature, though a non-cellar room will work if the shelf is cold enough, and a non-room area will work if the shelf's sunlight level is at least 2. Because blue cheese must be ripened without being inside of a room, it can never benefit from the temperature cap of a cellar. The outside temperature must be cold enough for the shelf to have a perish speed of 0.5x or lower. While making the ripening spot open to the air will ensure it is not inside a room, the shelf may also be placed inside a fully enclosed area that is too large to be considered a room, i.e. at least 15 blocks long in any direction.

Protip: Remember that all cheese ripening requires a perish speed of 0.5x or lower.

Sunlight level	Inside a room	Result
2 or greater	Yes	Cheddar cheese
2 or greater	No	Cheddar cheese
1 or lower	Yes	Cheddar cheese
1 or lower	No	Blue cheese

Protip: You can ensure that your blue cheese ripening area is not a room by using /debug rooms hi and making sure it is inside a red area. Place the shelf at the end of a long corridor, or use walls to block direct sunlight.

Troubleshooting

The most common reason for a room not behaving as expected is the choice of door: crude or sleek doors, grated trapdoors, and fences or fence gates do not seal a room. Solid or iron doors and solid trapdoors can create a seal. Ensure that slab or door orientation is not extending the size of a room beyond what is expected.

Blocks less than full height, such as path blocks, should be avoided. Stair blocks have also caused problems.

Mods can sometimes interfere. TentBag-2.1.1 interfered with a room registering as sealed, even when the mod item was removed: "Picking up a structure and re-placing it in the same spot somehow destroys the ability to be a cellar in -that- spot. Move the structure to a new location? It's back to a perfect cellar."

Snow accumulated on the glass does not prevent farmland from receiving the greenhouse buff. But if it's cold enough for snow, it's too cold for significant crop growth, anyway.

History

Prior to version 1.20.0-rc.7, room detection contained an error that caused the maximum room size to be 15x15x15.